Guinevere could not tell him that. Not honestly. And the loss of magic did hurt her. She felt it everywhere: in the weight of Camelot’s stone, the expectations of its people, the relentless erosion of time. She had let it form her into someone she did not know. She had let men claim her.
“What is your true name?” Mordred asked. “You are not a princess from the south.”
She opened her mouth, and—
She did not have it. It had been lost to her. All she was now was Guinevere. She could feel the future coming, creeping ever closer, where even the little magic she knotted into the world around herself would cease working. Wonder would sleep so deeply that it could not be called. Just like Merlin, sealed away in a cave. He had let it happen. He had left Camelot. Given it to Arthur. Given the world to men.
Guinevere understood Mordred’s anger. She felt it herself. Everything wondrous was being unmade, and it was terrible beyond comprehension. But wonder, too, was terrible. The meadow around her was proof enough of that. Was not Maleagant’s death terrible and wonderful in equal measure? The tree’s sentience beautiful and abominable? Trees, magic, wildness were the uncaring opposite of justice. Men demanded justice, revenge. They banished magic to make way for rules and laws. In nature, only power mattered. And she had power.
It had crawled all over her as she watched a man die.
She could not give herself to this darkness. Not after everything she had felt and seen and done as Guinevere. Because of Camelot, she knew what it was to have a family among friends. To love Arthur. To believe in him. She had from the moment they met. There was loss in what Arthur was doing, yes. She finally understood what the dragon had shown her. The kinship it had seen in her. The choice ahead of her.
Merlin had already made the choice to remove himself from the clash of old and new. To let his own magic be sealed away.
To die, even.
Guinevere was not ready to die. And she was not ready to let darkness return without a fight, either.
“We have to stop her from rising,” she said, turning to Lancelot. “I might be able to. But only if you keep Mordred busy.”
Lancelot’s grin was a grim sight in the moonlight. “I can do that.”
Mordred sighed. “Do you know why I never lose?” He rushed forward, kicking Lancelot viciously in the stomach. He swept his sword through the air. Lancelot barely managed to block it with her own. Mordred pushed, shoving her away. “Every moment touching iron, every breath taken in well-ordered, stifling Camelot, every minute near Arthur and Excalibur is pain. My life is pain. What have I to fear from you?” He ducked a swing from Lancelot and kicked out at her knee.
Guinevere hurried to where the Dark Queen was emerging. She had two hands now, shoulders, a spine. Her head was bowed, still not lifted. She moved and shifted, made not of skin but thousands of crawling things, of dirt, of plants. They were rebuilding her. Reaching out a trembling hand, Guinevere placed it on the Dark Queen’s back.
Everything moved faster, the Dark Queen shivering and rising. Guinevere yanked her hands—still covered in blood—back.
She had felt—
Life. Predator and prey. Birth and death. Pleasure and pain. The Dark Queen was all of them. More than human, and less, as well. She was fairy. She was chaos. She would tear down everything Arthur had built. Throw men back centuries. Take away their cities and fields, give them only foraging, hunting, being hunted. Because then she would have dominion over them. She was coming to reclaim the Earth.
And Guinevere could not stop it. No knot she knew could bind the chaos of the Dark Queen. Even touching her fed her more power. Merlin had warned Guinevere to fight as a queen. She had not. And she had awoken something she could not put back to sleep.
She turned to find Mordred standing over Lancelot. Lancelot was on the ground, unmoving, her sword gone. Mordred had his sword raised.
“Stop!” Guinevere shouted.
Mordred lowered his sword. “I have no quarrel with Lancelot. I like her. She defies the boundaries of men. I could not let her strike the Dark Queen, though. She is still vulnerable until she is formed. But it will not be long now.” Mordred moved to the side as Guinevere rushed to Lancelot. Her knight was still breathing, though a gash on her head was bleeding freely.
“Lancelot,” Guinevere said, shaking her shoulder. Lancelot groaned, but did not open her eyes or move.
“We have a lot to talk about.” Mordred sheathed his sword. “I would say the Dark Queen will explain, but she is not big on explanations. Come, we should move Lancelot out of the meadow. I do not think it will go well for her once my grandmother rises. Lancelot will be safer in the trees. If we can find her horse, maybe it will carry her far enough away. This is not a place for humans. The Dark Queen will show no mercy.”
“Then I will die, too!”
“Guinevere.” Mordred grabbed Lancelot by both arms to drag her across the meadow. “Now you are being obtuse.”
Guinevere ran to the first tree, the oldest. She pushed her palm against it, reaching for the knot that commanded it to obey. She sensed the tree feeling it. And she sensed the tree disregarding it.
“No!” she shouted. She pushed again, harder. If she could get the trees under control, they could bind the Dark Queen. She sank through the bark, remembering how she had changed Sir Bors’s memories. She felt for the tree’s heart, for its memory. Maybe she could—
The tree pushed back. When she finally managed to open her eyes, she was on her back, staring up at Mordred.
“You are not their queen.” His voice was soft. “The forest is hers. It always has been.”
Guinevere crawled back to the tree. She smashed her hand against it. The tree shivered, more with annoyance than anything. She was the bird drilling in, not deadly, merely a pest.
Then a shudder ripped through the tree, through the grove. Fear Guinevere knew, fear she had held her whole life, gripped her. The dread of death. Worse than death. She looked up from the blackest depths, the light shimmering on the surface of the water above her. Remember, the tree pushed. Remember what it is to be unmade.
Guinevere felt a sick twist of nausea. She looked up to see Excalibur pierce the tree.
The cold gripped her; it was terrible and empty. She crawled away, hoping that the trees would go back to sleep. But something else was happening. The tree cracked, going gray. It died before her eyes—dried up and dried out. The leaves fell, crumbling into dust before they hit the forest floor.
Just as her blood had spread, so, too, did the poison of Excalibur. All around the meadow, the trees that had awoken were consumed.
The thing in them that gave them life, spirit, anger and joy and hunger, was gone. Arthur withdrew the sword. It did not glow in the moonlight. Even the moon was devoured, no reflection along the smooth metal of the blade. Arthur turned.