Tedros’ throat had gone dry. It was Agatha who managed words first: “You both knew all of this would happen?”
“Could happen,” the Lady replied. “That’s why Arthur made a tournament. That’s why I kissed the king I did. Both of us wanted to make sure the right king ended up on the throne.” Her face clouded, light emptying in the cave. “But the future we saw had other possibilities, too. Futures we each thought we could escape. But that was our biggest mistake. Believing we could choose our fate. Because fate’s web is as vast as it is inescapable . . .”
She hunched deeper into her ball.
“Nimue,” Merlin spoke, low and urgent, “but surely you know where the real sword is?”
“You made Excalibur. It’s your magic,” Tedros pressured.
“You can save Tedros,” said Agatha fervently. “You can save all of us.”
The Lady of the Lake didn’t look at them. High above the snow, her eyes remained on the blades swept over her realm, each a copy of the one she forged for a king long ago. Tears dotted her eyes, her gaunt fingers trembling. Finally, she turned, half-shadowed.
“Why would you come to me? Asking me to save a king? When I failed the first time?”
Tedros didn’t understand at first. But then he saw the look on her face. The same look he’d seen inside a crystal ball. It happened that last time they were in Avalon . . . He and Agatha had gone into the Lady’s memories. They’d seen the Lady kiss the Snake, as Chaddick lay dead on the shore. Tedros watched the Lady with Japeth, her face blushed with love. But as her and Japeth’s lips parted, her eyes gazing into his, her face changed. Love turned to fear, panic, guilt as if she knew she’d done something wrong . . .
Sweat trickled down Tedros’ back.
The question isn’t who helped Arthur see the future, Hort had warned. The question is whether that person is on your side.
“You made a mistake,” Tedros addressed the Lady. “The king you kissed. You knew it after you kissed him. You knew he wasn’t Arthur’s blood. I saw it in your face.”
Merlin bristled. “This is Nimue we’re talking about, not some woeful first year at school. She is Good’s most reliable protector. The Woods’ greatest sorceress. She wouldn’t smell Arthur’s blood for nothin—” He swallowed his words. The wizard’s young eyes shuddered. “Unless . . .”
Agatha looked right at Merlin, as if she was in his head. “Unless,” she said softly.
“Unless what?” Tedros said, glancing between them.
The Lady curled her face into her hands. Outside, rain began to fall in hard, punishing drops, like tears from the sky. Darkness amassed over Avalon, Lionsmane’s golden appeal for a sword the only source of light.
“What is it?” Tedros asked Agatha.
She didn’t look at him.
“Tell me!” Tedros demanded.
“Two boys.” Agatha met his eyes, her voice sick. “There were two boys that day on the shore.”
Tedros’ heart stopped.
Chaddick.
His knight had tracked the Snake to Avalon. He’d ignored all summons to come home, believing he could kill the Snake on his own. Instead, the Snake had attacked him, trailing his blood across the Lady’s realm. Chaddick limped to the Lady’s shores, screaming for help, begging her to save him from the Snake . . .
She didn’t.
She chose the Snake instead.
The Lady sobbed into her hands. “I smelled Arthur’s blood in both boys. But one had an aura of magic, an overwhelming beauty. He promised me love, freedom, everything I wished. Your friend offered me nothing. He wanted only to protect you. The choice was obvious, of course. The beautiful boy was a trap. Your friend was the one to be saved. Except then I remembered the future I’d shown Arthur. All the futures. And in one of those futures, I’d made the wrong choice. I saved the wrong boy, bringing a snake into the Woods. I couldn’t let that happen! And yet, I didn’t know which boy was that snake. An eagle on high has no view to the details, only the possible paths. I had to make a choice. Fears overwhelmed me. Fear of making the wrong choice . . . fear of being tempted by love and yet also giving up my chance at it . . . My heart and head were at war, time against me . . . So I changed course. I chose to save the boy who promised love. Even if it went against my instincts. You understand, don’t you? I tried to do the right thing. I tried to avoid the fate we are living now. But in doing so, I only ensured it.” She shrank deeper into the shadows. “He took my magic, left me like this . . . It’s the punishment I deserved. The true blood of Arthur was dead. He was dead. Because of me, who was supposed to be his loyal guardian.”
“I—I—I don’t understand. What does Chaddick have to do with Arthur’s blood?” Tedros questioned, his palms wet.
“That’s why I haven’t used my Wizard Wish,” the Lady wept. “Because I couldn’t leave this life . . . not until someone knew the truth . . .”
“Chaddick was my knight. My schoolmate,” said Tedros. “He had nothing to do with my father—”
“I did what I could to atone. I buried him near Arthur. Where he should be . . .”
“What? You’re not making sense—” Tedros fought, his chest throttling.
“Two kings, side by side,” the Lady mourned.
Tedros choked, “What are you saying—”
“He’s the heir, Tedros.”
Agatha’s voice hit like a stone.
“Chaddick was your father’s heir,” said his princess.
Tedros shook his head. “But . . . that’s . . . that’s not true,” he rasped, appealing to Merlin.
The young wizard’s gaze was far away. “It’s how Rhian pulled Excalibur, isn’t it? Japeth knew Chaddick was Arthur’s heir. He must have hidden a drop of Chaddick’s blood on Rhian. And Excalibur sensed this blood of Arthur’s son, his eldest son . . . That’s why the sword let Rhian take it from the stone. That’s why it denied Tedros all those months before the Snake appeared. Chaddick was still alive then. Tedros wasn’t the king.”
“That age potion’s warping your brain,” Tedros assailed. “You’re talking in riddles—”
But his words trailed off, a memory floating back.
One he’d seen in a crystal of time.
It came from the day Chaddick left to find knights for Tedros’ Round Table. Chaddick had stayed at Camelot in the week prior, Lady Gremlaine fussing and doting over him, far more than she ever did over Tedros or Agatha, as if Chaddick were the lord of the castle. While Chaddick readied his horse for the journey, Lady Gremlaine piled him with satchels with food, brushed his gray shirt which she’d had made for him that matched his eyes, a gold C on its collar, and again and again, she hovered over him, asking what else he needed. Agatha had remarked that it was only around Chaddick that she’d ever seen Lady Gremlaine smile.
Now Tedros knew why.
He was her son.
Chaddick was Lady Gremlaine’s son.
And King Arthur his father.
A secret conceived in Sherwood Forest the night before Arthur married.
A secret Rafal and Evelyn Sader came to know.
Tedros was never Arthur’s eldest.