“The sword was killing you! You were dying on the floor! What is this madness?”
“It has stolen my magic! The core of what I am!” Merlin’s voice broke with emotion. “Return it to me!”
“This obsession has corrupted your mind—”
Merlin toppled the altar, breaking the ancient stone. “I demand you return the sword to me! Now!”
Lenore stood firm. “The sword is destroyed and your life is saved!”
“Liar! You’ve destroyed me! Deceived me!” Merlin collapsed onto the ground.
Lenore fled Merlin’s raving and entered the temple’s secret tunnels. She approached the Sword of Power, nestled under the altar in Arawn’s sheath, questioning whether she should return the blade or leave it to the gods. Her hand reached for the grip of the sword. As her fingers clenched around the leather of the grip, she whispered, “Show me,” and visions flooded her mind. Her mouth opened to scream as her eyes grew wide and filled with terror.
The lights of memory flickered and moments later, Lenore staggered into the temple. Merlin had regained some composure. He reached out to her. “Lenore, I’m sorr—”
But she cut him off, “Leave this place and never return. I will marry Jonah.”
Merlin pleads. “I was not myself—”
“Leave this temple or I will have you torn from it!” Lenore turned her back on Merlin.
“Enough!”
Merlin stood up and backed away as Nimue climbed to her feet. “What did she see? What did the sword show her?”
“I owe you nothing more.”
But Nimue was not having it. “There is more to it and you know it. What did she see that so frightened her?”
“I tire of this exercise,” Merlin growled. “You have seen enough!”
“Have I?” Nimue turned and grabbed the sword.
“What are you doing?” Merlin asked. “Nimue!”
Nimue held out the sword in both hands and spoke to the blade. “Show me what you showed my mother.”
A rush of images suddenly flooded Nimue’s mind.
A thousand fires raged unchecked from the Baths of Caracalla to the Mausoleum of Augustus, giving the entire city of Rome a hazy orange halo. Strange blue lightning arced across the billowing black clouds of smoke, obscuring the stars. Desperate, starving Romans raced for safety as the monstrous invaders poured through the Salarian Gate, nightmares made flesh. They flew on see-through wings like giant insects and prowled like leopards, eyes gleaming in the flames, and stomped on cloven feet, antlers stained with innocent blood.
Legionnaires fell back across the Pons Fabricius and took shelter behind the marble columns of Jupiter’s Temple. Across the Tiber, the basilica imploded in a series of pluming fireballs. The cascading lights shone upon the hundreds of drowning bodies in the river.
A centurion on horseback called to auxiliaries when the blue lightning constricted into a single bolt and struck horse and rider, charring flesh and armor.
The invaders howled and shrieked in a celebratory chorus as the conquering dark prince, Myrddin, a younger, crueler Merlin, rode through the flames on his giant silver stag, swinging the Devil’s Tooth—the Sword of Power. Myrddin’s eyes glowed blue like the bolts he commanded. He pointed the sword at Jupiter’s columns, and a conflagration of wind and cold fire obliterated the temple and the women and children who had taken shelter there.
“Leave nothing alive!” Myrddin roared as he galloped across the square, cutting down the fleeing Romans, whether they wore the armor of centurions or not, whether they were old or young, armed or defenseless.
Myrddin screamed to the sky and summoned arcs of lightning, raining javelins of fire on every living thing his gleaming blue eyes could see. Chunks of red ash fell around the hem of his war robes. His black-ringed eyes looked down at the Devil’s Tooth, the seed of his ambition, the blade that commanded armies, felled emperors, and bent the knee of barbarian kings. The sword had fused to Myrddin’s flesh. There was no hand, no grip, no wrist, only a charred lump of flesh and steel at the end of his arm.
THIRTY-SIX
WITH A GASP, NIMUE JOLTED back to the present, horrified by what she had seen. She turned to Merlin. “How could you?”
“It was the sword,” Merlin tried to explain.
“It wasn’t the sword. It was you. You killed women and children. You’re steeped in blood.”
“And you’re no different!” Merlin warned.
“Me? Are you mad?” Nimue sputtered.
“How many Red Paladins have you slaughtered with that sword?”
Nimue swung into a fury. “They burned my home to the ground! They killed my best friend! My mother! How dare you compare me to—to that—to that murderer!”
“I was like you. I let the sword guide my hand to justice. And it was like a taste of the ocean. My thirst only grew. And you will feel the same. You already admitted as much. The feeling it gives you. The power. I want to save you from this, Nimue.”
“By giving it to a human king?” Nimue said incredulously.
“By destroying it!” Merlin shouted, pointing to the green flames. “In the Fey Fires of the ancient forge. By consigning it to oblivion so that its reign of blood can end forever.”
Nimue hesitated. “Destroy it?” She looked at the sword in her hands. “If there is no sword to barter with, then what is to be the fate of my people?”
Merlin sighed. “It was never your charge to save an entire race, only to bring me the sword. And against unthinkable odds you have done this. You are free of your obligation. Now you must trust me as you trusted your mother, to do the right thing.”
Nimue stared into the light-swallowing blade of the Devil’s Tooth, unsure.
Outside Graymalkin Castle, Morgan paced, eyes locked on the castle. “We should go in. We’ve waited far too long.”
“Wait.” Kaze took in the horizon with her inscrutable eyes from atop her chestnut courser, Maha, who grazed on the tall grasses. With her keen senses, Kaze felt the tremble in the ground first, but the rumble came soon after, growing louder than the crashing surf.
Morgan heard it too. “What is that?”
Kaze spun around as an army of soldiers on horseback, flying the banner of Pendragon, crested the nearest hill, less than a mile between them and the castle.
“Nimue!” Morgan shouted as she leaped onto her horse.
Kaze turned Maha, spinning her toward the drawbridge. Leading Nimue’s horse, she put her fingers to her fangs, and a piercing whistle echoed off the walls as they charged through the gatehouse and into the wide bailey with its permanent fog.
Nimue and Merlin appeared at the entrance to the keep. Morgan fought with her anxious horse. “Nimue, hurry!”
Kaze pointed her staff toward the hills. “Soldiers!”
Nimue turned on Merlin, dread creeping up her throat. “Who knows we’re here?”
“No one,” Merlin assured her, though his face was tense. When he saw a flash of Kaze’s eyes, he frowned, recognizing her. “You,” he whispered.
But events were moving too fast. Morgan threw her hand out to Nimue. “They are Pendragon soldiers! I told you! I warned you!”