When I finish speaking, his mouth has fallen open in silent shock.
“Sel?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just—” He shakes his head, recovers. “Even if she escaped their prison, overpowered and mesmered her Merlin guards as Isaac did to me… how could she have survived? At her age and power level? Away from the Order, she’d have succumbed to her blood years ago.”
“But at the hospital,” I begin carefully, “your mother was lucid, focused. Mourning, but in complete control of her abilities.”
His eyelids flutter. “That’s… impossible.”
“It is,” I whisper, “if what the Order told you is true.”
His dark eyebrows wing upward in shock. “Bree…”
“What if Merlins don’t have to succumb to their blood? Just—just what if?”
He blows out a long, slow sigh. “That would change everything we’re taught about how our powers progress, how our blood works, why we’re Oathed in the first place, why they lock us away…” His eyes narrow in warning. “If that were true, this would be dangerous knowledge to possess. Or share. Even for you.”
“I figured.” I nod, picking at the wood beneath my fingers. “It’s why I waited until we were alone.”
We stand in silence for a long moment, considering how much our worlds have already changed, and how much change is still to come.
I feel Sel’s attention on my cheeks—and wonder when the sparks in his eyes had become a comforting heat.
“What?” I murmur, looking up at him.
“You are my king now, cariad.” His low voice carries all the intimacy of a caress, and his eyes are a melted gold. I turn away, overwhelmed at the meaning in both.
I don’t ask him what “cariad” means, because, in my heart, I’m scared of his answer. Scared to be torn in two once more when my reality has been a slow shatter all morning.
Sel touches my chin, guides my face back to his. “Camlann has come. We are at war. Against the Shadowborn and the Morgaines both. Against enemies that can hide in plain sight.” A pause while he searches my features. “You need—”
“You are Oathed to Nick,” I cut him off, my voice thin.
Sel studies me, sees my twisting heart. Releases me with a quiet sigh. Unspoken words hang heavy between us, but he lets them go until they dissipate in the air to wait for another day.
I know he’s right. I need a Kingsmage. I am the most important player on the board now. My life is tied to the Lines, and now that I’m Awakened, the Shadowborn will come for me. But…
‘We will face the shadows. We always have.’ Arthur’s baritone is resonant inside my chest. A bell rung too close. Sel lifts an eyebrow but says nothing at the mage flame that leaks from my skin.
Vera hums from within. Even now, I can feel the strength she holds. Enough to hold Arthur, and his Call, back with ease—until I agreed to hear it. ‘There is a cost to being a legend, daughter. But fear not, you will not bear it alone.’
If I concentrate, I can almost feel three heartbeats behind my ribs. Different rhythms. Different origins. All me.
I shudder. “Can we get out of here?”
His mouth quirks into a smile.
58
WE WALK SLOWLY side by side through the open yawn of the field beside the Quarry.
Sel’s silence is a balm against the harsh flurry of voices at the Lodge. His hands in his pockets, the clean line of his profile in the sun, the relaxed set of his shoulders as he paces—they ease the harsh edges of my anxiety so I can finally breathe, and finally think.
These are the facts:
Nick helped me find more truths than I’d known to look for, and now he is the one who’s lost.
Even though his heritage crumbled beneath the weight of my truths, if it were me in Isaac’s clutches and at risk of being hunted by the Morgaines, Nick would fight to bring me home. And so I will fight to rescue him.
I don’t know if it’s our inheritances or our bloodlines or what we’ve forged together all on our own, but I can feel Nick’s absence like an open wound in my chest.
I love him.
Nick is in my heart, and I am in his. This is irrefutable, no matter how it happened or when or why. And I won’t lose someone that I love again. Not when I have the power to save them.
Unspeakable evil gave me Arthur, Vera’s resistance gave me power, but I earned my will.
The Order is my court now, whether I want it to be or not. The Table will look to me to lead.
I’m scared, but like Vera said, I’m not alone.
As I bend to untie my shoelaces, my companion leans against an oak tree, and our eyes meet. A light prickling pressure passes from him to me like a blessing: the exact opposite of what he offered the last time we were here together.
Sel doesn’t ask why we’re here. He doesn’t ask why I discard my sneakers. He doesn’t ask why I bundle my socks and stuff them into the mouth of each shoe. His gaze stays warm on my back as he watches me walk barefoot past him and deeper into the woods the way we’d come. Satisfied with the distance, I crouch in the dirt and look to the sky. I dig fingers into cool earth, and it sends whispers up into my arms. I push toes into the buried memories of bodies gone past, bodies running away, and bodies bearing through.
This is why I’m here. I need one wild horizon—one sharp moment that belongs only to me—before I return to battle.
No more Before. No more After. Only Now.
I surge forward, and the strength of armies sings through my muscles. Survive. Resist. Thrive. Each pound of my feet echoes in my joints like a blacksmith’s hammer, ringing loud into bones and ligament and sinew until the forest blurs past in a stream of moss greens and umber browns.
I sprint fast and faster.
And then I’m in the air, leaving the earth and trees far behind me.
RANK
BLOODLINE
SIGIL
COLOR
INHERITANCE
WEAPON(s)
1
King Arthur Pendragon
Dragon rampant
Gold
The King’s Wisdom and Strength
Longsword
2
Sir Lancelot
3
Sir Tristan
Three arrows sinister
Azure Blue
Marksmanship and speed
Bow and Arrow
4
Sir Lamorak
Griffon courant
Carmine Red
Preternatural strength (enduring)
Axe
5
Sir Kay
6
7
Sir Owain
Lion couchant
Tawny Yellow
Aether lion familiar
Quarterstaff
8
9
10
11
Sir Bors
Three-banded circle
Burnt Orange
Agility and Dexterity
Longsword
12
Sir Gawain
Two-headed Eagle
Emerald Green
Enhanced healer abilities; preternatural strength at midday and midnight
Dual Daggers