Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(99)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

No one was expendable enough to take this risk.

 

No one except me. One of the few people here who had experience opening and searching tombs.

 

The Goddess led you here to us. All of you.

 

I didn’t believe in fate—it seemed like an excuse to blame your troubles on something bigger than yourself. But I couldn’t deny how the others had fallen into place here, serving some greater purpose as surely as if they’d been led to it by the hand.

 

This . . . this was meant for me.

 

“Will you do me this service?” Bedivere asked.

 

“No,” I said. “Because I’m going in your place.”

 

His shock was palpable. “I cannot let you go. It must be me. There is no other choice.”

 

I wasn’t above using his guilt against him. “How would you feel if there was another attack while you were gone and you weren’t here to help them? Where’s the honor in that?”

 

He was still shaking his head.

 

“You must know a way to get out of the tower without having to go through the Children,” I said. “And you must think you’ll be able to reach the burial site before nightfall. That means I can do the same.”

 

And faster, given that I wouldn’t be traveling in a full suit of armor or with such a heavy load of emotional baggage. But this was the problem with honor—it poisoned you against reason.

 

Still, Bedivere held firm. “I cannot . . .”

 

“If they wake and find you gone, they’ll send out people to search for you,” I told him. “No one will even notice I’m missing.”

 

His remaining hand curled at his side, his eyes closing.

 

The knights of Camelot followed a strict code of chivalry; Bedivere would never put his burden on another without cause. It played out time and time again in the stories Nash had told us of life in Arthur’s court. Of quests and challenges accepted.

 

“I am begging you,” I whispered, my throat raw from the effort it took to not cry. “Please let me accept this challenge on your behalf. Please don’t leave Cabell. I can do this. I can.”

 

“I do not doubt that—” he began.

 

I had one last card to play. “You have to stay alive to protect your king until the mortal world needs him again.”

 

The words struck at him like an icy fist. He staggered back.

 

“You made a vow to him,” I said. Another strike. “Just as you made a vow to help protect the tower.” Another. “Please, Sir Bedivere. Let me go.”

 

In the silence, my heart thundered with a single refrain. He won’t. He won’t. He won’t.

 

But then he bowed his head, and a rush of purpose, of gratitude, broke loose.

 

“I cannot bear this, yet I must, and may I be cursed for it,” Bedivere said, his eyes pale as they bored into me. “If you truly desire to do this, then ready yourself. First light is nearly upon us and there is not a moment to tarry.”

 

 

 

 

 

Clever Emrys had missed one hidden passage, it seemed.

 

While I quietly dressed and gathered what supplies I had left in my workbag, Bedivere went to the armory to find me a breastplate of woven leather and a dagger he deemed me capable of using without accidentally slicing off my own thumb.

 

Avoiding Deri curled in repose at the base of the Mother tree, then the eyes of those keeping watch on the walls, I met Bedivere at the kitchen. The air was beginning to lighten and the Children to quiet—a fact Bedivere had not missed either.

 

“We must hurry,” he said, holding the door open for me. “Dilwyn is an elfin, and it is in her nature to race dawn to be the first to work.”

 

I was barely inside before he tossed me a sizeable chunk of bread and his skin of drinking water.

 

Relieved of his heavy armor, the old knight moved with surprising nimbleness to a cabinet on the back wall, holding his lantern up to one of its panels. At the caress of candlelight, the invisible markings there illuminated. Bedivere made as if to trace them with the metal glove that covered his lost hand, only to correct himself and use the other.

 

“The night comes,” he said.

 

The cabinet swung away from the wall at his words, scraping over the well-worn stones. The hole hidden beneath it was just wide enough for us to take to its ladder one at a time.

 

I went first, carefully making the steep climb down. Bedivere followed after ensuring the cabinet was pulled back into place.

 

With the benefit of his lantern, the underpath revealed itself in all its refined beauty. Unlike the other tunnels, this one was a marvel of arched ceilings and stone columns, the walls painted with wildlife and creatures both familiar and new.

 

“What is this place?” I asked, trailing after him. A few sprites slept in the alcoves at the top of each pillar, their glow brightening and dimming with each breath in and out.

 

“This was once the fairy path, used by the Fair Folk shy of humans but eager to trade with the tower,” Bedivere said. “It leads all the way to the sacred grove.”

 

I felt a twinge of victory at having been proven right. There was at least one way to leave the tower and pass under the Children gathered around the moat.

 

“Why wasn’t this one sealed?” I asked.

 

“It is protected by wards born of ancient magic that have yet to fail.” Bedivere turned, holding his lantern higher. “But more vitally, this is the last hope of Avalon. Should the tower fall to ruin, it is the path we will take to the barges, and the mortal world beyond.”

 

He tore through the thick lace of spiderwebs ahead, clucking his tongue in dismay when they clung to him like a second, filigree skin.

 

“Do you ever miss it?” I asked.

 

Bedivere looked back again.

 

“The mortal world,” I said.

 

He was silent for a long while, his shuffling steps the only sound between us. “I can scarcely remember it well enough to desire it.”

 

“What about King Arthur?” I asked, unable to help myself. “What was he like?”

 

The knight made a gruff noise at the back of his throat. “As righteous a man as they come, but vainglorious. Always seeking more than he was due at the expense of what he was given.”

 

I blinked.