Slowly Falling for him
I glance at Talan cautiously. “Whose blood is on your sword?”
“Someone made the mistake of testing my patience. You’d think people
would have learned by now.”
Vague. Annoyingly so. “Another traitor?”
He cuts me a sharp look. “I won’t let anyone get in my way.”
A chill ripples up my spine as he stalks over the snow.
The air seems to grow heavier and otherworldly until the forest opens
into a clearing, a path lined with ancient statues and pale purple hedges. On
the far end of the path, the Lost Palace emerges from the wintry forest, a
haunting edifice of twists and curves. Ice and snow glaze the stones,
sparkling in the pale light. Fog billows around a frozen garden of heather
and bare yews. Moths flutter around us—not metallic, but real ones that are
bright blue. Corbinelle moths. Beautiful to look at, but they’re venomous.
Like Talan, really.
Stone arches frame a door of carved oak, peaked in the center. As we
walk closer, my gaze flicks up at the statues. I stop to stare at one of them, a
towering, crowned queen with long hair that drapes over her robes. My
gaze slides to the symbols on her wrists, and an ember of recognition sparks
in my mind. The encircled triple spirals remind me of the ones I saw in
Nimuë’s tower—and look exactly like the ones I’d seen on my wrists for a
moment in the bathtub. As I stare at them, cold magic slides over my wrists.
Talan follows my stare. “That’s Nimuë. She built this palace long ago.
She’s buried here, in fact. Did you know that before she was the Lady of the
Lake, my grandmother had that role? Before she was queen.”
I stare at the triple spirals again. Three Ladies of the Lake. “Queen
Morgan.”
Thank the ancient gods we don’t have the same grandmother in reality,
given some of the filthy thoughts I’ve had about him.
I draw a shaky
A Brother's Reunion with his sister
“Your brother will be here soon.” I gesture at a wooden table and chairs
in the center of the room. “Please, sit down.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll remain standing,” she says, leaning against the
wall. She’s casual, but I note how she eyes the door, her body alert. She
doesn’t trust me. She thinks this might be a trap. Of course she does. I
couldn’t expect her to fully trust me.
“Whatever you prefer.” I shrug, sitting back down.
The door swings open, and Raphael steps in, dressed in a gray cloak, his
dark hair wet with rain. It’s grown back a little from the rough job they did
on it in the dungeons.
My throat tightens when I see him, and sadness sings in my chest.
There’s the man who chose Avalon Tower over me.
But he’s not looking at me, of course. He’s looking at the sister he’s
missed and longed to see since he was a little boy.
Ysolde stares at him, frozen, then darts forward and grabs him in a
desperate hug, her body racked with sobs.
I wait patiently. Time is short, but I have to give them at least a few
minutes after all those years. How would it feel to be reunited with a sibling
that you grew up with, that you spent so many years missing? I imagine for
a moment having a brother or sister.
Raphael’s eyes are closed as he hugs Ysolde. She’s stopped sobbing and
leans her head against his chest, tears running down her cheek. Finally, they
break apart.
“What happened to you all these years?” Ysolde asks him.
“I will tell you everything,” Raphael says, his voice cracking slightly.
“Later, when we’re alone. Nia probably doesn’t have much time.” He
glances at me, his eyebrows knit together.
Ysolde sits in a chair next to me. “So, her name is Nia? She told me that
you’re a wanted man here. I mean, more than a regular demi-Fey.”
Raphael sits, too, and scrubs a hand over
Reklam
Raphael
I flip through his thoughts, searching deeper. The prisoner. Does he
know anything about a beautiful, silver-eyed demi-Fey?
The prisoner has been here for some time. Captured in the war with the
humans, but they didn’t put him with the rest of the rabble. He’s too
valuable, for some reason. Doesn’t seem particularly valuable to Cadoc.
Just another half-breed mongrel…
My heart skips a beat. Raphael.
I invade Cadoc’s every thought, sifting through ideas, memories,
everything he knows. I’m ravaging the inside of his skull, grasping the
threads, then pulling the strings to bend him to my will.
Now, Cadoc wonders if the prisoner is literally valuable.
Maybe he’s rich. In fact, he’s probably rich, or they’d leave him with the
rest, right? If Cadoc will just do this tiny thing, just unlock the door, the
prisoner might reward him handsomely. Yes. That’s what he should do.
Odelia will fall back in love with him, and his father will get his job back in
the stables. Cadoc absolutely shouldn’t question this drunk lady more
because she’s a distraction from what’s really important. She’s just a tiny
woman, a drunken musician, not worthy of his notice.
When I withdraw from his mind, he stares at me, dazed. Then, without a
word, he pulls a skeleton key from his belt and opens a door into yet
another torchlit stairwell.
I follow him down a flight of stairs, the air growing staler, like wet earth
and mushrooms.
My heart is pounding as he leads me to another wooden door. He slides
a second key into a rusty lock, turns it twice, and pushes the door open.
I can hardly breathe.
“You,” he says into the darkness. “Get up.”
I step inside, trying to see in the dark.
In the corner of a grimy stone cell sits a shirtless man. For a second, I
almost don’t recognize him. Dirt smears his body, and
The Truth Comes Out
My pulse is racing, electrified. I can’t keep this information to myself
forever. Even if I wanted to, Tana will piece it together, one reading at a
time.
Slowly, I say, “I know who he is.”
They turn to stare at me.
Sweat chills my skin. “When you gave me the reading, you told me he
represents one of my parents.”
Tana’s eyes widen. “Oh, right. Your father, I thought. Do you know who
he is?”
My blood roars, and I try to keep my tone light. “It turns out my father
lives on the lost island of Avalon.”
“Hang on, your what lives on the lost what of the what?” Darius stares
at me.
“That island sank,” says Serana. “Like Shalott. The war between Merlin
and Mordred drowned all the islands in the lake.”
My fingers dig into my palms. “No, Avalon is still there. I found it two
months ago. After Raphael was captured, I felt something calling to me
from the mist. I thought it was a Lady of the Lake thing. I ended up in a
boat, sailing through the fog. It was hidden by a veil, but I could get
through that with my Sentinel powers, and I found the lost island of Avalon.
It didn’t sink. It’s just hidden by a veil. And my father lives there. He’s been
there for fifteen hundred years.” My throat goes dry. “He said he could help
me save Raphael.”
They stare at me, mouths agape.
“You never said anything,” Serana said. “Why did you never—”
“It’s Mordred,” I blurt.
Serana’s jaw drops. “Mordred. As in…Mordred Kingslayer? The man
who slaughtered hundreds of people in this very tower?”
My stomach twists. “That’s the one.”
“That’s impossible,” Darius says.
DAUGHTER?!!!
The cool air bites at my skin as I work the oars.
Nimuë sacrificed her lover for her cause.
But Raphael? He did the exact opposite. He put Camelot at risk to save
me. I feel my chest cracking. The sooner I can get him out, the less likely it
is they’ll break him.
And then I hear it, the hum of a veil. It’s so foggy out here, it’s hard to
see, but it’s there—the opalescent sheen. It’s a veil, but this one feels
different. It emits a low, resonant hum that’s almost musical. It’s a different
sort of magic, beautiful and ancient. Primal magic, perhaps.
Is this where Avalon has been all this time? My breath quickens, and I
summon the red bloom of my Sentinel magic. The moment the hum goes
quiet, I start to row again, faster now, moving through the veil. What if this
is where they’re keeping Raphael? On Avalon itself?
My oars carve into the water, and the mist thins. I keep going.
I look over my shoulder at what I’m approaching and feel the world tilt
on its axis.
It’s there—a rocky, moss-covered island. Avalon. A vast, rambling
castle of stone perches on a craggy hilltop. Pale stone towers jut into the
night sky, almost glowing. At lake level, apple trees and oak trees spread
out over the island.
I can hardly breathe.
The boat touches the shoreline, and I leap onto the leafy shore, taking a
moment to catch my breath. An old stone path winds up the hill toward the
castle, and I charge up it, wheezing as I race up the uneven stairs. The air is
heavy with the scent of apples, and red and orange leaves carpet the stone
stairs.
But disappointment carves through me as I near the castle at the top.
The place looks abandoned, not a single light or torch in view. The towers
are crumbling, the gardens wildly overgrown. Bridges that go nowhere
sprout from mossy walls. Of course
New Task
On the other side of the hall, the portrait of Merlin clicks, and the entire
thing creaks open. A man steps through it, looking like a warrior who
traveled through time. He has a long gray beard, and his face is lined with
age. Unlike the rest of the people in the room, he’s dressed in actual chain
mail armor with a silvery breastplate. And emblazoned on the breastplate is
the Merlin Court coat of arms I’ve seen around this tower—one with an
owl, stars, and the cycle of the moon. His armor groans as he crosses the
large hall.
For a moment, I wonder if the rumors are true, if Merlin never died, and
maybe he’s returned to us through his own portrait. But this man looks
nothing like Merlin, and he wears a silver torc.
“Who is that?” I whisper to Serana.
“Sir Kay,” she whispers. “He is the leader of MI-13.”
He crosses to an empty chair set at the round table and takes a seat.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice.” His deep,
commanding voice resonates around the room. “What we’re discussing
today is of the utmost secrecy. There will be no sharing of any of this with
anyone at the academy. Or, obviously, outside it.”
I exchange looks with Tana and Serana. What are the three of us even
doing here?
“As you all know, MI-13’s efforts are held back by the veil,” he
continues. “We make do with our Sentinels opening the way to small task
forces, but it has limited our options.”
Nivene raises her eyebrow at me and nods.
“The veil is maintained by the Fey’s magicians,” adds Sir Kay. “Up
until two months ago, there were ten. However, one of them was sent to
assassinate one of our Sentinels and was killed.” He glances for the briefest
second in my direction. “And another veil mage was sent to take out our
entire cadet force, and was also, luckily, stopped and killed.” He
Reklam
Reklam