Avalon Rising (6 page)

Without waiting for a response, he drops to the ground and shrugs off his heavy satchel, pulling out a set of blacksmith’s goggles, an iron mask, a soldering iron.

I smile. Of course I can.

The safe shuts. The echoes are riddled with the usual clinks and whistles of
l’enigma insolubile
retracting itself to keep out unwanted visitors. With one last tug of my stolen horse’s saddle, I know Merlin’s wagon is secure. Already, the air is sharply scented with early morning, only two hours later, and Rufus and I must be on our way.

“Certainly, you can move faster than the wind,” I whisper close to my horse’s ear, kicking the soles of my boots into its side. We ride off. The frigid air is ruthless in such stark wilderness, and I hold my hood tightly over my head to ward off the prickly chill. It bites at my eyes, forcing them shut, but my horse knows the way back to the castle, and we’ll find relief traveling through the nearby woods. Morgan’s curse has fallen now, so I can come and go as I please. Though I cannot deny how it still frightens me to see the same twisted trees and arm-like branches that were once alive with magic.

Finally, we reach the refuge of roughly-barked maples standing like soldiers as I duck under their branches. Months ago, these parts were lush with emerald green, but no more. The horse slows as the wagon shifts past the trees, and we continue on in a slower trot. It’s impossible to stay focused when in mere hours I might be away from Camelot, possibly for good. I’ve committed to this idea without thinking it through. That’s not like me.

My knuckles tighten in Merlin’s falconry gloves. At dawn, I won’t be in Camelot. I’ll be in the skies with Rufus, en route to finding Marcus and Owen while the rogues’ attack on Jerusalem provides a diversion from the Grail and the girl who carries the coordinates to it. Assuming Marcus and Owen are already heading home, it might take but a few hours—God willing, my aeroship will prove to be alarmingly fast if the tests I obsessed over in the downfall of autumn leaves is any indicator.

Or it might take days, weeks. Weeks away from home. How could I return to Camelot? Certainly, my father would keep an aeroship waiting so he could carry out his intention of sending me to the same nunnery Guinevere went to. But then what?

“I need the Grail, too,” I hear myself whisper. And it’s the truth. Because otherwise, there’d be no way I could return home, after wars are fought and wars are won, with a knight who before that was a serf. If Camelot were to be victorious, I don’t know what Marcus would do—he might want to stay in the kingdom with his father. Or he might be as enthralled as I am at the idea of exploring the Holy Land once it’s saved to learn from Azur the ways of the mechanical arts.

A strong jolt throws me forward in my saddle, and I snap free from my thoughts. My horse neighs in annoyance, and I search the grounds, but these parts are dimly lit. A wave of worry flutters through my stomach at the thought that perhaps the ghost of Morgan still wanders the woods and has found an opportune time to reveal herself to snatch vengeance upon the girl who took her life. Not just any girl:
an apprentice, a handmaid
.

I reach into my pocket for the quicklight I made and snap it against the saddle. The tiny light flickers dimly, only able to illuminate a few feet in front of my eyes, but I’ve set a gauge to its side that heightens the flame. It rises tall from my hand, and suddenly, I see the reason for my horse’s dismay.

The frozen ground beneath my horse’s hooves melts under each step.
Melts
, turns the snow into ugly, brown mud under which is a sandy consistency unlike any land I’ve ever seen.

My horse’s hooves dig into the earth, and the animal tugs at its reins violently, trying to free itself. Its wild head sways, and its bray calls loudly into the early morning sky.

I search the woods. If I can find a source, I can find a solution. But there’s nothing to be seen.

“Steady, steady,” I tell the horse and swing my legs over the saddle, ready to jump. But the land all around turns into the same sticky mud my horse is drowning in, and I realize if I were to leap from this height, I’d be lost in it, too.

I resettle myself and tug on the reins. It’s a foolish thing to do, but I don’t care. I don’t know what else— “Move, you stupid beast!” I shout.
“Move!”

“It’ll only be faster that way,” a sharp voice calls, splitting the ice-cold air in half. Familiar, honey-coated, with a distinct accent. “It’s been many months, daughter of Carolyn.”

I feel caught, guilty. There’s a rustle of jewelry. A heavy step. I sit straighter in my saddle, seeking the demigoddess in these foggy woods, but her voice is omnipresent, and she is nowhere to be found.

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” the voice continues. “Not when I specifically ordered otherwise.”

The Lady of the Lake ordered otherwise because to have the one entrusted with the coordinates to Avalon outside of her protection might cost Camelot the Grail.

But I find taunts enormously irritating. “Show yourself, old woman. Show yourself, and remove my horse from this trap. Do it, and then tell me what it is you expect me to wait for.”

My body flies forward. I’m thrown into a large, dead tree; I hit the trunk and fall, my palms holding me up. My hair drapes around my face, and my hood is lost around my neck. I look at my fingers, clawing into the ground. Frozen again, and my nails white, covered in snow. My horse finds its balance and scuffs its hooves into the land, scampering in place through its shock. The ground it stands on is solid.

More rustling of silver. I breathe my gasp and turn my eyes toward the sound. Through a light fog comes the wooden cane, the long, ornamental clothes, the starfish earrings lying against her shoulder. Her blue eyes pierce through the air, intrusive and enticing, like with one glance she could control me as easily as Morgan le Fay sought to.

“Daughter of Carolyn,” the Lady of the Lake says with a slight curtsy, inauthentic in its sentiment. “You find yourself far from home.”

I try to stand, but she’s trapped me to the ground with icy fog locking me to it. I take a breath and search for my last ounce of patience. “Release me.”

“Why did you leave the safety of Camelot?”

I might not be able to trust her with the truth. “The knights—”

“I know they’re missing.” She darts her bright oceanhued eyes at me, holding the wrath of a thousand hurricanes. “I know the Spanish rogues have laid siege upon Jerusalem; I know the Black Knight has resorted to everything in his power to beat Camelot to Avalon. I’ve known since the beginning of time and the rule of the demigods. And so what?”

I feel my blood grow hot against the ice in my hands. “I cannot fight the Spanish rogues, nor can I save Azur’s city, but I have the means to find Marcus and my brother. You’re the one who commissioned me to build a vessel. My aeroship is more than capable—”

Instantly she’s in my face. I gasp in surprise; I don’t know how she could move so quickly, like her magic might give her the flight of a demonic hummingbird. Her finely arched brows draw together through her fury.

“Don’t let pride claim you, girl. You don’t know what sort of world exists beyond the shores of Britannia. I told you that your place in this plan was to bring the knights to Avalon after the war against the Spanish rogues was won. And yet the Black Knight still walks the earth. He’ll find the coordinates unless you stay in Camelot.”

She doesn’t say it’s to protect me, and perhaps the demigods don’t care about such things. Not when something as important as the Holy Grail is at stake. Are we pawns to them?

She peels back and resets herself in a strong, confident stance. “Perhaps you were the wrong choice for this. Perhaps I made a mistake.”

I feel like my heart might explode with anger. “Let me do this.”

“You do this, and you change the future in a way I cannot know!” Her voice is loud enough to shatter dead branches back to life, and I’m terrified of what wrath she could unleash upon me. For a long moment, she stills, eyes white and motionless. “In fact, you already have. Stubborn girl! By seeking Arthur’s Norwegian steel today, you’ve completely changed the fate of the world!”

“How? How have I done that? I’ve been to the safe in the mountains many times since the summer. I’ve built my aeroship outside the walls to avoid my father. How is this any different?”

“You did what was needed to complete the task I gave you. But now your actions dictate another plan. It’s no longer to build your aeroship; it’s to disobey the order I gave. Now, it’s uncertain whether Camelot can claim the Grail, and, oh!” Her eyes widen, and a flash of dread passes through them.

My fingers clutch the icy ground at seeing an entity of power and might harboring such terror.
For what?

She blinks away whatever vision came over her and shoots a look of pure anger at me. “Sir Marcus.” The way she speaks his name is akin to a blackness settling over a world already full of desolation. “His fate has changed, too. A great loss is looming. One of betrayal or death—I can’t see which.”

My blood is chilled, but not by the wind or the snow under my knees and palms. “I don’t understand.”

Her eyes are two pools of lake water staring into mine. “If only you’d listened, girl, his fate would be that much surer. And now … ” She looks elsewhere, and I catch a hint of worry I’ve never seen her employ. “Death or betrayal. I’m not sure which. One path is certain.”

My lip quivers. Death is nothing new to me. Not since Morgan’s war, where I killed not one man, but several— fathers, sons, brothers, perhaps some who were but boys in their iron armor, chained by Morgan’s magic.

If that isn’t enough, the memory of Morgan’s dying eyes still haunts me as I sleep.

But
betrayal
. The meaning is vague, and I have to know more. “What sort of betrayal?”

She glances over her shoulder at me. “Unknown. But each of these paths is equally possible.”

Marcus would never betray Camelot. He didn’t want to be a knight, but he knows the Grail cannot fall into the wrong hands. If for no other reason than to avenge his mother’s death he wouldn’t.

“Yes, I chose the wrong person.” The Lady of the Lake stares at me as one would study blueprints: objectively, curiously. “I should confine you to where you are. Keep you locked until your destiny can be fulfilled while I fix all this.” Inch by inch, she moves closer, and I feel myself grow smaller and smaller. I struggle to free myself, but it’s useless—

A slam against the earth forces a scream out of me, and I curl over the ground as much as I can. A slow thump and then another passes me by, and I lift my head to look. A wistful spirit drifts across the snowy land, a fog dropped from the sky. But this spirit is in the shape of a man, and it takes solid form before blitzing back, like a bolt of lightning that hasn’t decided if it yearns to be sunlight. Long, pressed trousers resting atop scuffed black boots step toward the Lady of the Lake. I catch the surprise in her face and the long cloak of an otherworldly being with a hood atop its head.

“Impossible. The alchemist locked you in a vault in Jerusalem,” the Lady of the Lake declares, a tremor in her voice.

A pair of old hands rises to the spirit’s transparent hood, and the ghost becomes flesh. I blink at the knuckles displaying their familiar ink, and when his fingers draw back his hood, his shorn head reveals the same tattoos as when he was a man.

Merlin faces me, the phoenix feather in his goatee as bright as the sun, even as it flicks in and out of existence. His blue eyes are two golden-mooned prisms shadowed by arched eyebrows, all too aware.

“Get up, girl. The floor of an icy forest is no place for an apprentice of mine.”

With one flick of his finger, the Lady of the Lake’s trap releases, and I’m able to stand.

“Merlin.” I step closer as I watch him fade in and out of the ghost his thievery has paid for. “How can this be?” I consider the use of stolen magic that released me and how the luring voice of it marks my skin with warmth and happiness. When it disappears, I find myself almost missing it.

Merlin smiles, and it’s a strange one: a smile of deceit, accented with an untrustworthy friendliness he’d offered few in Arthur’s court. “Azur’s iron vault has only alchemy to guard me. The magic I stole is much stronger than that.”

I should be terrified to speak to a thief of magic, but it’s Merlin. It’s my mentor. “The Spanish rogues have attacked Jerusalem. Azur told me you were missing for a month. That you won’t return to your physical form. Why won’t you cooperate?”

With that, the Merlin I once knew fades into something terrible. His eyes are full of magic that swirls the same white and gold I saw in both Lancelot and Guinevere before their affair. Merlin’s arched brows furrow with his cunning smile of opportunity. “There is so much power in this world, Vivienne.” And nothing more. He shoots a look at the Lady of the Lake. “She’s on the right path. How dare you threaten her when this is the right future for all of us?”

I frown. “What?” Can he see the future where the Lady of the Lake cannot?

The Lady of the Lake snarls as they both ignore my question, and I’m not sure which of them is speaking the truth now. “This isn’t the way it’s meant to be played out, wizard. You know this; you knew it when you were a man, weaning yourself off magic.”

“Vivienne was never meant to dwell in Camelot. Her fate must take her north, where the Fisher King waits to be cured. She must be tested.”

I breathe in the thought.
The Fisher King?
“Whom do you mean, Merlin?”

Merlin angles his jaw at me. “A thief like myself. Find him in the Perilous Lands so you and your lover can find Avalon. These demigods—” he juts a thumb over his shoulder at the Lady of the Lake, “captured him and set a curse upon his land.” With that, he twirls back around to face her. “You play unfairly, demigoddess. When one of us finds a means to use magic, you make a prime example of him. He had to watch everything around him die: queen, children, subjects, land. Doomed to become dust while alive as it happened.” The anger in Merlin’s loud voice cannot hide the sadness it strives to conceal.

The Lady of the Lake watches the spirit of Merlin circle her, and she sneers. “He was a knowing thief who took what didn’t belong to him. Ask any demigod you might meet. Men have no concept of the power they’re trying to wield. It’s not meant for them!”