Legendary (2 page)

“My queen, what have you done now?” Titania’s husband, Oberon, king of Avalon, materialized at her side, visible only to her eyes.

Tempering her voice, the Fae queen answered, “I could not stand by and let Mordrid go unchallenged, my lord.” If her plan was to flourish, it would take centuries, but Oberon could not know her intentions. Her husband was a master deceiver, the only one to ever challenge her own skills of deceit.

He stepped in front of Titania. “You know my laws. Directly interfering with mortal affairs is forbidden,” he thundered.

“Yet you gave them an army, my husband.” Her eyebrow rose, almost mocking her king.

“I am king of Avalon. It is for me alone to decide
if
or
how
we influence the mortal realm.”

Titania bowed low. “My apologies, my king,” she said, her voice honey-smooth and placating.

“You know the laws of Avalon and the consequences of your actions. You are no exception to them.”

Indeed, she did know what her punishment would be for her interference, but it was a small price to pay for what it would accomplish. She would be banished to the mortal realm until Oberon saw fit for her to return. There would be much work for her to do during her banishment.

Queen Titania rose to her full height, her chin held high, and met her husband’s unwavering gaze. “Indeed, my lord.” She turned from him and looked at the knights. “But you must agree that their story—and what is to come—will make a tale worthy of legend.”

King Oberon studied his queen silently before vanishing from the cave.

“So it begins.” The queen departed for the mortal realm, a cunning smirk on her lips, satisfaction bright on her face.

1

It has weakened! For the first time in centuries I can feel the barrier thinning. She must be there—my escape—my queen. I am so close to having my revenge! I can feel her. Her strength is unbelievable, a siren’s call. Her emerald eyes have haunted me since the first time I saw her. She will be mine! My Destined One!
~Mordrid

A
LIANA
F
AGAN’S
E
YES
S
NAPPED
O
PEN
the instant the voices stopped. “Not again,” she moaned, pushing up onto her elbow to look at her bedside clock only to see that it wasn’t even five in the morning yet. “Why can I never sleep past dumb o’clock in the morning?” the eighteen-year-old asked her empty room, turning to glance out her bedroom window.

This was the third night in a row that this strange dream had plagued her. Then again, compared to the tragic, fiery nightmare that had haunted her for the past two years, this new one was like a fairy tale.

She’d dreamed that she had been in a thick forest, wandering on an unfamiliar path, being pulled toward something she didn’t understand. The path had led to a huge, beautiful lake and a hidden cave covered with hanging vines and small white flowers. A woman’s beguiling voice, mingled with deeper, pain-ridden voices, called to her. Beseeching her to come to them, begging for her help.

Knowing she wasn’t going to get any more sleep, Aliana threw off her comforter and padded down the hall of her family’s London flat where she now lived, and started up her father’s old computer. Her current home had been in her family—or rather her
adoptive
family—for three generations. Her eyes fell on the framed picture by the computer. It was an old photo of her with her parents at the beach behind their house in South Carolina.

She looked away from the happy photo and pulled up her father’s digital files about Avalon and his studies into the King Arthur mythoi. She couldn’t explain why, but each time she woke from the new dream, her first thoughts went to the legendary story.

Aliana’s father—adoptive father, she reminded herself—had been a renowned anthropologist and, for the last decade of his life, a well-respected history professor. His life’s mission had been to uncover the truth of King Arthur and Camelot, as well as Avalon’s possible roots in the real world.

The hidden cave from her dream invaded her thoughts again. What was beyond that wall of ivy and flowers? If it was real, like a small voice in her head insisted that it was, maybe she was close to finding Avalon! Just the thought sent excitement racing through her body. Uncovering the truth behind Avalon was a dream and passion she had shared with her father all of her life.

Even though the wound from her parents concealment of her adoption was a constant ache, she couldn’t deny that they had loved her just as much as they had loved each other. Growing up surrounded by that love had made dating difficult, because she would always compare what she had with the boys she dated to what her parents had with each other. And after the last guy she had cared for had left her heartbroken after nearly raping her, she’d made a promise: she wouldn’t let another guy get so close to her again unless she felt the same love from and for him that her parents had for each other.

But having someone love you won’t stop them from lying to you,
she thought bitterly. She shoved her resentment aside to focus on figuring out the dream, and started a search for wooded areas and forests that would correlate with her father’s studies.
If
the dream was reality—the woods, the lake, the cave—then the answer might be in this research.

Aliana poured over the files, her excitement and passion for the legends flaring bright again. Her father had tons of files and research about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, the Druid Merlin, and the evil Morgana and Mordrid. But her father was the only one who spelled it like that though—Mor
drid
. When she had asked about it, he’d shown her a copy of an aged parchment he and his old mentor had discovered in the eighties. The battered scrap referenced Arthur and Mor
drid,
and next to the villain’s name had been an ancient symbol many believed represented wizard or sorcerer. Her papa may not be around to finish his work, but maybe she could do it for both of them. It was seven o’clock by the time she’d made a solid plan, showered, and changed.

Her eyes dropped to the phone lying on her dresser as its alarm went off. It was her reminder about lunch with Wade Edrick and Owen Nyhart, her best friend and newfound cousin, respectively.

“Son of a biscuit!” She couldn’t meet with them today. She needed to follow through with her plan. The need to search for the lake, and the hidden cave, and those strange voices was a compulsion she couldn’t ignore.

Knowing her cousin would already be awake for his daily swim, Aliana called him to cancel.

“Well, isn’t this a fantastic surprise,” Owen said. “Now what reason could my absolutely smashing cousin have for calling me this early in the morning?”

Aliana laughed at Owen’s exaggerated British charm. “Morning to you too! Listen, I need to talk to you about something.”

Owen groaned. “Blimey, in the month and a half since we met, you’ve said those exact words to me three times, and they always precede you canceling our engagements.”

Aliana sighed. “I’m sorry.” She had meant to tell him about her dream and what she was going to search for. He knew about her love of Camelot and her
slight
obsession with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. But maybe it was a good thing he had interrupted her—if she’d told him she was going exploring in a heavily wooded area by herself because of a dream, he’d call her totally
potty
and make sure she was locked away.

Heck, she was ready to lock herself away, but she couldn’t fight the overwhelming desire to try to find those voices and that hidden cave.

“I got a call from a magazine and they want me to get some pictures of the English countryside.” Aliana chewed her lip, a nervous habit of hers. She didn’t like lying to Owen.

They had only known each other for six weeks, but the bond they had forged seemed to stretch back much longer than that. Like her, Owen had no family left. Aliana had come to London over a month ago to find her real mother, but had found him instead. Since then, they had been nearly inseparable. He had even told her several nights ago that he had always felt like he’d been missing a part of himself and that since her arrival, she’d helped to fill that gap. He also shared her enthusiasm for Arthurian legend and she often thought that he’d have made an amazing Knight of the Round Table if he had lived in Camelot.

She and Owen shared dark brown curly hair, bright green deep-set eyes, and a fair complexion. Aliana stood at five feet eight inches, tall for a girl, and her cousin was just under six feet, more bulk than trim, not that he wasn’t in great shape. Owen loved to swim and it showed. Aliana had always been on the chubby side as a child, but in the last few years since she’d taken up nature and travel photography, she’d gotten herself into better shape, out of necessity as much as desire. Climbing mountains, traveling through jungles, and diving in deep waters required a certain level of fitness.

“Aliana, did you hear anything I just said?” Owen’s thick British accent snapped her out of her thoughts.

“Um…”

He sighed again. “All right, we can reschedule, but please take care out there! And ring me when you’re on your way back. Maybe we can have dinner together instead.”

After assuring him she’d be okay, they said their goodbyes, and she packed up the last of her camera gear—tripod, several lenses, a speed flash, and a remote trigger. She thought about the only other guy in her life she cared about. Wade. He and his sister, Lacy, were two of her closest friends, more like her own siblings, really. Their parents had been best friends so they had spent a lot of time together while growing up.

Wade and Lacy had come to London a week after Aliana had first arrived when Lacy had scored a study-abroad internship with a posh party-planning firm in London—it was her way of technically putting off starting college. Lacy was perfect for the job, and Wade, being the protective big brother that he was, had insisted on going with her. Luckily for Wade, there was a Kung-Fu master in London with whom he’d been wanting to study, so he had a justifiable reason to go other than just looking out for Lacy and Aliana. But they were missing one member of their “musketeer band”—their other best friend, Dawn Anson. Aliana wished again that her absentee almost-sister was with them. Fortunately, Wade and Lacy had hit it off with Owen pretty quickly.

Aliana was still thinking about her “family” when she finally reached the large forest just a couple of hours from her flat.

Well, this all
looks
singularly like my dream,
she thought as she made her way through the tall trees, being sure to keep track of her progress in the small notebook she always carried. She wasn’t sure why she’d chosen the path she did, but the pull to follow it had been undeniable, and with each step and turn she took, her hope of finding Avalon grew and grew.

“But…why does England have to have so much damn mist?” she mumbled.

Pausing to check her GPS, Aliana pulled out a small notebook and marked her spot on the map she’d made. After an unfortunate incident in the mountains of China not long ago, she’d become paranoid about getting lost when traveling by herself. Fortunately, she wasn’t likely to run across anything more dangerous than a snake in these woods.

“Then again, considering how much I hate snakes, that could still be pretty bad.” Tucking the notebook back into her pack, she reconsidered for a moment. The path she’d chosen had become nothing more than a dirt trail that the forest was trying to reclaim. She’d already tripped over two roots and gotten tangled in the foliage.

Worse still, fog had started rolling through several yards back, and the deeper she went, the thicker it became. Suppressing a slight shiver, she pulled her scarf tighter around her neck and kept walking.

She stopped to rest a little later, set her camera and pack on a nearby stone, and took a drink of water from her bottle. She pulled her nearly waist-length hair into a high ponytail and went deeper into the forest.

Finally, the fog broke, and Aliana turned on her camera. Just because the mist was annoying didn’t mean it couldn’t provide great ambiance for a picture. As it thinned, a path appeared between a wall of rock and a boulder that was almost completely covered in glittering green moss.

The fog rolled and swirled gently over the path, playfully lapping at the sides of the rock wall and boulder. Pushing through the underbrush, Aliana set her tripod and focused on the wall of rock. It wasn’t until she gazed through the viewfinder that she saw it—a hanging vine with a single white flower.

The sunlight broke through the trees, shining rays of light across the bloom. Automatically, her finger depressed the shutter button, capturing the shot, but she couldn’t breathe. The flower looked just as it had in her dream. Detaching her camera, she haphazardly shoved the tripod back into her pack before hurrying over.

The bloom was a white water lily with a pink stamen.

“That’s not right.” She studied it more closely. “Water lilies have yellow centers and they definitely don’t grow on hanging vines.” She stopped before touching the silky petals. What if she was losing her mind and just seeing things? Would the bloom vanish if she tried to touch it?