7. Arthur
Chapter seven
Arthur
Will. Will. Will, Will, Will, Will, Will
E verything hurt. Every stuttered inhale and exhale of my lungs. Every flex of my stiff fingers. Every pump of my stone-cold heart.
It hurt, hurt, hurt , and I—
I screamed. My blood felt like pomace as it traveled sluggishly through my veins. And as the nerves in my body came alive, I could feel—
I was burning. Melting. How could I feel so cold when my body was alight with flame?
Clouds swirling with fury and damnation swarmed the sky above me, and...
I blinked. It was the sky. I could see the sky . When had I last seen it with my own eyes? Had been blessed to feel the fall of rain on my face, to hear the howl of wind in my ear, to taste the sweet moisture in the air on my tongue?
The heavens shook and groaned. Light flashed above in warning, sending sparks skittering through the clouds.
Those sparks charged the air, and my body buzzed. Blood stained the stony sky as the beast within me blinked its red eyes open, waking from its deep slumber.
It grinned in its cage where I kept it locked away in the back of my mind, its mouth full of unforgivingly sharp teeth. Its black, furry limbs snapped and cracked as it stretched. A growl of hunger, anger, and excitement rose from its chest, and it raked deadly claws down the bars keeping it contained.
Pain sliced into my head as it scratched again and again and again, and I cried out. Because it was too much. Between the burning and the claws, there was too much pain, and...
A young man hovered over me then.
Black hair framed his pale face in a wild mess of spilled ink. Rain slid down his slender nose, trickling off the tip. Dark brows slashed downward over his closed eyes, and his lips formed frantic words I couldn’t understand as he shoved, shoved, shoved at my chest. Gold embers dusted his palms, and distantly, I wondered if those motes were the reason my body felt like I was burning alive. But then he opened his eyes, our gazes colliding, and...
And his eyes. His eyes .
They were the sweetest shade of blue I had ever seen. Bluer than the forget-me-nots that used to grow in Sir Ector’s garden. A deeper color than the endless sky but lighter than that of the treacherous sea.
Lightning illuminated the air, arcing around the two of us in a violent dome. That very same lightning bloomed within his irises, making them glow with magic.
The beast’s roars dulled. The storm above quieted. My heartbeat slowed. My thoughts ceased.
And I stared. How could I not?
For I knew this man. Had seen his face time and time again in the visions forced upon me these past many years.
I’d clung to those visions to keep me sane when all felt lost. I knew his laugh, his smile, the dimples at the corners of his mouth...
Was this reality? Or had I finally lost my sanity to time?
“Who are you?” I spoke, my words rough like stone as I slipped into my native tongue. Each sound out of my mouth stung, and I longed for something to soothe the pain.
Frowning, the man said something, his voice soft despite the clipped cadence of his words. But I couldn’t hear him over the sudden roar of thunder.
Biting his lip, he lowered his forehead to mine. Even with him so close, I struggled to hear him speak.
His lips moved again, and words in a tongue both familiar and not tumbled from his mouth. I tried to follow what he said, but with my next blink, the scenery around me changed, the man before me replaced with another.
Gawain stood proud before an unfamiliar Green Man who knelt on the floor of my court. The Knights of the Round Table watched on as Gawain swung the man’s axe down, severing the Green Man’s head from his body. Drunken cheers sounded, though they quickly died off as the headless body rose from the ground to retrieve his head.
Another blink, another scene. This time, Morgana hovered before me, her face lit in a devilish grin, her eyes glassy with drink, as she patted the space beside her on the bed. Stumbling closer, I hesitated. Because I didn’t know if I wanted to do this. Didn’t think I wanted her . But she used her magic, little tendrils of smoke, to snatch my body and yank me down on the bed. I struggled to think or move, my mind heavy with alcohol and my body weighed down by Morgana as she straddled me.
My curse lunged for dominance of my body, and it snarled in delight when fear entered her blue eyes at its appearance.
But then I hesitated, jerking the beast back because... Morgana’s eyes weren’t blue.
When my vision cleared again, the brute restrained once more, that young man stood before me, hands outstretched as if to touch me again.
But then Merlin stood in front of me, and I cried out as he thrust my sword through my heart so that miserable spell could take effect.
“Arthur,” Merlin said in a modern tongue I recognized, one I couldn’t recall him ever using before. “I need you to calm—”
I didn’t let him finish. Because he did this. This was all his fault!
Before he could react, I captured Merlin’s throat, and it jerked beneath my hand.
“You did this to me,” I roared at him, using the same language he had. “You left me there to rot!”
He tried to speak, but his air supply was cut off. And I was just so angry. Because why had he done this to me? Why had he left me to suffer for so long?
He writhed beneath my unrelenting grip, and then his magic flared along his fingertips as he grasped my wrist, somehow clearing my distorted gaze.
In the next moment, the young man was before me once more, and my confusion and frustration only rose as I stared down at my chest, realizing it was free of my blade.
I could feel my body and finally draw breath. Was it possible I’d finally gone mad and this was all in my head? Or was I finally and truly free from my prison?
I hardly dared to hope for it to be the latter.
My vision blurred again, mixing my past with my present. I struggled to differentiate what was real and what wasn’t as the ghostly echoes of swords clanged in my ears, though no battle could be seen. Armored ghosts of my past lined up for their chance to try to pull the late king’s otherwise mundane sword from an anvil resting atop a large stone.
Just beyond the line of ghosts, Viviane rose from a glassy lake, a gleaming sword proffered in her hands.
“I bestow upon thee this sword, Excalibur. In return, I shall ask of thee a favor. One of my choosing that I shall request when I deem appropriate.”
“Within reason, I shall grant thee your favor.”
I moved to take the sword, my hand gripping its hilt, but Viviane did not release it yet. “Be advised, My King, that if thou shalt wield it with honor and goodness in thy heart, it shall cleave through stone and wood and make thee victorious in battles.” Her eyes swirled with untold darkness and warning. “But if thou shalt wield the sword with a corrupt heart, it shall curse thee to transform into a hateful creature that matches the darkness in your heart, a beast the likes of which thou hopes to save thy people from. Wield it well.”
“Vincent, do something!” an unfamiliar woman’s voice yelled from nearby.
“Thou shalt be the end of Camelot, Arthur Pendragon —”
“I’m trying!” a man’s voice shouted. “But I can’t get close enough without getting electrocuted!”
“He is a monster...”
A battlefield of corpses spread out before me beneath a bloody sky —
The man tried to tear my hand off his neck, his magic stuttering out.
Guinevere sobbed, refusing to look at me as she stood from our bed, and I called out for her as she fled our chambers —
“Dad, he can’t breathe!”
A hand was around the young man’s throat, and his mouth tried to form words. His face reddened, his lips turning blue, and I realized he was mouthing my name.
I needed to help him. I needed...
Lancelot appeared before me, his sword trembling in his grasp from his anger. “Wouldst thou put thy vows to God above her happiness?” Lancelot asked with a sneer. At my silence, he spun around in dismissal, moving to descend the tower steps. “Then thou dost not deserve her.”
“Do not turn thy back on me!” I bellowed, causing the young man’s eyes to widen more because... Lancelot wasn’t here.
I saw my angry expression reflected in the man’s blue eyes. Saw my hand wrapped around his throat, could feel his racing pulse beneath my fingers.
“Who are you?” I demanded in a sluggish tone, my grip around his neck tightening.
There were other voices, ones lost to the sound of my thundering heart, my memories, and the storm raging around us. The wind whipped his black hair against his face, and his body shivered from cold or fear. Or maybe both.
My skin glowed red, and those pinpricks of pain crawled up my body as that monster within me paced in its cage.
The man’s mouth parted as if to speak, but still, no sound came out. His hands came up to grab my wrist, and my gaze caught on the marking on his skin.
A crown?
My hand loosened around his throat, allowing him to finally catch his breath. He coughed and sputtered, but I couldn’t seem to stop staring at the mark on his skin. It felt as if I should recognize it, but I didn’t know from where.
The lightning cocooning us fizzled out, disorienting me further as the now stormless night engulfed us.
Finally, the man stopped wheezing, and those shockingly blue eyes stole my attention once more, the mark forgotten.
“I’m Will,” the man coughed so simply, as if he hadn’t just answered the very question that had been plaguing me for these many years.
Will. Will. Will, Will, Will, Will, Will...
Something smashed into the back of my head, and Will’s lips forming my name was the last thing I saw before my vision blackened.