Chapter Thirty-Nine
T he sound of a soft voice woke me from the fitful sleep I had fallen into after Bedivere and Gawain left.
“Your majesty,” the voice said, sounding very much like the voice of a little boy. “Your majesty, wake up.”
Jerking upright, I whirled around to find the very last person I expected crouched in front of the bars.
“ Henry ?” I gasped far too loudly and slapped a hand over my mouth.
Glancing around, I found that the guards who had been standing in front of my cell were gone for the moment—probably assuming I wasn’t going anywhere.
“You can talk?” I asked the boy as I scurried forward until I was face-to-face with him. Often he tagged along with Andrivete, his fingers tightly bunched around her skirt. But never had I heard him speak.
“A little,” the boy admitted with a whisper, his big eyes moving from my face to the cell next door.
Lancelot was still passed out on his stomach on the floor of his cell, his face pale. The wounds on his back were definitely going to get infected if we left them for much longer, though I didn’t know how I was going to treat them without my magic.
“How are you not under Morgana’s spell?” I asked, reaching through the bars to pull the little boy’s cold hands into my own. It felt so good to be able to talk to someone who wasn’t under the witch’s thrall.
Henry shrugged his thin shoulders. “Dunno. I move really quietly, I s’pose. It scares Mama Andrivete sometimes. I woke up and everyone was gone and when I found em’ they acted like I never existed.”
The look on his face was so sad it made my chest squeeze. Then he reminded me of my current predicament.
“You smell funny, your majesty,” he said, scrunching his nose.
I had forgotten all about the heat still simmering just underneath my skin. I no longer felt the same burning desire I had been struggling with before, instead I just felt exhausted and weak, as if my body was unable to handle the brunt of a heat without suppressants and alphas to soothe me through it.
I was pretty sure that it didn’t bode well for my overall health, but I had a feeling that a different kind of fire would kill me before this damned heat did.
“What is going on around the castle right now?” I asked, changing the subject and moving away from the topic of my smell.
Henry’s lips pressed together, and for a moment, he looked as if he didn’t want to tell me. But then he sighed and gave my hands a squeeze. “Everyone is acting strange. They keep talking about an… execuption? Exetruting?”
He frowned as if trying to remember the correct word.
“Execution?” I provided softly, my stomach dropping as a wave of nausea suddenly filled me.
Henry’s expression brightened. “Yes! An execution! They say it’s supposed to happen at sunrise tomorrow.”
I swallowed hard, realizing that I had slept for most of the day and it was already night outside again.
Had Bedivere set Merlin free from his prison? Had Gawain made it to my father?
I wasn’t sure help would even arrive on time before I was put to death in one of the most horrific ways imaginable and by the man I loved no less.
It was a fact that I could no longer avoid. I loved Arthur and I knew that, wherever he was trapped inside of his head, he loved me too.
My death would end him in ways that I couldn’t imagine. Never had I considered that my fate would be the one cut so short, not the other way around. How was I supposed to just give up on all of this now that I had found it?
The family that I had so desperately yearned for when I was sitting alone in my flat in London was within my reach and some bitch in a green dress was about to take it from me.
“Can you get some healing supplies for his back, Henry?” I asked hesitantly, not wanting to get the boy into trouble.
But Henry was eager to help. “Of course. It should be easy since most folks are busy preparing for a feast for after the execution.”
Judging by the way he continued to say the word, I was fairly sure that Henry had no idea what the word ‘execution’ meant, nor did I think he knew who exactly was going to be executed or else his expression would have been far more somber.
“Just be careful not to be noticed,” I told him as he stood up and scurried for the door.
Then I was alone again.
“Lancelot,” I tried softly, hoping to wake the alpha up, but he didn’t stir.
For just a moment I was worried he had died from his wounds, but one check on our new bond told me that he was just asleep. All four of my bonds were still intact—even the one I shared with Arthur though it was still dark and shadowed right now because of Morgana’s magic.
Henry finally came back after what felt like hours, his arms full of supplies.
“You should eat, your majesty,” he told me as he held out a piece of bread.
My heart swelled with affection for the boy as I took the bread gratefully and ate it in several ravenous bites.
Then, much to my surprise, Henry slipped through the bars of Lancelot’s cell.
“Mama Andrivete says I am small for my age,” the little boy told me sheepishly when he glanced over to see my shocked expression. “She says I can fit into the teeniest little spaces, like a little mouse.”
I watched as the boy got to work, pouring various bottles onto Lancelot’s back and making the alpha grunt even in his sleep.
“Did she also teach you about those?”
This time Henry shook his head. “No, my old mama told me about these, she used to heal people in the village.”
“Before the fire?” I asked, surprised and hoping we didn’t tear a little boy away from his mother if she was still alive. I wondered if any of the refugees who had settled into the village knew her.
But Henry shook his head again. “No, she died a long time ago. Got really sick.”
Then he lapsed into silence as he continued to spread salves on Lancelot’s battered back.
When he was done he slipped back through the bars and stood staring at me, his eyes seeming much older than they had earlier.
“I can steal the keys from the guards,” he offered, his hands gripping the metal.
It was my turn to shake my head. “It’s too dangerous. I need you to go outside of the castle gates and find Sir Bedivere’s forge. Hide there until everything is over.”
“But…”
“Promise me you won’t come out until everything is over and Sir Bedivere comes to get you,” I told him fiercely. If I was going to die there was at least one person I wanted to save from having to watch it.
Henry nibbled on his bottom lip before nodding. “Yes, your majesty. I promise.”
Then he was gone and I was alone with only the soft, even breaths of a sleeping Lancelot in the cell next door. Color had returned to his face after Henry’s earlier ministrations—not that it would matter much if they killed him too.
Pulling my knees up to my chest, I wondered just when Gawain and Bedivere would return. I knew they were trying their best to get back to me, but I hoped it was sooner rather than later.
One thing I had never considered about being lit on fire in front of a crowd before was just how much stage fright I still carried from my childhood.
There was a reason that I always hung out behind the scenes during my theater kids days, more content to paint the sets than to actually act on it and it had to do with staring out at all of the faces in the crowd and nearly hurling my dinner on them.
Now, as a slack-faced Sir Kay bound my wrists over my head I realized that I still felt the exact same as I had in the third grade when I nearly vomited all over the stage as tree #3.
The second strange thing was how eerily quiet everything was around us.
Every person gathered in front of me wore the same blank expression, not making a peep as they stared up at where I stood on a massive pyre.
To my left sat Morgana, Arthur, and a very bored looking Mordred. I couldn’t tell if the kid was watching paint dry or about to watch me be lit on fire for the entire kingdom to see, but either way it seemed as if he would have rather been anywhere else but here.
My gaze drifted over to Arthur who sat with his hands on his knees, his eyes staring forward.
Desperately, I reached for his bond the same way I had ever since he pulled me from Lancelot’s arms, but it was still dark and far away as if someone had stretched it past the point of elasticity.
No, it was clear that Arthur’s mind was far away from me right now.
I looked to Lancelot who was kneeling in front of the royals, still shirtless as he stared at me with desperate eyes.
He had woken up part of the way through being dragged out of the dungeons and had tried to fight, but all it took was one fist to his wounded back and the alpha’s legs had crumbled beneath him.
“Guinevere!” he bellowed once more, pulling against the guards who flanked him on either side.
I could feel the sheer level of his emotions through our freshly minted bond and it made a lump rise in my throat.
The typically broody alpha seemed to be feeling every emotion under the sun and I just wished I had been able to experience it more. Underneath his rough exterior the alpha seemed to bleed with it all in a dizzying array.
I wanted to call out to him, to tell him everything would be okay, but I wasn’t sure it would be.
The sun was high in the sky above our heads now and Bedivere and Gawain should have returned with reinforcements long ago.
My execution was moments away and there was neither hide nor hair of my other alphas and the only thing I could feel down their end of the bond was a sense of hurried panic, telling me they were on their way but they may not make it in time.
Arthur stood to address the crowd.
“My wife, ” he began, his voice carrying, though it was not lost on me that Morgana’s lips seemed to be moving right along with his. It was like Arthur was a marionette and Morgana was holding all of the strings as his puppetmaster. “Has chosen to break our most sacred covenant.”
A chorus of boos that were far too in-sync to be normal filled my ears, sending a chill down my spine.
Why was Morgana going this far for what amounted to theater? There was no one here who was not under her spell.
I was just grateful she at least saw fit to give me a linen shift to cover myself with before they dragged me in front of so many people. At least I would die with some of my dignity still intact.
My heat seemed to have abated for now, my skin not feeling quite so itchy or hot. However, I was sure that was about to change as I watched Arthur grab a torch off of the metal holder it had been sitting in.
“And what do we do to those that sin in our hallowed halls?” he boomed.
“Burn them!” the crowd chanted, sounding more like a choir than individual voices. “Burn them, burn them, burn them!”
Morgana lifted a hand and the guards next to Lancelot pulled him up onto his feet and dragged him to my pyre.
He struggled against him as they tied him up behind me so that we were back-to-back as Arthur approached with the torch.
“Lancelot,” I said, wishing I could see his face. “I’m so sorry .”
My words hitched on a sob as Arthur slowly approached, looking nothing like the man I had fallen in love with and the crowd continued to chant.
“Do not apologize,” he said fiercely, his voice tight with emotion as his hands reached around the post to hold onto mine. “For I do not regret even a moment of our time together.”
“But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. This is all wrong !” I wailed, hoping my desperate cries would somehow reach my husband.
Arthur came to stand in front of me and I stared into his expression. I saw the hint of something deep in his eyes. Had that been panic? Or just a trick of the light?
“Arthur, please,” I said, my voice just above a whisper. “I love you. We all do. Don’t do this, don’t let her win.”
Another flicker, Arthur’s empty expression flinching for just a moment before he lifted the hand that was carrying the torch and let go of it finger-by-finger until it tumbled down onto the packed dry grass at the base of what was about to become a funeral pyre for me and Lancelot.
The heat was almost immediate as the timber caught on fire.
“Arthur!” I called after him as he turned on his heel and began to walk back in the direction of where Morgana and Mordred were sitting.
“Close your eyes, Guinevere,” Lancelot told me, his fingers squeezing mine tight as he began to cough.
Gray smoke filled my vision as the flames continued to lick higher and higher. I wanted so desperately to put the fire out and if not for the infernal collar around my neck I would have.
Squeezing my eyes shut from the world, I thought about my mom and the night that I had looked at her portrait with Arthur and I’d joked that he was going to get me burned at the stake.
I had no idea how right I had been with that statement as my lungs began to fill with the harsh smoke and heat began to burn my bare feet.
Would he ever know what he had done? Would Morgana ever release him from her thrall? For his sake I hoped not. The guilt would eat Arthur alive if he knew.
“I love you,” I whispered through the smoke. To Arthur, to Gawain, to Bedivere, to Lancelot, and even to Merlin who I had yet to explore my connection with in the way I wanted to.
If I was going to die, I wanted to utter it out loud one time and mean it for all of them.
Inhaling the smoke was starting to make me dizzy, like I was about to pass out from it before I could truly feel the heat of the flames. For that, I was almost grateful as I let my head fall forward, too weak to hold it up any longer.
I was just about to let the darkness take me when I felt it.
Wind.
It whipped around us, clearing the smoke from my vision and snuffing the flames out just in time as a familiar face came into my line of vision.
“Merlin!” I gasped weakly as the wizard offered me a worried smile, his hands already moving to where my hands were tied to the post.
“Sorry for being so late,” he whispered as I fell into his arms, weighing the man down as he pulled me from the pyre. “We were gathering some reinforcements.”
“For Camelot! For Queen Guinevere!” the familiar voice of King Leodegrance boomed over the sudden confusion.
Men in Cameliard’s bright blue livery filled the courtyard and began to fight with the castle folk who brandished whatever was nearby.
“Do not kill them!” Bedivere shouted from behind us as he and Gawain worked to pull Lancelot who seemed to have passed out again down from the post. “They know not what they do!”
“I’m so glad to see you,” I sobbed, my arms wrapping around Merlin’s neck.
“And I you,” Merlin said, his voice soft. “I nearly surrendered myself to the fate the gods set before me, but then someone sent a savior after me before I could do so at great cost to herself.”
“I wonder who that was,” I croaked, my voice rough from the smoke.
Merlin grinned at me. “Yes, I wonder.”
Behind him, I watched as Arthur stood from his seat and pulled Excalibur from its sheath.
“Uh, angry brainwashed king at twelve o’clock,” I told Merlin and pointed with a shaky finger. We had been saved, but the battle was far from over.
But Merlin did not seem concerned by the approaching threat, instead his thumbs continued to brush ash from my face.
“Merlin?” I prodded, my eyes glancing over at Arthur who began to twirl the sword around his hand in a way that could only be described as menacing.
“Do you remember what I told you about our magic together?” Merlin asked, his voice soft as he stared at me with glowing pale green eyes.
“Are we having a lesson right at this moment?”
“Just answer the question, Gwen,” Merlin chastised, his face impassive despite the approaching threat.
“You said that I act like a conductor of sorts for you, amplifying your magic,” I finally supplied, my fingers tightening on Merlin’s neck as his words finally started to make sense. “Are you saying you can disrupt Morgana’s magic if I help you?”
“I am uncertain,” Merlin said with a half-smile. “Though I am eager to find out.”
Merlin’s lips dropped to mine, not seeming to care that I was covered in soot and probably smelled like shit after not being able to bathe for two-days.
The collar around my neck dropped away and magic surged through me again and right into Merlin.
A wave of magic burst from us, knocking people off their feet as the magical thrall that Morgana had cast on our people was obliterated in a moment by our combined magic.
People who had previously been fighting with Leodegrance’s men stopped and began to look around in confusion, dropping whatever weapon they were carrying and holding up their hands.
“What happened?” I heard someone asked as I broke my kiss with Merlin and dropped my head to his chest, suddenly exhausted.
“Guinevere!” Arthur’s voice carried over the sudden cacophony of bewilderment.
I could feel him again and the relief was so potent that my knees gave out just as I was pulled into a pair of strong arms.
“Are you hurt? I tried to break free but I could not,” Arthur told me, his voice panicked as his big hands ran over my body checking for injuries.
“I’m not,” I told him as I threw my arms around his neck and held on for dear life. “But Lancelot is, can you take me over to him?”
Arthur’s breathing was heavy as he moved to where Gawain and Bedivere were sitting on either side of Lancelot who looked pale again, his back weeping from freshly opened wounds.
“Lancelot, I—” Arthur began as he stared down at his handiwork with horror.
Lancelot held up a hand to stop him. “It is nothing, your majesty, you were not in your right mind.”
“My dreams did not show me this part,” Arthur said so softly that only I could hear it. I made a mental note to ask him about it later as I gave him a gentle tap to put me down.
My legs were wobbly as I crouched next to Lancelot and called upon my magic. It came easily, almost eagerly, to my fingers as I pressed my hands into Lancelot’s back, willing the flesh to knit itself together again.
It would leave scars—some of the wounds were too deep even for my healing abilities—but at least he would be whole again.
People spoke around me as I worked and I could hear Andrivete and Kay asking Arthur questions before beginning to give orders in an effort to organize our people.
I ignored it all and continued to pour my magic into Lancelot’s back until a pair of callused hands stopped me.
“Guinevere, love,” Gawain whispered as he pulled my hands away. “You look pale.”
“Do I?” I asked dazedly. I hadn’t realized how much of my magic had been used up today and just how nauseous I still felt from my heat being left unattended to.
My ears began to ring loudly as the world flashed a bright white, then everything went black. Then I was lost.