Chapter Forty-Four
G uinevere led us to a hill overlooking the would-be battlefield. The vantage of it was clear: we would be able to see every bit of the battle from start to finish.
She had ridden to it as if she had seen it many times in her head and now I watched as she paced like a madwoman, biting at her nails as she watched both armies form.
Arthur’s banner was raised, as were the banners of Leodegrance, Benoic, and the other tribal kings. The lake—which had been the lifeblood for all of the territories around it—sparkled in the late-noon light as a backdrop of the battle-to-come. It was a stark contrast next to the bloodshed that was about to occur.
They had been waiting for such a battle and now the Saxons, joined by men from Lothian and Gorre, seemed to chomp at the bit in a disorganized cacophony.
Agravaine had left for Lothian weeks ago, though now I was uncertain of his fate as I saw the men he was supposed to lead as their new king falling in with the Saxon forces.
“Gwen,” Merlin said softly as he pulled her hands away from her mouth. “It will do you no good to torture yourself.”
I turned to watch them as Guinevere glared up at Merlin with a sudden fierceness. “You know why I have to do this in the first place, don’t you Merlin. You know how this ends.”
Merlin shifted uncomfortably. “I have seen flashes of it, yes, it will be a great battle.”
Guinevere threw her hands up in the air, batting away his grip on her fingers. “That’s not all—the gods haven’t deigned to show you the end where everyone d—”
She was cut off by a gasp as she doubled over. I moved to catch her but she waved even my touch off, her brown eyes wide as the sound of a horn filled the low valley.
“It’s starting,” she murmured as she watched the opposing sides of battles clash together like ants. “I have to stop it. I have to change it.”
“What?” Merlin asked, frowning as she whirled away from us. She hurried over to her mare—a mare that had never seen even a day of battle before—and pulled herself into the saddle. “Gwen you cannot ride into battle, such a thing is absolutely preposterous.”
But Guinevere wasn’t listening to him, her brown eyes locked on the battle in front of us. She turned, the wind tousling her loose brown curls as she set her mouth into a firm line. “When you told me you weren’t going to fight to get free from that trap you said that the gods had shown me standing here alone.”
Merlin nodded, swallowing hard as he seemed to be considering his options. I was considering my own—I never wanted to put my hands on my omega, but if I needed to do so in an effort to stop her from riding into certain death then I would.
“Yes, but—”
Guinevere cut him off. “But I’m not standing here alone. That means the future can be changed and I’m the only one who really knows what’s going to happen so it’s on me to change it.”
She gripped her mare’s reins in her hands before giving them a snap. “ Hyah !”
Then she was off before we could say anything else.
“She is going to get herself killed,” I barked at Merlin, pulling myself into my own horse’s saddle to give chase.
“She’s trying to save you all,” Merlin said as he followed suit. “I just do not know from what. The gods did not see fit to show me such things.”
I ignored him and spurred my horse on with a harsh kick, urging it to follow after the queen who seemed to be carried by the wind down the hill.
“It matters not. All that matters is that she is riding headlong into chaos and we must stop her,” I shouted over my shoulder at the wizard.
The sound of clashing swords filled my ears as we grew closer to the battlefield, as did the rumbling overhead as the previously sunny day grew dark with clouds.
“She is conjuring these!” Merlin hollered over the sudden thunder rumbling through the valley as a crack of lightning fell upon the men fighting on the battlefield.
“How is she able to control such a thing?” I asked, dumbfounded as more lightning began to rain down.
“She cannot—not really,” Merlin replied, leaning forward to spur his horse on faster. “She has no control over the lightning or who it is hitting. Her panic is making her magic run wild, can you not feel it?”
I could feel nothing but the cloying panic that I felt from Guinevere down the bond. She was practically blind with it as rain began to fall from the sky in thick, heavy drops that obscured my own vision as we approached.
Rubbing a hand over my face to wick the water out of my eyes, I watched in horror as Guinevere and her mare disappeared into the fray.
“Merlin!” I bellowed over my shoulder and suddenly the battling crowd parted in front of me.
“I don’t have much more to offer than that, I am afraid!” He called after me. “I will follow after, get her out of there!”
I kept my eyes on Guinevere, ignoring the death and destruction all around me as I focused only on her, and once I got her out of this bloodshed, I swore I was going to throttle her myself.
“Guinevere!” I shouted over the din of violence, hoping she would hear me and stop, but her gaze was set on the thickest part of the battle where, undoubtedly, Arthur would be.
She was trying to get to him, almost desperately as the water turned to hail—seeming to feed off of her emotions and rain down on those who were battling one another regardless of if they were friend or foe.
Guinevere had nearly made it to the throng when I felt it. A thread of our bond seemed to pull taut and snap. It nearly knocked the air out of me as I realized what exactly such a thing meant.
Then Guinevere’s scream of anguish confirmed it.
One of us had fallen and I realized exactly what it had been that she had been trying to stop in the first place.
And I was so distracted by the sudden onslaught of pain coming from our shared bond that I did not see the sword coming right in my direction until it was too late.