Chapter 46
CHAPTER 46
I can hardly walk straight. My head spins, and weakness assails my body as Wrythe’s lackeys lead me down the stairs. I’m having a full-blown asthma attack. They’re dragging me, their fingers pressing tightly into my biceps.
“I need my inhaler,” I wheeze.
Wrythe chuckles. “You’ll survive.”
All it took was an inhalation of the tiniest amount of biological agents to trigger my asthma. What would a concentrated dose do to a Fey?
“Am I infected?” I ask weakly. “Is this Feybane?”
“Yes, I believe you are,” Wrythe says. “Not a very strong viral load, I’m afraid, but you have been mildly affected, yes. You will recover from it, but of course, we have other ways to end your life.”
The only mercy right now is that little note I read. Demi-Fey can contract it but not spread it.
Wrythe sighs loudly. “And the Feybane has, of course, revealed who you are without your magic. Weak. Falling apart. Defective. Unable to breathe.”
What would happen when they unleashed a deadly virus targeting a weakened population?
I feel my airways narrow to a pinhole as I think of all the people I’ve met in Brocéliande. Aisling. Griflet. The unknown resistance members who were genuinely trying to help us. The demi-Fey kids in the Blue Dragon compound—that little blonde girl with curls who slept clutching her blanket.
I think of the Fey kids by the river in the countryside with their snowy mittens and rosy cheeks, and the one with a big gap where her baby teeth had fallen out.
I think of Talan murmuring, You looked like dawn .
And now they’re all going to die.
And it won’t stop there, of course. There are Fey in France and all over the UK who would spread it. Demi-Fey in our world will catch it, too. We’ll all die. There’s no controlling a weapon like this.
I have to do something. I have to let people know.
My mind is a whirlwind as Wrythe drags me through the halls of Avalon Tower.
Does he think he can stop me from telling everyone the moment I see them? The demi-Fey here have to stop him, and the humans, too. Not all of them are part of the Iron Legion. Not all of them are bloodthirsty for Fey deaths.
We’re approaching the stairwell that Tana was watching. I don’t see her, a good sign. Maybe she ran for help.
“Sir Wrythe,” Genivieve says, “we can take her back through the Pendragon quarters directly to our private interrogation facility. There’s no reason to do this publicly. It might cause chaos.”
“We don’t do things in the shadows anymore,” Wrythe says. “Cadets and knights have no right to curtail a Seneschal’s legitimate power. We need them to be afraid of the consequences. They will learn to comply.”
“But she can tell them about the biological agent.”
Wrythe scoffs. “Let her.”
My jaw clenches. Good. His confidence will be his weakness.
If there was ever a time to overthrow Pendragon control of Camelot, it’s now.
But the route we take to the bottom of the Merlin’s Tower is strange. Wrythe doesn’t lead us directly to the main doors. Instead, he makes his way through various shortcuts, as if he’s trying to avoid any scrutiny. Is he going to sneak me out and into the interrogation chambers after all?
Soon, I realize we’re taking a covered route to connect us to Lothian Tower, which makes no sense at all.
We step into the main hallway of Lothian Tower, and relief washes over me.
The route is completely blocked, packed with demi-Fey and cadets. Raphael stands in front, his arms folded, jaw clenched in anger. My eyes skim over the crowd, but I can’t spot my friends. Still, all these demi-Fey are my allies.
“Raphael,” I say weakly. “There’s a secret?—”
One of the goons hits me, a sudden punch into my stomach, and my breath whooshes out. I feel like I’m suffocating.
I glance up. Raphael unsheathes his sword, his eyes lit with silver, but Wrythe already has a dagger pressed to my throat. The knife edges into my skin.
“Step any closer, and she dies,” he tells Raphael.
“This is over, Wrythe,” Raphael says evenly. “Let her go.”
Wrythe pauses for a few seconds. “I am merely doing my job, protecting my people from a dangerous traitor.”
“Nia is an Avalon Steel Knight. She’s done more for our cause than any of you?—”
“Enough!” Wrythe raises his voice, his knife digging into my throat. “You want to do this here? Very well. Let’s talk about your precious Avalon Steel Knight. Where’s Tarquin?”
“Right here.” He steps up beside me and shoots me a disdainful look.
Wrythe eases the knife from my throat but presses it against my back, just next to my spine. “You’ll have your chance to talk here, mongrel,” he hisses in my ear, “but if you attempt to interrupt me before I have my say, I will ram my knife through your ribs so fast, you won’t get a single syllable out.”
Hatred roils through my veins. I’ll wait for my chance, and then I’ll tell Raphael and the rest everything. I’ll risk a stabbing to get the truth out.
And then Tarquin turns and reaches his arm back to bring another woman forward, and my heart sinks.
Mom.
She looks put together, for once. Her hair is dyed blonde, her makeup is perfect. Someone’s been looking after her.
I have no idea what she’s doing here, but I know it’s not good.
“Let her go,” I blurt. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Nothing to do with what?” my mom slurs.
Of course. Despite her tidy appearance, she’s still as much of a mess as ever.
“For those who don’t know, this is Brandy Melisande, Nia’s mother,” Tarquin says. “She’s a very nice woman and a famous actress. We’ve spent some time together.”
I can’t breathe.
My mother beams, her smile cotton-candy sweet. The expression sends cold, sour disappointment curdling inside me.
I want her to look at me, to think first about what I need. I want her to stop focusing on the audience of strangers before her. But I spent years wishing she were capable of being more, and I know better than to get my hopes up.
She flutters her eyelashes at Tarquin, and it might be the worst thing I’ve ever seen her do.
I’ve never been angrier with her in my life, not even when she smashed the table at my fifteenth birthday.
“I showed Brandy around a few days ago,” Tarquin continues, “and when we got here, she had something very interesting to say. Brandy, do you want to tell everyone?”
Slowly, the realization fills me, dark and toxic, like poison down my throat.
I understand why Wrythe made his way here, why he wanted to have this confrontation exactly here.
He knows. Wrythe knows.
And now Raphael will know, too.
My secret, the one I was guarding so closely from everyone here, is about to explode.
Wrythe shifts a bit closer to me, making sure that I see his blade. The message is clear: if I speak, he’ll kill me. I give my mom a pleading look, one I’ve given her many times before, a look that says, Mom, please don’t . Don’t make a spectacle. For once in your life, just be a mom.
She looks around and catches my eyes, and I see something there, a connection. She knows I want her to remain silent. I know she can hear the whistling wheeze as I breathe.
But then her gaze shifts, and of course, she’s lured by something she could never ignore. An attentive crowd.
“Well,” she says, her smile growing, “I told young Tarquin that I really love the chandeliers here, they make this place so majestic. And the banister, of course, it’s positively?—”
“I meant about the painting,” Tarquin interjects, his voice sharp and loud.
“Oh.” My mother laughs, turns around, and stares up at the painting above us all. The same painting I saw the very first day I came to this place.
It’s the towering Fey king dressed in black, driving his sword through a naked woman’s body, a pile of human corpses at his feet. His lips are curled in a twisted smile.
Mordred, my father.
“It’s really silly.” Mom says. “I just told young Tarquin that this man in the painting looks exactly like a man I met in Cornwall long ago. Now that Fey man was quite lovely, really. Not dangerous like the man in the painting, but I thought the similarity was uncanny.”
“And how many years ago, would you say?” Tarquin prods.
“Mom,” I try, “don’t?—”
The knife prods at my back.
“A long time, young man. I doubt you were even born. Maybe twenty-five…no, twenty-seven years.”
Silence stretches across the crowd.
My mom, energized by the shocked gazes that her words created, says, “It’s strange, really. He looks exactly the same. Such an incredible coincidence.”
“So, what?” Raphael says. “She met a man who looks like Mordred. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? He died in the Avalon War.”
“Really?” Wrythe says. “As I’ve told you all before, we’ve recently found a magical moth in Merlin’s Tower. As many of you know, moths were the spies of Morgan and her son, Mordred. And now, we found this on Nia Melisande.”
He raises his hand high to show the moth to everyone.
“And you lie constantly,” Raphael shouts. “You could have planted that on her.”
“Let’s ask Nia herself,” Wrythe says, still jabbing me in the back with his blade. “Tell me girl, is this moth yours?”
As I open my mouth to answer, I feel a twinge of pain on my palm. The scar of the Hemlock Oath. I can’t tell anyone the truth, or the oath will kick into effect. A fate worse than death by a dagger.
Somehow, Wrythe has figured this out. He must have seen the scar on my hand, and like Tana, recognized it for what it is—an ancient binding ritual. He connected the dots.
“Well?” Wrythe asks again. “This moth? Are you going to tell us anything about it? Or shall we take your silence as confirmation of what I said? You have made a pact with Mordred, your father. Yes?”
I gnash my teeth in frustration.
“I will take that as confirmation, then,” Wrythe declares, triumphant.
“There’s a secret room in Merlin’s Tower,” I quickly say. “And the Pendragons have developed?—”
“We’re not talking about your tales of conspiracy!” Wrythe’s voice drowns me out. “Do you deny coming here to plant this moth?”
The dagger presses through the fabric of my clothes. “A plague that can kill?—”
“Let’s try something else! Are you the daughter of Mordred Kingslayer? Are you working with him?”
I’m desperate now, my skin prickling with cold sweat. My knees have gone weak, and I’m shaking. I don’t know if it’s from anger, grief, or the effects of the toxins in the secret room, but the chaos is tangled in my ribcage like thorny briars.
I rasp, “Fey and demi-Fey, they want to kill every magical being?—”
“Why won’t you answer the questions? A simple no would suffice. Can you deny these allegations?”
“They plan to destroy everything?—”
By now, everyone in the crowd is muttering, a loud hum echoing through the hall. My voice, weakened by the virus, can hardly be heard above the din. Wrythe is simply shouting over me.
“Once you know the truth, it’s quite apparent. The similarity between Nia Melisande and Mordred Kingslayer is astounding. She can go through veils. She can find Fey who disappeared centuries ago, and she has. She found her father. You can see it in her features and the duality of her magic. We all know Mordred was also cursed by diametric magic. It’s what drove him mad, isn’t it? It’s what sent him into this very tower on a murderous rampage. The Kingslayer. And of course, this wretched, rotten heritage is why you failed to assassinate Auberon and Talan. Because of Nia, we failed, and our soldiers have kept dying because of her . Our agent was working directly with Mordred Kingslayer, her kin!”
The noise is rising to an uproar, and shouts echo off the ceiling. My eyes meet Raphael’s.
I see the shock in his silver eyes as the truth dawns on him. He knows now that I really am Mordred’s daughter, and that I’ve hidden it from him.
Raphael has sworn to destroy the line of Morgan. He has sworn to kill me.
“I have been saying over and over that Nia Melisande cannot be trusted,” Wrythe shouts. “And now, you can finally see that I’m right. She will say any lies to protect herself. She will manipulate and deceive and mislead, using the tools that we taught her against us, so that we don’t see the simple truth. She is Mordred’s daughter, and she follows in her father’s footsteps.”
And with that, Wrythe’s lackeys wrench me away. A few people step forward to stop them, but others interject, pulling them back. Arguments break out, fists flying.
Despair washes over me. In one fell swoop, Wrythe has split the camp that opposed him, sowing discord between them. And as a bonus, he’s turned me into a pariah.
This is how it ends. Not with war drums and a fight to the death, but with my mother smiling at a crowd and my voice dwindling to nothing.