CHAPTER TWELVE #3
The lake erupting wasn't coincidence—it couldn't be. Not when I’d been on the verge of claiming her mouth, of pulling her against me and losing myself in whatever dangerous game she was playing.
I was fairly certain she was the spark that had ignited this display of power.
The lake had reacted to her presence, to her emotions, not to mine.
Despite my bloodline's ancient connection to these waters, they had chosen to answer her call instead.
The churning water around her wasn't just nature gone wild—it was a distraction. A defense mechanism as old as magic itself.
Her power had erupted to escape what had nearly happened between us, what we’d both wanted in that charged moment before everything went to hell. She’d been seconds from surrendering to me, from giving her body to me fully. So, was this desperate display instinct or calculated sorcery?
The lake raged around her. Yet, there was no wind. Not even a breeze.
"You possess magic," I said, my voice low and accusatory—just as the heavens split open above us.
Rain fell—but only between us. A torrential sheet pouring from a sky that moments ago had been calm. The curtain of water shimmered like silver thread, droplets lingering unnaturally in midair.
"I am not—" she choked, breathless, shoving wet strands of hair from her face. Water lapped at her shoulders. The storm—her storm—formed a wall between us as she drifted backward, panic in every motion.
I stepped back as well—unthinking. Not from her, but from this. From the magic I couldn’t command. The lake had always obeyed the blood of Pendragon. Nimue had always answered me.
But this?
This was something different. Magic of another name.
And it didn’t fear me.
A low hum rose—deep, resonant—vibrating through my boots, into my bones, behind my teeth. I felt it more than heard it, like the earth itself was warning me to keep away from her.
“Nimue!” I shouted, scanning the lake’s surface for any trace of her.
No response.
“What is this?” I snarled at the girl, drawing Caliburn from where it lay sheathed at my side—my sword—a pitiful stand-in for the one that had rejected me. “What magic do you wield, witch?”
She stumbled back, soaked and trembling, an angry expression on her beautiful face. “I didn’t do this!”
The humming intensified, drowning out even the unnatural rainfall. It vibrated through the ground in heavy, rhythmic waves, as if something ancient stirred beneath our feet.
“Nimue!” I roared again. But deep down, I knew—this wasn’t her doing.
A wall of water rose then—not chaotic, but precise. It curved protectively around the girl, then lashed out at me, slamming into my chest like a battering ram. I staggered, breath knocked from my lungs, but remained standing.
The message was clear.
The lake had chosen her. And now it was protecting her.
Fury roared up in me. That poisonous ache of being denied something that should have been mine by blood and birthright. My grip tightened on the sword hilt, my magic crackling beneath my skin, begging to be unleashed.
She stood there, helpless and soaked, ringed in magic that bent to her as if she were born to it.
"Who the fuck are you?" I growled, my voice dipped in steel, enough to make armies falter.
She flinched but stood her ground. “I told you. I am no one.”
“No one doesn’t draw Excalibur.” My voice trembled with rage. “No one doesn’t command my lake.”
Do not harm her.
She said nothing. Just stared at me, eyes wide, mist curling around her feet like she belonged to it. As I watched, the mist grew heavier, denser. Then I understood—it was obscuring her.
"If you flee now," I warned, my voice cutting through the thickening mist like a blade, "you sign your own death warrant. I will hunt you to the ends of Logres and beyond. There will be no sanctuary, no refuge that my reach cannot find."
The dragon's fire stirred beneath my skin. The girl glanced behind her as though trying to judge whether she could outrun me. "Leave, and I will make your death a lesson that echoes through every village, every hovel where magic dares to breathe."
The mist continued to rise, fast and unnatural, swirling with a life of its own that defied the still air around the lake.
Each second brought another layer of white vapor, thick as cream and twice as opaque.
It rolled upward from the water's surface like smoke, but cold—bitterly, supernaturally cold.
After another few seconds, it swallowed her completely, her eyes the last things to disappear into the churning white.
Then the ancient trees vanished, their gnarled branches consumed by the creeping wall of fog.
Then everything—the shore, the water, even my own hands stretched before me—disappeared into the white.
"Show yourself!" I bellowed, stumbling blindly with Caliburn raised before me like a talisman against the unknown.
The blade's familiar weight should have been comfort, but here in this suffocating whiteness, it felt inadequate, almost laughable.
My voice vanished into the white void, devoured by the enchantment as surely as if the mist had swallowed sound itself.
The words didn't even echo—they simply ceased to exist the moment they left my lips.
I felt powerless for the first time in years. Small. Mortal. The sensation clawed at my chest like a living thing, awakening fears I'd buried beneath crown and conquest.
We cannot lose her!
The king's voice—my voice, the voice that had commanded armies and toppled kingdoms—meant nothing here. In this place where ancient magic held sway, where the air breathed with power, I was reduced to what I'd always feared being: just a man stumbling in the dark.
Mist filled my lungs with each ragged breath I took, tasting of lake water and something else—something wild and untamed that made the dragon stir uneasily in its cage of flesh and bone. My fingers clawed desperately at nothing but emptiness, grasping for any solid thing in this world turned white.
Breathe our fire.
Burn the fog away, the dragon commanded again, insistent.
I resisted. Leaning into the beast was dangerous—each time I surrendered control, it became harder to reclaim. But she was escaping.
Do not allow her to flee!
My fists clenched. Then, slowly, deliberately, I lowered the walls I'd spent years building.
The dragon surged forward with savage joy, scales rippling beneath my skin in phantom sensation.
Heat flooded my veins, scorching through muscle and bone until my blood felt like molten gold.
The dragonmark on my chest blazed with sudden fire, the ancient tattoo writhing as if the creature itself moved beneath my flesh.
I exhaled.
Not breath—flame.
Gold and crimson fire erupted from my lungs, rolling outward in waves that devoured the unnatural mist. The fog recoiled, hissing as it burned away, retreating from the inferno that poured from within me. Embers danced through the air like fireflies as the fog disintegrated.
The lakeshore materialized through thinning smoke.
But it was empty.
She was already gone.
Hunt her, the dragon snarled, fury igniting every nerve. Find her. Make her submit.
The dragon's fury became mine, indistinguishable from my own rage. My hands shook with the need to pursue, to chase her into whatever shadows had swallowed her whole.
Rally the guard, the beast commanded, its voice no longer separate but woven into my thoughts.
I drew in breath—felt the dragon's power coil in my chest like smoke before a flame—and released it not as fire but as sound. My voice erupted from my throat, amplified a hundredfold, carrying across the distance between lake and castle with supernatural force.
"GUARDS!" The word thundered through the night, shaking leaves from branches. "TO THE LAKE! NOW!"
The command would reach every corner of Camelot, penetrating stone walls and wooden doors as if they didn't exist.
"Find a servant girl with white hair." My voice cracked like lightning. "Bring her to me. ALIVE."
The last word hung in the air, sharp with warning.
I stood there, chest heaving, watching mist curl away from the water's edge.
Somewhere in that darkness, she was escaping.
But she wouldn't get far.
I breathed out the dragon's fire once more, and the last wisps of fog dissolved into nothing. But she was already gone.
I should have killed her when I had the chance.