Chapter 23
Katarin had slept terribly again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a decent sleep.
Even the half-bottle of rum she’d downed before bed hadn’t helped – she sensed only the taste of the earth, the sound of the wind rustling the leaves, and the heat of fire upon her skin. Drums beat through her blood.
She scowled at the ocean, leaning against the railing.
The crew went about their business, methodical and practiced.
Kayrus had been voted quartermaster in Iouen’s absence, which made Kat smile.
Her ship was in good hands. She glanced up – the sky was free of clouds, and the sails cupped the breeze.
Two nights ago, a storm had raged across the ocean, the violent rocking of the ship almost tossing Kat from her bed.
By the time she’d hurried out onto the deck, the wind had gone and the water was calm.
That had been enough to tell her that the storm wasn’t natural, but she hadn’t gone investigating.
She’d been able to tell from Jenyfer’s face that morning that something had upset the syhren, but after seeing the dreadful shadows beneath Ordes’ eyes and the tightness to his face, Kat had stayed out of it.
She leant against the railing as Jenyfer emerged from below deck.
She met Kat’s eyes but did not return the good morning nod Kat sent her.
Jenyfer’s mouth opened but whatever she wanted to say was cut off by Ordes dropping out of the sky like a bird.
As Kat began to make her way over to them, Jenyfer turned and threw herself overboard.
‘Where is she going?’ Katarin demanded of Ordes. ‘You look fucking awful by the way.’
Ordes said nothing.
‘Lover’s tiff?’ He was watching the water, doing a poor job of keeping his expression composed. Something in his eyes stopped the sharp words that had grown on her tongue. She swallowed them away. ‘Ordes, what’s going on?’
He sighed wretchedly then reached out and pulled her into his body, his arms folding around her as he held her tightly.
‘Alright, now you’re worrying me,’ Katarin managed.
Slowly, Ordes pulled away from her. He smiled, but it was shaky. ‘Take care, Katarin.’
‘Take care?’ she repeated. ‘What—’
Wings uncurled from Ordes’ back and before she could blink, he was gone.
‘What is going on?’ she asked blankly.
‘Katarin.’ Arthur’s voice, low and sorrowful. She spun to face him, halting once again at the shattered expression he wore. Something landed in her stomach, heavy and forceful and coated in dread. ‘They’re not coming back.’
She jammed her hands on her hips. ‘What do you mean they’re not coming back?’
‘Come with me.’
He led her to her cabin, opening the door for her and ushering her in before him. Kat licked her lips, taking a seat at her desk. Arthur didn’t sit. He paced, his movements stiff, and by the time he spoke, Katarin was ready to explode.
‘I told them to go.’
‘What? Why? We’re about to go to war, Arthur, in case you’d forgotten,’ Katarin bit out. ‘What possible reason could you have for—’
‘I know,’ her brother murmured, seating himself. His head dropped into his hands.
‘What’s going on?’ She recalled the look on Jenyfer’s face, the pain on Ordes’, his words. ‘Arthur?’
He looked up, eyes shadowed, and a dreadful fear grabbed hold of Katarin’s insides and squeezed so tightly she thought she’d vomit.
‘I can’t tell you, not yet.’
She licked her lips, twisting her head to look out the window. The sunlight bounced off the waves and dazzled her eyes. She wasn’t sure what to do. Normally, she’d demand an answer, bully her brother until he told her what was going on. But this time, she couldn’t do that.
Take care, Katarin.
Those words… sounded like goodbye.
Swallowing, she turned back to Arthur.
‘You’ll have to trust me, Kat,’ he whispered.
There was nothing she could do except nod.
Katarin was alone, with nothing but the growing dark and the wind for company. Leaves trickled down around her – autumn colours. The turning of the season. She swallowed, wiping her hands on her trousers as she got her bearings.
The path emerged from between two trees, one that she’d walked dozens of times as a child.
Katarin squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and followed it.
Trees arched overhead and the light was slipping away.
Kat quickened her pace. She wasn’t leaving this dreamspace until she’d found what she was searching for.
It was dark before the trees thinned and she was standing at the edge of a stream. The soft sound of trickling water was like music. Bent over the edge of the stream, a wooden bucket between her hands, was a woman.
Katarin let out a shaky breath. The woman glanced up. She didn’t seem surprised to see Katarin standing there. She set the bucket aside and straightened.
‘Morgaine,’ she said, her voice oddly disjointed.
‘Hello mother,’ Kat whispered.
Igraine smiled, the sight so familiar, so missed, that Katarin started to cry.
She dropped to her knees and then her mother was there, her arms folded around Katarin as she held her to her chest, like she used to when Kat was a child.
Igraine hushed her, rocking her gently. This wasn’t real.
When she woke her mother would be gone. Kat knew this and clung to her anyway.
‘I knew you’d be here.’ Kat sat back and wiped her face with her sleeve.
Igraine touched Katarin’s cheek, pushing the last of the tears from her skin. ‘I wondered when you’d come.’
‘I’m sorry it’s taken so long,’ Kat said. Overhead, stars winked between the branches. ‘I need your help.’
Her mother waited.
‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep going,’ Katarin said. She plucked a rock from the ground and tossed it into the stream. ‘Everything is going wrong.’
‘Tell me.’
Katarin took a deep breath and let it all pour out of her – everything that had happened since Igraine had died. Niniane, Avalon and The Night Queen, losing the ship and her crew, and then Merlin and the prophecy, the Treasures of the Gods, and Arthur.
Her mother’s eyes filled with tears.
‘You’d be proud of him,’ Katarin told her. ‘He’s like you – kind and gentle, but strong. Compassionate. He’ll make a good king, if that is still to be his fate. With Jenyfer and Ordes gone… I don’t know how to keep going, or if we should.’
Igraine’s eyes were soft. ‘You should.’
‘Why?’
‘Because this is the path Inanna has set for you, Morgaine. This is the path she would have you walk because it will eventually lead you back to Her,’ Igraine said. ‘I know you have pushed Her aside, and I understand why, but She has not forsaken you. Not now, and not ever.’
‘Even if I have forsaken Her?’ Kat challenged.
‘But you haven’t,’ her mother said. ‘You are here, in Cruithea, with the trees and the heartbeat of the earth beneath your feet. You have walked into the forest, into Inanna’s forest, as you – not as memory or a slice of the past. As you are now.’
Katarin found she had nothing to say. She hadn’t dreamwalked here for an Old One – she had come for her mother. But perhaps they were the same thing. Inanna was the Mother to Cruitheans – she was the earth and the trees and the rich soil, as much as she was the power of life and death.
Swallowing, Kat met Igraine’s eyes. ‘And Ereshki?’
‘We can’t have one without the other,’ her mother said.
‘Morgause knew this. She made a mistake banishing the Red One, for you cannot have life without death.’ She took Katarin’s hand again.
‘Arthur must reshape the world, Morgaine, and life will need to be given for that to happen. The Two in One knows this.’
‘But—’
‘Death is not the end,’ Igraine whispered. ‘It is part of the beginning.’
The sound of water became louder and Igraine began to fade.
‘No,’ Kat whispered. She clung tightly to her mother’s hand. ‘Not yet.’
Beneath her, The Excalibur rocked on the waves and Kat was tossed from Cruithea into darkness. She landed on her knees on cold stone. Blinking, she got to her feet, wondering where she was.
As her eyes adjusted, she realised she was standing in a long room filled with tables. Moonlight glinted through dusty windows.
A torch flared to life. Kat shielded her eyes, blinking.
‘Why is it that I can see you and not your brother?’
Katarin swallowed. ‘I don’t know, Mordred.’
‘Why are you here?’ His voice seemed to come from all around her. It sent chills skidding the length of her spine, digging into her with icy claws. ‘What do you want, Morgaine? Have you come to talk some sense into me?’
‘Can sense be talked into you?’ she asked. ‘Where are you?’
Light grew to illuminate the end of the room, revealing a dais and two thrones. Mordred was perched in one of them, his face hidden in shadows. Katarin approached him slowly. Something large and winged soared past the window. Arthur’s dragon?
‘It isn’t his,’ Mordred told her. ‘It’s mine.’
Katarin frowned. ‘You know about Arthur’s dragon?’
He nodded. ‘I have seen it, in my dreams. I can’t find him, but I can find the beast that is bound to him.
Do you want to know what I see in my dreams, cousin?
’ Mordred asked. He went on without giving her a chance to answer.
‘I see the Red Dragon defeat the White. I see it fall from the skies to crash into the earth.’ He stood, stepping from the dais and approaching her.
Katarin resisted the urge to step away. She still couldn’t see his face.
‘I see myself, sitting where I was, with a crown on my head,’ Mordred went on.
‘That isn’t going to happen.’
He chuckled. ‘And how do you plan on stopping me? You’re as weak as he is, Morgaine. Still a terrified child who wasn’t brave enough to take what was being offered to her.’
‘I didn’t have a chance,’ Kat snapped.
‘You didn’t want it,’ Mordred whispered. ‘And she still chose you.’
Kat said nothing.
‘When this is over, you’ll bend your knee to me,’ Mordred said.
‘I won’t and neither will Arthur.’
‘You won’t have a choice,’ her cousin said.
Behind him, something moved. A shape made of red mist. Katarin frowned, peering around him.
The mist shifted into a woman’s form before it dissolved and vanished into the shadows.
Kat jolted as Mordred’s fingers curled around her chin, forcing her to look at him.
‘Why can’t I see your face?’ she demanded.
She would not show fear, not to him. He said nothing, but she could feel him watching her, his eyes crawling over her flesh.
Kat thought about everything she knew of the dreamspace.
If she’d been the one to call Mordred to her, this was her space to control, not his. She could manipulate it if she wished.
Light danced around the edges of the room. Kat reached for it, calling it to her, urging it forward. Slowly, the dreamspace was illuminated. They were in a hall, in what she assumed was a castle. She’d walked into Dinas Emrys.
‘I want to see your face,’ she said.
Mordred let her go. ‘Then take a look,’ he hissed.
As the light fell on him, Katarin took a stumbled step back, her hands flying to smother her scream. The skin had been stripped from her cousin’s face. His eyes were hollow, deep and full of shadows. Muscle slid away from bone, revealing the gleaming white of a skeletal face.
Mordred’s jaw opened. She screamed and the dreamspace dissolved, leaving her sitting up in bed, the sheets gripped between her fingers, bile coating the back of her throat.