Chapter 60
Arthur lingered outside Jalen’s room. The door was ajar. Voices eased into the hall – a woman’s, exasperated, and then Jalen’s, argumentative. Jalen had been moved from the large entrance room that served as a healing centre a few days ago. Swallowing, Arthur pushed open the door and stepped in.
Calla had her hands on her hips, lips pursed in annoyance. A bowl of bloodied water sat on the floor near the bed, a bundle of bandages next to it. Jalen’s wounds had been cleaned and redressed, Arthur surmised. Calla and Jalen were too busy glaring at each other to have noticed him.
He cleared his throat. ‘Is everything alright?’
Calla’s head whipped around. Seeing him, she dropped into an awkward curtsey.
‘Please don’t,’ Arthur said. ‘It isn’t necessary.’
She straightened, rolling her eyes in Jalen’s direction. ‘Maybe he’ll listen to you,’ she said crisply.
Jalen muttered something mutinous under his breath.
‘Oh?’ Arthur drifted closer to the bed. Sunlight slanted into the room from the small window, falling across Jalen’s lap in a thick band. His chest was bare, his shoulder covered in bandages.
‘He’s being extremely difficult. I caught him trying to get out of bed,’ Calla added.
‘And he’s not allowed out of bed, I take it?’ Arthur asked.
‘No,’ she said firmly, bending to collect the bowl and bandages. ‘Two more days, at least.’
Jalen sighed, then met Arthur’s eyes.
‘Well,’ Arthur said. ‘If Calla says you’re to stay in bed, you’re to stay in bed.’
Calla smiled, triumphant, and swept from the room.
Arthur rubbed the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure what to say or why he was even here.
‘Has the new king been checking in on all of the wounded?’ Jalen asked. His voice was low and rough, different to how Arthur remembered.
He managed a smile. ‘Not exactly. I wanted to see how you were. Obstinate, apparently.’
‘She’s overreacting.’
‘You’re not a demi-god anymore though, remember?’ Arthur said. He sat in the chair near the bed, the sun quickly warming his back. ‘You’re a little pale.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Jalen,’ Arthur murmured. Their gazes locked until Jalen cleared his throat and looked away.
‘What’s it like being king?’ he asked.
‘I haven’t been one for long enough to comment,’ Arthur replied.
‘I’m not officially a king. I mean, there hasn’t been anything official.
’ He paused. ‘I’m not sure what to do next.
Merlin is gone. Katarin will return to Cruithea, once she realises that is where she should be, and Olwen will go with her.
Jen and Ordes…’ His voice trailed away. He wasn’t sure what to say or how to say it.
His heart hurt too much and part of him hoped they couldn’t find the Grail at all, so they wouldn’t have to go through with this plan, not if it would cost them Ordes.
‘You’ve got me,’ Jalen said. ‘In whatever capacity you need me, Arthur. You want advice? I’m probably not the best person to give it, but I can try. A friend? I can be that as well. Someone to listen, without judgement… whatever you need,’ he repeated.
‘Why did you come back?’ Arthur asked. With the heat of the battlefield behind him, he wanted the rest of the answer. Jalen had told him what he needed to hear at the time, but Arthur knew there was more to it.
Jalen was silent for so long, Arthur wasn’t sure he’d answer.
Eventually, he sighed. ‘To see this through. To help see the end of what I helped set in motion. And to see you.’ He sat up a bit straighter, trying to hide his wince.
‘To apologise and let you know that, despite what I did, I care for you. That won’t ever change, even if you never find it in yourself to forgive me.
So, if you’ll have me, I’d like to stay here and watch you build a new world. But that is up to you.’
Arthur didn’t need to think about it. Jalen had been with him since the beginning.
He’d been the first person to ever listen to what Arthur thought.
He’d helped without realising it, giving Arthur the courage to speak up.
To oppose his father and take the first terrified steps into a new life. ‘I’d like that.’
He caught the smile on Jalen’s lips before the former demi-god turned his face down. Silence fell between them. It was both awkward and not. Familiar, reminding Arthur of how they used to be together in Kernou – a sort of hesitant awareness.
‘We haven’t found the Grail,’ he said. ‘It’s here, in this castle. I know it, but I don’t know where.’
‘Do you have any clues?’ Jalen asked. ‘I might be able to help.’
Arthur’s muscles bunched, then he forced himself to relax.
This was not the same Jalen who had been bound to Niniane.
This was not the same man who had reported their every move, their every discovery, to a goddess who’d enslaved him.
This was the Jalen that Arthur remembered from before all this began.
‘When I last saw Eseld in my dreams, she told me two things that I know are important,’ Arthur began. ‘She said that the White Dragon would lead me to the Grail, but I don’t know how that is possible. The dragon didn’t lead me to Camlann or this castle. I don’t know how to interpret that.’
‘And the other thing?’ Jalen asked.
Arthur shifted in his chair, leaning forward a little. ‘“Forever to be cast in stone, resting where once lay skin and bone.” My head is so full I can barely think.’
‘A tomb or a burial chamber,’ Jalen said, his eyes lighting up.
Arthur smiled. ‘I think you’re right. Now, all we have to do is find this chamber.’ He stood, unable to keep his hands from shaking with excitement. That was dulled, however, the moment he remembered the outcome of finding the Grail. ‘We’re going to use it,’ he said.
Jalen’s eyes widened. ‘Ordes—’
‘Has chosen to die to protect the world.’
That night, Arthur found himself standing in a great cavern with a roof of scooped dark rock. Water slid down the walls, the gentle dripping a constant melody. A dragon made of stone rested nearby, its great heart arrested, scaled skin cool and giant wings folded over it like a cloak. Firestorm.
A woman with billowing dark hair and bare feet hurried into the cavern. She was carrying something draped in cloth in her hands. Arthur’s heart leapt as he realised it was Eseld, and he realised what she was carrying.
The Grail. He could feel its magic.
Eseld glanced over her shoulder back the way she had come. She paused, but no footsteps descended the stone steps after her. Satisfied, she hurried past the dragon, headed for the far wall of the cavern.
Arthur followed her, heart in his throat.
When she reached the far wall, Eseld vanished.
Arthur blinked, then he saw it. A narrow slit in the rocks.
Slipping through, he found himself at the top of another set of roughly hewn stone steps.
He caught the tail of Eseld’s white gown disappearing around a corner and he hurried after her, squeezing through another gap in the rocks to find himself in a smaller cavern this time.
How far beneath the earth were they? The air was chilled and slightly damp.
Eseld was not alone.
A man in a dark cloak, hood covering his hair, stood with her before a stone pillar, its top smooth and flat and waist height, like a table. Carefully the Queen of Teyath set the Grail on the pillar.
‘He has no idea,’ she murmured. The man nodded. ‘My brother is so twisted by power – by the Goddess of Magic – that he fails to see what is right before his eyes.’
Niniane! Arthur bit his lip. They’d been told it was Ereshki who had corrupted Enyon but now… another lie. It had been Niniane who had told them that.
That day in Avalon, where Arthur learned of his fate, seemed an age ago.
‘What will you do with it?’ Eseld asked the mystery man.
He mumbled something too low for Arthur to hear.
Eseld frowned. ‘But can you be certain? Can your vision be trusted?’
Arthur almost fell over when the man reached up and removed the hood of his cloak, revealing his face.
Merlin. He had the same shoulder-length hair that Arthur was familiar with, minus the clinking glass beads. The same face, except the Merlin of the past wore a neatly clipped beard.
He nodded, his voice ringing with power when he spoke. ‘I have seen the Once and Future King too often now to think he is anything but a part of a true telling of the world as it will be, my Queen.’
‘And Niniane? How do we manage her? How do we stop her from finding this?’ Eseld asked, pulling the cloth that covered the Grail free. When she ran the tip of her finger over its stone edge, Arthur heard music.
‘Leave Niniane to me, my Queen.’ Merlin’s voice softened when he spoke next. ‘You are ready to do what needs to be done?’
‘I am.’
‘Dying is no easy thing, Eseld.’
She lifted her chin. ‘I am ready, Merlin.’
‘Your brother shall attempt to end your life. Tomorrow. His blade will be coated in poison. You must let it pull you between the worlds where you shall remain until Arthur Tregarthen is ready to learn his truth,’ Merlin said.
Arthur gripped the wall for support, his head spinning.
Eseld knew what her brother would do. She knew she would die and become the Fisher Queen.
How long had she waited between the worlds for him to stumble into her cave?
Merlin was speaking again. ‘When he comes to you, do not make it easy for him.’
Arthur couldn’t help but bristle.
‘He will need to be certain it is what he wants. Guide him. Show him what he needs to see but make him earn it,’ Merlin said.
Eseld frowned. ‘You said he would be the king the world needed.’
‘And he will be,’ Merlin replied. He turned, leaning against the pillar, and looked directly into Arthur’s eyes. ‘He has to believe he is worthy first.’
Arthur sucked in a breath, and then he was tumbling, falling through time and space, the world reduced to a kaleidoscope of colour and flashes of light. He woke in his bed, heart pounding, mouth dry.
He’d known that Merlin had helped Eseld hide the Grail, but the other things he had discovered left him reeling. He threw back the bedclothes, rushing from his bedchamber into the small sitting room, where he paused and closed his eyes.
In his mind, he heard the Sword of the White Dragon telling him to listen, to look, to feel.
Arthur concentrated, retracing the steps he had taken during his dreamwalk.
He saw a slice in a wall of rock, a set of stone steps leading into the darkness and a pillar like a table, the Grail resting atop it, waiting, waiting.
Arthur’s eyes flew open.
He knew where the Grail was.