Chapter 65
Lamorna didn’t like her new view. Camlann Plain was green and lush, and there were even flowers sprouting from the grass that swayed in the breeze.
To her, it looked wrong. There was a hole inside her, a great cavern of emptiness that would never be filled.
Perhaps this was her punishment for her role in this terrible saga.
She’d watched from her window as the dead were laid out on the ground outside the castle walls and burnt, embers from the funeral fires floating all the way to her like some horrible parody of the fireflies she had seen in Cruithea.
She wondered if they’d burnt Mordred’s body yet. She hadn’t asked, and part of her did not want to know. They would have, she realised. Arthur would have respected his cousin, even though Mordred had tried to break the world.
Lamorna was tired, right down to her bones, as if the emptiness had gotten inside them as well.
Soon, she would be nothing but a shell, ready to be cracked open, the hollowness inside her exposed to the world.
She couldn’t understand why Arthur had not punished her.
She’d deserve it. But all he had done was let her keep her room and asked her how he could help.
No one could help her.
Lamorna wasn’t sure how long it had been since Mordred died.
Sometimes, she caught herself staring at the door, waiting for him to come in, wondering at each set of footsteps she heard in the hall.
Then she’d remember and burrow beneath the blankets and sob.
She wondered if she had ever told him she loved him.
Once, when things were difficult, Lamorna would turn to the One God and the Word. Now she didn’t even have that.
Jenyfer had told her Ulrian Tregarthen was dead. Lamorna should have been pleased with that, but she didn’t have the energy. He’d gone mad, according to Jen, and Lamorna only wondered if they were all mad to have been caught in this in the first place.
What would her fate have been if she’d never left Kernou? If she’d never gone to Cruithea and met Mordred, he’d never have followed her back, never have gotten tangled in the web she helped him spin. He’d never have come here, to this ruined place. He’d still be alive.
Poison, Lamorna decided. That’s what she was. She destroyed everything. She always had.
She should have stayed dead.
With a sigh, she climbed off her bed and went to sit in one of the armchairs.
Elaine would be here soon. The Red Sister came every evening at the same time, and they played the same game.
Elaine would sit and stare at Lamorna, and Lamorna would pretend everything was fine.
She never spoke about the emptiness growing inside her or how her bones felt hollow and her organs shrivelled.
She never spoke about the way her blood burnt or how the back of her throat stung like she’d swallowed the ocean.
Jenyfer was gone, and she’d taken Melodias’ sword. Lamorna thought she’d dreamt that moment, but when she’d woken, Calla had told her that Jenyfer and Ordes were gone. He’d done it, then.
Lamorna smoothed her hair back from her face. She wouldn’t see her sister again.
When Elaine came in, the Red Sister took her usual seat and did not speak. Lamorna grew irritated at this game, at the feeling in her body, at how tired she was, at the green grass outside her window.
She needed answers. She needed… to repent. The scars on her knees ached.
‘Can you get her to come?’ Lamorna’s voice was rough. It hurt her throat to talk.
Elaine frowned. ‘The Red One?’
‘Yes.’
Blind eyes blinked in confusion. ‘Why?’
‘Because I am done, Elaine. My life is done. I should have died – I already died – a long time ago, but I came back. Was it for her?’ Lamorna asked. Her palms felt wet. She wiped them on her clothes.
Elaine nodded and closed her eyes. Lamorna expected to see red mist rise from Elaine’s skin, but there was nothing but the soft breeze slinking through the window to tickle the back of Lamorna’s neck.
She swallowed, waiting, wondering how long it took for a goddess to answer a request. Would Ereshki even come?
The breeze became a wind, strong and powerful, pushing Lamorna’s hair around her face until she could see nothing but pale gold. She shoved it aside and gasped.
Standing before her was a woman draped in red, a braid of dark hair sneaking over her shoulder.
She carried a sword in one hand, a shield in the other.
Her eyes were fully black, her skin like burnished gold.
A glyph was etched into the skin between her eyes, but it was not a symbol Lamorna recognised.
She stared at the goddess, at the one who had pulled the strings for hundreds of years, who had orchestrated this whole thing.
Every moment of pain and confusion, every moment of loss and fear was because of her.
Lamorna rubbed her damp hands on the arms of the chair, not taking her eyes from Ereshki.
The goddess watched her back, no emotion on her beautiful face.
Nothing to show that she knew who Lamorna was or what she had given up for the world Ereshki had designed.
‘You could have saved him,’ she said eventually.
‘I could have, yes,’ the goddess answered. She came closer, and Lamorna did not move as Ereshki bent and placed her hands against Lamorna’s cheeks. ‘You have been one of my most devoted servants, even when you did not know who I truly was. Even when you learnt the truth, you didn’t leave me.’
‘Why did Ankou bring me back?’ Lamorna asked. ‘Why did you?’
‘For this – for Mordred. So he would take the path laid out for him. So he would be led here and all of this could unfold,’ Ereshki replied.
‘You sent me back to guide him to his death?’ Lamorna whispered, horrified. Her stomach rolled and she thought she might be sick, but she swallowed it away, letting the feeling burn in the depths of her instead. It hurt, and she let it.
‘You were sent back to love him, Lamorna. To give him some happiness in his otherwise parched existence. This was always Mordred’s fate. Inanna knew that,’ Ereshki explained.
Lamorna nodded. He was dead, and there was nothing she could do to change that. There were no bargains to be made, and she had nothing to bargain with anyway. She stood, lifting her chin. She knew what she was meant to do. ‘I’m ready.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes.’ Lamorna paused. ‘How will it happen?’
‘In the way it was always meant to happen.’ Ereshki kissed Lamorna’s forehead, smoothed the wild blonde hair back from Lamorna’s face.
Lamorna closed her eyes and waited.