Chapter 40
We sprint over gnarled roots and mossy rocks beneath the oak boughs. As we run, we crush acorns and leaves underfoot.
But it doesn’t matter how hard I try—I cannot keep up with Rion. He sprints in a blur of silver, leaving me lumbering over the rocky ground.
Of course he’d leave me behind. I’d do the same. I want the grail as much as he does—and yet, I’m irrationally furious with him. I need that grail to save someone’s life. He only wants it to win a crown.
Mostly, I’m furious with myself for being this out of shape. Ten years of puttering around London offices, making tea for people, eating buttered toast. I’m faster than a mortal, yes, but not fast enough to race past Rion.
I heave for breath, trying to fill my lungs. I wonder how many others got there first.
As my sword thuds against my thigh, I desperately try to run faster, pumping my arms to propel myself.
Heat thickens the air around me, sultry and suffocating. I’m sweating beneath my armor, and it runs down my temples.
As I run, I try to think of Vero, to keep her in the forefront of my mind so I don’t let myself slow.
After I executed my parents, I started to fall apart. My magic stopped working.
It wasn’t long before Tristan told me we needed to leave Brocéliande. I’d gone into a sort of daze for weeks, and I hardly spoke. I hardly ate.
Auberon had become fanatically obsessed with scapegoating the demi-Fey, and I was no longer useful to him.
It was a distraction, I think. People blamed him for the famine and starvation, and he wanted them to look elsewhere.
When I stopped being useful, Auberon would have killed me as an example.
Tristan left to save my life. He found the information he needed.
He learned of a portal into the mortal land of England, one used by the Fey army, and he pulled me from the Undercroft in the dead of night.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about my parents. I remember screaming at Tristan that I had to check the cottage where my parents lived to see if maybe I was mistaken. Maybe it was just a woman who looked like Mother.
I remember the heartbroken look in his eyes.
Tristan knew they were dead. He saw me kill them.
I could tell he thought I had lost my mind.
He was talking to me like I was a child, but he indulged me anyway.
So, the two of us went back to the cottage with the garden.
By then, it was already growing wild, and the chickens were all gone—just feathers and blood left.
My parents weren’t there. Instead, I found Vero inside, all skin and bones.
She was so small, I thought she might be five or six instead of eight.
She had a fever, and she kept falling asleep as we tried to talk to her.
But when she was awake, she called me Mother because I looked just like her.
I knew then I had to care for her. I’d killed her parents, after all.
Tristan carried her feverish body with us into England.
He didn’t live with us long. I had a child to look after, and he craved adventure and revenge. He found Avalon Tower within a few months.
I never told Vero how our parents died or that it was my fault. But I owe it to her to make things right. So, even if I feel like I’m about to die, I force myself to sprint faster.
My breath rasps in my throat.
By the time I reach the cave, I’m tired enough that I’m stumbling and gasping, coughing to get enough oxygen.
Inside the cave, thick shadows pool around glistening rocks. I don’t see a grail or a pit of fire, and I wonder if I’ve come to the wrong place.
I take a step inside, and it smells of wet, chalky limestone and soil. The cave floor is slippery and uneven, and I steady myself against a slick wall.
Around me, darkness starts to bleed into light as the landscape changes once more.
I’m seeing things. Fully hallucinating again.
I don’t think it’s the questing beast because I’m not scared.
It looks and feels like London around me now.
A cold air bites at my skin, and freezing rain dampens my hair.
I’m walking behind the train tracks, hungry.
I had dry crackers for breakfast, and nothing since. My stomach rumbles.
I struggle to get back to where I was, to orient myself.
I try to feel the cave walls. I touch the slick rock, but I’m still seeing Homicide Park.
A newspaper blows across the dead grass.
Men huddle over a burning bin, trying to warm their hands.
Here, a rat drags a chicken bone across my path, and a dusky fog settles over the landscape.
The air smells of old piss and diesel. Nearby, someone is shouting about the world ending, but there’s no going home, because everyone is dead—
I’m in my Waste Land. I clamp my eyes shut and envision a fog in my brain, blocking out whatever magic this is. I bring up the veil in my thoughts, thicker this time.
When I open my eyes again, the vision is gone again.
I’ve returned to the dark cave, one hand on a dank wall.
Now, as I move farther in, I see the glow of warm light and breathe in the scent of burning meat.
My heart speeds up. Voices float through the air—and screams, too.
I move closer to the glow, and it illuminates the cave, allowing me to move faster.
The smell of burning flesh grows thicker, and it turns my stomach.
Ahead, a burning pit spreads out across a chasm. This is the pit of fire I’ve been looking for.
I break into a sprint now. When I reach the opening to the fiery rift, two bridges come into view.
Only one of them looks like something that could actually be crossed—made of wood and three feet across. The bottom of the wood is blackened by smoke, but the flames don’t reach high enough to burn it.
It would be the perfect place to cross—except Rion is already using his sword to fight five different knights in a brutal melee that blocks the bridge.
Even if he manages to defeat the knights, there’s a bloody lion lurking at the far end of the bridge, waiting to kill anyone who makes it.
What’s the plan here, Rion—fight a lion?
As the creature watches the knights clash their swords, he opens his mouth and roars. A shudder runs down my spine.
Absolutely not.
And yet, the second bridge looks even more impossible.
It’s nothing but a long blade the width of a broadsword.
It’s long enough to span the crevasse, but deadly sharp.
Maybe four inches across, pivoting in a shallow arc.
Every second or so, it moves—tilting about forty-five degrees upward with a click—then horizontal again.
That tilt could throw off anyone who tries to cross it.
Taking a deep breath, I survey the far side of the bridge. Just twenty feet away stands a plinth with the grail. It’s not at all what I expected, because it’s made from what looks like a human skull. Around it, roses bloom, white and red.
My heart slams against its cage as I stare at the grail. One sip from that and I’ve cured Vero for good.
I glance at the blade again, and I’m actually starting to consider it.
Above me, the silver moths flutter. Watching me.
Aneirin, Elizabeth, and Igraine aren’t here. Mabon hasn’t made it, either.
Maybe they peeked inside, took one look at the setup, and had the good sense to turn around.
A scream echoes off the cave ceiling, and I turn to see one of the knights leaping from the bridge into the fire, just to get away from Rion’s dread magic. Meanwhile, Rion’s sword carves through the throat of another knight, and blood streaks across the air.
There’s no fucking way I’m going to beat him on that bridge. And that means I have only one option.
I shift closer to the tilting blade, and the blazing pit heats my skin.
Gore coats the steel in a few places, the remnants of whoever tried and failed to cross it today.
Besides the blood, roses decorate the blade—the red bloom of King Emrys, the white of Queen Morgan. Symbols of royal houses, but also of anarchy, of civil war.
Is there a message here? I cock my head at it, letting my thoughts unfurl for a moment.
War is a dark magic. You cast a spell to get what you want. You know there will be unforeseen costs, but it’s hard to predict how terrible the price might be until it comes back for you.
The red and white roses together suggest ending a civil war, I think.
And to cross, I would need perfect, impeccable balance. Timing too, leaping up for the clicks, landing perfectly at just the right time. The only way to cross this blade would be to take my armor off and abandon my weapons. I’d have to leave my sword behind. And I think that’s what the grail wants.
Despite the carnage around me, I think the grail wants peace.
I unlatch my scabbard and let it fall to the floor. The sword clatters against the stone. Next, I unhook my dragon-scale armor. The weapons will only throw me off, and the armor will overheat me above the flames.
While Rion slaughters another knight on the bridge, I slide out of my boots.
I’m going to need to do this barefoot if I have any hope of staying on the blade.
I already know it’s going to burn my feet, but the boots will be too stiff for landing perfectly.
The socks will make me slip, so I pull them off too.
Auberon used to have us practice sword fighting across a thin rope, but this looks harder than even his most torturous constructions.
Two more knights rush into the cave, and they don’t spend long deciding. They’re going for the wooden bridge—probably because what I’m about to do is completely unhinged.
And yet, my gaze flicks up to the grail, and I feel its empty eyes inviting me closer.
I listen for the click, then the next one. I memorize the rhythm. Tick-tock.
I take my first step onto the blade, grimacing at its heat. I leap just as it clicks.
I land again on the balls of my feet.
Click.
When I land again, I hold my arms out to the side, keeping my balance. I wobble, dangerously close to falling. At the very last moment, I manage to stay upright.
Click.
The blade starts to tilt beneath me, and my heart plummets through my gut.
Sweat trickles down my temple, and the bottoms of my feet are excruciatingly hot. I land again on the balls of my feet, then lower my heel—but it’s only there for a moment before I have to leap again.
Click.
I adjust. Step. Breathe. Jump. Balance.
Don’t look down.
Cinders and ash drift through the air around me, and I inhale the charred air. The heat licks at my skin, drying my throat and searing my lungs.
From the other bridge, a man screams as he falls into the flames. They keep coming for him, more knights trying to challenge Rion.
I don’t look. One step at a time. One breath at a time.
Click. I falter—arms wheeling, my weight shifting nearly out of control—
I catch myself just in time. My heart pounds hard as a drumbeat.
I glance down at the roaring flames beneath me, and my stomach leaps. They look hungry for me.
Another step.
Grimacing, I try not to think about the scorched skin on the balls of my feet. I’m nearly halfway there.
Now, the moths swirl around me, glittering with yellow and gold above the flames. I can’t let them distract me, so I focus only on the blade. I keep my thoughts on the shallow arc of its tilt and bend my knees to stay in a strong position of balance.
Click.
Only now, the blade is moving faster. The rhythm is wrong—unpredictable, uneven.
Click. Click. Click.
Nearly there.
I almost want to leap into the fire because the balls of my feet are fucking burning and I need everything to end. I’m not sure if I can still match the rhythm, and my blood roars in my ears.
Now, I’m starting to lose balance. I leap again, trying to keep up with the pace. Tick-tock.
Fuck.
One last push.
I think of Vero instead when I first found her, snoring in my old bed.
I jump again, bringing my foot down hard onto the flat side of the blade. One last leap until the end.
I just barely land at the edge of the pit, and my feet are seared with agonizing pain. I glance at the other bridge, where Rion has killed every other knight. He’s slowly approaching the lion with one hand out as if trying to tame it.
The grail is only ten feet away, and I sprint for it, faster than I’ve ever run in my life. I force all thoughts of pain out of my skull and simply hurtle through the air.
Time seems to slow, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Rion running for the grail, too.