Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Nyneve
Nyneve stumbled through the woods, bleary eyes seeking the lights of Camelot.
Her feet felt like lead weights. She dragged herself three more steps forward, only to fall to her knees and vomit onto the mossy forest floor.
The Elders’ binding burned beneath her breastbone like a wildfire.
Biting back a cry, she fell onto her side and curled into a ball.
Silent tears streamed down her face as the binding magic sought to devour her whole.
With everything she had, Nyneve battled to soothe the searing knot tied around her heart.
This was the price. She had known it the moment she’d decided to call to the waters in the soil and drown Sir Mordred in her currents—precisely the kind of magic the Elders had bound her against working after that stupid, foolish duel went wrong.
And now that binding wrapped itself even tighter around her magic, the punishment she’d been warned about.
Nyneve pulled herself up onto her elbows, dry-heaved so hard that her spine felt as though it snapped in half, and then vomited blood.
Was it worth it? asked Elder Uccu’s reedy voice in her head, his sneering face appearing like a phantom before her.
Always so arrogant, so eager to prove your prowess.
Prove it, then, Roman girl, without the power we unlocked within you.
Prove it half-bound, in the halls of your father.
Only once you do so will you be permitted back within our fold and see your magic freed.
Nyneve gagged, physically shaking her head to banish Elder Uccu from her thoughts.
He’d only been so harsh because she’d killed his son, she told herself, her thoughts disjointed and uneven as she stretched her hand forward, digging her fingers into the ground for traction.
Only so harsh because Uccu had never wanted to adopt the orphan girl in the first place.
Because he hated her for being better than his weak heir, for growing into something that might be stronger than even him one day—despite the inferior Roman blood in her veins.
Perhaps if Uccu had been more concerned with strengthening his lackluster child instead of pulling her down, Nyneve thought as she dragged a hand across her mouth, that stupid unsanctioned duel never would’ve happened.
Uccu would still have a son. Nyneve would be studying under Morgana de Bois, learning charms and ancient workings instead of crawling through the woods on her belly.
With a sharp flood of pain, her shoulders gave out, and Nyneve collapsed onto the forest floor.
The air she managed to drag into her lungs was heavy and metallic with blood.
She might die here. Uccu’s binding was a violent thing, vicious enough that the other Elders proclaimed it too harsh a punishment, but he’d gotten his way, as he always did.
The side of her face pressed into the cool, damp soil, Nyneve let out a shaking breath.
Blood filled her mouth. If she stopped with all her endless excuses and was actually honest—and she could be honest here, wrapped up in the dark sweep of the forest, far from Camelot’s faux civilities—she probably deserved this.
The binding, the exile. All of it. She hadn’t meant to kill Uccu’s son.
It would be one thing, maybe, she thought as she curled tighter around herself, every bone in her body feeling as though it was breaking over and over again, if she had meant to kill him. But she hadn’t. It was an accident.
And that terrified her.
She’d never killed anyone before. Not until that boiling tide of indomitable fury surged in her veins and overcame her entirely.
That’s the only reason Nyneve had permitted the Elders to bind her.
She could have fought them. She was powerful enough to resist. But she didn’t because she had a terrible, sinking feeling that she needed the binding if she didn’t want to become a monster.
A terrible, sinking feeling that perhaps her father had been right to cast her out of her childhood home.
Which is why Nyneve had to get up. Because her water-working wouldn’t hold for much longer, and she refused to lie here, waiting for Mordred to find her, trussed up and ready for the spitfire. Because she would prove Uccu wrong.
Biting down on the ruined sleeve of her once-beautiful gown to muffle the sound of her scream, Nyneve pulled herself to her knees.
She would make herself powerful in Camelot’s court even without the full breadth of her magic.
She would not let the bloodthirst of her power overcome her ever again.
She would return to the Druids. She would be unbound.
She would belong. And she would ensure that no one would ever look at her and see a monster.
“Or I’ll fucking die trying,” she vowed.
“By the gods,” Nyneve spat as the blood spilled onto her hand, only remembering she needed to be quiet a moment later.
She froze, straining her ears in the silence of the physician’s cottage.
When the rumble of Galen’s snores slipped through the tapestry divider, she let out a sigh of relief.
Then she turned back to the curl of parchment in her hands, fingers still shaking from the effort it took to get herself back into Camelot’s walls.
The dirt beneath her nails looked like dark crescent moons.
With an exhale, she dipped the quill into the little pot of her own blood—because she could not, after all, inscribe the truth of Sir Mordred Pendragon in ink—and scraped off the excess before beginning to carefully compose her message to the Elders.
The embers of the fire were barely enough to see by, but she didn’t dare relight the hearth.
Not after the endless questions she’d faced down from a stern-faced Galen about her disappearance during the feast. She couldn’t blame him, especially considering there had been an attempt on the king’s life, but she also couldn’t tell him the truth.
So, instead, she spun a story about her monthlies coming on out of nowhere, of terrible cramps and so much blood—none of which she thought would ease the panic in the feast hall.
It explained her terrible appearance and exhaustion, at least. She’d been forced to dig deep into her reserves for magic to mend the tears in her gown.
Galen had finally relented, and they’d supped on potato and leek soup, Nyneve waiting anxiously the entire time for a chance to write her message once he’d fallen asleep.
She crouched closer to the hearth, her eyes bleary with exhaustion, and paused to read what she’d written so far.
Her handwriting was a shaky mess, but hopefully still legible enough.
Nyneve wasn’t going to divulge that she’d told Mordred she was a sorceress, not a mere apprentice, or that she might have killed him.
She thought it unlikely; a simple drowning seemed beneath the faerie-bound knight.
She closed her eyes, trying to remember the last few moments of their struggle in the forest. But instead of the knight slipping beneath the tides she’d called forth, she saw him standing there, limned in moonlight, an impossible thing, ruinous in his beauty. Her breath caught.
“Stop it,” Nyneve whispered to herself, fingers curling tightly around the quill. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and read the cipher message one more time.
Sir Mordred Pendragon, who is deeply embedded in Arthur’s court, has bargained with an unknown Fey for magic.
The nature and cost of his bargain is unclear at this time.
Despite conflicting rumors, it is quite obvious he holds influence and power.
His motives are also a mystery. Closer examination is warranted.
Her quill hovered above the parchment scrap.
She should write about their altercation.
She should tell the Elders about the deal she’d had no chance but to strike.
At least the Fey-bound knight hadn’t demanded a bargain plait.
Braiding the bargainers’ hair together was a common way of sealing a deal, and for good reason—it worked.
But such plaits also created a power imbalance based on which of the bargainers held it in their possession, and could also give whomever Mordred had sold himself to some degree of power over Nyneve herself.
Besides, she didn’t want this deal to be unbreakable. It served her better that there was leeway.
She stood, blowing gently on the parchment so the blood would dry.
No—the Elders didn’t need to know any of that.
“I can do better,” she swore beneath her breath to the quietly crackling embers.
They already thought they might have permitted a wolf in sheep’s clothing into their midst. There was no use in admitting she’d stumbled so soon; Uccu would just use it against her.
And writing the truth down would just feel like confirmation of all her deepest fears.
So, instead, moving as quietly as possible, Nyneve wiped the quill and inkpot clean before placing both back into their original spot in Galen’s meticulously organized cabinet, grateful for the moonlight pouring in through the front windows.
She would barely be able to see a damn thing if she only had the hearth’s embers to navigate by.
Willing herself to stay alert and awake, she crept toward the door, holding the parchment scrap open to continue drying.
She bit down on the inside of her cheek, wondering if she was wrong.
If concealing the full truth only spoke to how twisted and horrible she was.