Chapter 35 #3
“This is precisely what Merlin told us we would find here on this night,” Bedwyr announced, the words echoing through the chamber.
Nyneve froze in the doorway, locking eyes with Morgana.
“He said you would corrupt the king’s wife into fornication after consorting with the Fair Folk to bring darkness into this city.
Merlin saw your wickedness, Morgana. We are here to exact justice. ”
The sorceress fought as if she did not know any other way to be, but Nyneve could see from across the room that she was not truly trying. She could burn these men to ash. She could command their hearts to stop beating. She could bring the winds wailing through the windows until no one could stand.
“Exact justice?” Guinevere demanded, yanking one of Morgana’s silk robes over her shift and striding after the monks barefoot. “Our king is absent! You cannot do this to his sister while he pursues our enemy. Besides, the people of Camelot are entitled to a trial!”
“The people of Camelot lay torn to pieces in the gutter and half-dead in the infirmary,” Bedwyr snarled, grabbing Morgana by her braid. Four other men, their hoods covering their faces, helped tie her wrists behind her back. Nyneve’s eyes went wide, terror flooding her veins.
“How dare you!” she shouted. “Unhand her at once.”
The monks utterly ignored her as they dragged the sorceress from her chambers, Guinevere and Nyneve following close behind. Shaking with fury, Nyneve unstitched her baneful magic, reaching for the men’s Threads.
“Nyneve, no,” Morgana called, clear as a bell. “Leave me.”
“Gag her,” Bedwyr commanded as Nyneve’s mind spun. The monks slowed their pace, shoving a stained handkerchief into Morgana’s mouth.
Nyneve did not know what to do. Her mentor, the woman she had one day hoped to become, had just told her not to use her magic to save her—in fact, to leave her behind. A strangled sob clawed up her throat as the knights began to move forward again, Nyneve’s body following of its own accord.
She had forgotten the queen was by her side until Guinevere’s hand closed around hers. Nyneve looked over in surprise.
“She . . . she said something was going to happen,” the queen whispered, tears streaming down her face. “She was so cryptic. Y-you know her. I did not . . . I did not take her as seriously as I should.”
Nyneve grabbed the queen’s forearm. “What did she say?” she demanded, her voice raw.
“She said tonight would be difficult for me,” Guinevere replied, swallowing hard. “And that it would end in flame.”
But nearly all of the fires from the attack had already been put out. Nyneve’s heart nearly stopped.
“They’re going to burn her,” she rasped.
Without another look at the queen, she took off down the hallway.
It made her entire body hurt to turn onto the servants’ stairway, losing sight of Morgana as the knight and his monks took her down the front steps, but she saw no other choice. Nyneve raced back to the infirmary.
“Galen!” she shouted, her voice choked with tears. “Galen, Bedwyr is going to burn Morgana.”
The physician turned from his patient, an elderly noblewoman.
For a second, Nyneve worried she had gone to the wrong person.
He just stared at her for a long moment while her heart pounded through her chest. Then something fierce and owl-like came over his expression, and he began to march toward her.
“No,” Galen said, “he is not.”
Side by side, they ran into the entry corridor just in time to see Morgana being dragged by the monks, Guinevere grabbing at the men’s arms, spitting and kicking like a mad thing.
“Nyneve,” Galen said, so incredibly calm. “Go get Mordred.”
She almost took off again, but then horror crept through her. “Oh gods,” she whispered. “Galen, no one has yet heard from the knights who went after the Host at the king’s side.”
“Palamedes?” he asked, following behind Guinevere.
“I–I don’t know,” Nyneve stammered.
“Morien?” Galen replied.
“In the second troop that rode out to find Arthur,” she replied, beginning to feel frantic as they passed through the castle’s front doors.
Below, a short walk down the hill, a smaller square was lit up with torches. A stake had been erected in the center, kindling piled all around it. The stones shone with blood. Arrows sprouted from the ground like twisted crops. The air still smelled of smoke and death.
A few steps ahead of them, Guinevere began to scream. It was guttural and inhuman, like no other sound Nyneve had ever heard before. It made her heart feel as though it were breaking in half.
“Could you hold the fire back from burning?” Galen asked.
“Well, I—” Nyneve stopped, turning to look at him in shock.
“Nyneve, you are obviously a Druid,” the physician said. He must have seen the horror on her face, because he made a quick amendment. “Obvious to someone like me, not to the kind of fucking troglodytes who like to burn women at the stake. Can you hold the fire back?”
Nyneve nearly tripped on a loose cobblestone, Galen catching her arm at the last minute. “I don’t know,” she said miserably. “There is so little water with this drought. I’m not Fey. I don’t conjure it, I just—”
“Command it, yes, I am familiar with elemental magics,” Galen replied, frowning.