Chapter 35 #4
Closer to the square, monks lined the pathway, their hoods up despite the heat.
People were beginning to walk down from the keep’s open gates—which the monks must have pulled open—most looking utterly bewildered.
When Bedwyr hauled Morgana up onto the platform, Nyneve broke into a sprint with energy she could not spare.
Breathing hard, she searched for Mordred’s Threads desperately.
She could feel him, but he was too far—much too far away for such delicate magic.
Nyneve slowed when she saw Guinevere, coming to a halt beside the queen, who had fallen silent.
She met Nyneve’s eyes. “Morgana said tonight would be difficult for me,” the queen repeated numbly. “That it would end in flame. And that I had to let it happen, because it was the only Thread where she saw something good at the end.”
“What?” Nyneve demanded. “You want to let this happen?”
Guinevere grabbed the front of Nyneve’s gown and shook her violently.
“No,” she roared. “Of course I do not.” Swallowing hard, the queen released Nyneve and stepped back.
“Of course I do not,” she repeated. “But Morgana . . .” She looked up at the woman being tied to the stake, so Nyneve did too.
The sorceress was completely calm, those startling eyes seeking out Guinevere’s.
“Morgana is not an oracle,” Nyneve protested. “She cannot speak prophecies.”
“And yet,” Guinevere whispered. “Look at her.”
Nyneve stared up at Morgana. The sorceress looked more peaceful than she ever had in the moons Nyneve had known her.
That ever-present torment behind her eyes was gone.
Nyneve still began to weep. She would never be strong enough to watch Mordred die like this.
She would never be strong enough to let him go like this, not even if he begged.
“This woman is the cause of today’s horrors!
” Bedwyr shouted into the small crowd, mostly guards and servants with soot-stained faces, though Nyneve saw a few noblemen and women, their fine clothes torn.
“We have reason to believe she helped corrupt Elaine of Astolat as well. She let the Host ride into your home!”
“That is nonsense!” Nyneve screamed, her throat raw, though the crowd had broken into chaos, and she wasn’t sure if anyone even heard her.
She turned on her heel, looking around desperately, but all she saw were the haunted, hollow faces of people who had just lost everything and wanted someone to blame.
A commotion on the rickety stairs built up the side of the pyre drew Nyneve’s attention. A flash of white hair made her stomach sink. Galen was arguing with Bedwyr. The fire took with a sudden whoosh, the first true inhale of an empire built on blood.
“Galen!” Nyneve shouted, pushing through the crowd.
She fought her way through just in time to watch the physician shove Bedwyr.
The knight, taken by surprise, stumbled.
Galen rushed past him, holding his hands out to the flame in a familiar movement.
His lips began to move, and because Nyneve knew those charms by heart, she knew exactly what magic he was working.
This entire time. Galen. A Druid.
Something like hope surged through her, and she ran toward the bottom of the stairs, calling to her own magic, which was significantly weakened in these days of so little rain.
Just as her Threads reached for Galen’s to create a stronger working, Bedwyr climbed to his feet, drew his shortsword, and slammed it into Galen’s chest. His strike was all cold efficiency, angling his blade so it tore through Galen’s body and into his heart.
The fire devoured Nyneve’s screams as it consumed Morgana.
She began to climb the stairs as Bedwyr pushed Galen’s body to the side, letting the physician tumble to the ground below.
Her throat sore, Nyneve stumbled back down the steps and tripped, sprawling on the cobblestones.
The smell of burning hair filled her nose.
She retched, her vision blurry. Galen was dead, she knew, but she crawled to him anyway.
“No, no, no, no,” she sobbed, once more placing her hands over a wound she could not heal.
A cry tore through her chest as she cradled the physician’s head in her lap, staring down into his empty eyes.
Her baneful magic, so much stronger than her goodness, begged to kill every monk in sight.
There was no one left who she needed to look at her and see something other than a dark, terrible beast.
So maybe Nyneve would finally just be a monster.
But then a hand touched her cheek with such gentleness that she scrambled halfway to her feet in shock, reaching for her dagger.
It was the Morrigan who stood there beside the pyre, Her outline wavering in the heat of the blaze. Her heavy hood was thrown back as She regarded Nyneve with what might have been tenderness.
“Little witch,” the goddess sighed, “I am so sorry for all you must suffer.”
“So fix it,” Nyneve begged, her words somewhere between a scream and a sob. She crawled forward and snatched the hem of the Morrigan’s feathered gown with bloody hands.
“That,” the goddess whispered, “is precisely what I am trying to do.”