Chapter 28 #2
“Of course. There are more ‘water fairies,’ as you call us, other ladies of other lakes. Some of my learned counterparts have already left these shores.” She leaned towards me, her eyes bright and serious.
“But they are not my concern. Do not forget, Belle Garde is kept safe by fairy charms. Where will you go, Morgan, when the magic dies?”
“Go?” I said. “I will be here, where I have always been. I won’t be chased off this land by the world of men.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she replied. “Avalon is a haven of freedom, of choice—a place to keep learning, expand further into knowledge, to better explore our own power. It is a home for those of us who never quite fitted this world, who feel evermore alien as time goes on. A woman such as yourself.”
Ninianne wasn’t wrong that the world had never understood my ways, and I had felt thus since the day I was born. However, I was no fairy.
“Why are you telling me this?” I said. “There’s no place for me on some mystical island full of virtuous immortal priestesses.”
She beheld me with mild amusement. “None of us are perfect. I tell you this because I wish for us to be honest with one another. You are one of the best minds I have ever encountered. Your love of knowledge feels closer to my own than anyone I’ve ever met. Avalon is made for you.”
“I’ve heard of these ‘fairy otherlands,’ ” I said. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about reaching there. What’s more, I have loved ones I would not leave. I’m not like you, Ninianne—for one, I am mortal, with all the weaknesses that come with my flesh.”
“You would need me as guide, of course,” she replied.
“Nor is Avalon a prison. You would be free to travel back and forth to see those left behind. And when the souls of our loved ones leave this world, their spirits are at liberty to seek Avalon, where the veil between worlds falls away, and join us there. But anyone touched by fairy magic can make passage. Your two women, for example, who have been saved from death by your healing and have lived years within your protective charms. They too are scholars, and would be welcome.”
The idea was intriguing. As a woman of many exiles, to seek a different freedom by choice, to live for knowledge, my skills, with endless time to study and explore, would always be a seductive thought. Yet life had never been so simple for me.
“This is beyond comprehension,” I said. “When you arrived here, I was a traitor. I may not be the betrayal prophecy, but I have gone far beyond treason since. I kidnapped your own son, yet you offer me sanctuary from the world’s destruction and an eternity to learn? None of this makes sense.”
Ninianne offered only an enigmatic shrug. “I am aware of the contradictions,” she replied. “But if you are truly not the betrayal, then a great deal begins to make sense.”
“If I’m not the betrayal?” My cultivated calm chafed, starting to wear thin. “Once again, your belief is conditional. It’s clear that this offer comes with a cost.”
She shook her head. “You misread me. I would never offer you Avalon at a price. The offer is genuine. But—”
“Ah, here it comes,” I said. “What do you want, Ninianne?”
She frowned at me in rare annoyance. “Again, nothing I have said is conditional,” she insisted, then put her hand on the golden book. “But you have read these prophecies, no doubt studied the words from every angle. You have ten years of insight into what’s here.”
“I have also deemed what I saw in those pages as misleading, vague to the point of irrelevance,” I countered. “Which is why I gave it to you—it has no purpose in my life.”
“I don’t mean only what is between these covers, but other instincts you have,” she replied. “Things you have heard, your knowledge of King Arthur, confidences he might have shared. Words in this book not written in plain sight.”
“I have no time for your riddles,” I said. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing specific,” she said quickly. “All I mean is, if you are not a traitoress, and you truly believe this book is leading the country in the wrong direction, then let us put the power of our minds together, bring King Arthur the truth.”
I laughed in disbelief. “What truth? Camelot’s walls would turn black and crumble before Arthur’s precious pride would let anything I say change his mind.”
“I can bring you together,” she persisted. “He trusts my word and would agree. With time, he will seek to forgive. A great deal is changing—there is no better time for you and he to find your way back to one another. I’ve always believed you would.”
“Find our way back?” I exclaimed. “You speak as if Arthur might forgive me, but don’t ask if I can forgive him. Why in Hell would you think it’s possible?”
For all I had been drawn in, she still did not understand me. I pushed up from my chair, alive with an anger that felt fresh but not new, a slumbering, ancient pain that if I didn’t move to shake free of it, might grow too heavy to bear.
Ninianne rose in pursuit. “You are hurting,” she said. “King Arthur is hurting too. If you let me bring you to him, face him as a sister to her brother, you may find solace in the pain he carries. There is yet a future before you both.”
“His pain?” I cried. “How dare you suggest I should care for his feelings. Even if he did admit to his wrongs, it’s far too late.
It won’t bring Accolon back. It won’t restore my reputation and give me my son’s love and regard.
Arthur should crawl to me before I am done with him, because he does not deserve my forgiveness. ”
I swung away, my facade of calm shattered, but Ninianne stepped in front of me. “This is not you, Morgan,” she insisted. “All your life you have sought answers, ways to fix what is broken. You have the chance to harness your skills and start a new part of your life.”
“I don’t want to fix this,” I said. “I don’t need a new life. All I’ve ever wanted is the ability to return to the happy existence I once had. Now, thanks to you, I can.”
She stilled at my words, as though I had managed to stop time. “You’re going to use the Shroud,” she said, in a tone of revelation. “You never wanted it to hold power over King Arthur. You need it for a purpose of your own.”
I stared at her in puzzlement. “Of course I do.”
She rocked back on her heels. Somehow, in all her wisdom, Ninianne had never understood the reason I wanted the Shroud. Perhaps she did not know I had taken Accolon’s heart, or else thought nothing of it. Maybe she never imagined I could attempt such a feat.
“You can use the Shroud?” she said in wonder. “Do you know what it means, if you have mastered the art of resurrection? For your brother, and Britain?”
“I haven’t mastered anything yet,” I snapped.
“And if I did, it’s none of anyone’s concern.
I cannot be treasonous and a saviour, Ninianne.
Accolon died because of a lie you all believed.
Arthur killed the man I loved to punish me for something I did not do, and you helped him.
My life was, and is still, ruined. Nothing you say can change that. ”
I picked up my skirts and strode out of the reception chamber. Ninianne followed, calling for me to wait. I wanted her gone, but still I paused, drawn by her divine light.
“Morgan, if we have ever meant anything to one another, heed me now,” she said. “I gave you what you wanted for love of my son, but I am asking you, for your brother’s sake, not to use the Shroud. Do not take away the kingdom’s future. Please.”
“For the last time, I don’t care about the kingdom.”
Tearing myself away, I went to the side table and picked up the reliquary. A star-tail of vitality glittered through my blood from the miraculous object within, followed by a surge of hope that expanded in my chest, then settled as calm.
This was all that mattered. Once again I held control of my own life.
“You should go, Ninianne,” I said evenly. “There is nothing more to say. Arthur’s future is in your hands, not mine.”
No response came, so I turned back. She hadn’t moved, the Book of Prophecies clutched in her arms, glowing with her light.
“It won’t last, Morgan,” she said. “None of this.”
“Nothing ever does,” I replied and left her, vanishing up the turret stairs with the Shroud of Tithonus clutched to my heart.