Chapter 57
Our final gathering place was near an estuary on a bank dense with trees, a narrow strand of pebbles between us and the river. White fog lay over the water, blurring with the sky, so thick it was impossible to discern anything beyond the quietly lapped shore.
Tressa and Alys stood beside me, gowns immaculate and belted with silver chains, hair braided beneath delicate circlets wrought into ferns. Our mantles were the same dark-blue samite, stitched with stars and lined with vair. They looked like queens of another world.
We brought nothing with us except what could not be left behind.
For me, this was little: the chess set and the Ars Physica; Yvain’s baby curl preserved in a small gold box.
My father’s ring with its trio of sapphires and my mother’s name inside the band.
His falcon-handled knife, eternally at my hip.
Accolon’s Gaulish coin, resting against my heartbeat.
“When will she come?” Alys asked, her voice amplified by the misty peace.
We spoke of Ninianne, of course. After hearing news of Camlann, she had journeyed back to the lake where Arthur had first received the sword that would define the trajectory of his life.
She was waiting for the blade to come back.
“Soon,” I replied. “She is near.”
I didn’t know where my certainty came from, but I had accepted the heightened senses that the years had given me, fairy instincts I had been warned of but learned to enjoy. I needed them where I was going, and would let them flourish.
A warm glow lit the forest, growing stronger amongst the shadowed branches, until a tall figure broke the treeline.
She was dressed darkly in a forest-green cloak, but her hair was liquid fire, skin back to its enrapturing glow.
In her hand she held a gleaming longsword, blade shining bright as the moon, golden hilt infused with the sun itself.
Excalibur, returned to the Lady of the Lake.
Ninianne strode forth in her slow, purposeful way, sword at her side, like a warrior goddess awaiting her next battle.
Beneath her cloak she was swathed in layers of deep violet, her waist cinched with emeralds.
Long silver cuffs encased her wrists as if she were dressed in armour, but she needed none, her power emanating from every pore as light.
She nodded to Alys and Tressa, then turned her glittering green eyes to me. It was a long time since I had seen her this way—calm, assured, her warmth radiating forth and drawing me close, luminous enough to guide us through eternity.
“My apologies for being late. It took Sir Bedivere a while to return the sword to the lake.” She lifted the blade and considered it, their twin glows reflecting off one another. “He found it difficult to let go.”
We nodded in understanding: it was hard for those left behind to imagine a world without Excalibur, because it meant there would be no King Arthur to wield it.
“Where is my brother?” I asked. “Is it done?”
“Yes. He will not be long.”
For once, I felt no sadness, only a deep swell of calm. “What comes next?”
“My son will deal with what is left of Mordred’s forces, and make as much peace as he can,” she replied. “Though after the High King is gone, there are no guarantees.”
“Will Lancelot not rule?”
She shook her head. “Such a life is not for him. Once his duty is done, there is only one place he will go. Into mourning for King Arthur, and… ”
To Guinevere, she did not say, though it already rang in the air. Prophecy was changeable, the stars inconstant, but some things were inevitable.
“And Britain?” I asked.
“It will survive,” Ninianne said. “Hereafter, it will be a land like many others—it will fight, fail and thrive, adapt and change, as history requires. Though it will never see another era such as this. When those who lived it are gone, it may seem as if this time never happened at all. Even as we speak, the memory passes into myth.”
I smiled; once again she had returned to her elusive wisdom, scattering confusion like raindrops, and making perfect sense.
“We will know,” I said. “We will remember.”
She inclined her head, her voice in my mind. That is true.
A disturbance sounded in the water, drawing our attention. Through the mist, a long white boat appeared, sleek and golden-prowed, helmed by no one.
“Ah,” Ninianne said. “Our conveyance. Perfect.”
Like a swan, the vessel glided through the water and turned sideways, bow sliding silently up onto the shore. Inside, the boat carried several ornate trunks and was lined with silks and furs and rich feather cushions.
The Lady of the Lake nodded in satisfaction, then turned to me, swinging Excalibur up so it lay across her palms. “Here,” she said. “Take it.”
I regarded her in doubt. I had been here before, urged to take possession of the weapon and its miraculous jewelled scabbard. I would never know how much of mine and Arthur’s troubles began in the moment he had given me care of his legendary sword. It would not be my duty ever again.
Ninianne smiled, reading my thoughts. “Only for a moment,” she said gently.
Exhaling, I held out my hands, and she rested the sword across them, warm against my skin where she had carried it so far.
The blade still held its fascinating shine, lustrous and deadly, but it had never captured my senses as it had Arthur.
The sword was his, and he belonged to the sword; they would always be bound.
Unfastening her cloak, Ninianne swept it off her shoulders and folded it around Excalibur with methodical care, in lieu of the scabbard that was at the bottom of a different lake, lost to time at my hands. Even knowing what my furious act had meant, I had never regretted giving it to the water.
Once the fabric was neatly tucked, Ninianne ran her fingers through the air, drawing out diamond-bright threads and laying them across the wrapped sword until the dark silk was netted with light.
Charms of protection—tricky, of the fairies, and immutable—the same as she had taught me in one of my darkest moments, when I needed to believe I could survive.
The same charms that had kept me and those I loved safe, and made me more Morgan le Fay than I thought possible.
“There,” she said, taking the blade’s weight off my hands. “Until it is called for.”
She carried the bundle over to the boat and slid it innocuously along the vessel’s starboard side. When she turned back, she gleamed brighter than Excalibur itself.
“The High King need not see,” she said wisely. “The sword will return to him when the time is right.”
There was so much I was yet to understand. “Does that mean he—?”
A rustle came from the forest, cutting me off, refining into the sound of slow, heavy footsteps, leaves crushed beneath armoured boots. Another figure appeared between the boughs, bright in royal livery, a cool shine of steel and stars.
Sir Lancelot emerged from the trees, stark and beautiful, like a winter moon rising. In his arms he carried a tall, golden figure.
King Arthur, my brother, held close by his most beloved knight.
“Lancelot,” Ninianne gasped, and rushed over to him, her light shimmering in surprise. “I didn’t know you would come.”
He looked at her with an expression I had never seen in him—fearful, vulnerable, the light of tears in his pale eyes.
“I had to,” he said, his head bowing towards Arthur’s. “I was too late to fight by his side, but I could at least do this.”
She nodded and stepped back, letting him pace forth, bearing up his King for the last time.
Lancelot laid my brother gently on the ground and knelt beside him.
Then, with deft hands, he unfastened the red-and-white mantle he wore, snapped the silk in the air and draped Arthur’s standard across his body.
For so long, the roaring rampant dragon had been an enemy of mine, but I saw it for what it was now—a symbol Arthur had chosen because he was seeking a reminder, a representation of ancestral power that he first sought to change and, in the end, surpassed.
When his task was done, Camelot’s best knight rose, catching sight of me across the man who had bound our fates together. He gave me a long, searching look, but this time there was no challenge or suspicion in his ice-blue gaze.
“Morgan le Fay,” he said.
“Lancelot du Lac,” I replied.
He bowed his head briefly in acceptance, and I looked long at him, taking in his astonishing, archangel’s face for the last time.
“Did you do it?” I asked. “Did you work a miracle?”
He hesitated for so long I thought he would not answer. Then he sighed with the heaviness of confession.
“Yes, I did,” he said. “Once. I healed a knight of an injury he had suffered for many years. But it didn’t matter in the end. I failed to save what was most important.”
We looked down at the man he had carried, the King he had served and loved.
“You didn’t fail,” I told him. “Saving him was always my duty.”
He nodded but it pained him, that a quest’s conclusion was out of his reach. Unexpectedly, he reached out and took up my hand, pressing his lips to my fingers. Raising his celestial eyes to mine, Lancelot gave a sad, beautiful smile, and let me go.
Then, with the same elegance that made him a master of the sword fight, he stepped back and swung away, and went to his waiting mother to say their goodbyes.
I watched her draw him aside, put her hand to his face, but would not see Sir Lancelot of the Lake leave.
The next time I looked up, he would be gone.
Instead, I knelt on the ground beside my brother, Arthur, High King of All Britain.
He was breathing, just, and when I took his hand his eyes fluttered open, bright steel in the filtered light.
He fought for twelve hours, it was said, ferocious as he always had been in defence of his kingdom; stronger than he ought to be.
Mordred’s spear was still in him, its shaft broken off, deep in my brother’s heart.