CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN #2
I slammed my palm down on the table, sending vials crashing to the floor. “Name her!”
She looked up slowly, utterly unfazed. “Your father made demands of me once. Same voice. Same outrage. Same fire in his eyes.” A cruel smile touched her cracked lips. “The apple, it seems, falls quite close, as they say.”
“I am nothing like Uther."
“No?” She struck flint. Sparks caught the herbs. Smoke curled up in ribbons, thick and bitter. “Then look.”
The smoke shifted—gathered—took form.
A face appeared.
My face.
Contorted with desire. Possession. The same twisted hunger I'd witnessed in Uther just before the dragon finally did him in and I had to take it into myself.
“I didn’t come here to learn about my father,” I said through clenched teeth. “And if you won’t help me, I’ll find my answers elsewhere.”
"We both know there are no answers for you elsewhere."
I turned, stepping back toward the door—anything to get away from that knowing gaze, that coiling smoke. But before I could touch it, the door disappeared. The rotted wood became stone—unyielding, cold, final.
“Information costs, my pretty lordling,” she hissed.
I turned—and recoiled.
Her tongue flicked out between yellowed teeth—much too long and serpentine, black-tipped, and slick as an eel pulled from murky waters.
The appendage glistened with an oily sheen that caught the dying firelight, writhing with unnatural life as it traced the air between us.
The sight of it made my skin crawl, every instinct screaming at me to retreat, to flee this cursed hovel and its ancient inhabitant.
We must leave this place!
Blodeuwyn stepped closer, her voice low, hungry.
“I hunger for warmth. For blood that stirs beneath smooth skin. You want your answers? Then you’ll warm an old woman’s bed. You’ll let me taste what time has stolen from me.”
Her gnarled fingers reached for my face, nails curved like talons. With each ragged breath, the stench of grave dirt filled my nostrils. My stomach turned with revulsion—yet some darker instinct kept me still.
“Feed my loneliness, beautiful boy,” she crooned, “and I’ll tell you which face she wears… which name she answers to.”
Her tone dropped to a whisper. Seductive. Damning.
I had to close my eyes to avoid looking at her.
“Refuse, and you’ll search for her until your bones rot beside mine.”
At her voice, I opened my eyes, taking in the flames in her brazier and how they dimmed, shrinking to guttering embers.
Shadows bloomed large on the hovel walls—monstrous things.
In the flicker of firelight, I saw shapes…
bones. Piled in corners. Scattered beneath the table.
The remains of others who had bartered flesh for knowledge—and never left this place to speak of it.
My hand drifted to my sword hilt.
“I am not my father,” I growled. “I do not trade in flesh.”
Blodeuwyn cackled—a sound like dried leaves crumbling underfoot. “Then you trade in ignorance instead. How fitting—for a king who banned magic while secretly craving its touch.”
Her words landed like a blade. Because they were true.
Had I not come here? Crawling to the very magic I'd condemned?
Because you had to, I argued with myself. Blodeuwyn is the only one who can tame the beast, who can return it to whatever hell it came from.
“There must be another price,” I said, forcing the tremor from my voice. “Gold. Land. A royal pardon. Name it.”
She sneered, gesturing around her with withered arms. “What use have I for baubles? I live apart from men. I deal in things you cannot mint or decree.”
I thought of her—the woman. The white-haired beauty who haunted my nights and every waking moment. She lingered like a fever beneath my skin. If I left now, I might never know who she was. Might never see her again.
“Choose,” Blodeuwyn whispered. “Dawn comes. And with it… her fading.”
My pulse thundered. Logic screamed at me to flee. But the hunger to know—to possess—gnawed deeper than fear.
“I...” I began, then stopped. "If I do this, will you take the dragon from me?"
"You expect two wishes granted?" she asked, studying me. I nodded. She threw her head back, and a cawing laugh sounded from her rotting mouth.
"One wish granted for each of us, boy."
I should have expected as much. "What would you ask in return for the dragon? To remove it from me altogether?"
"You speak as if such a thing is possible."
"If you awakened it, I know you can force it into dormancy once more."
She cocked her head to the side. "Perhaps. And perhaps not."
"What would you ask in return?" I demanded again.
She was quiet for a moment, then she sidled up next to me. The witch's fingers brushed my cheek.
“So warm,” she murmured. Her touch was cold as ice, yet burned like a brand. “So alive. It’s been decades since I felt such heat.”
"Name your price. For the dragon."
She smiled. "Queen. I would want to be crowned your queen."
"Queen?" I nearly spat the word.
She shrugged. "Of course, I would not appear as I do now." She pulled away, thank the gods. "In fact, I could appear however you wished me to—as the white-haired woman or as someone else?"
I chuckled without humor. "Do you think me a fool? The moment I crowned you queen, I would find myself with a sword in my belly or poison in my food. You would take whatever chance you could to usurp my control and power for yourself."
"Or perhaps I would ask only for your seed in my belly—to grow an heir."
The thought of my baby growing within her old and rotting womb sickened me. "I would rather die than give you access to the throne or give you my child."
She glared at me. "Then the dragon remains your burden, foolish king."
"And the white-haired woman?"
She turned to face me. "That offer still stands."
I clenched my fists, the thought of being with the vile creature causing me all sorts of unrest. “Tell me where she is first,” I said through gritted teeth. “Prove you're not deceiving me.”
Her laughter shattered the air like glass as she approached me once more.
“Oh, you clever boy.” Her nail traced down my jaw, leaving behind a line of pain that tingled in the cold. “But truth is not freely given. Never freely.”
She turned, shuffling to her cluttered table. Her gnarled hand plunged into a bowl of murky liquid, stirring it slowly. Then, with a flick of her fingers, she cast droplets into the brazier.
The flames exploded upward—unnatural, bright blue.
Within them, a face appeared.
Her face.
White hair framing a face of which I’d never seen an equal. Skin pale as starlight. Eyes the color of violets.
I stepped closer despite myself.
Not just beautiful. Otherworldly.
Our treasure!
“Yes, yes, that’s her.” I took a breath, sharp and shaking. “Tell me who she is. Give me her name!”
Blodeuwyn leaned in close, her breath thick with mushrooms and damp earth. “Her name?”
“Yes! I want her name!”
“Guinevere,” she whispered.
Guinevere.
I repeated it aloud, savoring the sound. It was beautiful. Fitting. As if the name had always belonged to her—even before I knew it.
Our Guinevere. Our treasure.
The witch’s hand slid down to rest over my heart. “But knowing her name isn’t enough, is it, Arthur Pendragon? You want more. You want to find her.”
“Yes,” I breathed. “I must know where she is.”
Blodeuwyn laughed, low and gloating. “That knowledge… requires full payment.”
I staggered back, heart pounding, eyes flicking toward the place where the door had been. It was restored. My last chance to leave this cursed place with my pride intact.
She will take far more from you than your pride, I thought to myself.
But if I walked through that door now, I would never know. I would never find her. I would never touch her. I would never claim her.
“Run home, little king,” Blodeuwyn cooed behind me.
I turned back.
The bones in the corners whispered warnings.
But this need within me burned hotter. I had to find this Guinevere.
I had to know what she was—what power she possessed that allowed her to pull Excalibur, and what she meant for Logres and Camelot.
I had to understand the threat she posed to my kingdom.
"But fear of losing your kingdom is not what is truly driving you in this mad need to find her, is it?"
"Of course—"
"—no. It is your cock that will not be silenced," she continued, looking down at my braies. "What consumes you is the desire to slake yourself within her. To know you are the first and only man who will ever fuck her."
As she spoke, I could feel my prick getting harder, straining against the fabric, long and demanding.
"Stop—" I started as I glanced down and noticed I was now nearly fully erect. "Whatever you're doing to me—stop it at—"
"—you want to possess her. You want to consume her." She came closer.
"No," I answered, breathless by this point. "She is a threat—"
"—a threat to your desire." She stood directly in front of me now, and I suddenly felt light-headed—as if all the blood were rushing to my cock, which was now harder than I ever remembered it being.
"You can and have had any woman you wanted, have you not, handsome kingling?
And yet, the one woman for whom you burn… she spurns you."
"She… didn't spurn me."
She reached out then, ran her weathered, gnarled hand across the swell of my cock, making me clench my eyes shut as my breath stopped.
"She hides from you. Does not want you to find her," the witch continued as she reached her hand around my cock and squeezed. "She spurns you, Arthur Pendragon. She refuses you."
"No."
"What if—at this very moment—another man is rutting her? Another man is taking that treasure you desire for yourself? She is moaning his name as she takes his cock, and he rips through that barrier upon which you place so much importance."
No man can have her! She is ours!
"No."
"You could find her. You could ensure that no man ever fucks her but you. You alone hold that power, Arthur Pendragon."