Chapter 47
Forty-Seven
I could feel the dragon’s stomach rising and falling. Its rough scales caught against my tunic. They were surprisingly warm, like roof tiles baking in the sun.
As the dragon’s wing flapped open, tenting me beneath webbings of pebbled skin, a sudden clarity washed over me.
I did not fear the dragon. I did not fear death or the pain that might accompany it.
I did not, in the end, truly care about the grail.
It could remain in this bed of gold and bone, a divided symbol, a mistake.
But I didn’t want Gawain to die. Not like this, not because of me.
I turned back and saw him looking down, horror-struck.
If he sprinted he might find protection between the narrow walls of the pass.
I would do my best to distract the dragon while he got away.
I tried to convey this plan with my eyes, but as his gaze moved from me, to the dragon, back to me, I knew he would not save himself.
Instead he slid into the nest and pulled me up to standing.
I snatched the grail and together we scrambled out of the nest and broke into a feral sprint across the basin.
It was not until we reached the pass that we dared to look back.
The dragon remained curled on its pile, its chest continuing to rise and fall.
It hadn’t woken up. And we were still alive.
We didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until we reached Morgan’s chapel.
Collapsing onto a bench, shaking and sweat-drenched, I removed the grail from my cloak and handed it to him.
It was the size and shape of a standard wine goblet, with a carnelian rim and a base adorned with the smaller multicolored jewels of the sisterhood. Gawain held it to the lamplight, revealing its ancient patina.
“This is it?” he said.
“It must be. Look how old it is.”
“A lot of effort for a single cup.” He tried to hand it back to me, but I refused.
“This was our agreement,” I said. “I recover the grail. You return it to Camelot.”
“That’s not right,” he objected. “You’re the one who went into the nest.”
“And you came in after me.”
“You deserve the glory.”
“I told you,” I said. “I don’t care about the glory.”
He was inches from me on the bench and his scent, sweat and pine, filled my nostrils. Morgan’s chapel was surprisingly welcoming once we lit the lamps and beeswax candles.
Gawain pushed his hair off his forehead. “You’re a better person than me.”
“Hardly. I just want my heart’s deepest desire.”
The words slid out, an unintended confession.
“And that would be…?”
Our eyes locked. My heart tugged. I’d channeled a different kind of tension in the valley, a force more powerful than any I’d ever known. A deeper feeling underpinned my fear of losing Gawain. An emotion I dared not name.
But in the pierce of Gawain’s gaze, I could feel myself building worlds. I was picturing a life of adventure—with him. A feral thought roared through my mind. Was it possible? No.
His hand slid to my knee. I felt myself stir.
There was no way. My heart’s deepest desire could not be this. It was never this. It was always to bring back—
His hand slid farther up my thigh. The blood rushed to my ears. This couldn’t be happening, could it? He was the Knight of Maidens. And I was me.
“Lancelot.”
He spoke my name, but I heard more. I felt more. I looked down at the grail, resting on the bench behind him. I had not yet drunk from it. And even if I did…
“This has nothing to do with the grail,” he said, as if reading my mind. “The grail is not doing this.”
“What’s this?”
“You and me.”
I understood his meaning, but I could hardly trust it. I needed to hear him say it.
“I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you.”
I was too stunned to speak.
“I know they call me the Knight of Maidens. But two things can be true. It’s all right,” he whispered. “If you do not feel the same.”
“Gawain, it’s not that.”
“I understand. You have others who—”
“Gawain.”
I grabbed his chin and our lips met. My tongue parted his mouth, and I slid back on the bench and he gently nestled on top of me.
I was used to the charged thrust of our wrestling matches, our aggressive clashes in the practice field.
His tenderness was disarming. I had forgotten how good it felt to be held like this, to be kissed.
His hand trickled down my side, delicately removed my tunic and his own.
The methodical slowness was perfectly Gawain, and it only ignited my desire more.
I pulled him against me, tossed my legs around his back, felt his stiffness against my own.
Any remaining guilt disappeared. He made no sound, just breathed heavily into my ear, clutching my arm to convey his pleasure.
His eyes pored over my body as he disrobed me.
He slowly removed his breeches, and looked down at the full length of his hardness, as if to say, You did this.
Look what the sight of you does to me. He slicked himself and I pulled him into me and we found a rhythm.
He was the Knight of Maidens, but I knew he had done this before.
We lay like that for some time, bodies connected, the chapel cold and quiet, until we drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms, the grail all but forgotten on the foot of the bench.
At first, we thought it was wind. Or the distant charge of the sea. A series of low rumbles shocked the air.
We were riding home the next morning in a state of rapture, triumphant not only in the grail quest, but in our unlocked connection. My life, I felt, had begun again. Gawain seemed buoyant, energized. Our banter took on new layers of meaning.
Gawain kicked Gringolet into a gallop. “You found the grail, but you can’t find the speed to keep up with me.”
I leaned forward, urging my horse to overtake him. “You’ve been hunting the grail for years. I found it in months. Don’t talk to me about speed.”
“You were speedier last night.”
“So were you.”
The roars cut through the air. We turned back but saw nothing. Just the empty valley, and the muted browns of the heath. By the time we reached Broceliande forest, however, the roars had grown deafening.
“It’s probably a wolf.” Gawain checked his leather satchel to ensure the grail was secure.
Another roar, louder this time. A singed aroma clung to the air. Something was burning, I thought, with a flare of terror.
Gawain halted his horse. The roars were coming from above. We could hear the distant flap of wings.
“Is that…”
“It can’t be…”
Another roar, awful, ear-shattering, confirmed it.
“The dragon knows we took the grail,” I said.
We urged our horses into a gallop. A swath of forest ignited in the distance.
“We can’t just guide it back to Camelot,” Gawain yelled. “It’ll destroy the whole city in minutes.”
I could see the dragon wheeling through the low-hanging clouds.
We hadn’t restored the grail just to die like this.
I gritted my teeth, dug into the stores of emotion billowing between us.
We were far closer to Camelot now than the valley.
Soon we’d emerge from the forest, into the pastures and orchards on the outskirts of the city.
But first we’d pass Merlin’s house. Could he help? Was he even there? I scanned the trail for signs of the turn-off.
“Do you know where Owl’s Guard is?”
“No idea,” Gawain said.
“We need a plan!”
“That’s what I’m counting on you for.”
The dragon swooped just above the treetops.
A pine grove erupted into ash, heat striking the back of my neck.
I went inside myself, diving through the conflicting layers.
On top, like oil on vinegar, floated the fear.
It was rigid and congealed, entirely unusable to me now.
Beneath that, little wisps of anger, not enough to channel.
I swam until I reached the redness I’d tapped in the basin.
My senses went sharp, mind pinned to the moment.
Up ahead jutted the familiar parapets of Yvain’s castle.
If we sought shelter there, we might put him and his family at risk.
We had to keep riding, pull the dragon into the open.
If we could draw it down to our level, then what?
Shoot it with an arrow? An arrow would deflect right off its hard scales.
Even if we were lucky enough to pierce it through the eye, I doubted we’d fell it.
Yvain’s small castle was on the left side of the path, tucked between dense layers of pine trees. That’s when I noticed the white marble fountain, its gold basin and carved bluestone.
“Gawain! Stop!”
Yvain had said the fountain conjured storms. Maybe we could produce weather strong enough to scare the dragon away.
I sprinted to the fountain and grabbed the gold basin. The dragon was circling overhead, destroying acres of forest around us. The ash and heat whipped through the air, stinging my eyes. I squinted through dripping beads of sweat.
I submerged the basin in the fountain and poured its contents over the bluestone next to it.
“Are you sure you know how to work that?” Gawain asked.
“No, but we have to try something!”
The fountain’s water was thicker than normal, tinged copper with a metallic scent. I doused the stone with two full basins, and was about to pour a third when the clouds shifted.
“It’s working!” Gawain exclaimed.
The sky went dark and the clouds opened.
I felt a raindrop, then another. Soon we heard the pounding of rain.
Then a strong gale knocked the dragon off kilter.
With an agitated roar, it righted itself and began to ignite the woods around us.
We heard a crash of thunder. Now all we needed was lightning.
“Hurry up,” I whispered, hands shaking, vision blurred by walls of heat.
The rain mixed with hail. We covered our heads as the trail erupted in a moving wall of flame. The heat grew excruciating, evaporating the rain before it struck the ground.
It can’t end like this, I thought. Maybe this was the fate I deserved, but not him. I hugged Gawain against me, praying it would be over quickly.
A deafening sound drew our gaze upward. The sky flashed with eye-splitting brightness. A bolt of lightning passed through the dragon, and for a moment the creature seemed to hang suspended before crashing lifeless to the ground.
Gawain and I were still braced together. He looked to me now, hair soaked against his forehead, mouth widening in shock.
“I can’t believe you did that,” he said.
I couldn’t either. I had only the vaguest sense of how the fountain worked.
Then, a voice behind us.
“Oh, you thought he did that?”
Laudine, Yvain’s wife, was standing in a soaked gown, blowing steam off her fingernails.
“This is the last time I rescue you foolish knights of the Round Table,” she said, flinging back her wet silver hair. In the sharp pull of her brows I saw traces of her mother, the sisterhood’s Sebile. “You love to make the storm. But you never bring the lightning.”