Chapter 62
Sixty-Two
In free fall my mind went quiet. The uprush of air and twisting whorls of snow cradled me in a blue solace. I did not have thoughts so much as images. Bright flashes like those of the lake sword.
I saw Guinevere in a fit of laughter. Yvain and Morien cheering in the practice fields. I saw Gawain’s eyes glinting as we wrestled and Galehaut smiling in the lake’s pale light.
I saw Elinor playing the fiddle.
I saw Viviana, reaching for my hand.
In midair, my parents had not died. My cousins had not been captive. There was no sword or lance or grail. There were no ways, old or new. There was no Arthur. There was no Camelot. There was only the Isle of Women. Its gentle tides. Its mist-clung woods. Its pale blue lights. Its hidden lake.
The end felt like the beginning. Time circled around like the rings of a tree. The weightless lurch in my stomach felt exactly like the first flushes of love.
My descent slowed. My body became light. I could see the beach thirty feet below, but I was no longer falling, instead I was drifting like the snow. I landed gently in the sand—an infant placed in a mother’s arms.
I closed my eyes and opened them. I was lying on my back, staring into the falling snow. A light shone around me, and within that light I discerned the outlines of a face.
“Viviana?” I asked. On the day I was born, she had come for me on this very beach. Now she had returned on the day I should die.
“No.”
I squinted, lifted my head.
“Guess again.”
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but I recognized the voice.
“Morgan?”
“Hello, Lancelot of the Lake.”