36
Morgana watched, transfixed, as her handmaid reached over the side of the boat and thrust her small hand under the surface of the lake.
Braithe’s eyes were closed, her brow creasing as she concentrated.
She no longer looked like herself, with her plump freckled cheeks and dimples.
She was transformed by the magic flowing through her.
Her lips were thinner, pursed and tight.
Her dimples were quiescent, and her curls stood high around her head, as if in a stiff breeze.
As if the power of the magic lifted them.
Morgana meant to lend her own magic to Braithe’s effort, but there was no need.
The wave began to swell the surface of the water in an instant.
It originated beneath their own boat, a slight bit of turbulence that made the hull shudder.
It swiftly gathered strength, rushing toward the boat carrying Skye and Idhri.
It grew in height and volume and speed, becoming a mound of water, then a hillock, and then, seemingly, a mountain of it.
Morgana had never seen the sea except from the air, but she thought being beneath a great wave must be like this.
There would be no escaping it, nowhere to turn, no way to avoid that rising cliff of water.
She doubted either Skye or Idhri, like herself, had ever seen the sea.
The wave towered above their heads, the water trembling as if trying to hold back, to build as high a wall as possible before it fell.
Idhri pulled in the oars and let them clatter to the bottom of the boat.
Skye gave a thin, panicked cry. He clutched at an oarlock with one hand and gripped the scythe in the other, gazing upward with naked terror distorting his gaunt features.
The wave rolled forward, still growing. Morgana had nothing to do with it.
She could only watch, stunned by the power Braithe wielded, as the wave, foaming at its leading edge and dark and murky in its swirling center, swelled into a watery behemoth that hung above the rowboat for what seemed an eternity before, with a great roar, it crashed down.
The boat and its passengers disappeared.
Morgana, her gaze shifting from Braithe’s rapt face to the destruction she had wrought, could hardly breathe.
Lancelin, born to war and at his very best in a crisis, was on his feet, stripping off his tunic, kicking off his boots.
As the wave rumbled away, dissipating bit by bit, leaving flecks of foam behind, Lancelin leaped over the side of the boat and into the water.
Braithe took a sudden, gasping breath. Her eyes flew open, and she stared at the place where the boat had been. “Idhri?” she called. “Idhri!”
For long moments there was nothing, but then Morgana pointed. “There!”
The rowboat had vanished, but two dark heads bobbed above the water, side by side.
Lancelin was swimming next to Idhri. Idhri was also swimming, after a fashion, although his progress was erratic.
Morgana heard him choking, as if he had caught a breath of lake water.
Lancelin was clearly a strong swimmer, and he supported Idhri with one arm while propelling them both forward with the other.
Of Skye there was no sign. The scythe floated on the surface of the water, turning in circles as it was lifted by the swirling depths beneath. It spun once, twice, three times, before vanishing into the depths.
Idhri had not had a chance to gather himself as the great wave rose above the boat and then swept down.
The force of it drove him off the bench seat and into the water, where he tumbled and rolled like a piece of dry wood.
There was no time to catch a breath, and once he had been driven beneath the water, he needed both air and a sense of direction.
He didn’t know which way was up, and it was hard to think, to look for the brightness that would mean sky, and air.
His lungs burned, demanding he breathe. He struggled to resist that instinct, but he began to choke.
He was thrashing blindly, trying to judge where he was and which way he should try to go, when he felt the pressure beneath him.
It wasn’t the water. It was like a hand, in a way, although it didn’t feel like a hand.
It felt like—well, he had no word for what it felt like.
It was nothing human. It lifted him, pushed him steadily upward until his head broke the surface of the lake and he could draw a deep, sweet, welcome breath.
The power released him at once. He was still confused and spitting swallowed water, but he was afloat.
Master Hugh had decreed that every boatman should know how to swim, and he had done his best to teach his apprentice.
Idhri’s skills were rudimentary, but he could tread water.
He did that, furiously paddling, just managing to keep his head in the air while the last vestiges of the great wave rippled away.
Moments later Sir Lancelin’s strong arm came around him, and awkwardly, unevenly, they swam.
Idhri’s eyes stung so that he couldn’t see their direction, but he placed his faith in Sir Lancelin.
It wasn’t long before they were being pulled up into an unfamiliar boat.
Idhri collapsed onto the deck, coughing, rubbing at his eyes to clear them enough to see that Braithe and Priestess Morgana were there.
Even as they helped him to sit up, Sir Lancelin had taken up the oars and begun to row.
When he could speak, Idhri rasped, “Skye?” No one had an answer.
Braithe thought, as she and Morgana helped Idhri out of the boat and onto the dock, that she now understood how shapeshifting exhausted Morgana.
She had not shapeshifted, nor did she ever expect to, but she had wielded more magic than ever before, and it had taken its toll.
Her muscles trembled and her head spun. She did her best to ignore these things as she kept her arm around Idhri’s waist. He leaned on her, his own muscles shaking.
She almost fell, just managing to keep her feet as she took his weight on her shoulder.
Hugh and Emma were on the dock. Emma took Idhri’s arm from Braithe, and Hugh took the other. As the three of them began the trek up to the cottage, Idhri said, “Master Hugh, the boat—I’m sorry—”
“Damn the boat,” Hugh said. “Only thing matters is you’re safe, lad.”
Lancelin, bare-chested and dripping wet, was tying up the borrowed boat while Braithe and Morgana waited for him on the shore.
Braithe turned her gaze out to the lake, marveling at its stillness, as if nothing had disturbed its peace.
The first stars began to glimmer in the evening sky, with answering reflections in the quiet water.
A nightjar gave its rattling cry from the woods, as if it were any usual evening.
None of it seemed possible to Braithe. She had been, only moments before, on an unfamiliar precipice, balancing between triumph and tragedy.
It was too much to take in. The spinning of her head intensified, and suddenly she found herself sitting on the ground without knowing how she had gotten there.
Morgana hastily knelt beside her. “Braithe, you are exhausted. I should have known. Come now, Lancelin and I will see you to your bed. You need food and rest.”
Braithe wanted to apologize for having collapsed in such a clumsy way, but the words didn’t come.
It was all too easy to submit to Morgana’s care.
She managed to regain her feet, but she leaned on Morgana for balance as the three of them made their way up through the woods and back to the keep.
Two lackeys met them, eyeing Lancelin’s wet clothes and hair, but they didn’t speak.
They held the gate for the three of them to go through, and one sped ahead to open the door to the west tower.
King Mordred himself met them there, demanding to know what had happened, and why Lancelin was wet. “What happened to your tunic? Did you fall in the lake?” he asked, half in jest, then noticed that Braithe was unwell. “Ah. Tell me later. Braithe, I will send Loria to you.”
Morgana answered for her. “Thank you, sir. Please ask her to bring broth and cider. Braithe needs refreshment.” The king, as if he were one of the kitchen maids, hurried off to do as she asked.
The stairs were difficult, but with Morgana and Lancelin supporting her, Braithe managed to climb them.
Lancelin went to put on dry clothes. Morgana persuaded Braithe to take off her robe and slip into bed in her chemise.
Even as weak as she felt, Braithe appreciated how soft her new bed was, how smooth the bedding.
She sighed with relief as Morgana adjusted the pillow beneath her head and smoothed the quilt over her legs, just as she had done for Morgana so many times.
She said drowsily, “Idhri will be safe now.”
“Yes.” Morgana pulled a chair close to the bed. “We will scry after a bit and see what became of Skye.”
“He is gone,” Braithe said. She put a hand over her midriff. “I have had this premonition, this worry… but it is no longer there.”
“Very good.”
“Yes.” Braithe lifted her hand and gazed at it in wonder, surprised that it looked precisely as it had that morning.
After everything, it seemed to her it should look different.
Changed. Surely nothing about her could remain the same after what she had done.
“Morgana,” she whispered. “What really happened?”
“You worked a great magic, brat,” Morgana said, placing her long hand over Braithe’s small one. “I am so proud of you. I could not have done that alone.”
Braithe’s eyelids were growing heavy, and she had to blink to keep them open. She said, her voice thick with drowsiness, “I was not alone, Morgana. He was there with me.”
“He?”