Chapter 2
Arthur watched the skies from the deck of the ship. He had never had so much as a dog, but now there was an enormous scaled winged creature following the ship.
Following him. It made him want to laugh until he was sick. In what reality did he have the power to command a dragon?
He didn’t know what to do. Did it need to eat?
He assumed it would find its own food – it was a bloody dragon – but then, he didn’t want it terrorising Teyath either.
It had been weeks since he’d woken the beast, and so far, it had stuck close to the ship.
It mustn’t be hungry, or thirsty, or tired.
The dragon hadn’t stopped flying along behind them.
Sometimes, it climbed high into the sky, and Arthur lost sight of it behind the clouds as it swooped and circled, graceful as a bird.
He could sense the creature, like he was able to sense the sword.
The godly treasure was strapped to his hip, where it had been since the dragon had awoken.
Putting it down, if only for a moment, caused Arthur’s heart to pinch, yet to stroke the hilt filled him with calm, with power and purpose.
The magic of the sword was inside him, and Arthur was terrified that when all this was over, he would be something else – someone else.
He wondered if it had already started to happen.
Coming back here, if only briefly, was a testament to the sword – without it, he wasn’t sure he’d have had the courage or tenacity to even suggest it.
He wished Jalen were here to see the dragon. Then he remembered, like a slap to the face, why he wasn’t.
It was easier to mull on dragons, talking swords and godly relics than the storm demon who had torn his heart out. It was easier to focus on where they were headed than think about Jalen and the empty side of the bed.
It made Arthur want to laugh.
Kernou was preferable to heartache, one pain replacing another.
Their plan was to collect the copy of the Word from Ulrian’s study, then move on to Port Leore, Arcdon and The Vale.
Arthur had wished to approach Dinas Emrys from Kernou and cross the mountains as Mordred would have done, but Kat insisted there wouldn’t be time to sail around the south of Teyath and back again.
Arthur hadn’t pointed out they had Ordes with them, who could surely move them along.
Kat had been irritated since Olwen left, so it was safer to let his sister remain in charge of the ship and her bearing.
He could sense Kat needed something to cling to.
It didn’t matter how they got to Dinas Emrys, as long as they did.
He hoped the others would find them.
Olwen had torn the foundations of Arthur’s world to pieces when she’d shown them the original copy of the Word.
Jen had been sceptical, but Arthur could think of no reason the Red Sister had to lie.
Unlike his father. Arthur’s stomach clenched.
He wasn’t ready to face the man who had tried to drag him into the Word of the One God – a Word Arthur now knew was false.
As they sailed around the headland towards the Bay of Calledun, Arthur’s dragon dropped from the sky, heading straight for them.
Some of the crew cried out in alarm, but the beast banked and soared towards land, perching on a large rock beneath the cliffs of the headland.
Its enormous glassy eyes were fixed on the ship – on Arthur.
He could feel the creature’s attention, those ancient eyes on his face, and was aware of a sudden stillness within him as he met the dragon’s stare.
A calm before the storm. Merlin had told him the dragon was a weapon, that it had awoken to fight for Arthur. But how could he expect that of something that hadn’t been given a choice?
The Excalibur waited where the sea kissed the sky. Arthur dug the toe of his boot into the sand, staring at the ship until his eyes blurred, before he turned to the town hunched against the oceanic breeze. He lifted his chin, squared his shoulders and tried not to vomit.
Kernou was as still as a graveyard. No boats decorated the water, and no fishermen occupied the shore with bulging nets of slippery squirming silver fish. There was no sound except the shrieking wind that filled Arthur’s ears.
At the end of the beach, the remains of eight bodies clung to crude wooden stakes.
Arthur’s stomach turned. He had told the others what Mordred had done, what he had seen in his dreamwalking, but to see the horrible truth of it in the flesh was jarring.
He should go down there, cut those bodies free, but his feet refused to move.
The men of the Konsel, for all their faults, did not deserve an ending like that.
They were simply following Ulrian’s orders, doing what they believed was best.
Could anyone, anywhere, say that they had never followed another, even if the path they were led down was filled with darkness?
No one moved from where they stood on the beach with the water lapping at their toes.
Katarin’s face was hard – she had not set foot in Kernou since Ulrian had tried to drown her.
Jenyfer kept her eyes on the town, her expression carefully composed.
Ordes had hold of her hand, his shoulders tense.
Halymere’s frown was deep, and his fingers stroked the weapon at his hip.
None of them wanted to be here, but it was necessary.
In Ulrian Tregarthen’s study was a leather-bound copy of the Word that Arthur was determined to take with him when he left this place, never to return. He felt sick at the prospect of walking up to the front door of the house he was raised in and demanding his father hand the book over.
But there was something else he needed to do first.
‘We should…’ Arthur’s voice trailed off.
He gestured helplessly to the men of the Konsel, the remnants of their red cloaks flapping mournfully in the breeze and found he couldn’t recall their names.
Black birds wheeled above the bodies. He wondered why no one had removed the bodies, then recalled it was always the Konsel themselves who had taken the dead down from the stakes once the sea had claimed them.
The bodies were then burnt, their ashes spread on the beach as one last gift to the ocean that provided for the town.
Katarin muttered something under her breath but sighed and nodded.
‘I’ll do it,’ Ordes said quietly and before Arthur could say a word, he was gone, snapping through time and space and reappearing down the beach in the blink of an eye.
As they watched, Ordes made his way towards those bodies, reaching out to touch each one at a time, his fingers leaving a trail of fire.
Once every member of the Konsel was consumed by flame and Ordes had rejoined them, his expression grim, Arthur shifted his gaze back to the place he had never felt at home in.
He would not fall apart.
An eerie emptiness had settled over Kernou, echoed in the vacant shopfronts and empty streets.
At this time of the morning, there should have been market stalls set up.
Mr. Chigwidden’s vegetables should have been a splash of colour in an otherwise drab world.
The red of the Konsel’s cloaks should have stood out against the greys and browns of the townspeople’s clothing.
There was nothing.
A winged shadow passed over the town. The White Dragon circled above them, and the sword thrummed in the back of Arthur’s mind.
Merlin had remained on the ship, and had offered to keep watch over the sword, and while Arthur knew that was a good idea, he found he couldn’t get his hands to unbuckle the weapon from his body.
He was used to its weight now, to its voice always inside his head, a caressing whisper at the back of his brain.
Jenyfer sighed. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
A dark grey sky hung above them like a shroud and the wind whistled through the spaces between buildings. Sand piled up outside doors and against the edges of walls.
‘If this place didn’t creep me out before, it does now,’ Katarin muttered.
Arthur said nothing. He wasn’t sure what he could say or what he should say.
Part of him wanted to get what they had come for and leave, while the other was desperate to know what had happened here.
All they had to go on was what Lamorna had told Jenyfer during their blood magic conversation and what Mordred had hinted at during Arthur’s dreamwalk.
Arthur had not seen his cousin since and had not searched for him in the space between the worlds, knowing, deep down, he was afraid to do so.
How had Mordred managed to turn Ulrian Tregarthen’s carefully constructed world on its head? What had he offered the people of Kernou to make them abandon their faith and leave this place? Arthur wasn’t sure he would uncover the answers he sought and wasn’t sure he wanted to.
The others were watching him, so he cleared his throat. ‘Should we take a look around?’
‘What for?’ Jenyfer mumbled, battling with the length of her hair; the wind had taken hold of it, piling it around her head like a dark halo.
Arthur met her stare, but his reply was stolen as Katarin suddenly darted towards the fishmongers.
She drew her dagger, yanked the door open and marched inside.
Arthur’s heart froze at the sound of his sister’s raised voice, then the muffled thump that followed.
Katarin kicked the door back open, a man struggling in her grip.
She hauled him across the square by the back of his shirt and shoved him to his knees, winding her fingers through his hair and pulling his head up so they could see his face.
The point of her dagger hovered dangerously near his throat.
‘Denny!’ Jenyfer gasped.
‘Friend of yours?’ Katarin asked, quirking a brow as Denny’s terrified blue eyes darted over them all, widening when they touched on Jenyfer and then Arthur.