Chapter 11
Katarin wore a crown of feathers and leaves.
The forest around her was dark and thick with magic, the trees calling to her.
Up ahead was her mother and aunt Morgause, their faces gilded by the torches set along the path.
Katarin giggled and danced towards them.
Igraine wore the simple dress of a healer, but her brow was freshly marked, the glyph of earth, while lines of white streaked her face.
The feathers on Morgause’s headdress reached down to brush her cheekbones and where the High Priestess was smiling proudly, Igraine’s face was tight.
It was enough to make Katarin stumble, and she was wrenched sideways into—
Birds in flight, their wings spread to catch the sky.
Then it was music, the haunting voice of the pipes, the constant rhythmic pounding of the drums. In the sweet song of the dark, the air was crisp with autumn chill and the leaves lost their colour, green bleeding to yellow and gold, then to grey and black with the night.
Rain was coming; a blanket of midnight mist clung to tree trunks and people alike in warning, fireworks of stars concealed behind sombre clouds and the thick canopy, until everything sharpened and pulled her forward so quickly her head spun, and she was no longer a child but a girl on the cusp of being a woman, her cousin by her side, his eyes returning to her face more often than not, awestruck at her return.
It was Samhain, the time when the veil between the worlds was the thinnest and the spirits of those departed roamed the earth.
A stone altar that reached to waist height was decorated with black, orange and white candles, runes, bones and specially selected cards from the witch’s oracle, dried leaves and flowers and the ceremonial athame.
A cloud of incense – dragon’s blood, clove and patchouli – floated around them.
At the altar, Mordred ran the blade of his dagger across his palm, then passed the weapon to Katarin.
‘For your mother,’ he said.
As the blade bit into Kat’s skin, the world fractured around the edges. The scent of smoke filled her nostrils and burnt her eyes. She walked, pulled further and further, until it was no longer past or present but the future.
A clearing under a red moon. Her hands, decorated with swirls of white paint that snaked up the length of her bare arms. The crown on her head was heavy.
She wanted to reach up and adjust it, but before she could, the people gathered before her dropped to their knees.
Behind them, outlined in bloody moonlight, was Mordred.
The dream shifted so violently Katarin wanted to be sick, and she was in the darkness with the never-ending crash of the waves against a ragged coastline in her ears, their melody digging deep inside until her breathing became the breathing of the ocean and her veins were filled with sea water as she was torn apart and pulled in two different directions…
Gasping, Katarin sat up, her hair stuck to her neck.
Wiping her sweaty forehead on the sheet, she climbed from bed and dressed.
She needed fresh air. There were drums in her ears, in her veins, in her blood.
Why was she seeing Samhain in Cruithea? Was it because it was close or because of Morgause’s passing? Or was it something else entirely?
There was a pitcher of water and a glass on the dresser.
Katarin poured a drink with shaking fingers and drained it, then another.
Dreamwalking had always made her desperately thirsty.
A quick glance out the windows showed a sky beginning to lighten.
For once, a sleep-in would be welcome. She was having trouble remembering the last time she slept soundly and was not tormented by dreams. It was as if, now that her dreamwalking ability had been stirred to life, it was making up for all those years of suppression.
Kat stole a glance at her bed. She missed Olwen, although she wasn’t exactly sure why that was.
She barely knew the Red Sister – Olwen had gotten beneath Katarin’s skin from the moment she’d arrived on the ship and while she should have left it, Kat enjoyed their arguments.
She enjoyed the little moments of spite between them, the nasty words, the banter, the teasing…
until it became more and she craved it. It was easy to admit that now in the watery light of early morning.
Belly full of water but empty of food – she ate dinner, didn’t she?
– Kat stumbled out of her cabin to greet the sun.
The deck was empty, except for the sailor on watch.
He was young, one of The Excalibur’s crew.
He saw her, nodded and took his leave. Katarin knew she’d have a few scant minutes before the rest of the crew awoke and headed topside, before Kayrus took up his position behind the wheel and someone scurried up the rigging to check the sails.
Kat leant against the railing and watched the ocean.
Normally, she enjoyed sunrise, the way the sun would slowly paint the water with flecks of gold before shooting above the horizon to take its place in the sky.
But this morning, she could take no solace from the sight, her brain snagged on one particular part of her dream.
Mordred, lined in red moonlight. Mordred, there but not truly, which meant…
Footsteps echoed across the deck. Katarin didn’t turn – she knew that gait, the steadiness of it, and when Halymere’s hand came to rest beside hers she wanted to throw herself against his chest and cry.
Instead, she asked how he slept.
The Cruithean’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Now ask me what you truly want to ask.’
Katarin rubbed her eyes. ‘I’m worried about him. I’m worried for him.’
‘You’re talking about Mordred?’ Halymere asked softly and she nodded. ‘I wish I could tell you that when we finally get to that castle on that cursed plain, he’ll meet us at the gates and tell us he’s been a fool, but he won’t. Mordred is as stubborn, if not more stubborn, than you are.’
Katarin swallowed. ‘He…’
‘I know.’
They stood in silence.
‘You fear what is to come,’ Halymere said. ‘Don’t. What will be has already been written. Inanna’s hand is in this as much as Ereshki’s is. I know you don’t believe that. I know you think Inanna has forsaken you, but she has not.’
Katarin gave him a wry smile.
‘Ethinne is not here to remind you of it, so it’s my task now,’ he said.
‘And Mordred?’ Katarin asked. ‘What are Inanna’s plans for him?’
Halymere frowned. ‘Your cousin’s choices have led him into darkness. I fear they will break him.’
‘Parts of me are broken as well, Halymere, and you can’t put them back together – no one can, no matter how much they might want to,’ Katarin said. ‘Does that mean I should be left in the darkness?’
‘I don’t think Mordred knows how broken he is and you don’t want to be put back together,’ Halymere responded roughly; she glared at him, but he went on, unfazed by her anger.
‘Because it’s easier to be full of rage and spite instead of kindness and love.
But the thing is – you’ve failed at that as well.
You are kind. You are compassionate and you’re strong, Kat, a fucking wildfire, but a fire can’t burn forever.
It will eventually run out of fuel, and what will you do then? ’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. Ever since this whole thing had begun – no, earlier, since her brother had been discovered hiding on her ship – Kat’s carefully constructed world had been slowly coming apart at the seams, until it was about to split right open.
And when did it, she knew nothing would be the same again.
‘I miss her,’ she said, then laughed. ‘I hardly know her, but I miss her. That doesn’t make sense. ’
‘It makes perfect sense,’ Halymere said. He reached out and curled his fingers around hers and she let him. ‘You don’t want to be alone.’
Katarin sighed and gently pulled her hand free.
‘No, I don’t, I suppose. I never realised that before now.
’ She gave Halymere a quick glance. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed, now or then.
You’re a good man, and the world is running short of good men, Haly. Don’t ever stop being who you are.’