Chapter 58
Claw marks decorated Firestorm’s skin. Lamorna hovered near the dragon, eyes blurred, hands itching to help but not knowing how.
She’d watched, helpless and horrified, as the White Dragon had pinned Firestorm to the ground and when Firestorm had cried out in pain, she’d screamed so loudly her throat was still raw.
She thought she was about to watch her dragon die, but miraculously the White Dragon had let Firestorm up and allowed him to fly to safety.
To her.
Lamorna didn’t know what to do. Her body hurt, like she was the one who’d been slammed to the ground in a flurry of wings and fury. As Firestorm fixed her in his great glassy eye, she wept.
Mordred was dead. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that. The pain of that loss mingled with Firestorm’s pain and caused her blood to sizzle and her heart to fracture down the centre.
‘I don’t know how to help you,’ she whispered to the dragon.
He made a noise that could have been a groan, until Lamorna realised the sound was coming from her.
Helpless, she slid to the ground, resting against Firestorm’s side.
Her cheek pressed against him. He was warm and sticky with blood.
She didn’t care. Let it paint her red, like him.
She hummed to him, a song she used to know when she was a child and songs were still allowed, and stroked his scales gently. They were soft.
War was loss and pain, blood and death. There was nothing else she could do. Lamorna closed her eyes and waited.
‘We found her.’
A voice she knew but couldn’t recall. Footsteps crunched cautiously over the ground, echoing through the cavern, slipping into the spaces between Firestorm’s ragged breaths. A hand touched Lamorna’s shoulder gently. Her eyes opened and she sat up straight, pushing her blood-wet hair from her face.
‘Are you hurt?’
Arthur Tregarthen was peering at her. His hair was longer than it had been when she saw him last, brushing his shoulders. There was blood on his cheek and shadows beneath his eyes.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Lamorna asked. Her voice sounded wrong, like it didn’t quite belong to her. She should sound upset, not flat and tired.
‘I’m sorry,’ Arthur whispered.
‘No, you’re not.’ Lamorna didn’t shout. Her heart was too broken for that. Arthur cleared his throat – the dragon growled at him and he froze. ‘He’s hurt,’ Lamorna said defensively, then, ‘It’s your fault.’
‘I’m sorry for that as well,’ Arthur told her.
Lamorna stroked the dragon’s hide. ‘He didn’t want to fight. But Mordred needed him, and now Mordred is dead and Firestorm will be dead soon as well.’
‘Firestorm?’ Arthur asked.
Lamorna nodded. ‘That is what I named him.’
‘He doesn’t have to die.’ Ordes’ voice, soft and musical.
Failure was as heavy as a stone. It tumbled from an imaginary sky and crashed into Lamorna’s head, the sudden weight of it making her clutch her head.
Her throat hurt. When the two dragons had tangled together, teeth snapping, Firestorm roaring in pain, the sound had torn through Lamorna’s heart and ripped through her veins, a sharp pain clawing its way over the back of her neck.
Mordred was dead.
She didn’t have the energy to be afraid of a man who wasn’t a man, who had magic that did not belong to men.
She swallowed. ‘Can you save him?’
‘No,’ Ordes said. ‘But I can help him.’
‘What do you mean?’ Firestorm’s skin twitched beneath her hand. She could feel the sharpness of his pain and could smell the blood leaking from his wounds.
Ordes came closer, those glorious, unearthly wings of his trailing behind him.
The white feathers were splattered with blood.
He inclined his head to Firestorm, then reached out and touched the beast. Firestorm made a noise deep in his throat and blinked.
‘I can put him back to sleep, let him rest, like he was before he was woken.’
Lamorna frowned. ‘But I wouldn’t be able to see him.’
‘He wouldn’t be in pain anymore,’ Ordes told her.
Lamorna climbed to her feet, her limbs stiff.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting in the darkness with Firestorm, but it must have been a while.
She could not hear any sounds of battle anymore.
She could hear nothing but her dead heart and Firestorm’s heart, beating slower as each moment passed.
She turned to Ordes and nodded.
Lamorna stared into the dragon’s eye. She told him in her mind all the things she couldn’t speak, not in front of the others. Ordes placed both hands on Firestorm’s snout. The cavern rippled with magic. Lamorna sucked in a breath at the feeling of it rushing over her. It felt… peaceful.
Slowly, so slowly, Firestorm turned to stone once more.
Lamorna did not cry. She cleared her throat and met her sister’s eyes. Jenyfer didn’t say a word. She marched across the stone floor and pulled Lamorna into her arms. Still Lamorna did not cry. She wasn’t sure she could.
‘What happens now?’ she asked, her head resting beneath Jenyfer’s chin. ‘Am I in trouble?’
Jenyfer laughed, the sound part horrified, part exasperated. ‘No, Lamorna.’
‘Am I?’ Lamorna demanded, pulling free of her sister and turning to Arthur.
He shook his head. ‘No. There has been enough trouble, enough pain and torment.’
‘But I was on the wrong side,’ Lamorna argued. She wasn’t sure why she was arguing at all. ‘I—’
‘If you want to be punished, I’m sure I can arrange something.’ Katarin Le Fey’s voice was rough. She would not meet Lamorna’s eyes.
Lamorna didn’t know how she knew, but she did.
‘You killed Mordred.’
The pirate lifted her chin. ‘I did. And if you’re going to argue with me about it, Lamorna Astolat, I swear, I’ll—’
‘I’m not,’ Lamorna cut in. ‘I’m not. Elaine told me it would happen, and I knew I couldn’t stop it.’
Lamorna led them to the Hall, Jenyfer by her side. There was a man she had never seen waiting outside the door. He was strangely familiar, but her numb brain could not focus.
‘The doors are locked,’ he said, irritated.
Arthur turned to Lamorna. ‘Is there another way in?’
She shook her head. ‘I hope you’re sending him away – I don’t like him.’
‘Who?’ her sister asked.
‘Agravaine,’ Lamorna said. ‘He’d be in there.’ The strange man sucked in a breath, and a furious conversation broke out. Lamorna was too tired to keep up. In the end, Ordes opened the doors and she was swept inside with the rest of them.
Agravaine sat on Mordred’s throne. Lamorna sucked in breath as anger flooded her. She marched the length of the Hall. ‘Get out of that throne,’ she snapped.
He raised his eyebrows, his lips curling into a smirk.
‘That’s Mordred’s seat,’ Lamorna hissed. ‘You have no right to be there.’ Her fists clenched at her sides. Jenyfer touched her arm and drew her to the side, but Lamorna glared as many daggers as she could at Agravaine, thinking of all the places she’d like to stab him.
‘Lamorna, sit,’ Jenyfer said, guiding her into a seat.
‘He can’t be there,’ Lamorna said furiously. Her face was as hot as Firestorm.
‘I know,’ Jenyfer said. ‘They’ll get him to move.’
‘Who is that other man?’ Lamorna demanded.
‘Gaheris – Arthur’s uncle, Mordred’s as well I suppose.
I’m guessing that is his brother up there,’ Jenyfer said, glancing over her shoulder to where Gaheris was arguing with Agravaine.
Lamorna watched them, smiling for the first time in days when Agravaine was taken away.
She hoped they put him in the cells where it was dark and cold and smelt like dead things.
Jenyfer was frowning. ‘Lamorna, how long since you slept?’
Lamorna shrugged.
‘Come on. I’ll take you to your room.’ And Lamorna let herself be led away.
In her room, everything was the same and terribly different.
Mordred was gone.
‘I think I will sleep.’
Jenyfer nodded. ‘I think that’s a good idea.’
‘Aunt Tamora was here,’ Lamorna said, getting into bed. She was filthy, but she didn’t care. ‘I sent her back to Cruithea. I didn’t want her to be here when it all happened.’
‘When all what happened?’ Jenyfer asked.
Lamorna looked at her like she was mad. ‘Darkness and blood.’
‘Go to sleep, Lamorna. We will talk later,’ Jenyfer said, and left.
Lamorna stared at the ceiling.
She’d never sleep again.