The Forever Queen (Pendragon Book 2)

by Nicola S. Dorrington

  I stepped closer, curious, and felt like ice water had dropped into my stomach as I saw the name pencilled in at the very bottom of the tree.

  “This is-“

  “Your family tree. Yes indeed. As I say, my life’s work.”

  Anger bubbled inside me, but I pushed it down. He was the reason the Order had been able to track me down. His life’s work had led them straight to me. But as much as I wanted to rage at him, I knew I needed him.

  Instead I let my eyes roam over the tree. It wasn’t a single piece of paper, but lots of smaller pieces glued and taped together, covered with crossings out and whiteout. For a moment I felt quietly impressed. The amount of work that had gone into it was incredible.

  “How?” I asked finally.

  He smiled. “With a great deal of difficulty. But as I’m sure you are aware, our Order has passed down the myths and legends father to son, and mother to daughter. Over the years I have gathered together all the stories and histories of the various families, every piece of written history we’ve possessed. After all, it’s not as though the Order has been sitting patiently just waiting for you to appear. There’s been numerous times over the centuries, when Albion was in the greatest danger, that the Order has redoubled its efforts to find your family. The blood of Avalon likes to reveal itself, so it hasn’t always been difficult to trace. Plus the fact that your family has always gravitated towards positions of power and leadership. Never rulers, no, but military leaders, brave warriors, and in later years, policemen and the like.”

  I couldn’t help it, I was drawn to the family tree, intrigued by the family I had never known. My mother’s parents had both died before I was born, and she had been an only child. I knew Dad’s family but I wasn’t close to them.

  “Of course, you are not the only one out there with Pendragon blood, but in most it is so weak, so watered down as to be negligible. Thomas is probably the closest relative you have.”

  I turned towards him, horror struck. “Thomas?”

  Collins laughed. “Why yes. He told you himself that he had the old magic in his blood. Admittedly, his line diverges from yours well over two centuries ago. A second son.” He smiled at me proudly. “You, of course, come from the unbroken line. Always the eldest, and often the only child. Father to son, the blood has passed. For the most part anyway. Only four females born of the line, which complicated matters when it came to tracking you, but I managed it.”

  I gazed at the family tree for a few more minutes. It fascinated me, I couldn’t deny it. Wyn coughed from the doorway.

  “Right – anyway – “

  Collins glanced towards Wyn and then back at me. “Yes. Indeed. You came here for a reason. What was it you thought I could help you with?”

  “I’m looking for something. It’s only mentioned a handful of times, and never in any detail, but it might be the only hope I have. Have you heard of the Silver Bough?”

  His eyes widened. “Of course. But I will admit, I’m surprised you have. It’s not one of the more common legends.”

  “So you do know about it?” I could hear the desperation in my voice, but I didn’t care. I was increasingly convinced that the Silver Bough was my only chance of getting Lance out of Avalon.

  “Why don’t you sit?” Collins said to me, even as he turned and began rifling through the piles of books.

  I moved a stack off a small wooden chair and perched on the edge, Wyn stayed standing, watching Collins with a distinctly mistrustful look. I didn’t see how he expected to find anything in the mess of books littering the room, but after only a moment or two he pulled out a slim volume. It looked hand bound rather than traditionally published, and when he handed it to me I could see that the cover was badly worn.

  “Surprisingly enough, this is probably the only book I have on the Bough. It’s a surprisingly little known legend. Though I have often wondered if the Fair Folk had something to do with that. It’s not the kind of thing they really want us knowing too much about.”

  “Why not?”

  “A way into Avalon that doesn’t require Fey magic? Oh, no, they certainly wouldn’t like that.”

  “So where do I find one?”

  Collins frowned at me. “Dear girl, one doesn’t find the Silver Bough. One makes it.”

  Wyn groaned behind me, but I didn’t dare turn to look, instead I kept my eyes glued to Collins.

  “Make it?”

  “Well, yes. It’s not the kind of thing one finds lying around. The first one was indeed made by a Fey Princess, or perhaps through her I should say. She had fallen in love with a mortal, and rather than asking her father, the Lord of the Fair Folk, for his permission, she sought to sneak her lover into Avalon. She gave him the instructions, but he was the one who forged the Silver Bough.”

  “But what happened to that Silver Bough?”

  “Well, as far as the stories are aware the mortal man used it to pass into Avalon.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Well, my dear girl, it can only be used once. The Silver Bough opens a passage to Avalon, but only once, and only one way. For example, you could use the Bough, if you could make one, to open a gateway to allow Lancelot to come through to this world, and Arthur and Merlin should they wish, but Gwain here could not pass the other way. One time use, one way only. That is the nature of the Bough.”

  My heart settled somewhere near my knees. I had pinned so many hopes onto the Bough, and now it seemed as though it wasn’t going to be the magic answer I so desperately needed. I might have had magic in my blood, but did I have enough to craft something that powerful?

  “How difficult is it to forge a Bough?”

  I glanced up as Wyn spoke for the first time since we’d been in the shop. He seemed to have guessed that I was feeling hopeless.

  Collins shrugged. “There are perhaps one or two instances of someone creating one. Always by Mortals who are already touched by the magic of Avalon. It requires a branch from a particular tree. The branch must have both apple and blossom, and cut only by the one who intends to use it. Then there is an incantation, and a blood offering.”

  “Blood offering?” Wyn looked less than impressed by that, but I was barely listening. I’d tuned out around the point he mentioned both apple and blossom. We’d be lucky to find blossom on the trees, let alone an apple.

  “I’m not talking about a blood sacrifice,” Collins said in reply to Wyn. “An offering only. Just a few drops of magical blood.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I interrupted them. “How are we supposed to find a branch with blossom and apple at this time of year? We’d have to wait until the summer.”

  Collins laughed. “For the child of Kings, and one whose veins run with the magic of Avalon, you really are rather logical. Magic on the other hand adheres to a different set of rules than you or I. Find the tree. Then you can decide whether to lose hope or not.”

  I still wasn’t convinced, but Wyn grabbed a pen and paper off the cluttered desk. “Tell us where we can find the tree.”

  Collins gave the paper a look of disdain. “I don’t think I need to draw you a map.” He turned back to me in confusion. “I would have thought that you would know enough about the legends by now to know where you might be able to find the Apple Tree.”

  I glazed back at him blankly. “Not really. I mean, I’ve done bits of research here and there, but there are so many legends, and it’s impossible to know which ones are true.”

  “True enough.” He smiled and lent forward. “The tree you seek can be found right here in Glastonbury, just below the Tor.”

  “The Tor?” I was hopelessly confused. I knew Glastonbury had long been associated with King Arthur; ever since a monk from Glastonbury Abbey in the 1100’s had claimed to have found the graves of Arthur and Guinevere. I knew it wasn’t true but Glastonbury and Arthurian Legend had always been closely linked, and even more so after that. Some believed it was the true site of Camelot, again I knew that wasn’t true.

 
Collins chucked. “What if I told you that the Tor has in the past been called Ynys yr Afalon, or in English - the Isle of Avalon?”

  I scooted forward in my chair. “There’s a gateway here?” It was the most logical explanation for the name.

  Collins smiled then. “Oh yes. One of the most powerful. I’m sure you are aware that most of the gateways were formed where the barriers between this world and Avalon were at their thinnest. Well, I can promise you, there is nowhere in Britain where that barrier is thinner – not even Stonehenge.” Collin’s voice settled into lecture mode. I knew from my google searches of him that he often gave talks about the Arthurian legends and Celtic mythology. “The Tor was one of the very first pathways between here and Avalon, back before Britain was even Albion, when ogres and giants were more numerous than men. The lord of the Fair Folk, their powerful King, first stepped foot on mortal soil at the top of the Tor. Back in those days the Tor rose out of the marshes, the Fen had yet to be reclaimed, which is why Avalon is often called an island in many of the myths. The first mortals who encountered the Fair Folk who came through that gateway believed that the land they spoke of was simply at the top of the Tor. They did not realise then, as we know, that Avalon exists everywhere simultaneously.”

  “But the barriers in most places are too strong?”

  He nodded. “Exactly. The King perhaps, or the most powerful Fey in his court, could potentially pass through into this world at any point they so desire. But the magic needed would be astronomical. And so the Fair Folk have always sought out the weak spots.”

  “So how does the Tor link to the Silver Bough?”

  Collins nodded again as though I was a particularly astute student. “The Fey princess, whose name I’m afraid has been lost to the mists of time, came through this barrier to the mortal world. Here in the fens that once surrounded the Tor she met a mortal man with whom she fell deeply in love. It was not uncommon for the Fair Folk to find themselves mortal playmates, but they rarely loved them. They were a passing fling, something with which to entertain themselves. But this particular fey princess did fall in love. So in love that she could not face the idea of returning to Avalon without the man she loved.”

  I half smiled. I had some sympathy for the nameless fey princess. I knew what it was like to be separated from the person you loved.

  “Originally she planned to remain here in the mortal world until her lover’s death, and to choose, as the Fey can do, a mortal life with him, but her father, the King, forced her to return to Avalon. He had no intention of his daughter dying in the mortal realm. Once back in Avalon her father sent her to a small island in the middle of a lake and used all the magic at his disposal to prevent her from leaving Avalon. So instead she went to her mortal lover in his dreams and begged him to come to her. He was a druid and so had some magic of his own. She instructed him to seek out the apple tree at the base of the Tor and there find a bough bearing both blossom and fruit. He created the first Silver Bough. He used it to open a gateway into Avalon and passed through to join his beloved.”

  My fingers were tingling, as though just his telling of the story had reawakened some ancient magic.

  Collins sat back, a small self-satisfied smile on his face. “Of course, some believe that the mortal man, the druid, was Merlin. Which would make the Fey princess…”

  “The Lady of the Lake.”

  Collins nodded.

  It wasn’t impossible. After all, it had been Merlin who had told me, via Lance, to look into the legend of the Silver Bough. But if he was the man in the myth, why hadn’t he simply told Lance the full story? It would have saved me a trip to see Collins. Although, thinking about it, that trip had brought me to Glastonbury, the very place I needed to be to find the apple branch, if one even existed.

  As much as I despised the very words ‘fate’, and ‘destiny’, I had faced too many coincidences, and had my footsteps steered too many times, to disregard it completely.

  I glanced at Wyn and he nodded. I guessed he felt the same way.

  “So this apple tree?”

  “Near the base of the Tor you will find the gardens and orchards surrounding the Chalice Well. In those gardens you’ll find the apple tree. Supposedly it is fed by the waters of the well, the reason of course why it is the only apple tree that can be made into a Silver Bough. But of course, the legend of the Well is perhaps a story for another time.”

  I was on my feet in an instant. I felt as though Lance was closer than he had been for months. I was so close to finding a way through to him. A way to bring him back to my world.

  Collins smirked at my eagerness. “Now, although I admire your proactive attitude you won’t be able to go straight away.”

  “What? Why not?”

  He laughed. “The Chalice Well is a tourist attraction, and at this time of year it will be closed by now.” He nodded towards the shop windows. “It’s getting dark out.”

  He was right. We’d been there longer than I realised and the sun was already on the horizon; dusk had started to fall.

  “So unless you plan on breaking in – you’ll have to wait until morning.”

  I was tempted. It wasn’t like I hadn’t broken into tourist attractions before. Or rather, broken out of them. After all, I’d stolen Excalibur from the Tower of London. One look at Wyn’s face and I knew that wasn’t going to be an option.

  “We’ll book into a hotel.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he shook his head firmly.

  “Seriously, Caronwyn. We are not breaking in and stumbling around in the dark looking for this damned apple tree. Let’s go and meet up with the others.”

  He was at the door in seconds but I hung back for a moment. I turned to David Collins to see him watching me with an odd little smile on his face.

  “Thank you, Mr Collins. You don’t know how much I appreciate your help.”

  He chuckled. “It is the greatest desire of my life to serve you, my Queen.”

  My stomach twisted, but what could I say. The man had helped more than I could have thought possible. Even if he had only done it because he believed some old secret order hype about me being the second coming of King Arthur.

  “Well – thank you anyway.”

  He gave me a small half bow and I hurried out of the door after Wyn.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We spent the night in a small B&B right on the edge of town, as close to the Tor as we could get. The sweet lady running it looked a little surprised when we turned up at the door. Judging by the books on spiritual awakenings and the number of crystals that filled the two rooms we took, we weren’t her usual type of guests.

  As soon as we checked in Wyn and Percy joined Sam and I in the room we were sharing. Percy shut the door and Wyn and I filled the others in on what Collins had told us.

  “It all sounds very uncertain,” Sam said, shooting me a look. “I mean, do we even know if we’ll find the right tree? Or that it will have the branch we need? And do you trust this guy? This Collins? After all, isn’t he a member of this Order?”

  Sam was only saying the same things that had gone through my head a million times since we left the bookshop. But I didn’t see that I had many other options. I wasn’t sure Sam would understand if I tried to explain how sometimes things just felt right.

  Before I could try Wyn threw a book into my lap. “Check it out.”

  I picked it up. The Fair Folk and Glastonbury. I smiled to myself. I opened it and flicked through a few pages. The author, whoever she was, was surprisingly close to the truth. She was of the opinion that whilst the Tor was clearly not Avalon as the old myths suggested, it was one of the pathways into the land of the Fair Folk.

  “Smart woman.” I looked up at Wyn.

  He shrugged. “More likely someone who has some last hint of magic in their blood. There are a lot around. Just enough to let them see a little more than the average mortal.”

  “Average mortal, huh?” There was a bitter note in Sam’s vo
ice as she raised her eyebrows at Wyn. I knew she was trying to be funny, but I guessed her ‘normality’ made her feel like the odd one out when hanging around with us.

  He grinned and crossed the room to join her on the bed. “Now, Sam, you know full well that you are anything but ‘average’.” He gave her a long look that turned a little too smouldering for my liking.

  “Anyway,” I clapped my hands together and exchanged a look with Percy. “We need to get some sleep. I think we should try and get to the Chalice Well nice and early. Before too many tourists turn up.”

  Wyn reluctantly left Sam’s side. “Well, yes. The fewer witnesses to us pulling branches off a tree on private property the better.”

  I grimaced. I didn’t need reminding that what we were planning to do the next day was probably against the rules, if not downright illegal.

  I woke late in the night to a dark room, illuminated only by the faint glow of the moon around the edges of the curtains. For a long moment I lay still in the narrow twin bed listening again for the noise that had woken me.

  There it was, the soft murmur of voices from the hall.

  I sat up and glanced across the room. Sam’s bed was empty. Her covers were rucked up like she hadn’t long left it, and she had left the door out into the hall open a crack. Presumably so she could get back in without having to worry about the key.

  The mumble of voices came again and I slipped out of bed and crossed to the door, being careful not to make a sound. I eased the door a little wider, all the while feeling like a sneak. After all, maybe she had just gone out to go to the bathroom. The B&B was old enough it didn’t have en suites.

  A lamp glowed at the end of the corridor, the heavy shade on it turning the light to a burnt orange. It cast shadows on the two figures in the hall rather than lighting them, but I didn’t need to see their faces. There was no mistaking Wyn’s tall, lean frame, the long dark hair or his stance, always slightly poised for action. Nor was there any mistaking Sam, so tiny and petite next to Wyn.

  She gripped his forearm, as though holding him in place, not that she had a hope of holding him still if he really wanted to move.