“My son is injured! He needs my help!”
As Arthur’s plea tore at my heart, I saw him and I understood. We were all filled with paradoxes and inconsistencies, strengths and weaknesses, powers and disabilities—so many colors. Not Arthur. Arthur was pure. He was amethyst and not a single speck contaminated that magnificent, royal hue. His great power was a singleness of being and purpose that promised he could force even destiny to his will.
My soul cried out to accept him as my lord, but Tynan’s blood on Excalibur held me firm. Still, I understood Morgan and Goodfellow better.
I bet Hitler was that same damn color.
Lifting Excalibur, I stepped forward and pointed it at Arthur. Even though it was blood-stained and twisted, Arthur’s face changed and I knew he recognized it. He looked into my eyes and I knew he saw me too.
No one will ever make the mistake of not seeing me again.
“Who are you?” And what are you doing with my sword?”
The metal was heavy and my arm shook, but my voice was steady. “Who I am doesn’t matter right now. What I’m going to do to Excalibur does.” Actually, I had no idea what I could possibly do to Excalibur, but the flick of the king’s eyes towards the twisted trees off the Path gave me a hint. I raised Excalibur as if I meant to throw it and Arthur lurched towards it.
“Stop! I’ll give Excalibur to the trees. You could try going after it, but I don’t think you’d ever find your way back to the Path again.”
Arthur folded his arms across his chest. “There are some in my time who would cut off your hands for daring to touch a king’s sword—even the ruin of it—but it is not my time, is it.” It wasn’t a question and he didn’t wait for me to reply. “Morgana would spare me the truth, but now that I am fully awake, I can feel it for myself. The earth has changed. I am its king and I know its nature. Time has flowed out like wine from a broken bottle while I slept.”
“At least you’re taking it well.” Excalibur’s weight was almost unbearable and beads of sweat slid down my back.
Taliesin approached and bent his head. “Arthur.”
“Bard,” Arthur greeted him. “Let me see my son.”
Taliesin hesitated and then nodded. Scowling but obedient, Daley carried Tynan to Arthur.
The king frowned as he examined the wound. “What did this terrible damage?”
He was asking Taliesin, but I waved the sword to get his attention. “What do you think?”
Arthur ignored me as he touched Tynan’s face with a gentle finger. “Ah, blood magic. I understand. My son tried to kill me, but he has paid the price for his betrayal and erased his dishonor with his blood.” He straightened with a sigh. “Sleep deep, my son.” He glanced at me. “You can put Excalibur down. You are weary and I have no interest in it at the moment. Though I would not have it destroyed or lost, it no longer has the power to aid me.”
I hated that he could see my weakness, but I put the sword down with relief and flexed my aching arm. Arthur chose that moment to take what he wanted.
Not Excalibur.
Me.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
My brain went blank the way it does when you dive into cold water and it took me a moment to realize Arthur had grabbed me and somehow moved us to another Path. I braced for an attack, but he released me and walked away. “Keep up. We have only minutes before the Green Man finds us.”
When I didn’t move, he returned and arched an eyebrow at me. “Despite Taliesin’s presence, you seem to be the power behind the forces opposing me. Do you not want to know the truth?”
I haven’t had the truth since the day my birth mother dumped me with Viviane.
He seemed to read my hunger for the truth in my face. “Yes, I thought so.”
“I need to get back to the others.”
“You are worried about my son,” he guessed, “but Mordred is as good as dead. I have seen many wounds on the battlefield and his is mortal. I promise you though, time passes strangely on the Paths and you will see my son before the end.” With a courtly gesture, he invited me to precede him.
I shook my head. “Forget it. I don’t trust you.”
He flushed as if I’d hurt him, but then he chuckled and I felt my own cheeks grow warm. “How strange this time must be that you do not recognize the honor I was according you. However, it is indeed easier to converse walking side by side.”
I looked up at him; he was even taller than Tynan. “And why would you honor me?”
Arthur laughed again. “My long sleep may have rendered my mind dull, but I am beginning to recover. Though it fills me with great surprise, I recognize in your features the echo of my former mentor’s. I called him Merlin. You are kin to him in some fashion.”
“You could say that. I’m his daughter.”
Arthur stopped dead in his tracks. “Why, the old dog . . .” He immediately sobered. “My memories are addled and out of order. I am forgetting the true identity of my false friend.”
“It’s OK. I’ve never even met him.”
We began walking again. “You are royal and I accede you honor again. Who is your lady mother?”
“I don’t know. Viviane raised me.”
Arthur was silent for a moment. “The Lady of the Lake betrayed me and became my enemy.”
I shrugged. “Maybe she had her reasons. It doesn’t matter now. She’s dead.”
The king shook his head. “What a strange tale you hint at, but Morgana will tell it just as well. I have not brought you to the Path of Time to waste it.”
“Time?”
“As I examined the body of my son, I saw that he has aged only a few years. Mordred knew the Paths almost as well as Goodfellow and his kin. He must have come this way, though I do not know how he managed it. Other than Goodfellow and myself, I know of just one other who could travel the Path of Time. Her name was Guinevere, but she would not help my son.” Arthur didn’t know his story was known throughout the world and that I knew the name of his wife.
“This Path seems the same as the other one.”
“If you have the gift for it, you can feel the subtle differences.” He gestured for me to hurry. “Quick, I sense the Green Man has found our trail and there is something you need to see.”
Arthur’s strides were almost twice as long as mine and I was almost running to keep up with him when he came to an abrupt stop. “We are here.” The Path divided and passed under two archways made from the entwined branches of the trees. Beyond them both, light flickered.
Arthur pointed to the right. “Mordred must have traveled that way and into your time. Can you feel it? I have tried to pass its gate before, but have always been denied.”
“His name is Tynan now.” I took a step forward, heart pounding. I recognized this place.
“Another name for another existence.” He sighed. “I wish I could have left him to it, truly I do, but my son has followed his fate to its inevitable conclusion. Follow me.” Arthur passed under the arch on the left, and as I followed him, the light changed without warning.
An unfamiliar world lay before me. To say it was grey would be like saying the ocean was blue—right and wrong at the same time. It was grey, but it was also gleaming silver, flashing chrome, glittering obsidian, and soft dove. Shadowed hills rolled under a stormy sky and fleeting shades of rose, powder, and moth-wing green faded in and out of the scene like mirages. It was all so very beautiful.
And so very, very wrong.
“The Grey Lands,” I whispered.
“Yes. Though this is the Path of Time, for me it will only show this one scene. You are looking upon the place as I first did when I was brought here by the man I knew as Merlin.” Arthur stretched his hand out and the scene wavered and resisted. “I was completely enchanted. We called it Avalon for the pale pink apples that grew in the orchards and thought it was an island because of the ring of mist surrounding it. And then we thought it was the underworld when we began to sense the taint of evil hidden in its heart. Can y
ou feel it?”
I swallowed. “Yes.” It was like a pale flower growing out of a rotting corpse.
Arthur nodded. “Good. Not everyone can, not at first. I freed Morgana, but there are thousands more who languish here and I cannot abandon them.”
I reminded myself that Tynan was dying and turned away from the bewitching scene. “Maybe they don’t want to be freed.”
“It does not matter what they want. I will do what is best for them. That is what a king must do.”
Did it ever matter to Viviane what I wanted? Did it matter to Taliesin? What about the mother who gave me up to them?
Arthur was right about the Grey Lands—they were rotten at the core. Maybe someone did need to do something about it, but not this amethyst fanatic. I wasn’t going to let him decide the fate of both my worlds.
Because I knew I belonged to the Grey Lands the moment I saw them.
“I’m going to stop you,” I muttered.
Arthur turned. “So you are his then? Your father’s?”
“I don’t belong to anyone.”
He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. “Each of us is bound to something or someone.”
“I’m going to stop you,” I repeated, louder this time.
Arthur laughed, shaking his head. “I am sorry for my rudeness, but you are a child. Not even Morgana can stand against me and there is no one more powerful save her brother. I am the Earth King. I will defeat Cernunnos, and then through blood and marriage, this world and Avalon are mine. But since you value choice, I will honor the nobility of your blood by offering you one: join me or die.”
There was movement behind me. I cocked my head to the side as if considering. “Thanks for the great offer, but I’ll pass. Oh, and I’d be careful who you say you’re married to. Basically everyone knows you already have a wife.”
Arthur was fast, but I was faster. I blinked to center myself and fire fuelled by anger leapt from my hands and flared between us. The last thing I saw before Goodfellow grabbed me was Arthur’s astonished face and the reflection of flame in his eyes.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
“That was cutting it a bit close.” The others were gone, but Excalibur lay where I’d dropped it. I picked it up and was surprised at how much lighter it felt, as if it had been struggling against the pull of Arthur’s power too.
Goodfellow ignored my sarcasm. “I need to close the Path off from the other end before he follows us here. This Path has multiple branches, and with any luck, he won’t know which one we took.” He glanced back at me. “I’m sorry for my part in everything, Miss Lynne.”
I didn’t answer because it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting to Tynan in time. The Green Man gestured for me to walk forward and without any transition I stepped into the clearing in the woods behind the mansion. I looked back but Goodfellow was gone.
I ran into the house and the sound of voices led me to the study. Tynan lay on the couch and Daley kneeled beside him, holding his hand. Taliesin hovered over them. Peter and Miko stood by with helpless looks on their faces.
Tynan’s face was just like Mom’s right before she died.
Daley looked up at Taliesin and his eyes were frantic. “Do something!”
“I can try a binding. If his powers are bound, perhaps his spirit will follow.” The bard went still and then his shoulders sagged. “It is too late. I cannot find him.”
I put Excalibur down on the desk. “Let me try.” The bard hesitated and then nodded.
Someone had bandaged Tynan’s wound but it was messy and loose. A pain went through me.
Rowan would have done it right. He would have put ointment on the wound and spoke words over it and Tynan would already be getting better.
Fluorescent yellow panic blinded me for a moment, but I took a deep breath and calmed myself. I‘d claimed Tynan in that cave, body and soul. If I couldn’t find him, no one could.
I placed my hand on the bandage and blood seeped through it and stained my palm. Shivering with revulsion, I closed my eyes and discovered that Taliesin was right—Tynan’s splintered colors shivered in a dance of chaos along a pale rope leading to darkness. A green thread still connected us, but it was pulled tight and looked ready to snap.
Blood magic is the greatest magic of all.
“What?” I opened my eyes and looked around, but everyone stared back blankly. The voice was in my mind.
Blood magic is the greatest magic of all.
It wasn’t Morgan’s voice, even though she’d said the same thing to me. It wasn’t Viviane’s either. I had a brief vision of grey, twisted trees and I knew—it was the voice of the woman who had given me away.
“Peter, get me Excalibur.” Because I wished it, the sword let him pick it up. Taking it from him, I made a small nick in my palm and my blood joined Tynan’s. Excalibur flared gold and then went back to its silent, sleeping state. I lifted my hand, but Taliesin grabbed my wrist. I looked up at him in surprise.
“The gods know I love this boy as if he were the son of my body, but think about what you are intending to do! Blood magic is old, dark magic. Only the greatest among us can wield it, and if you have not noticed, the greatest among us are beings capable of monstrous acts. Arthur was felled by it—held in deathless sleep for centuries—then raised up to unnatural life. Each time it is used, there is a price. Eventually there must be a balancing and an accounting.”
I hesitated. “He’ll die if I don’t do something.”
A jolt of angry electricity ran through me and thunder shook the windows. “Then do it!” Daley commanded.
I pulled away from the bard and slammed my hand down onto Tynan’s chest.
I must have closed my eyes again because it was dark. Even my sense of his aura was gone. All I could feel was the blood seeping from the cut in my hand and the pulse in my wrist pounding. Louder and louder it pounded—Tynan’s had joined it. As the blood spread out from my splayed fingers and mingled with Tynan’s, I realized I hadn’t closed my eyes at all. Blood was all I could see.
Taliesin’s voice pierced me. “For one such as you who sees power, emotion, and thought as color, what does the essence of life look like?”
He was right to ask. Blood was life. Blood was everything—every color that ever was or ever will be. I shook my head; I was too far past speech to explain.
My awareness of Tynan’s aura returned, but the green bond between us was too weak to hold him back from Death much longer. I thought I’d claimed him back in the cave, but I was wrong. That was why Morgan’s spell defeated me then and Death was defeating me now.
Blood magic is the greatest magic of all. More powerful even than Death.
I concentrated on the blood flowing from my hand and sent it into Tynan’s body, forcing the molecules in my blood to meld with his until we were one. Looking into his body from the inside, I was horrified. Tynan’s heart was a torn, pulpy mass. As I watched, it faltered to a stop and I knew it would never beat on its own again. As his heart died, I did the only thing I could do.
I gave him mine.
A surge swept through me more painful than anything I’d ever experienced as all the colors stranded behind the barrier in my mind emptied out of me in a great rush. I felt my back arch in a terrible spasm and then Peter’s hands on my shoulders holding me down. Waves of hot and cold flowed across my fingers as color erupted from them. The power of my blood could save Tynan, but only if I survived too, and I wasn’t sure the pain wouldn’t kill me. My heart beat so hard I was afraid it was going to burst.
It was beating for two.
Tynan’s life returned to him like sparks over charred and almost cold wood, but it wasn’t enough. The trickle of blood from my hand wasn’t enough. How much more could I give and still be the anchor he needed? I pushed down the fluorescent hues of panic. I could do this, but I needed more power. I needed the power of a god.
“Help me, Daley.”
I felt him hesitate, but then Peter’s hands were
gone and Daley’s replaced them on my shoulders. For a moment it was like being tasered, but then I was filled with thunder, lightning, and storm-painted seas. If he ever mastered all these abilities, he would be as powerful as Morgan le Fay. His platinum was the power to control the wind and I took just enough of it to sweep as much of Tynan’s spirit as I could find into his body.
I could do anything while Daley was touching me.
The only color left in me was a trace of Taliesin’s indigo binding. It still lingered in the house and had seeped past the barrier in my mind. I used it to bind Tynan inside his own body.
My heart slowed to its normal pace, but the sound was off, as if a second beat followed the first an infinitesimal amount of time later. I thought of an old song I’d heard on the radio once.
Two hearts beat as one.
Taliesin’s whisper made me open my eyes, but I couldn’t look at him. “You are now bound closer than brother and sister, or parent and child. You will never be free of him until he dies. And he will die the moment you do.” I wasn’t sure how he knew, but I knew he was right.
I didn’t wait for Tynan to wake up. I didn’t want to be there when they told him about Rowan. I didn’t want to be there when they told him his mother had killed him. Grabbing Excalibur, I left. Peter’s concern followed me through our bond, but I ignored it.
Trudging down the driveway, I was surprised to see Thomas Redcap standing at the end of it, frowning. He wasn’t wearing his cap and without its constant shadow, his face was soft and young.
He smiled in greeting. “It’s good to see you alive and, well, alive after all that has happened, mo leanabh.”
“I’m not even going to ask how you know about that. And I’m not your child, Thomas.”
He examined me closely. “No, I suppose you’re not, Love. Not anymore.” His smile turned rakish and his accent thickened. “But that can be a good thing now, can’t it?”
My cheeks went hot. “What are you doing here?”
“I haven’t the faintest. The death of a Great One called me, but now upon my arrival, I find that all here are living souls.”
Sword of Elements Series Boxed Set 2: Bound In Blue, Caught In Crimson & To Make A Witch Page 23
