by Jasmine Walt
Arthur looked around the room at his knights. Their faces showed a mixture of sorrow, indecision, and wavering compassion as they looked down at Loren’s shivering, mangled body.
“He has a point,” said Lance, who came to stand beside me. He clutched at his side where he’d impacted the wall.
I heard Gwin gasp at Lance’s acquiescence, but he did not meet her eye.
Finally, Arthur turned back to me, looked down at Loren, and then glanced over at Gwin. He gave a single nod of his head.
I looked down at Loren. Her eyes were closed, and it didn’t look as though she was breathing anymore. My heart stopped to think I may have already lost her, that I’d spent her last moments arguing with a bunch of men instead of giving her my full attention.
That bunch of men came and scooped her lifeless body out of my arms. I had to fight to keep my fingers from grasping her to me. They held her near the sarcophagus as Gwin began a chant.
I stayed where I was on the floor. My body slumped backward, but I didn’t hit the dirt. A strong chest met my back. I let my head come to rest beneath Tres’s chin. I couldn’t see what they were doing to my friend. The magic buzzing through the room calmed me. The magic and Tres’s heart beating against my back lulled me into a feeling that everything was going to be okay.
I watched the family of knights and witch above me as they worked to save one of their own. Arthur oversaw the ritual like the commander that he was. Even though he barely knew Loren, he would do everything he could to ensure that the granddaughter of Sir Galahad made it through this.
I watched as Gawain cradled her head and Lance held her feet. Sweat poured off Gwin’s forehead as she worked her magic. It warmed me to know that Loren wasn’t alone. I was glad that she had found people like her in the world, people who would go to bat for her.
I wondered if they would afford the same to Merlin. I turned in Tres’s arms to check on the fallen wizard. But the ground where he’d fallen was empty.
I straightened a bit and looked harder. It was easy to make out the fallen forms of the ISIS soldiers in yellow camouflage and the Templars in black and red. But there was no Merlin.
“He’s gone.”
“Who?” asked Tres.
I put my feet under me and stood slowly. Tres came up beside me. Merlin must have gotten away as we all turned our attention to Loren. As a wizard, he would’ve been able to get out of Gwin’s protective shield, even with the wound from the Spear of Destiny.
I wondered if his magic was capable of healing the wound that Gwin had given him with the spear. We’d have to go and look for Merlin at some point. Both he and Yod were deranged in their beliefs. Merlin couldn’t be left to roam free.
Neither could Yod. But I had no idea how we’d contain him. Immortals had never had cause to imprison one another, but Yod’s intentions to wreak genocidal havoc on the magical community had to come to an end.
I turned to find him still lying on the ground where he’d fallen, still as a statue. The blood had stopped seeping out of the wound in his chest, but it gaped open even wider. Wounds increased their size when the object that had pierced them was pulled out.
The object that had caused Yod’s injury, the Spear of Destiny, was nowhere to be found.
“Merlin must have taken the spear,” I said.
Tres didn’t respond. He bent down over Yod. He reached his hand to Yod’s neck, likely looking for a pulse. I frowned at the move. Yod was Immortal. The spear would only maim him. It couldn’t kill him.
I swiped my hair away from my head. I felt the slipperiness of my finger, which still bled from nicking the tip of the spear, the magical spear that had killed one of the greatest spiritual teachers the world had ever known, the magical spear which had spent hundreds of years on a ley line while people all around the world revered its fabled abilities.
I turned back to Tres. His eyes were wide as he looked from Yod to me.
“He’s dead,” said Tres.
Dead? But my lips wouldn’t work to ask Tres to repeat himself.
Yod was dead? A couple of months ago, I would’ve said it was impossible. Immortals didn’t die. But Vau and Epsilon’s lives had been taken. Now Yod?
Twelve were exiled. Only seven will return.
Yod had said, Not everyone will get into the garden. There must be sacrifices.
And now he was gone too, leaving behind nine. Which, if Igraine’s prophecy was true, meant that two more Immortals were going to die.
24
My hands shook as I dialed the number. Even though my fingers trembled, the face of my phone stayed clear as I pressed each of the numbers I knew by heart. My finger had stopped bleeding after Gwin had reached out for my hand to heal me. There had been nothing she could do for Yod. We’d burned his lifeless body along with Lady Mary’s before we left the tomb and went back into the war zone.
Now, I sat huddled in the corner of my room in the bowels of Tintagel back in Camelot. My phone rang and rang in my ear. The voice message recording came on, and my heart arrested in my chest. I took a couple of deep breaths, hit end, and dialed again.
I told myself not to freak out as the ring tone shuddered down my eardrum, shivered over my shoulders, and trembled down my spine.
An Immortal was dead. A delusional wizard was on the loose. At his disposal was a weapon that had taken the lives of gods.
The Spear of Destiny had been used to pierce Jesus. I wasn’t sure if it had been the final cause of his death, but his followers’ belief that it had been the death knell, coupled with the fact that the weapon had sat on a ley line for hundreds of years, imbued the item with enough magic to do the job to any supernatural creature that walked the earth.
And Merlin could be anywhere. He could be planning anything. He’d seen what the spear could do. There was nothing stopping him from going on a rampage and killing witches, wizards, gods, and Immortals.
And still the phone rang on unanswered. I had to face facts. No one would answer on the other end.
It was getting close to voice message territory. What would I say on the recording? There’s a crazy wizard with a spear of death who could be gunning for you. Like he’d believe—
“Oui?”
The sound through the receiver was like a gale wind battering the side of a ship. It rocked me back, and the back of my head hit the wall from its force and its bite.
Zane’s voice was curt. Even when he was angry with me, he was never curt. But I couldn’t force any words out of my mouth. I was so happy to hear his voice, even if it was just that one sharp word. He could’ve hung up the phone, he could’ve told me to go to hell, he could’ve said nothing at all. All I cared about was that he was okay.
It had been an irrational fear—that Merlin would go after him. But I had been through too much these past couple of days, these past couple of weeks. I wasn’t thinking clearly.
This was the first time that I’d sat still, the first time I’d been alone, truly by myself, and my first instinct had been to reach out to him. This was the first time ever that he didn’t reach back for me.
My breaths came out fast and shallow. Tears streamed down my face as everything came crashing down on me. I wrapped my arms around my body as a low, keening wail escaped my lips.
“Nova?”
His tone lost its bite. The strong wind whose tendrils had slapped the breath out of me was replaced by a cool breeze meant to soothe my hurts. It wrapped around me like an ocean breeze coming ashore after a rocky voyage. The softness of his voice made me sob openly.
I was thankful he couldn’t see me. Because it was an ugly cry. Had I been wearing mascara, it would’ve been streaming down my cheeks. My eyes, I was sure, were blotchy. My bottom lip trembled. I didn’t bother sniffing back the snot that wanted to journey to my upper lip.
“Où es-tu,” he said. “Nova, please. Tell me, where are you?”
His voice was urgent, tinged with fear. I understood the feeling all too well. I was one of those women
who never cried. Stiff upper lip Nia, that was me. But I sobbed into the receiver like a baby.
I took a couple of deep breaths until I could say words steadily. I had to explain to him that my tears were ones of relief. “I’m safe.”
I took a few more deep breaths. He remained silent while I got myself together. It was an impossible feat since I was a wreck.
Loren was not doing so well. She was alive thanks to Lady Mary’s magic fueling her magical soul. But her wound wasn’t healing as it should. She hadn’t woken up since we’d gotten back to Caerleon this morning.
But I didn’t tell Zane any of that. I didn’t play on his sympathies like he’d accused me of doing back in Greece. I just needed a moment to be...well, human. And despite what we were going through at the moment, there was no one in the world that I trusted with my vulnerabilities more than Zane.
I had lost his trust. Our intimate relationship was a bust. Our friendship was in tatters. There were too many pieces to try and mend.
I could live without his affection. Probably.
I could stand him not talking to me or wanting to be around me. Mostly.
But I was certain I couldn’t stand to be in this world if he wasn’t in it as well, even if he hated me.
Twelve were exiled. Only seven will return.
Nine of us remained. Zane would not be one of the five to be sacrificed.
“Yod’s dead,” I said.
“Dead?”
I gave him a moment to process that single word. He knew that death amongst Immortals was possible. He’d been my savior when I’d nearly been murdered. Twice.
“How?” he asked.
“Magic,” I said.
I didn’t tell him it was by my own hand. I hadn’t meant to kill Yod, only to maim him and give my friend a chance to get out of harm’s way. I wasn’t sorry that he was dead. His plans to ruin and rule the world would easily rank him in the top five villains ever to walk the earth. But I was afraid of what his death meant for the rest of us.
“We’re all in danger,” I said. “I just...I just needed to make sure you were safe.”
“I am.”
“There’s more...” But I didn’t know how to tell him about Igraine’s prophecy. I didn’t fully understand it myself. “Zane? Do you remember a garden?”
I shook my head, knowing I wasn’t being clear. We had been alive for thousands of years. Of course he had been in many gardens. I was asking him to remember a place that I wasn’t even sure about.
“My first memory of you was in a garden,” he said. “You were in a field of flowers unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They were a deeply hued purple and a saturation of pink that I’ve never seen again in any land I’ve traveled. I don’t remember where we were. I think it may be my first memory.”
The flowers in my vision as I’d ridden across Caerleon on horseback had been like that. Was the place I’d seen real?
As Immortals, we shed most of our memories. We had to in order to keep our brains functioning. No one and nothing, not even a library, could manage the amount of information we had witnessed. But Zane had once told me that he remembered everything about me, that those were the memories worth keeping.
“It was the first time that I knew that I...” he said, and then sighed.
His voice had been so soft, so reverent. Zane didn’t put much stock in the words I love you. He whispered prayers in my ear when we made love. His words were filled with reverence, with worship. That was the tone he’d taken before he’d paused.
“The first time that you knew what?” I said.
He took a deep breath. I could hear him press his lips together, readying them to form words. I pressed the receiver closer to my ear. Then the door opened.
“Nia?” Tres’s booming voice filled the small space. “There you are.”
Tres walked into the room. Static rose on the line of the phone. The allergy that kept Immortals from spending too much time around one another also transferred to technology. With the two of us in such close proximity, coupled with my connection to Zane via satellite towers, the cell phone connection would not survive.
But I knew Zane was still on the line. I felt him through the ether. Felt him drifting away from me. The worst part was that I couldn’t even reach out to him.
I saw the wave rising between us. Felt the waters pushing at my body as they pulled at his. I heard the whitecaps crash down on me, pushing us further apart than we had ever been.
“Merci for the warning.” His voice was terse. His tone was strained. And then, with a click, the line went dead.
I closed my eyes and let the receiver slide down my face. I felt as though I were being held underwater. My limbs were heavy and my movements sluggish.
When I finally opened my eyes, Tres was looking just past my shoulder, his mouth set in a grim line. He knew who I’d been talking to. He nodded and turned on his heel, but I reached out for him from my place on the floor.
“Please don’t go,” I begged.
I grasped onto his pant leg. He turned and looked down at me. I was sure I looked pathetic on my knees, hanging onto him. But I couldn’t be alone right now.
The moment the phone line went dead, I felt myself falling apart. I couldn’t hold myself together. I needed someone to wrap their arms around me.
Tres took a step back into the room and toward me. He slid his big body down the wall. His legs were so long that when he bent his knees, they came up to my face. His arms went behind my back. I laid my head on his shoulder. He rested his chin at my temple. His other arm came around me, and he held me tightly.
I curled into him and held on as though my life depended on it, breathing in his familiar scent. I recognized the pattern of his heartbeat. I let myself sink into him. My guard slipped. Defenses lowered all the way down. My upper lip stayed stiff as I took his comfort, and I didn’t cry.
25
“Nia, lookit!”
Loren snapped her fingers, and a blue flame appeared. She laughed with glee. Then, like too much gas on a pilot, the flame flared out of control. Morgan waved her hands, and the flame immediately extinguished.
Once the flame was safely out, I flew to the bed Loren was fluffed up in and threw my arms around her.
“Oof,” she groaned as she took my impact.
“Oh, no.” I immediately reared back. “Did I hurt you?”
The front of her nightgown gaped open, showing the faint scar on her chest.
“No, I’m good as new. Better than new. That was just a lot of Nia for a girl to take after facing death.”
She had faced death. Hopefully for the last time in a long time. With the witch blood that flowed in her veins from her mother’s side, she could live happily and healthily for hundreds of years. Now with the magic of one of the oldest and most powerful witches to ever live running through her veins, Loren was nearly immortal.
“What?” She frowned at me. “Why are you looking at me like I’m some sort of Frankenstein?”
“Oh god.” I sighed. “What have we done?”
Loren now had the strength of a knight from the blood of Galahad, along with the magic of a witch, the expertise of a forger, and the cunning of a thief.
I turned to Arthur, who stood in the doorway of her bedroom. “She’s going to be a handful.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “She’s not going anywhere.”
Loren snorted. “Dude, you are so not the boss of me.”
Beside her, Morgan’s eyes twinkled. I recognized the same glint that was in Loren’s eyes. It looked like that spark of mischief was a family affair.
“You’re a full-blooded witch now; you have to stay here under the knights’ protection,” said Arthur. “Only we can keep you safe.”
“Yeah, I don’t do cages,” Loren replied.
“You’re my responsibility now.”
“Oh, yeah? Where were you when my mother died? Or when my father died? I’ve been on my own for years and doing just fine.”
“Things are different now,” Arthur stated. “Once my brother learns where Lady Mary’s magic went, he’ll be after you. And he has the Spear of Destiny. No one’s safe until we find him.”
“Jeez, Nia, now I know how you felt when people were trying to suck out your bones. But still, this whole ‘women stay home and men go out and fight’ thing—not my cup of tea.”
“Wait a minute,” Morgan said. “She’s of the Galahad line. And she holds the sword. It chose her. Doesn’t that mean she could take the seat?”
Arthur looked aghast.
“What seat?” Loren asked.
“The seat of Sir Galahad,” said Morgan, sounding gleeful. “To sit at the Round Table with the other knights.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Morgan.” Arthur sounded cross. “She’s a woman. No woman ever has taken a seat at the table.”
“She’s not a woman, she’s a witch,” said Morgan, her tone mocking. “A witch who’s been wielding the blade of her line for years with no training. You’re duty-bound to train her. At least to send her through the trials. Tradition demands it.”
“This is preposterous,” Arthur said.
“Sir Galahad?” said Loren. “Sounds kinda cool.”
I pulled Arthur to the side before he blew a blood vessel. “If she gets hurt, or if you hurt her feelings, I will use my blade on your balls. And it won’t be pleasant.”
He looked like he was going to be sick, but I doubted it was from my words. His gaze was fixed on Loren and Morgan with their heads together on the far end of the room. He shook his head and then left.
Morgan picked up Loren’s tray and, with a wink, followed Arthur out, likely to torture him a bit more. I turned to my bestie. I had always known she’d leave me. I was thankful that it wasn’t in a casket.
“You’re leaving?” she asked.
I nodded. “I’ve got to go handle something with my own kind.”
I wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell her about Igraine’s vision. What if I was one of the final two who would die in order for the remaining seven to reenter this garden paradise? If that were true, I didn’t want her worrying about me while she was settling in to her new life.
