12

“Where’s Maerlin?” Eowan, one of the men-at-arms, asked me as I approached the table and Wynnetha.

“Unwell,” I said, raising my glowing eyes to him. With my strange sense of being both inside and outside my body, I saw the fearsome appearance I gave and felt his superstitious dread. “We’ll proceed without him.”

“I’m not sure . . . Maerlin’s the one who told us what had to be set up, and—”

I held up my hand and pressed my thumb to my fingertips in a hush gesture; I felt my silent swarm obey, and close his jaw. Eowan’s eyes went round and he stepped back.

“Maerlin took his directions from me,” I said without emotion: my feelings seemed as divorced from my awareness as was my body. Everything felt distant from me, and yet I saw and thought with piercing clarity. “As will you, if you wish Arthur to live.”

Eowan looked unnerved, but not convinced; I could see the protest in his eyes, though his jaw still would not move.

Terix came up to us, my name and a question on his lips, but the words died when he saw my face. “Uh-oh. Nimia, are you in there?”

“He and the others must do as I bid, if Arthur is to live.”

“Right,” he said, unfazed by my strangeness. “Where’s Maer­lin?”

“Unwell. I need two men to help me hoist Wynnetha.” I reached out my hand and opened my fingers, allowing Eowan to speak.

Terix put his hand on the man’s arm before he could open his mouth. “She’s in a trance,” he said in a low voice. “It’s like this when the power is upon her. Best to do what she says.”

“I don’t like it. Maerlin’s bad enough, but we can trust him, and we know his magic. What can she do?”

I had no interest in the argument. I turned away, my gaze drifting over the thick crowd that had gathered. I saw them all, each person and emotion, every hope and fear on their angry, grieving faces. I saw it, and was apart from it. The walls of the golden hive held me separate from their world. All that mattered was the power, and directing its flow through what was to come.

I drifted over to Wynnetha. Her hands were bound behind her back, her gown was torn and smeared with dirt and blood, and her long blond hair was loose, snarled upon twigs and leaves. She had one small scratch on her fair cheek, but other than that her face was untouched, and if not for the fury, terror, and derangement in her eyes, would have been as beautiful as the first day I saw her.

“You,” Wynnetha spat, and then laughed, high and brittle. “Did Mordred tire of you so quickly?”

“You’re acquainted with the irminsul,” I said, nodding my head at the tree trunk. Mordred had once gifted Terix to Wynnetha’s father, as a sacrifice to such a thing.

“You made it especially for me, did you?” She laughed again. “A Saxon idol for a Saxon execution.”

I inclined my head in agreement. “We each have our own gods, our own methods to reach them, but we know they’re all the same underneath; even the Romans understood that. Our languages differ, yet the power we seek flows from one source. This will help you release your power to flow where it must.”

“My blood, you mean! You mean to sacrifice me, don’t you? As if that will bring back Arthur! Good luck to you! It won’t, but that doesn’t matter to you.”

As she ranted, I spoke to the soldier who had come to stand behind Wynnetha. “Tie the end of the rope around one of her ankles.”

“You’ve wanted me out of the way since you first learned that Mordred wanted me for his wife,” Wynnetha went on. “You couldn’t stand that he chose me, not you. You used your spells to keep him from fleeing from here with me, but he broke free, didn’t he?”

The soldier tested his knot and stepped back.

“Killing me won’t get him for you,” Wynnetha said. “Mordred is mine, and being rid of me will get you nothing. Nothing!”

I leaned in close to Wynnetha so she and only she could hear me as I ran the backs of my fingers gently down her perfect cheek. Her breath came rough, the stench of fear rising off her skin. “It’s Arthur I love, so killing you will get me absolutely everything. Be certain that Mordred can keep your heart, for I will set it in a box and send it to him myself.”

“Animal! Demon!”

I knelt down and tied the hem of her skirt in a knot between her legs. “I won’t have you shamed or hurt,” I said as I stood. “A sacrifice deserves more respect than that.”

I nodded, and one of the men began to haul on the rope that went through the loop atop the trunk. As it drew up its slack it tugged on Wynnetha’s ankle and she hopped.

“Support her,” I ordered, and a man cradled her in his arms, lifting her off the ground as she was hoisted upward by her foot.

As her world turned upside down, Wynnetha struggled and cursed, vile Saxon words flowing from her snarling lips. Her head thrashed, her hair a mad tangle. The soldier released his hold on her and she threw herself about like an animal in a snare.

All around us, a noise that was as much a sensation as a sound rose from the gathered throng. It was a sigh and a moan of satisfaction, of hatred, of eagerness. I could feel in them all the deep need to see Wynnetha suffer for that which she had helped to wreak upon them. If I had not claimed her for this, they would have torn her to pieces before the sun had set.

Wynnetha was several feet off the ground now, her skirts falling in a balloon around her thighs, her elbows out behind her. She kicked at her bound foot with the free one, but soon tired, her free leg sagging downward, her foot tucked between her other knee and the trunk. She cast a vile look at me, her eyes vivid in her red face, and then her features twisted and she started to cry.

“You’ll pass out soon,” I said. “You won’t feel it when your throat is cut.”

I turned to the table, where the chalice waited. I poured honey into it, and dragged my fingertip through it and along the carved labyrinthine path, words I could not understand rising to my lips. I chanted as I traced the etched lines, and behind me Wynnetha sobbed and screamed and cursed, her noises gradually growing softer and less frequent, her breathing more labored. Soon it was only the chant that could be heard.

I finished the lines and poured a bit of wine into the chalice, aware as I did so that Una had materialized beside me, her small face intent, her eyes glowing. She had her knife in her hand.

I picked up the chalice and turned to face Wynnetha, whose eyes had rolled back into her head, her face slack and distorted, and dark red.

“Can I do it?” Una asked.

“Do you hear the words to say?”

Una squinted, her lips parted in concentration, and then she slowly nodded and began to speak the ancient words that came to her. She didn’t need me to show her where to press the tip of her blade, carefully puncturing Wynnetha’s artery to let the blood arc out in a narrow stream, and into the waiting chalice.

Who does the chalice serve? That had been the question asked in my vision. The answer: She who feeds it.

I fed the chalice with Wynnetha’s blood. The chalice served me.

When I had what I needed I nodded, and Una plunged the blade fully in and dragged it across Wynnetha’s neck. Her blood poured down her head and into her hair, turning it from yellow to crimson, and began to pool at the foot of the trunk.

The people jeered and shouted, and I left them to it, carrying the chalice before me. Everyone stepped out of my way, clearing a path as I carried the blood, the honey, and the wine into the villa and down the corridor to Arthur’s room. Men and servants rushed ahead, opening doors and clearing the way. I could feel their frenzied hope and bloodlust, and the jittering threat of a world about to tip out of control.

They crowded as near as they dared as I entered Arthur’s room and started to take the chalice to him. The physician stopped me, stepping in my path with his hands clasped and shaking his head. Tears stained his cheeks. “Too late.”

“No!”

My swarm focused, surrounding Arthur, pressing inward to read what it might.

It found a morass of decay, an infection that had consumed all but the last faint pinprick of life. There was no awareness, no sense of himself; only emptiness, a body turning over to rot, and that one dying spark.

I pushed past the physician and slung my arm under Arthur’s head, lifting it so that he might drink. “Drink, Arthur. And return to us.” I tipped the chalice to his lips, and the thick red liquid poured in. “You shall be born anew. You and Skalibur shall be one, and immortal.”

I chanted the ancient words, and massaged his neck and jaw, coaxing the fluid into him. Again and again, I poured the blood mixture; it overflowed his mouth and covered my hands, turning the chalice slick in my grasp.

Come back to me, I said into the void that was his body. You are needed. You are loved. Come back.

The pinpoint grew dimmer, as if receding.

I closed my eyes and summoned all my powers, all the force of the hive, and every drop of the strength I’d drawn from Maer­lin. I pursued that fleeting spark, chased it until I could lay hold of it, wrapping my arms around it and refusing to let go. You shall not disappear into Death. You shall live again.

I held his spark of life and chanted the ancient spell, and found within myself the essence of Arthur, left there when we’d lain together that once. I brought up the feel of who he was, and tied the spark to it. Remember who you are. Remember all who need you. You cannot leave us alone.

In the depth of my womb, I felt a quick, sharp stab of pain, and for a brief moment I saw Arthur’s face, alive in wonder.

The chalice shattered.

I opened my eyes to find the bed surrounded by anxious faces, Terix among them. Pink shards of bloodied crystal lay scattered over me and Arthur. In my arms, his body lolled, his stained mouth sagging open in death.

“Did it work?” Terix said, asking the question hanging from all their hearts.

I laid my hand over my belly, and sensed the life that had attached itself there, forming a new body to bring it back into this world of sorrow. “Yes.”