They would not put a king in with others, but it was easy to tell where Arthur’s chambers were. I left my horse concealed some way down the track, used the mist to enter the abbey, and the armoured men placed at intervals led me to a cloistered courtyard, where four knights were stationed at one door. A town crier declaring the High King was inside would not have been more obvious.
I could not open the door myself without risking discovery, but all these men required was the familiar image of a woman they thought benign. When I glided past them under a shimmering veil of enchantment, they saw a nun’s habit and scrubbed face, a rosary hanging from my belt instead of my falcon-handled knife. In my empty hands they saw a bowl of poultice and strips of linen, the scents of vinegar and thyme conjured in their confident, unassuming minds.
“Sister,” the biggest knight said reverentially, pushing the door wide. Once it was closed, I drew down the wooden bar, locking us in.
The room was rich, perhaps not grand enough for a king, but well-furnished and luxuriously draped—bishop’s chambers or some such, kept for when important men condescended to visit. A wide window ran along the facing wall, admitting a rectangle of light across a canopied bed, its hangings left open.
I don’t know what I expected, but it was not to find Arthur asleep.
I had seen him amid many losses of control: bursts of youthful joy; fury, hot and cold; anxiousness when some plan went awry, or when Merlin left his mind cloudy and fractious. I had seen him crushed by pain, when his vicious headaches took his strength and only the healing power of my hands could restore him.
But I had never seen him asleep, and powerless, as he was now.
I approached the bed, and it occurred to me that it was the third time I had edged towards a man lying prostrate in as many days, for vastly differing reasons. Arthur lay on his side, knees and elbows drawn tight, curled defensively in on himself. His sleep was deep but uneasy, brow furrowed, jaw set in a tense, teeth-grinding line. His bed shirt showed the stiff outline of bandages strapped around his torso, beads of blood blooming through: Accolon’s brave, futile attempts at survival, from their wretched game of kill or be killed.
I swayed forwards, steadying myself against the bedpost. How in all Hell had it come to this?
On the road, I thought I wanted answers, with notions of revenge in its wake, but now I felt only the overwhelming need to look my once-beloved brother in the eye and see who he had become without me.
Arthur stirred as if sensing my presence, hunched body loosening. As he unfurled, the lemon-pale light cast a sudden glare, glancing off a long, narrow object in the bed beside him. Clutched in Arthur’s fist, bright and deadly, was Excalibur.
Next to his sleeping body, the sword was awake, glittering like malevolent stars. Beneath its dazzle, dark-red streaks danced along its perfect edge, singing of violence. At the sword’s point, a ruby of blood had dried like a perfect teardrop.
Accolon’s blood.
The blood of the man I loved, that Arthur had fought to shed, as a savage, unjust punishment to his own dear sister.
Bitter fury caught like claws in my chest, crying out for me to answer the blood upon Arthur’s blade by spilling yet more—his own, the parts of his essence that were Uther Pendragon’s, all the men in their righteousness and brutality, stretching back into the shadows of time.
Standing in Urien’s chamber, I had spared his life for my son’s sake, but Arthur had no such saviour. My brother always insisted everything he did was by his own command, the burden of responsibility solely upon his crowned head. So be it.
I raised a hand over his body, hovering like a question. Arthur shifted again in sleep, a prism of dawn illuminating the bones of his face. In the sudden change of light, I saw only my mother’s calm, pensive goodness, what was left of her in him echoing through.
And with it came a memory: of a love between brother and sister that had transcended blood ties from the first; of two formidable souls finding their reflection, and the tragedy of it shattering; an immense loss I would grieve with the rest. As I stood before Arthur now, with all the power I ever needed, I knew I could not harm him.
I lowered my hand and retreated, crumpling onto a long bench at the foot of the bed, onto a pile of rich garments. A scale of pleasure ran up my body, building quickly into a melody. I glanced down, drawing back a red mantle, and another starburst of goodness rushed into my head. A column of blue-and-white leather lay beneath my fingers, last seen in Accolon’s fine hands.
Excalibur’s scabbard, pristine and singing with life.
I grasped it to my chest, shivering with the vitality it brought. Every muscle strain and shred of tiredness evaporated, the rigid ache in my skull vanishing to leave a diamond clarity. Even the physical emptiness of my grief felt fainter, faraway.
Yet I held the incredible object, and Arthur did not. He could have been healed and returned to Camelot already if he had slept with the scabbard in his arms, and instead he chose to cradle the sword. Accolon had died, and I had been denounced as treasonous for the scabbard’s theft, when Arthur didn’t even appreciate its miraculous purpose. He certainly didn’t deserve to possess it now.
I, on the other hand—the fairy, the witch, the traitor sorceress with healing in her blood—who else could make greater use of its potential? Arthur could keep his life, his blade, his bloodshed and the ways of men, but the death-defying scabbard I would take. He would learn its worth because it was gone.
I was halfway past the bed and preparing to once again assume the guise of a nun when a cloudy voice rose from the pillows.
“Who’s there?” Arthur rose onto his elbows, squinting. Upon seeing it was me, his eyes snapped wide. He pushed himself upright, snatching Excalibur across his lap.
“Morgan!” he said. “What are you doing here?”
I took him in, drawn and colourless, flinching against the stiff bandages, but otherwise broad and fit, grown into his formidableness, stronger than he’d ever looked. The injuries Accolon had inflicted would have felled any other man, quickly and without question, but not King Arthur. He is made of stubborn fortitude, Kay had said.
“I was at Camelot when Accolon’s bier arrived,” I replied. “What do you think I’m doing here?”
“Now, Morgan, be calm. There are men outside waiting for my shout.”
“Yes,” I said. “They let me in. You can thank your sorcerer for that talent. Call for them, if you wish. They will die.”
His sword wrist twitched, lifting Excalibur. “What do you want from me?”
“I’ve been asking myself that since I arrived here. To kill you, I first thought.”
“How dare you,” Arthur growled.
I waved his kingly offence away with my free hand; he hadn’t yet noticed that I held the scabbard with the other.
“I could have killed you many times by now. But maybe I was drawn here for a greater purpose. Perhaps we are destined to confront one another, and everything that led to this moment.”
“What could there possibly be to say? You know what you did, and the vengeance I was forced to enact.” He raised his sword higher, but saw the blood and lowered it again with a sigh. “Sir Accolon was a good man, an honourable knight. I regret that he had to die. But I am High King—I had to act.”
“To punish me. The sister who you supposedly loved, who you once professed to trust above all others.”
“Yes,” he said. “The sister who once swore she loved me, and was loyal, and put me above all else.”
“I did love you,” I said fiercely. “I was loyal. There was no greater faith in my life than that which I held in you.”
“Yet you ran the first moment you tasted power, and never came back,” Arthur said. “I asked you to return to Camelot, obey my tenets—ideals you once told me you admired—and you refused. You chose betrayal and dishonour again and again.”
“What you did—the Royal Decree, calling me corrupt, believing every terrible thing Merlin told you—it wasn’t based on any code of honour. You gave away my son and wanted me put on trial to save face. Which noble tenet was that?”
The repetition of our argument in the forest brought only an overwhelming weariness, so I walked away, towards the window. Arthur moved with me, shifting his legs out of the bed and sighing so deeply it sounded like a groan.
“If there were wrongs to put right, Morgan, why did you choose exile over explanation?” he said. “Why did you hide yourself away and guard your borders with all the might that sorcery could provide?”
His eyes on mine were like the press of cool steel. I still held the scabbard in my arms, but he hadn’t looked at it. I thought back to the hawthorn grove, when everything had seemed so clear, but now I found my reasoning elusive. I had never believed right and wrong were straightforward; any cure could also kill with a change of intention. Why had I thought mine and Arthur’s complications were so easy to understand and act upon?
I sank onto the windowsill, anger giving way to a bone-deep sadness. “I don’t know,” I said.
Arthur’s shoulders dropped, fingers uncurling from Excalibur’s hilt. “Don’t think I didn’t feel it, Morgan—your absence, the great hurt between us, my uncertainty in your guilt when alone in the dark. I missed you every day. I wanted reconciliation, but you never afforded us the chance.”
To hear him tell it so plaintively was to feel it as the truth—Arthur’s truth, different from mine but no less lived and felt. I gazed across at this man, this King, my brother, his eyes shining silver with grief. His argument was convincing and logical, and blisteringly, devastatingly wrong.
“There must have been another way,” I said. “You didn’t have to believe Merlin or deny me my son. Accolon didn’t deserve to die. It didn’t need to end like this.”
Arthur rose, leaving Excalibur behind on the bed, its light muted. He picked up a bed robe and slipped it on, wincing with the effort. My sisterly heart flinched at his suffering, and I wondered if looking upon the wounds Accolon had made, to chase away the pain of his last desperate acts and absolve them, might begin to heal more than a hurting body.
“Morgan,” my brother said. “What’s to become of us?”
“I wish I knew,” I said. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that with loss, with mistakes, there is often a way forward, even if there is no way back.” A warm tear curved down my cheek, stinging my lips with salt. “Accolon showed me that.”
Arthur nodded with genuine sadness. “I am sorry for his loss and will always regret what had to be done—you must believe that. For his sake, might there be a way forward for you and me? Some peace we can find?”
“You must first ask yourself what you believe I truly am,” I said. “Am I a traitoress, a woman of too much ambition, a sorceress of powers that frighten you? Or your sister, a woman whose wit and knowledge you admired, with a love you were once sure of, who merely wanted some freedom of her own? How would you feel, Arthur, if the answer falls somewhere in between?”
“Above all, you are my sister,” he replied. “Perhaps I should seek to understand you better.”
He said it slowly, thoughtfully, but with a strange ease, as if I had asked him to admit he had broken an object of minor value, rather than set alight every belief he had held for the past half decade.
Arthur raised earnest eyes to mine, his gaze flicking to the scabbard as he did. It was the first time he had allowed himself to look at it, which would not have felt so significant if he hadn’t cut his eyes away just as quick. I felt a sudden sinking sensation.
“How so?” I asked regardless.
“What if I said I would do anything to regain what we lost? Would you accept my word?” He gestured to a nearby table, upon which was a wine tray. “Would you share a drink with me, Morgan, to affirm that we will try?”
I nodded, sadness tumbling through my body like a storm cloud. Arthur lifted the jug to pour, and I turned to the window, unlatching one of the panes and pushing it open, savouring the kicking gust of breeze, scents of burgeoning apples and morning sky.
“The first time we met, you poured me wine,” I said. “Do you remember? I was surprised a High King would think of such a thing on his coronation day, much less after the shock of learning his true heritage. But I soon came to learn you were a different kind of man, and could be a different kind of king. After years of despondency, you afforded me hope.”
Arthur smiled in memory, his face youthful again, not far from the boy-king of that day. “You will have it again, Morgan. We will. I swear it.”
He placed the jug down and limped closer. His eyes cut to the scabbard, gleaming like a sliver blade. “Take this wine and we will drink to a future of hope.” He offered up the goblet and held out his other hand. “Here, give me the scabbard, and I will resheathe Excalibur as a symbol of future peace.”
Any remaining hope I held died. Though I had suspected his intentions when he first ignored the scabbard, confirmation of his ruse landed like a sword strike. Arthur had learned how to lie to me.
“You still believe it, don’t you?” I said. “The prophecy, my betrayal, that I hate you and want your Crown for myself. You believe every word Merlin told you, and anyone else who wanted us torn apart. It will be written into history and cannot be undone.”
He paused, then decided to spare me the insult of more pretence. “Sister,” he said dangerously. “Give me the scabbard and I will have mercy.”
I laughed, though it seared in my throat. “Oh, Arthur, there is no mercy in you. I know that now. And in turn, nor can there be any in me.”
With a conjuring flick of my hand, I captured the wine in his goblet and threw it in his face. Arthur cried out in anger, swiping the bloody liquid from his eyes and diving at the bed for his sword. In the time it took him to grasp Excalibur, I had leapt onto the windowsill and pushed the pane fully open, holding a hand out towards him in threat.
Arthur stopped, half-furious, half-fearful. His recognition of my terrible potential shimmered through me like the darkest power.
“The scabbard is mine,” he snapped. “I suppose that’s why you are really here. To steal it back and take my sword too, so you can wrench my Crown from me.”
“Is that all you care about?” I exclaimed. “Your sword, your power and what others have against you? You’re my brother, Arthur. We loved and respected one another. I stood before you in my grief and humanity, despite the damage I could have wrought, and that is all you can say? I never wanted your Crown. My God, what use would it be!”
Nothing stirred in his cold eyes aside from his fury and mistrust, forged by Merlin’s lies and Guinevere’s hatred and honed over so many years of suspicion and belief in treasonous conspiracies.
I brandished the scabbard at him. “This is the only thing I want. The scabbard is a symbol of healing and restoration—all you have done is invoke death and destruction in its name. You are not worthy of its possession, and I am taking it. As you did with Yvain and Accolon, I will ensure you never see it again.”
“Guards!” he called. Iron footsteps rang outside. The barred door rattled, then a thud of armour on wood when it didn’t open.
“I would have gone to the ends of the earth with you, Arthur,” I said. “I would have used every ounce of my power for your good. What a future could have been made between us, if you trusted your clever sister. Now all you will get from me is chaos.”
Another crash came from the door, the first splinters flying across the room. Arthur turned towards the noise and I took my opportunity, ducking out of the window.
At my movement, he swung back, eyes and sword blazing. “In the name of the Crown of All Britain I command you to stop!” he roared.
“Oh please,” I scoffed. “What could that possibly mean to me anymore?”
I jumped down, landing safely on my feet in a bed of asphodels. “All empires fall, brother, and so too will yours.”