CHAPTER TWENTY

The scent of blood clung to her sinuses. She was sticky with it, covered in it, drenched in it.

It was the smell that brought her to her senses. The smell of life. Of violence. Of death.

Of theft.

“Guinevere!” Someone was shaking her.

She was not Guinevere. She was not Nimue.

She was not.

She opened her eyes. The pond and the forest were gone. There was only blackness and herself in the center of it, floating, hair drifting around her on a lazy, invisible current. No clothing covered her knotted and scarred and haunted body, but it did not matter, because this was not her body.

This was not her body.

“No, no, no, no,” she moaned, tearing at her hair, staring down at herself in horror.

“Guinevere.” Lancelot’s tone was sharp, her fear contained and channeled into action. She grabbed Guinevere’s hands and held them, forcing Guinevere to look into her eyes. “What happened?”

“I am not Guinevere.”

“Yes, I know.” Lancelot’s tone was careful.

“No, you do not! I was Guinevere. And I was the Lady of the—” Guinevere gagged, her throat seizing up, the memory of warm water rushing in and drowning her so vivid she could taste it. Water poured from her throat, spilling down her body, an unending stream of it.

Lancelot cried out in dismay. “What is wrong? How can we help?”

Mordred grabbed Guinevere’s face and turned it so she was looking at him. “Focus! You have to focus! Tell us what happened.”

“I have to take it off.” Guinevere pulled her hands free of Lancelot’s and raked them down her arms, clawing at the skin. “I have to get out of her.”

“Get out of who? What do you mean?”

“This is not me! This is not my body! They tricked her. They used her. And they stole her. I am not Guinevere, but this body—this body is. I am nothing. I am an infection.” Like the Dark Queen’s poison raging through Sir Tristan’s body, eating him from the inside. That was what she was. That was all she was. Something foreign, destroying and taking over.

The water had stopped coming out of her mouth, but it poured from her eyes, it would never stop, it could never stop.

“Who are they?” Lancelot demanded.

“Merlin and Nimue. The Lady of the Lake. Your Lady of the Lake, Arthur’s Lady of the Lake, she made herself into this, into me, so that she could have him, and I—I cannot—I cannot be this, I cannot. Guinevere was real. This was Guinevere.” She tore at her face, the face she had smiled and spoken and kissed with, the face she had worn like a mask to walk through a world that had never been hers, would never be hers, should never be hers. “I can burn myself out. Rid her of the infection of me. I will do it now, and then—”

Mordred cast a desperate look at Lancelot. Lancelot once again took Guinevere’s wrists, holding them fast in her hands. “Did you do this to her?” she asked Guinevere.

“I am this.”

“But did you do it? Did you lure Guinevere? Did you cast the magic and steal Guinevere’s life to create yourself?”

“I did not exist until that cave. It was Merlin, and the Lady, and—”

“So it was not you.”

“It was not me because I am not real! I am the greedy dream of the Lady who had everything and wanted more, the experiment of a wizard who reshaped reality to his own liking. And I was not even supposed to be this! Something went wrong and Nimue was lost, too. I am neither Guinevere nor Nimue. I am nothing.”

“But you are—” Lancelot shook her head, frowning. “You are you. I know you. I have known you since the first moment we met.”

Guinevere felt as though she had been struck. Lancelot. Their connection. Their bond. Their love. It was not theirs at all. “Because you recognized Nimue. Because she set you up, groomed you, raised you to be who you are, and then made certain you would continue to be hers!”

“No. You are taking the choice from me again. The Lady—” Lancelot’s voice broke, then grew strong again. “It is not the same. I do not feel the same for her that I do for you. I never loved her.”

“You do not love me,” Guinevere said, and her heart could not break because it was not her heart, but still, it hurt so much. “There is nothing to love. You were tricked, just like Guinevere was tricked, just like Igraine was tricked, just like Arthur was tricked.”

“And me?” Mordred’s voice was terribly soft. “Why should I have loved you? How was I tricked?”

“I should not be here, that is how! I did not ask to exist.”

Mordred laughed, the sound landing dully in the black void with no echo to carry it back to them. “None of us did. Do you think I would have chosen to be born to a capricious fairy, or a mother obsessed with vengeance? That Lancelot would have chosen a life of unending battle to be seen as who she is?”

“It is not the same! I am an abomination. My very existence is a violation of Guinevere, of who should be here, of what she should be.” Guinevere—how could she still think of herself with that name? but what else did she have?—searched herself for the real girl, that broken, desperate creature. She even searched for Nimue, that greedy, desperate creature. But it was only herself, only whatever she was, whatever false soul had rushed in to fill the emptiness that flooded between Guinevere and Nimue.

And yet could she not see some of them in herself? They were knotted into her soul. Guinevere’s tender heart, seeing pain and wishing desperately to be able to fix it. Nimue’s hunger and desire for more: more experiences, more life, more love. She had none of their memories, but she had been carved into this body by both of them. Guinevere’s humanity, Nimue’s magic.

“She had brown eyes,” Guinevere whispered, and then Mordred caught her as she collapsed, sobbing.

“We need you, Lancelot,” Mordred said. “She needs you.”

“I will leave as soon as I wake,” Lancelot answered.

“No.” Guinevere looked up, shaking her head. “Please. Camelot should not suffer because of me.”

Lancelot burned with anger. “How would that be because of you? Arthur is the one who left to go north. My vow is to you. Not to him, not to Camelot.”

“Your vow was to the queen. And we both know I am not the queen. I am nothing.”

Lancelot’s voice was twisted and raw with anger. “You are not nothing.”

“I forbid you to leave Camelot.” She would not let Lancelot risk herself, not for her. If the only thing she could do was keep Lancelot and Camelot safe, it would not be enough to atone for what she was, but at least it would save some of what she loved. Some of what she had no right to love.

“If you are not the queen, you cannot command me in anything. I will do what I wish.” Lancelot turned to Mordred. “Get to the coast. I am coming to meet you.”

Mordred nodded, and Lancelot disappeared. With a sigh, Mordred stroked Guinevere’s hair. “Be patient. Be gentle with yourself. We will figure this out together.”

Guinevere did not answer. As soon as she awoke, she would burn herself out of this body, restore it to the real Guinevere.

As though reading her thoughts, Mordred continued. “If you do something rash, you risk destroying everything. Yourself, and whatever might be left of her.” He did not say Guinevere’s name, and she knew he was avoiding calling the other person, the real person, Guinevere. “It took two of them—Nimue and Merlin—to do this. Their magic is more powerful and complex than anything you know. If you feel responsible for what happened to that girl, do not make it worse by destroying even more. I swear we will figure this out.”

“How to free her?”

Mordred pressed a kiss to her forehead.

It was not lost on Guinevere as she opened her eyes to the enormity of daylight that Mordred had not promised to help free the girl whose life she had stolen. She knew his voice when he was lying, and he had lied when he said they would figure this out. He had no intention of helping her. He had already made up his mind that she would never free the real Guinevere.

Mordred stirred beside her. She tore hairs from her head, knotted them for sleep, and threw them on his chest.

She did not need Mordred, or Lancelot. She needed Morgana, Morgan le Fay, the sorceress, the most powerful woman who had ever bridged the divide between human and fairy.

At last Guinevere knew who she was. And she would do anything to fix it.