CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

The sounds of ringing steel and agonizing deaths were immediately muffled as Guinevere crawled through the jagged opening of the cave and stood. Up ahead, there was light. Guinevere wanted to run, but her whole body seized with the memory of the last time it had entered this place. She had been another girl, full of hope. She had no such hope now.

She was back in the cave and once again about to throw herself on the mercy of a merciless creature. But this time it was not only her body on the altar but everyone’s.

She took a step forward, and then another. Her mind screamed with the need for haste, but her lungs refused to draw breath, remembering a flood of warm water. She should have sent Lancelot. She should never have come. Not to this place, and its waiting darkness and silence.

But…it was not silent.

There was a humming and clicking above her. She looked up, but her eyes could not pierce the dim shadows. She lit a fire with her fingers, and then wished she had not. The cave’s ceiling moved and shimmered with black beetles flying in drunken, clumsy patterns. A flutter of moths joined them.

Her army was outside, but the Dark Queen was here.

Guinevere began to run, desperate to reach the wizard first. A swirling tornado of life blocked her way. Guinevere wanted to laugh and cry and scream. She had worried so much about seeing Merlin again, and now it was likely she would not get even that far.

The light from Guinevere’s sparks reflected a thousandfold, and it looked as though the Dark Queen was made of tiny points of fire, crawling and shimmering and making a mockery of the human form. Nimue had loved the Dark Queen, loved the fierce life of her. But that life had been corrupted, turned rotten and greedy out of desperation. Was it a coincidence that the Dark Queen, her natural state perverted by violence, now chose to form herself in imitation of people?

And not just a person but a queen. Stag beetles created a crown on the Dark Queen’s head as two moths settled into place and blinked their eyed wings at Guinevere. Guinevere dropped her fire to the cave floor, where it continued to burn. She grasped the pommel of Excalibur.

Wait, the Dark Queen hummed. I will pause the useless slaughter outside if you listen. You humans never listen.

Guinevere swallowed, then nodded. Maybe it would buy her friends enough time to escape, or regroup.

You have already lost, the Dark Queen buzzed. She did not sound triumphant. She sounded almost tender. Even now, everything you love is dying or killing something else you love. And it is all for nothing. If they would just accept me, everything would be better.

“You are a monster,” Guinevere said. “You cannot take lives like this.”

If they were not doing it here, they would be doing it elsewhere. Saxon, northerner, southerner. You know it is true. They were slaughtering each other long before I got involved, and they will continue to do so in an endless cycle of struggle and violence.

Guinevere tightened her grip on Excalibur. The Dark Queen hissed, twitching. I can kill them all right now. Every body I possess. Stop their hearts with a wish.

Guinevere released the pommel.

The Dark Queen’s buzzing hit a higher note, a sweeter tone. So many are being hurt, being lost, being left behind. I will be a benevolent god to this island. No others will arrive on the shore to kill and overtake. They will become one with us. All will become one with us. Life will flourish. No one will hurt or die before their time.

“What about those dying outside right now?” Guinevere demanded.

That is not my fault. Merlin had a vision for humanity and it was a vision that resulted in the systematic destruction of my magic, my power. Without nature to remind them of how small they are, without the constant struggle to eat, to stay warm, to hunt or to avoid being hunted, mankind turns its violence outward. They seal themselves away behind brick and stone, become cruel, conquering, covetous wretches. That is what Merlin has done with his progress. Why should he get to decide what this island will be? After all, look what he did to you. Look what they made you, how they hurt you, so they could possess you.

Guinevere let out a harsh laugh. “Do not pretend to care about me.”

The Dark Queen raised one crawling, shimmering hand as though she would caress Guinevere’s cheek. Guinevere jerked away from her touch. The droning continued as the hand and arm crawled back up themselves, disappearing and re-forming at her side. I am Mordred now, as he is me, and I love you as he does. You broke his heart when you left him, but he understood. You could not turn your back on people in need. But now you can have that life! Life with him. Because when I am everywhere, I will take care of them all. I will take care of you. And even Arthur, that wretched boy. I will love him because I will be you and you love him, and I will love him because I will be him, and he will love me because his burden will be gone. He will be free. Everyone will be free.

“At the cost of their freedom.”

Nothing is without a price. Arthur takes their freedom, too, and still so many of them suffer and die. That will end. I can rule with a lighter touch. A whisper in the back of your mind, the flutter of a moth’s wings against your skin. You will still be yourselves. You will be unified. One. Safe.

Guinevere shook her head. A moth alighted on her forehead and she could not brush it away before it whispered a vision into her mind.

Sunlight.

Trees.

Laughter and happiness. Mordred at her side, all traces of the eel gone, no more pain radiating from his skin. Now he had a family, the family he always wanted. Arthur on her other side, younger, freer, lighter than he had ever been. All burdens erased, all violence banished, the curse of Excalibur broken and only life left. Power given to those large enough to truly wield it, not crushing these poor children. Her heart swelled to see them like this, to hear their laughter, everything healed between them.

And Guinevere whole at last. Not lost, or struggling, or in pain. Complete and loved and—

Guinevere slapped her hand against the insect, snuffing it out. Tears welled in her eyes. Part of her wished she had stayed. Even for a few breaths longer, just to see who they could have been. “You are a liar.”

You do not love my grandson enough to join him? You do not love Arthur enough to free him from his accursed calling? The insects hushed their humming and buzzing and then fell silent. The moths closed their wings, hiding the Dark Queen’s false eyes. Then they lazily opened again.

I have Mordred’s sword at your knight’s throat, the Dark Queen hissed. Drop Excalibur and I will let you both walk away. This is not your fight. It was never your fight. Let Arthur and Merlin and me finish what we started.

The Dark Queen’s gambit had the opposite effect intended. Instead of fear, Guinevere felt her resolve harden. Lancelot would fight until the end. So would she. “I will stop you.” Guinevere reached for Excalibur again.

The Dark Queen shimmered with laughter, all of her shaking and skittering around to express her mirth. You cannot wield it, and even if you could, I will merely scatter. As if to demonstrate, the insects dropped to the floor in a cascade of darkness before swelling up to re-form the Dark Queen. Surely you have learned that lesson through Arthur. I tire of this. Who are you to stand in my way? I am a god, and you are not Nimue. You are just a girl. Not even that. You are neither Nimue nor the princess. You are nothing. Let me make you something.

The Dark Queen was right. She was neither Nimue nor the real Guinevere. But she did have that girl’s determination. It was not weakness that had led her to this cave. It was hope. It was courage. And it was strength. The strength that the fairy queen never considered, never measured, never feared. Because Guinevere—the real Guinevere—had been human. And that meant she was small. Finite. Contained.

And able to do small, finite magic that could contain even those who considered themselves infinite.

While the Dark Queen was fixed on the hand resting on Excalibur, Guinevere reached into her bag with her other hand and pulled out a tangle of iron thread. “You are just another tyrant, you absolute horse’s ass,” she said. Then she threw the thread she had poured herself into last night, bleeding power into the same knot of binding she had seen Merlin paint on her body. The knot landed with a gentle ping on the floor of the cave.

The Dark Queen looked down with a derisive laugh. She buzzed, then held out one hand. Nothing happened. She stared at her hand, moth wing eyes fluttering in confusion. The moths flapped frantically but did not leave her face. She remained in the form she had taken, all the thousands of creatures she made herself out of, the tiny bits of herself that would scatter and flee before being destroyed, bound in one piece and in one place: the floor of the cave.

“Very clever,” Merlin said with a laugh.