Chapter 15
Wake up, Trystan. The longer you stay, the more real this place will become. The blood of Arthur awaits Excalibur’s touch, and Camelot awaits your return.
Trystan blinked his eyes open to darkness, whispered words with a woman’s voice still echoing in his mind.
Blood of Arthur. Camelot. Excalibur.
Dark magic. Ancient stones.
Memories—real memories—came flooding back once more. This time, however, Trystan struggled to separate those that were real from those forged in this illusory realm.
Myrddin was Emrys, or was Emrys Myrddin? Emrys didn’t love him, but Myrddin did. Trystan loved… whom did he love? Myrddin or Emrys? But, they were one and the same. Wait. Marc? He loved Marc. Marc was his cymara. He waited for him outside the dark magic that kept trying to trap Trystan here. And yet, he couldn’t help the desire nor love brimming in his heart for Myrddin.
This isn’t real.
He repeated the words in his mind over and over, like a mantra by which he needed to live. While Myrddin might be real in a sense, and maybe even Noah, Owaine was not. Owaine had died, stabbed in an alley. As much as he wished otherwise, that was the truth. And Emma… heaven help him, Emma wasn’t truly real, but he didn’t doubt she’d be in his heart long after he escaped this place.
Now was his chance. Trystan needed to leave before the memories created here etched themselves permanently into his brain. Before he lost the ability to separate reality from the labyrinth.
As if by divine intervention, Trystan managed to dress and leave the cottage unnoticed, with both the sword and the bow. After quietly mounting one of the Wynfords in the stable, Trystan rode out in the middle of the night under a brilliant blanket of stars. Just as before, the horse sensed where Trystan needed to go, and headed north.
The farther he rode, the more his heart ached, but he refused to look back. He was leaving the people he loved behind.
They aren’t real.
Trystan pushed through the pain, urging the stallion faster. He needed out of this place.
Get the blood. Leave. Get the blood. Leave.
At the Wynford’s maximum gate, he would reach Wydrin within two hours. Then it would be about the same to Stonehenge. If he could find Arthur’s blood quickly enough, all could be accomplished before dawn. Before those he’d left behind had a chance to discover him gone, because the last thing he needed was Myrddin finding him and drawing him back in to false memories, no matter how real they seemed.
The stars lit the land as Trystan arrived at the abbey. He knew Arthur and Guinevere had been interred here, and it seemed the logical place to begin his search, but as he approached the tomb, an image flickered in his mind.
A battle raged around him on a blood-soaked field. An endless sea of men and metal. The stench of death choked the air. An arrow soared by, inches from Trystan’s ear, and ricocheted off the iron-plated pauldrons of a king.
Father?
With his long, blood-streaked sword, the king parried another attacker and spun around to fight another. The two men occupied the king as a third stalked him from behind. Another arrow found its way deep into the king’s thigh, and the king yelled out in pain.
A nearby knight shouted. “My king! Behind you!” He charged at the man set to attack the king, but he was too late. The enemy sword pierced the king’s body from back to front. The king dropped to his knees, still clutching his sword.
The dark-haired man twisted the blade, and the king cried out.
“Beg me to remove it, oh great king.”
“Mordred.” The king coughed, and blood splattered over his lips.
“Beg. Me.”
“No.”
In front of the king, a cloud of smoke condensed from nothing. A woman stepped out as the cloud dissipated. It was Morgaine.
“You’ve lost, Arthur. Excalibur is mine,” Morgaine growled, a smug grin on her face.
Mordred withdrew his sword, and Arthur fell on to his back, blood seeping from his chest and mouth. He covered the bleeding wound with one hand. “You’re wrong, Morgaine,” Arthur sputtered.
“No, brother. You’re wrong.” Morgaine bent and lifted the sword from Arthur’s weakened grip. “Finally!”
