“Where is Gawain?” she heard Lancelot shout.
Vera was struggling to get her foot in the stirrup when she looked back at the fight as Arthur reached the three remaining men. He had only reeled his arm back to swing when he faltered. For a split second, panic gripped her heart. Was he hurt?
And then she saw.
The oldest farmer in front of Arthur sprouted a gaping hole in the center of his chest. His skin, his organs—all that had once filled that space was removed in a perfect circle, evaporated into nothing. He crumbled to the earth before the light could leave his eyes. The same happened to the man in front of Lancelot, too. From where she stood, clutching the saddle of Arthur’s horse, foot suspended in the stirrup, Vera saw straight through the man’s body to the unstained grass beneath him. He didn’t even bleed. The third man jolted. His black pupils shrank in a flash. His eyes cleared and registered surprise as Lancelot delivered a clean and fatal blow.
Vera looked to the road like a magnet had drawn her attention.
Merlin, still horsed, had both hands raised before him. There was a fire in his eyes, and power pulsed from him. For all the times Vera had stood toe-to-toe with him and shouted him down, she’d never once thought to fear him.
Relief and exhaustion collided, and she dropped to her knees, panting and dizzy. Then, there were hands on her shoulders, and Arthur knelt in front of her.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes searching over her for injury and settling on her face. Expectant foreboding etched his brow with lines.
Vera thought of how her body had forgotten how to draw breath after she killed Thomas. But that was different. She nodded.
“She was brilliant,” Lancelot said, panting with his hands on his knees. “Held her own better than I could have hoped.”
“I had to fight,” Vera said through heaving breaths. “I couldn’t—I’m so sorry.” She hoped he heard all that was unsaid behind her apology. But as he stroked her hair, she could see in his eyes that he understood.
“I know.” Arthur kissed her forehead, clutching her shoulders, and she leaned her head into him, still catching her breath but not shaking. Not in pieces. And relieved. He didn’t hate her.
Merlin caught up to them with Gawain on his heels. “What were you doing out here?” he demanded, his smoldering eyes locking onto Lancelot.
“Training. Running,” he said. “I thought the risk was where you lot were. Those men were bewitched and set on the queen.”
Vera sat bolt upright, ignoring the sweat that threatened to drip into her eyes. “They were?”
Lancelot nodded. “They were hell-bent on getting to you. I was just in the way and—” He gestured at the dead men littering the ground around them. “Did you see their eyes?”
She had. The unnaturally ravenous, black eyes.
Lancelot knelt down and wiped his bloodied blade clean in the grass as he spoke. “The Saxon?” His eyes darted between Merlin and Gawain. “Does that mean he’s here?”
Gawain climbed down from his horse. He didn’t answer. Instead, he strode purposefully from dead body to dead body, pulling their shirts aside at their chests and moving on after only a few seconds.
“What are you doing?” Lancelot asked, voicing the question for all of them.
Gawain ignored him. He went to the next man, the one Vera had seen behind the inn, the one she spent all her energy to keep from killing her. Gawain stayed at his side longer. He mumbled quiet words with his eyes closed and his hand hovering above the man’s bare skin. A breeze rustled the nearby trees, and Arthur’s horse stamped uneasily in the dirt—and then an unnatural squelch came from the man’s body like a stuck boot being pulled from the mud. A bloody clump zoomed into Gawain’s hand. He wiped it on his trousers, turned it, and held it up to Merlin. “A trigger hex.”
“What is that?” Vera asked.
“It’s a multi-layer bewitchment,” Gawain said. “This man was the trigger, embedded with a vial of your blood. It bound him to you. Once the embedded person sees their target, they have the scent and track the target like hunting dogs. He infected the others.”
“That’s possible?” Lancelot asked in disbelief. “Mages can do that?”
“It’s mostly theoretical,” Merlin said. “And it’s strictly forbidden. I’ve never seen it used so effectively in practice. They are imprecise and terribly dangerous.”
“How did he get her blood?” Arthur asked.
Merlin shook his head. “I’d guess it was some sort of arrangement with Viviane. Collateral, maybe?”
“Does that mean the Saxon has been here recently?” Vera asked.
“There’s no way to know.” Merlin reached for the vial, and Gawain readily handed it to him. He incinerated it right there in his palm. “After a trigger hex is set, it will last until it’s cleansed by a mage or the embedded one dies. Now that we know he’s used them, Gawain and I can scan for more.”
The fallen men here weren’t evil. Just bewitched. Lancelot stared at the last farmer he’d cut down, the one whose eyes cleared and who was left in confusion as his life ended. He sighed heavily and rubbed at his brow. Blood trickled from a cut above his elbow.
