“Go,” he breathed.
Vera dropped back down and pressed her hands to Arthur’s wound. The effect was immediate. Please don’t let it be too late, she silently pleaded. Let it be enough.
His skin started to knit itself together at her touch. As the force flowed through her hands and into his body, Vera began to learn more. Closing the wound wasn’t enough. She could sense the blood loss and instinctively regenerated his blood supply. She knew the organs that had been pierced even though she didn’t know their names. Vera bound them shut.
He would not die on this patch of earth today. His life force intensified. The closer he came to wholeness, the weaker Vera became. Her fears of whether she could give him enough renewed. She kept at it, pushing the power from her, drawing from what felt like the bottom of the well of her gift until every wound in his body had been healed and his blood was restored. Vera was terrified to release the grip of her power, but there was nothing more she could do.
She fell back, panting and terrified.
His eyes were open, and the haze was gone. Arthur sat up and tore back his blood-soaked tunic, revealing a mess of blood on his skin.
But there was no wound.
“You’re still alive,” Vera said in disbelief.
“Yes I am.” Arthur’s voice was thick with awe. One of the burning tents collapsed in on itself with a crash, jolting them from their reverie. He blinked and surveyed the wreckage. From somewhere not far off, a horse’s whinny cut through the quiet.
“We can’t stay here.” He looked to Lancelot. “Are you all right?”
Lancelot nodded. He was, and he wasn’t.
Oh God. “Where’s Gawain?” Vera asked. She was afraid of the answer.
“He’s gone. There’s no sign of him.” Lancelot’s jaw jutted forward as he shook his head. “I’ll find the horses.”
“Can you stand?” Vera asked Arthur, offering her hand and helping him up. He was fine. He was healed.
But Vera’s vision swam in front of her. She grabbed Arthur’s arm to steady herself. “I don’t feel good,” she mumbled before promptly doubling over and vomiting.
She stood back up and swayed. Arthur held her upright. The world spun around her. “I think I’m about to lose consciousness,” she mused. It was her last waking thought.
As she faded, she felt Arthur’s arms around her. She heard his and Lancelot’s voices, but they sounded far off. Vera felt the bump of movement and vaguely recognized that she was on a horse with Arthur’s arms holding her fast, but she did not know where they were going.
Vera swam in and out of awareness so fluidly that reality became an obscured confusion. She thought she felt rain, but she opened her eyes to the bright sun and waving long-stemmed flowers in the breeze, like the ones from the dream she had in the memory procedure. Maybe she dreamt this, too. She saw a farmhouse with a thatched roof. At some point, she was off the horse, and perhaps Arthur had carried her inside. There was another voice, familiar and simultaneously a stranger.
There was a hand on her forehead, the stroke of loving fingers over her cheek in a dark room. Night had fallen.
When she woke, it was to the bright light of day shining through a window. She was in a bed, and as Vera sat up, two blankets fell from her shoulders. Her head throbbed like she had a horrible hangover. Her running clothes were gone, replaced by a clean, oversized tunic she recognized as Arthur’s. She glanced around. This wasn’t the castle at Camelot, that was for sure. Nor was it an inn.
This was a home. There was a fireplace in one corner. The chamber was simply but comfortably appointed, and just one chair sat near the bed. The book lying on it betrayed that Arthur had sat there beside her.
Arthur. Still alive. The joy that came was muted by the rising memory of the soldier’s lifeless stare, of Gawain missing, of all that was lost and ruined. Vera rubbed her face, trying to sweep together the mess of all that had happened.
She heard quiet voices and could not resist going to them. She didn’t want to be alone, but she couldn’t exactly walk out in the equivalent of an oversized T-shirt. Vera noticed a simple dark blue dress draped on the end of the bed and decided it must be for her.
She changed into it before she tiptoed barefoot to the door, opened it a crack, and listened.
“—not sure what you’re asking,” said the nearly familiar deep voice of a man.
“Do you know anything about the extent to which emotions can be manipulated by magic?” Vera closed her eyes, gratitude sweeping over her. That voice, she knew. Hearing Arthur speak easily, unencumbered by the strain of injury, lifted a weight she didn’t realize she carried. She slipped through the door and into the main room of a farmhouse.
There was a wooden table next to the hearth. Arthur sat nearest her, facing away. The man opposite him, facing her, was the stranger. His dark hair, streaked with grey, fell to his shoulders. He listened to Arthur with a furrowed brow, emphasizing natural lines of years and worry that wizened his face. But he saw Vera as she entered and smiled warmly. She recognized that smile. Arthur turned and had no sooner seen Vera than was out of his seat and rushing to her. He hugged her and then held her by both elbows, searching her face.
“I’m fine,” she said. And it was true, but the mystery of what happened in the space of an hour when she and Lancelot were on their run ate at her. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Arthur said. “I never quite fell back asleep when you left. Things went too quiet—no breeze nor crickets … nothing. I couldn’t even hear my own breathing, and I knew something wasn’t right.” He shook his head. “I should have gone out to check, but I thought I was just on edge. Then there was a blast that lit blue, and I knew it was magic. It was pitch dark and then so bright it was blinding. It was all focused on Gawain.
“I tried to help him, but when he saw me, he threw out a hand at the same time I was hit with a spike.” Arthur’s hand went to where the wound had been on his abdomen, touching the ghost of his fatal injury. “Gawain sent me flying backward with one hand, and he had his device in the other. I think he was trying to destroy it, but he was … bound right then. Wrapped up in a rope that looked like it was on fire. He yelled one word. Mordred.” Vera’s stomach churned. It was another chess piece sliding into play from the legend. How could this end well? “And the rope tightened of its own accord and—” Arthur grimaced. “God, he screamed like a tortured man.”
