Come to that, everything was … more than it should have been; colors oversaturated, edges sharper, smells overwhelming.
It was all worse.
When the woman wailed, her screams pierced Vera’s ears to the point that she thought if she reached up, she’d find blood trickling from them. The woman’s fear of death that held her with a sure grip, the woman’s attempts to be brave, her whimpers … it was so unendurable that Vera tried to help far more frantically than before. She tore her skirt to use as a compress, but there wasn’t enough of it—it was only a light summer dress. She pressed it to the wound. The stench of blood was so strong that it covered Vera’s tongue, and she began choking on it and sputtering.
Helpless and defeated, she lay on the ground next to the woman whose breathing crept to a stop until Vera gazed at the empty shell of a human. She closed her eyes. Something else would happen now. It had to. And if it didn’t, Merlin could pull her out. When she opened her eyes, it would be gone.
Vera inhaled through her nose, relieved to smell only fresh air instead of the heavy odor of blood, and opened her eyes.
She was still in the field.
In the spot where she’d started both times before. She turned to look, and there it was.
The woman, her hands on her abdomen. Bleeding.
It was starting over.
There was nothing for Vera to do but live it again, in its new hyper vibrancy that made the scene, already so real, even more so. She was on her knees, clutching at her hair, unsure whether the screams in her ears were hers or those of the poor dying woman.
When the screaming stopped and the smell abated and only the sound of the breeze cut through the air, Vera dared to open her eyes.
Again. In the field. And two times more after that.
It was torture.
The next time, Vera didn’t even stand. She curled into a tight ball on the ground and screamed into the nothingness, into the void of sinking despair that the potion had gone wrong, and she was doomed to relive these awful moments until she lost her mind and there was nothing left of her.
So it came as a shock to Vera when the cycle stopped with the smallest shift.
There was a hand in hers. Like a lost deep-sea diver finding their rope, it led her out of the ill-fated loop. The next moment, Vera was somewhere else.
The hand was still in hers as they walked beside a stream. She couldn’t explain it, but it was like the feel of his hand had a smell, and she knew without having to look it was Arthur. She turned for confirmation and there he was, face taut with nerves as he stared out at the horizon. Vera knew, in a distant way, that they hadn’t known one another long. A glance behind her gave more evidence: her father and Merlin trailed some ways behind them. Chaperones. Merlin’s presence brought a rush of feelings—Guinevere’s feelings. He was the only one she trusted. He was the one who cared for her the way her father never had.
A flash. The stream was gone. They were in the throne room for court. Guinevere had made a comment that Arthur found amusing. He squeezed her hand and gave a sly smile.
Then it was the great hall. Vera recognized the men of the king’s guard gathered around a table in the middle—not the one on the dais, and no one was their usual self. Lancelot slumped in his chair, his head only kept from slamming onto the table by the way it was perched on his hand. His hair was unkempt, and his eyelids seemed to require a great effort to keep open. Vera felt pity, but this wasn’t her memory—it was Guinevere’s. And Guinevere felt the strangest guttural surge of disgust toward him.
Lancelot wasn’t the only exhausted one in the room. Another older man with wavy silver hair, unkempt and hanging loose, dozed in his seat and snored softly there. The ones awake enough bore more severe expressions. Percival chewed at his thumbnail as he looked at a map unfurled before them, and the way his eyes darted to the more senior leaders in the room betrayed his fear. Randall had a ghostly expression of resignation from his spot in the corner. And there were other faces interspersed among the ones she knew so well. Two more men and women at their sides, focused and forlorn. Vera turned to Arthur. He studied the map, too, his face hard and determined. Under the table, though, he’d taken Guinevere’s hand. She rubbed her thumb over the back of it, a gesture of comfort in this moment that tasted of hopelessness.
It was the end of the war—one way or the other, it would all be over soon. They’d withstood innumerable invasions and the largest was yet to come. The faces in this room were a microcosm of Arthur’s forces. Even the best among them had little left to give.
The sense of knowing struck her like lightning. Guinevere knew what to do—Vera could access that in her mind but couldn’t penetrate deeper … couldn’t know the what of her thoughts.
“I have an idea,” Guinevere said. Vera’s voice said.
The room was gone. She lay in bed, and Vera had no context as to why, but she felt what Guinevere felt, and it frightened her. Even in her darkest moment, even the day of—of—ugh. What was his name? She’d loved him and he died. Vera was nauseous as the dualities of her life and Guinevere’s competed within her.
Then the name came to her. Even on the day of Vincent’s death, she had never felt this deep of despair. Arthur sat next to the bed, his hand over hers, eyes filled with regret and an odd glimmer of awe.
The edges dimmed like night was falling on the visions. Vera wondered if that meant the potion’s effect had begun to lose its hold. Blackness closed in from all sides until her mind’s eye was only a pinprick of light at the center—and then nothing. Sensation returned to her waking body.
Vera came up with a spluttering gasp, the last vestiges of the vision gone except one piece which remained: her hand wasn’t empty.
Vera ripped the blindfold off.
Arthur knelt next to the tub, holding her hand, his sleeve wet up to the elbow. Why hadn’t he rolled his sleeve up? Vera’s brain was foggy. Was she still dreaming—remembering—whatever it was?
Water dripped from her soaking hair in quiet splatters, and for a moment it was the only sound. Arthur and Vera stared at one another. She wanted to ask him what he was doing here but couldn’t get the thought into words. Something in her wasn’t working right.
