“You want answers about the white-haired woman,” she said. “The one who drew your precious sword from the stone.”
My heart thudded.
Of course she knew.
Blodeuwyn always knew.
"But that is not all," she continued. "You want to know if you are doomed to the same fate as your father—if the dragon will ultimately defeat you just as it defeated him."
"I want you to remove the dragon from me altogether," I admitted.
We are one. We cannot be removed.
She cackled at that. "And what makes you believe I could do such a thing?"
I felt my jaw tighten of its own accord. "The dragon isyourcreation. You gifted it to my father when he wanted absolute power."
"As I have told you before, you silly boy, I cannot create something from nothing."
"If you didn't create it, who did?"
"The dragon existed long before any of us did." She breathed in deeply, a rattling and wet sound. “Come inside, King of Logres, and let us speak of destinies stolen… and bloodlines revealed.”
I swallowed hard and pushed open the rotting door. It groaned like something in pain.
The stench hit me instantly, a nauseating wave that clawed at my throat and made my eyes water. It was a putrid cocktail of pungent herbs—some familiar, others reeking of dark purposes I didn't want to contemplate—mingled with the cloying sweetness of things long dead and rotting. But beneath it all lurked something sharper, something metallic that made the dragon in my chest stir restlessly. Blood, I suspected, though whether old and dried or wet and fresh, I couldn't tell.
I couldn't bring myself to continue forward and instead stood there at the threshold.
"The essence of the dragon has long lived within your bloodline," Blodeuwyn continued. "Hence the name of Pendragon."
"I know of no other kings in my line who have had the dragonmark, save my father and me."
"No others desired to awaken the dragon's power, yet that doesn't mean the beast's spirit wasn't already present."
"This sounds like yet another game of words."
"Everything is a game of words."
“I haven't come for games; I’ve come for truth,” I said as I finally forced myself forward, across the threshold of the door and into her hovel.
The door creaked shut behind me without a hand to move it.
“No,” Blodeuwyn said, her eyes gleaming from the shadows like a predator’s. “You’ve come forcomfort.But I have only truth to offer—and you will find it anything but comforting.”
I took another step before glancing down at the dirt floor, which was littered with what looked suspiciously like bone fragments and withered flower petals. The acrid smoke from her countless braziers made my throat burn, and suddenly I found myself questioning every decision that had led me to this godforsaken hovel. What in all the bloody hells had I been thinking, seeking answers from this creature?
Blodeuwyn never gave anything without strings attached; that much I knew with absolute certainty. Her bargains were legendary throughout the darker corners of Logres, whispered about in taverns when men drank too much and their tongues loosened with liquid courage. The offers she extended to desperate souls usually saw one owing much more than they'd ever bargained for, their debts compounding like interest on a loan from the devil herself.
“Still handsome,” her voice floated from the darkness, oily and amused. “Still foolish.”
A flame guttered to life. Its flicker revealed her face in grotesque relief: skin like melting wax, blotched with liver spots and arcane markings. But the eyes—the eyes—burned with something older than cruelty. Far older than me. Older than my eldest ancestor. Ancient. And hungry.
She is death.
“The white-haired woman haunts you,” she said. Not a question. “You see her in dreams, in reflections, in the edge of your vision when you least expect it.”
“Yes,” I answered quietly.
