I rode hard, pushing Shade deeper into the heart of Logres, into a land that felt less like a kingdom and more like an endless graveyard stretching beneath a pallid sky. The air seemed to carry the weight of death, thick with unspoken sorrows and the lingering echoes of screams long silenced.
I passed a field where ancient circular stones—once white as fresh snow and humming with natural magic—now stoodscorched black as charcoal, their surfaces cracked and weeping dark stains that looked disturbingly like dried blood. The grass around them had withered to brittle husks that crunched under Shade's hooves, and not even weeds dared to grow in the poisoned earth where Arthur's purge had burned away centuries of power.
A mile further, I came upon what had once been a grove of sacred trees, the massive oaks older than memory itself. Now it was nothing but a salt field—white crystals stretched endlessly where roots had once run deep, the earth so thoroughly salted that nothing would ever grow there again. The destruction was methodical, deliberate. Arthur hadn't just killed the magic here; he'd ensured it could never return.
Another village appeared ahead, and my heart sank as I took in the familiar sight of empty streets and burnt-out shells of homes. Blackened timbers jutted skyward like accusing fingers, and the few walls still standing were stained with soot and worse things I didn't want to identify. Windows gaped like dead eyes, and not a single wisp of smoke rose from any chimney. The silence was absolute, broken only by the mournful creak of a broken shutter swaying in the wind.
And this wasn't the exception—it was the rule. Village after village bore the same wounds, the same systematic destruction. Each settlement we passed had been broken and gutted, its heart ripped out. The pattern was unmistakable: identify the magical, eliminate them, and leave the survivors too terrified to ever practice again.
Even the people we occasionally glimpsed appeared fundamentally different from the folk I remembered. They moved like shadows, haunted creatures with wide, darting eyes that never settled on anything for too long. Fear had carved deep lines into faces that should have been youthful, and they flinched at every unexpected sound. When they saw me approaching—a stranger on horseback—they scattered like startled deer, disappearing into doorways and alleys as if their survival depended on remaining unseen.
Miles from the tavern, the weight of everything I had witnessed finally shattered the careful walls I had built around my emotions. My composure, so carefully maintained through the day's horror and devastation, crumbled like ancient parchment touched by flame. A raw cry tore from my throat—a sound that was equal parts furious roar and a wounded animal's keen, echoing across the empty landscape with a violence that surprised me.
The sound seemed to unlock something deep inside my chest, some dam that had been holding back an ocean of grief and rage. Hot tears streaked down my cheeks in burning rivulets, cutting clean paths through the dust and grime of the road. My hands trembled where they gripped Shade's reins, and she seemed to sense my distress, slowing her pace without any command from me. Each sob that wracked my body felt like it might tear me apart from the inside, and I found myself grateful for the absolute solitude of this desolate stretch of road where no one could witness my complete and utter breakdown.
When had I last cried? When had I allowed myself to feel anything at all? I didn't have an answer.
How many more would die under this tyrant's rule? How many innocents would bleed for powers they never asked for—gifts they couldn't control?
Grief twisted into rage.
This wasn't about survival anymore.
This was war.
CHAPTER FOUR
-ARTHUR-
Iapproached the Lake of Aeloria as the first hint of dusk kissed the eastern sky.
Mist clung to the water, thick and silver, transforming the familiar landscape into something almost arcane.
This weekly pilgrimage was my closely guarded secret. And that was for the best. If word ever got out...
It couldn’t.
Camelot weighed on my shoulders like a physical burden. Sleep had eluded me again last night—haunted, as always, by the same dream: a sword rising from the water... only to turn away from my grasp. Always the same nightmare, recurring with increasing frequency as the Shadow Trials approached.
I reached the water’s edge and removed my boots. The cold mud squelched between my toes—a grounding reminder of my connection to this land, however tenuous it had become. I waded in, ankle-deep, my robe growing heavy as it drank the lake’s chill.
"Nimue," I called. My voice shattered the stillness. "Lady of the Lake. Daughter of Aeloria's depths. Keeper of fates. I summon you."
The ancient invocation Merlin taught me tasted bitter now—a relic from a man who had once been like a father to me... before betrayal severed that bond.
The lake began to ripple from its center. Soft blue light glowed beneath the surface, growing brighter until it rivaled the coming dawn. The mist parted, peeled back by unseen hands, revealing the heart of the lake.
Sherose slowly.
And she was as breathtaking now as the first time I’d seen her at fifteen years old. Her skin shimmered, a living canvas that shifted with the light. Every gesture seemed orchestrated by some divine hand—not of flesh and bone, but sculpted by the currents that danced beneath her surface.
Her hair appeared like a river of sapphire roots, tapering to sky blue and ending in luminescent foam-like wisps of pale aqua. It floated as though suspended in water, even as the air gathered still around her—a ghostly waterfall. And those eyes... They captured me across the distance, their color a roiling tempest between sea-glass green and storm-dark blue. Her voice, when it came, resonated through the lake's depths, as if multiple echoes converged around me.
Her presence altered time, made reality seem mutable. She exuded an ancient calm that threatened to unravel my resolve, an unimaginable power that clung to her and made her both my oracle and nemesis—a reminder of the magic I fought against yet feared to lose.
The Lady of the Lake was no ally, not truly. It was more that her magic was bound by the same rules as mine—unable to cross, press, or fracture the invisible boundary that separatedcreation from chaos. And, in this case, her magic was creation and mine, chaos.
When I had taken the dragonmark and the dragon, I’d become inexorably tied to a draconic power beyond comprehension—older even than Nimue. Its essence carved itself into me, an insidious force of chaos, fire, destruction, and unmaking, while Nimue’s magic was one of creation, balance, and destiny. Because our magics nullified one another, we would never be true opponents. She couldn’t use her magic against me, and I couldn’t use mine against her.
