The celebration's laughter faded behind me as I slipped away from the main hall, my feet carrying me toward the lake before my mind had even decided to follow.
I hadn’t planned on heading there; I’d intended to seek refuge in my chamber, to try to figure out what in the world I should do—what options were still open to me. And I hoped for some rest after the night's tumult. But somewhere between my chair beside Arthur and now, the water was drawing me like a siren’s call, irresistible and impossible to ignore.
Torchlight gave way to darkness as I passed the last of the courtyard sentries, their eyes sliding over me with the indifference reserved for one of Arthur’s trusted knights. Solitude, after the day's revelations, was a right none would question.
But the Shadow Trial still churned in my chest—its fragmented glimpses of potential futures, memories that weren’t quite memories, and the unbearable weight of finally understanding who I truly was.
My hands trembled as I pushed through the dense underbrush beyond the castle grounds. Leaves brushed damp against my skin, cool with mist, whispering as though nature itself was helping me figure out which path I should take, what choices I should make.
Behind me, the revelry faded into the distance. The knights remaining were celebrating their victories while I fled mine. The weight of my double life was pressing against me in ways it never had before. After everything I’d seen in the Trial, the lie I was living felt both more necessary—and more impossible to bear.
The night air cleared my thoughts somewhat, though it did nothing to silence them. Above, stars pierced the black sky, their cold light catching the edges of the path. I couldn't really seewhere I was going, but it didn't seem to matter. My feet moved on their own, pulled by something deeper than intention.
The silence was absolute—no crickets, no owls—as though the world itself held its breath. And then the lake appeared—still and black as polished obsidian, reflecting the sky above so perfectly that I felt as though I stood at the edge of the heavens.
The air thickened with a magic all its own as I neared the shimmering surface of the placid water, a hidden rhythm thrumming beneath my skin and sparking at the edges of my awareness. As I approached, I could have sworn the water whispered my name, or maybe it was only the wind through the trees.
I stepped to the shoreline and breathed in as deeply as I could. For some strange reason, I felt like I was home again. Almost in response, I felt a gentle tugging at the edges of my consciousness, like the draw of an incoming tide. The cool night air wrapped around me, and I felt the disguise of Sir Lioran falling away, like petals drifting from a flower. My reflection shimmered on the lake, unchanged and unfiltered: Guinevere. I wasn't certain if it was my own magic causing the disguise to recede or if it was the magic of the lake and the lady in it.
Then the water rippled. No wind. No movement. Just gentle, perfect rings expanding from the center, scattering moonlight like shattered stars across the surface.
Sherose.
The Lady of the Lake. Nimue. My mother.
Just as she had before—emerging from the depths without sound, without urgency, as though time itself parted for her.
The lake opened like a curtain, revealing my mother inch by inch: first the crown of her head, hair like sea kelp falling down her shoulders. Then her alabaster skin. Then her full, indescribably beautiful form, rising to stand on the water’s surface.
Standing before Nimue, an ache began in my chest—a longing so potent it nearly knocked me to my knees. Her presence suddenly felt like a balm to every wound I’d ever endured. With every heartbeat, the familiarity between us became undeniable, as if our shared blood were an unspoken conversation pulsing through my veins like a silent hymn of homecoming.
My heart stuttered, not from fear, but from the overwhelming sense of belonging I’d been denied my entire life.
"Mother."
The word escaped my lips before I could stop it—half-strangled in my throat, caught between a damning accusation and a desperate, childlike plea. Years of abandonment, of unanswered questions, of never belonging anywhere, compressed into that single, trembling word.
Her expression changed.
The serene, otherworldly mask cracked like thawing ice, revealing something raw and ancient beneath. Sorrow. Joy. Regret. Love. All warring in features that now looked heartbreakingly familiar. Her eyes—luminous and deep as the lake itself—filled with tears that glittered like stars as she gazed at the daughter she'd surrendered so many years ago.
“My daughter, my Guinevere."
The sound of her voice folded me into an embrace stronger than any arms could have. The ache within me dulled.
And this time… I understood.
I knew now why seeing her made something bloom to life in my chest. Why, the first time I’d looked at her, I’d felt something ancient and unnamed stirring within me.
I'd recognized her then without even realizing it.
Because she was part of me.
And suddenly, the questions I carried, the pain that had been my companion since I’d learned the truth about my parentage, poured out in a breathless rush.
“Why did you hide me? Why did you give me away? Why bind my magic until my twentieth year?” My voice rose, shaking with the weight of everything I’d held in. “Why allow me to grow up believing I was ordinary when I carriedyourblood and Merlin’s blood—my father'sblood?”
She stepped from the water onto the stone platform where Excalibur rested against the stone, abandoned. The blade gleamed as if it expected me to lift it again. But my focus remained on her. As she moved, the lake gathered around her, shaping into diaphanous robes of liquid that covered her nudity and shimmered even though no breeze stirred the air.
