Her power had erupted to escape what had nearly happened between us, what we’d both wanted in that charged moment before everything went to hell. She’d been seconds from surrendering to me, from giving her body to me fully. So, was this desperate display instinct or calculated sorcery?
The lake raged around her. Yet, there was no wind. Not even a breeze.
"You possess magic," I said, my voice low and accusatory—just as the heavens split open above us.
Rain fell—but only between us. A torrential sheet pouring from a sky that moments ago had been calm. The curtain of water shimmered like silver thread, droplets lingering unnaturally in midair.
"I am not—" she choked, breathless, shoving wet strands of hair from her face. Water lapped at her shoulders. The storm—her storm—formed a wall between us as she drifted backward, panic in every motion.
I stepped back as well—unthinking. Not from her, but fromthis. From the magic I couldn’t command. The lake had always obeyed the blood of Pendragon. Nimue had always answeredme.
But this?
This was something different. Magic of another name.
And it didn’t fear me.
A low hum rose—deep, resonant—vibrating through my boots, into my bones, behind my teeth. I felt it more than heard it, like the earth itself was warning me to keep away from her.
“Nimue!” I shouted, scanning the lake’s surface for any trace of her.
No response.
“What is this?” I snarled at the girl, drawing Caliburn from where it lay sheathed at my side—my sword—a pitiful stand-in for the one that had rejected me. “What magic do you wield, witch?”
She stumbled back, soaked and trembling, an angry expression on her beautiful face. “I didn’t do this!”
The humming intensified, drowning out even the unnatural rainfall. It vibrated through the ground in heavy, rhythmic waves, as if something ancient stirred beneath our feet.
“Nimue!” I roared again. But deep down, I knew—this wasn’t her doing.
A wall of water rose then—not chaotic, but precise. It curved protectively around the girl, then lashed out at me, slamming into my chest like a battering ram. I staggered, breath knocked from my lungs, but remained standing.
The message was clear.
The lake had chosenher. And now it was protecting her.
Fury roared up in me. That poisonous ache of being denied something that should have been mine by blood and birthright. My grip tightened on the sword hilt, my magic crackling beneath my skin, begging to be unleashed.
She stood there, helpless and soaked, ringed in magic that bent to her as if she were born to it.
"Who the fuck are you?" I growled, my voice dipped in steel, enough to make armies falter.
She flinched but stood her ground. “I told you. I am no one.”
“No onedoesn’t draw Excalibur.” My voice trembled with rage. “No onedoesn’t commandmylake.”
Do not harm her.
She said nothing. Just stared at me, eyes wide, mist curling around her feet like she belonged to it. As I watched, the mist grew heavier, denser. Then I understood—it was obscuring her.
"If you flee now," I warned, my voice cutting through the thickening mist like a blade, "you sign your own death warrant. I will hunt you to the ends of Logres and beyond. There will be no sanctuary, no refuge that my reach cannot find."
The dragon's fire stirred beneath my skin. The girl glanced behind her as though trying to judge whether she could outrun me. "Leave, and I will make your death a lesson that echoes through every village, every hovel where magic dares to breathe."
The mist continued to rise, fast and unnatural, swirling with a life of its own that defied the still air around the lake. Each second brought another layer of white vapor, thick as cream and twice as opaque. It rolled upward from the water's surface like smoke, but cold—bitterly, supernaturally cold. After another few seconds, it swallowed her completely, her eyes the last things to disappear into the churning white. Then the ancient trees vanished, their gnarled branches consumed by the creeping wallof fog. Then everything—the shore, the water, even my own hands stretched before me—disappeared into the white.
"Show yourself!" I bellowed, stumbling blindly with Caliburn raised before me like a talisman against the unknown. The blade's familiar weight should have been comfort, but here in this suffocating whiteness, it felt inadequate, almost laughable. My voice vanished into the white void, devoured by the enchantment as surely as if the mist had swallowed sound itself. The words didn't even echo—they simply ceased to exist the moment they left my lips.
