She set her warm gaze on Camelee and then lifted her chin and turned to her husband. “I cannot stay.”
“What?” the king’s question boomed off the glass walls.
“My queen,” said the man who arrived with her. “You can stay. This is where you belong now. There is no one back there for you.”
“No, Merlin, but there is someone back there forher.” She motioned to Camelee and then turned to Nim and Viviane, who had stayed though their sister Gliten had left. “My dear friends, my heart rejoices at seeing you again, but my happiness is only temporary. For when I think of the man I just left, I cannot partake and enjoy in what he needs to live and cannot find.”
She speaks of Wolf, Camelee thought, ignoring the burning behind her eyes. Was he angry she’d left? Worried? Sad? From the sadness in Genevra’s eyes while she looked at her, Camelee’s heart ached to think his was aching for her.
“He does nothing but sit in the forest where you disappeared and call your name, hoping you will answer.”
At Genevra’s words, Camelee threw her hands to her face and wept. Was this what she had reduced a warrior to? No one ever cared for her this way. She wouldn’t lose him. Genevra was trying to help her.
“You’re her then,” Camelee accused. “My mother.”
Genevra shook her head and tears streamed down her face. “Not the woman you believe.”
No. Genevra’s memory had been taken. She’d been ripped away from her children, stripped of the memory of them because of Morgan. She’d lived in England as Genevra, mother to all because she wasn’t mother to two. “I know…Mom.”
They walked toward each other, crying. When Genevra reached her, she smiled. “What changed your mind about me?”
Camelee shrugged a shoulder. “My pain is real. It’s so real. Why shouldn’t my happiness be real, as well?”
“Pain for…?”
“Him,” Camelee told her. “Wolf.”
Her mother nodded. “I will do everything I can to help you.”
Camelee never thought it would be so easy to forgive her mother. But she also never thought there was an evil faerie after them and in order to save their lives, her parents made the heart-wrenching decision to leave them. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I’ve missed you, my cherished daughter. There was nothing left of me after I left you and Micajah. My heart and soul were with you. I welcomed Arthur and Merlin’s spell to forget. If not for it, I would have given up my spirit as well.”
Camelee threw her arms around Genevra and kissed her cheek. Her mother was forced, as explained several times by the king, to give up her children because she loved them, not because she didn’t.
“We have so much to talk about, my queen.”
“Aye, a lifetime,” her mother agreed. “But first, I wish to know, is Hild well?”
“She’s thriving and very happy here,” Camelee answered. “Would you like me to get her? She would love to see you.”
“No,” her mother said. “I do not want to see her and then have to leave again.” She said the last words loud enough for her husband to hear.
“Guinevere,” he shot, clearly offended by her words. “You know that here in Avalon, I have no authority in these matters.”
“Avalon.” Guinevere repeated with a poorly concealed smile. “Aye, I remember, Avalon.”
“Viviane!” the king said with as much authority as he’d probably had in Camelot, startling the beautiful woman standing with Kestrel. “This has caused havoc in my family. Bring them their loved ones.”
“Arthur,” Viviane answered. “This is not a matter I can decide on my own. If I could, do you not think I would love to see my Nicholas and bring him here to Kes? I must discuss it with my sisters. You are asking us to bring four more people, mortals here to Avalon, and then, what? Return them to their normal lives when and if we ever catch Morgan again? Four timelines would be altered, not to mention these four coming from the twenty-first century.”
He looked every part a king, standing tall and strong by his high crystal chair. “I understand what I’m asking. I’m pleading.”
“Arthur.” It was Nim talking now. “Come with us to the meeting room. Merlin, you come as well. We will summon Gliten and decide what to do.”
Before anyone could reach out and stop them, the king and the sisters were gone.
“Does anyone know what his connection is to the sisters?” Michael turned around to ask them.
