I ignored him and spurred my horse on with a harsh kick, urging it to follow after the queen who seemed to be carried by the wind down the hill.
“It matters not. All that matters is that she is riding headlong into chaos and we must stop her,” I shouted over my shoulder at the wizard.
The sound of clashing swords filled my ears as we grew closer to the battlefield, as did the rumbling overhead as the previously sunny day grew dark with clouds.
“She is conjuring these!” Merlin hollered over the sudden thunder rumbling through the valley as a crack of lightning fell upon the men fighting on the battlefield.
“How is she able to control such a thing?” I asked, dumbfounded as more lightning began to rain down.
“She cannot—not really,” Merlin replied, leaning forward to spur his horse on faster. “She has no control over the lightning or who it is hitting. Her panic is making her magic run wild, can you not feel it?”
I could feel nothing but the cloying panic that I felt from Guinevere down the bond. She was practically blind with itas rain began to fall from the sky in thick, heavy drops that obscured my own vision as we approached.
Rubbing a hand over my face to wick the water out of my eyes, I watched in horror as Guinevere and her mare disappeared into the fray.
“Merlin!” I bellowed over my shoulder and suddenly the battling crowd parted in front of me.
“I don’t have much more to offer than that, I am afraid!” He called after me. “I will follow after, get her out of there!”
I kept my eyes on Guinevere, ignoring the death and destruction all around me as I focused only on her, and once I got her out of this bloodshed, I swore I was going to throttle her myself.
“Guinevere!” I shouted over the din of violence, hoping she would hear me and stop, but her gaze was set on the thickest part of the battle where, undoubtedly, Arthur would be.
She was trying to get to him, almost desperately as the water turned to hail—seeming to feed off of her emotions and rain down on those who were battling one another regardless of if they were friend or foe.
Guinevere had nearly made it to the throng when I felt it. A thread of our bond seemed to pull taut and snap. It nearly knocked the air out of me as I realized what exactly such a thing meant.
Then Guinevere’s scream of anguish confirmed it.
One of us had fallen and I realized exactly what it had been that she had been trying to stop in the first place.
And I was so distracted by the sudden onslaught of pain coming from our shared bond that I did not see the sword coming right in my direction until it was too late.
Chapter Forty-Five
Ihad done this, I realized as I felt one of my bonds snap like a rubber band that had been pulled too tight.
It was my strongest bond. My first bond.
Of course it only made sense that Arthur would fall first for his men. I could see him a few feet in front of me, still swinging his sword as the rest of his men tried to push the small figure off of him.
With horror, I realized that it was Mordred, the implications of the action were clear. Mordred was the one wielding the blade that would fell the king of kings. Just as it had always been meant to be.
In the stories, Mordred—Arthur’s nephew—had dealt the final blow on his uncle after being refused the throne of Camelot. They had always made the princeling seem much older than the teenage boy of thirteen who now stood back still gripping histoo-small sword with a dumbstruck expression and the glowing purple magic that seemed to hover around his small form.
He was too young to be fighting a battle like this, I thought as I tumbled from my horse and practically crawled to Arthur. Mordred was here because of the selfishness of a woman who did not deign to come and battle herself.
Arthur’s eyes were still open by the time I made it to him, his gaze growing more and more faint as his heartbeat began to slow—finally out of time with the rhythm that had matched mine since the night of our wedding.
“No, no, no,” I chanted fiercely as I called as much magic as I could muster and tried to close the wound, but even I knew it was too late. He had been stabbed in the exact wrong spot—an artery I vaguely realized as I stared down at his face.
Was this truly supposed to be how everything ended?
The fighting continued around me despite the rain pouring heavily around us, half-ice, half-water.
They were winning. The Saxons were going to win and I was going to lose them all.
Then I felt it. Another bond pulled taut.
