I woke up screaming.
The first thing I noticed was the water hitting the walls of my prison like something had burst. Every crack and seam in the stone was suddenly weeping in thick sheets, the floor flooding ankle-deep in seconds before I wrestled my power back under my skin with both hands shaking, my throat raw and my heart slamming its fist against my ribs.
“Shut your mouth!” One of the guards came pounding down the aisle, his torch swinging. “Shut the fuck up, girl, I swear to—”
A second one came running behind him, and they both stopped outside my cell, breathing hard, water still draining between the stones beneath their boots. They took in the mess and looked at one another.
“Mordred said ‘er magic ain’t supposed to work in ‘ere.”
“But jist look at it.”
The first one nodded. “I hope they kill ye, witch,” he said as he crouched and picked something up off the floor: a broken broom handle, the end splintered to a ragged point. He shoved it between the bars and jabbed it at me. I pulled away just in time to avoid getting a nasty cut to my abdomen. Then I slinked back toward the dark corner where I usually hid myself.
“Come on then, witch. Show us what you’re screamin’ about.”
The first one laughed. “Or make yerself useful an’ show us what you got between them legs.”
He grabbed the torch bracket mounted to the wall and leaned his weight against the bars, trying to angle the light into my corner.
“Show us yer cunt an’ we’ll leave ye alone.”
“Come on then, be a good girl.”
I stayed where I was with my back against the stone, just breathing through my nose until the shaking in my hands stopped.
Eventually, they grew bored. They always did.
The broom handle scraped back through the bars as their footsteps retreated and the torch glow faded.
In the dark, with cold water seeping through my clothes and the dream still vivid behind my eyes, I tried to make sense of the fact that I’d just managed to call on my water magic even though this prison cell was warded. Reaching out to the water around me now, I tried to channel it, but it was no good. The magic wouldn’t respond, same as before. Was the only time I could use my magic when I wasn’t consciously attempting it? I didn’t know.
As for the nightmare, it was always the same. The same ritual. The same location. Excalibur piercing my flesh. The same certainty on Arthur’s face. What did it mean? And what did it mean that it kept repeating itself?
I pressed my knuckles against my mouth and sat with the questions I couldn’t answer as I turned my head and noticed there were now a handful or so of the skull moths. They sat on the wet stone wall, though they themselves weren’t wet at all.
And as with the first one, they all appeared to be watching me.
CHAPTER FIVE
-LANCE-
The torches burned low in the dungeon corridor, guttering in the draft that rolled up from the lower cells.
I’d stood at the top of these stairs three times in as many days and turned back each time. But not tonight. Tonight I would go to her because I had to.
My boots found each step without sound, even as the stone was slick with water. I kept my hand off the walls, which were also wet, because I didn’t want to touch anything that reminded me of her. And that was a foolish thought because every fucking thing reminded me of her...
She was awake.
I knew as much before I’d even rounded the corner. It was just an awareness I had of her, and an awareness I resented deeply.
She sat against the far wall of her cell with her knees drawn up to her chest, her white hair loose around her shoulders. Even dirty, even attired in a prisoner’s uniform, she was just as fucking beautiful as she always had been. And seeing her here... in the darkness and the cold, the miserable conditions...
No. You won’t allow yourself to pity her.
She was looking away from me, staring into the darkness as if she were having a conversation with it.
And suddenly I was reminded of the moment in the Great Hall and Arthur’s voice cutting through the crowd with that particular coldness he reserved for making examples of people. I remembered her standing there, remembered the moment he’d stripped her of his cloak in the same way he’d attempted to strip her of her dignity.
