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Nimue. My heart ached as I thought of the charcoal drawing of Nimue, Draven’s daughter, that had hung in the cottage. The real one would be back in Myntra somewhere. Even so, it meant something to me—to have the copy destroyed, to have the cottage and everything within it destroyed so viciously by someone who claimed to love me.
I heard the crunch of pebbles on the path behind me.
“Your own brother, Morgan.” The tone was reproachful. Yet something else lay hidden behind it. Dreadful though it was, I thought I sensed mirth.
Slowly, I turned to face my father. “You sent Daegen against me. You knew what could happen.”
“Oh, I suspected. But until you slew him, I had no idea just how ruthless you could be. Or how powerful.” A jubilant expression crossed his bearded face.
“I’m not ruthless,” I said sharply. “I gave him a chance to live.”
“Did you? Then you did more than I would have.”
“I have no doubt,” I said disdainfully. “Are you even mourning for your son?”
He stroked his beard as if he had not given it much thought until then. “Daegen. He was a good weapon. An asset, yes.” He smiled. “Fortunately, I have other sons.”
“And daughters, I’m sure. So you don’t need me,” I snapped.
“I have only one daughter like you, Morgan,” Gorlois le Fay said. “Only one child who is the true child of my heart.”
“The child of your ambition.”
“Ambition. An interesting word. Is it something we share, I wonder? I imagine you to be a true woman of ambition. Ambition and daring. Why, the way you turned the tide of that battle.” He made an appreciative sound. “Truly impressive.”
“If it was so impressive, why didn’t you expect it?” I shook my head. “You had no idea what I would do until it was too late.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, and it was my turn to smile in triumph.
“I drew from you, Father. I pillaged your power. That storm—you had no idea I could stop it, did you? It would have killed me. Would you have cared?”
He waved a hand. “The rest would have died, yes. But you? No. You would have survived.”
“I would have been the only one,” I shouted. “The only one left alive. Is that what you wanted?”
Flames erupted around me on the grass. A circle of fire. I made no attempt to put them out.
“You lured me there,” I accused him. “Thousands died needlessly. Your people and mine.”
“People?” My father laughed. “What do I care for people?”
“You could have found me when I was a child. Brought me back then,” I said, following up on what Daegen had claimed. “Why didn’t you do it then? Before I even knew what I was?”
My father frowned. “You were shielded from me.”
“Until when?” I pushed. “When did you first sense me?”
I had many guesses. When I first used magic? When I touched Excalibur? When I stitched to Camelot into the Temple of the Three?
“I told you before. I sensed you more than once, caught glimpses of your presence. Once, it was a very strong telling. I had an inkling you might be connected to Pendrath then.”
When I stitched through the portal.
“You sent the grail to Arthur,” I guessed. “To try to lure me out.”
He smiled. “I had many things in mind when I sent that insipid young ruler my grail.”
I gnashed my teeth, remembering Arthur’s plan. To use the grail to charge the sword—if not with Medra then with Kaye.
