She had forgotten the queen was by her side until Guinevere’s hand closed around hers. Nyneve looked over in surprise.
“She... she said something was going to happen,” the queen whispered, tears streaming down her face. “She was so cryptic. Y-you know her. I did not... I did not take her as seriously as I should.”
Nyneve grabbed the queen’s forearm. “What did she say?” she demanded, her voice raw.
“She said tonight would be difficult for me,” Guinevere replied, swallowing hard. “And that it would end in flame.”
But nearly all of the fires from the attack had already been put out. Nyneve’s heart nearly stopped.
“They’re going to burn her,” she rasped. Without another look at the queen, she took off down the hallway. It made her entire body hurt to turn onto the servants’ stairway, losing sight of Morgana as the knight and his monks took her down the front steps, but she saw no other choice. Nyneve raced back to the infirmary.
“Galen!” she shouted, her voice choked with tears. “Galen, Bedwyr is going to burn Morgana.”
The physician turned from his patient, an elderly noblewoman. For a second, Nyneve worried she had gone to the wrong person. He just stared at her for a long moment while her heart pounded through her chest. Then something fierce and owl-like came over his expression, and he began to march toward her.
“No,” Galen said, “he is not.”
Side by side, they ran into the entry corridor just in time to see Morgana being dragged by the monks, Guinevere grabbing at the men’s arms, spitting and kicking like a mad thing.
“Nyneve,” Galen said, so incredibly calm. “Go get Mordred.”
She almost took off again, but then horror crept through her. “Oh gods,” she whispered. “Galen, no one has yet heard from the knights who went after the Host at the king’s side.”
“Palamedes?” he asked, following behind Guinevere.
“I–I don’t know,” Nyneve stammered.
“Morien?” Galen replied.
“In the second troop that rode out to find Arthur,” she replied, beginning to feel frantic as they passed through the castle’s front doors.
Below, a short walk down the hill, a smaller square was lit up with torches. A stake had been erected in the center, kindling piled all around it. The stones shone with blood. Arrows sprouted from the ground like twisted crops. The air still smelled of smoke and death.
A few steps ahead of them, Guinevere began to scream. It was guttural and inhuman, like no other sound Nyneve had ever heard before. It made her heart feel as though it were breaking in half.
“Could you hold the fire back from burning?” Galen asked.
“Well, I—” Nyneve stopped, turning to look at him in shock.
“Nyneve, you are obviously a Druid,” the physician said. He must have seen the horror on her face, because he made a quick amendment. “Obvious to someone likeme, not to the kind of fucking troglodytes who like to burn women at the stake. Can you hold the fire back?”
Nyneve nearly tripped on a loose cobblestone, Galen catching her arm at the last minute. “I don’t know,” she said miserably. “There is so little water with this drought. I’m not Fey. I don’t conjure it, I just?—”
“Command it, yes, I am familiar with elemental magics,” Galen replied, frowning.
Closer to the square, monks lined the pathway, their hoods up despite the heat. People were beginning to walk down from the keep’s open gates—which the monks must have pulled open—most looking utterly bewildered. When Bedwyr hauled Morgana up onto the platform, Nyneve broke into a sprint with energy she could not spare. Breathing hard, she searched for Mordred’s Threads desperately. She could feel him, but he was too far—much too far away for such delicate magic.
Nyneve slowed when she saw Guinevere, coming to a halt beside the queen, who had fallen silent.
She met Nyneve’s eyes. “Morgana said tonight would be difficult for me,” the queen repeated numbly. “That it would end in flame. And that I had to let it happen, because it was the only Thread where she saw something good at the end.”
“What?” Nyneve demanded. “You want toletthis happen?”
Guinevere grabbed the front of Nyneve’s gown and shook her violently. “No,” she roared. “Of course I do not.” Swallowing hard, the queen released Nyneve and stepped back. “Of course I do not,” she repeated. “But Morgana...” She looked up at the woman being tied to the stake, so Nyneve did too. The sorceress was completely calm, those startling eyes seeking out Guinevere’s.
“Morgana is not an oracle,” Nyneve protested. “She cannot speak prophecies.”
“And yet,” Guinevere whispered. “Look at her.”
