Morgana’s eyes were downcast as she stared at her hands. She must have sensed Nyneve’s attention, for she turned her head to the side to meet her gaze. Tears glimmered in her eyes.
“So it begins,” Morgana whispered. Her voice was weary, wind-worn, her expression haunted.
“What?” Nyneve asked, unsettled.
But Morgana just straightened, her usual sly smile back in place quicker than Nyneve could blink. “So it is,” the sorceress said with a shrug, her words tumbling away with the wind.
Nyneve turned as Mordred dismounted Rook, coming to stand beside her. “IknewCaledfwlch felt like sainted iron,” he said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gods, I am a fool. I thought—I thought it was just a stolen faerie blade, warped by Merlin. I thought that explained why it made me so ill.”
With a sigh, Morgana dismounted her kelpie, brushing out her skirts. “To be fair, Mordred,” the sorceress said, “I examined the sword when I first arrived. I thought the same. I did not see—I should say, I did not think it could be sainted iron. Not in this day and age. It is not like you or I have encountered it before.”
Silence hung between the three of them, only interrupted by a great gust of wind.
“What are we going to do?” Nyneve asked.
“We are going to go see for ourselves,” Morgana said, pulling a shortsword from the scabbard at her waist and setting off for the edge of the cliffs, gesturing for her kelpie to follow.
“It is all right if you cannot do this,” Mordred murmured in her ear. The lithe length of his body was so close, and yet, he did not touch her. “You need not be like Morgana. You need not close off your heart.”
Tears pricked the back of Nyneve’s eyes. Her heart and her mind warred within her body, making her stomach flip. Lettingout a long breath, she shoved the tears away with the back of her hand and then checked her belt for both daggers.
“Today is not better,” she said haltingly, looking up at him, “but it is not the day I could not save my friend.”
A single tear tumbled down her cheek, the wind drying it almost immediately. Mordred held her gaze for what felt like an age, and then he nodded, looking off into the distance toward where Morgana trampled across the gorse.
It was strange. Following Morgana into the failing prison of an ancient god somehow felt like the easiest road Nyneve could take. The other options were terrifying. She could say,“No, I cannot do this, my grief is tearing me into a thousand pieces,”get on the kelpie, and ride back to the citadel. She could grab the front of Mordred’s tunic and kiss him until he understood that he was ruining her life with his coiled muscle and dark hair and powerful hands and she never wanted him to stop.
“Itis, however, the day I follow your aunt into a god’s mouth,” Nyneve said with a shrug. Then she turned and walked into the wind, toward the sheer drop of the cliffs.
The echoing drip of water in the cave seemed distant compared to how loudly Nyneve’s heart was beating. The kelpies had guided them down the bluff and into the mouth of a cave. The curve of the headland obscured it almost entirely from both the land and the sea. When they had reached the entrance, the small spit of sand in front of the cave was covered in footprints.
Mordred came to a harsh halt, holding his arm out in front of Nyneve and Morgana. She peered into the darkness up ahead,realizing she was looking at the shadow of a fire. When she strained her ears, she could hear men’s voices.
“Get back,” Mordred whispered, shoving both of them into a damp crevice that smelled of brine.
Morgana pulled a thin, subtle working over them just as a group of brown-cloaks turned the corner. Nyneve held her breath as the men marched by, seemingly headed to the mouth of the cave.
“Are there more?” Morgana asked.
Mordred did not answer, but in the dim light filtering through the small opening far above their heads, she watched him tilt his head back and scent the air like a wolf. It made her heart beat quicker, and not because she was afraid of the monks—though perhaps she should have been.
“I do not believe so,” Mordred replied, stepping back out into the chamber. “Quickly, then.”
They crept through the warren of chambers, moving deeper and deeper into the ancient land of the Isles. To Nyneve’s dismay, they found a good deal of provisions and pallets in the drier sections. At the edge of one large cavern, her teeth suddenly began to hurt. A few paces ahead, Mordred came to a halt, gazing up at something she could not see.
“Good goddesses,” Morgana whispered, moving to stand next to Mordred.
“What?” Nyneve asked. “I can feel it, but I cannot see it.”
“It is a... gate,” Mordred said. “A ward, but more than a ward.”
“The Morrigan made this,” Morgana whispered in awe.
When Nyneve stepped closer, her teeth rattled, and the sound of that oddly beating heart filled her head, fighting with the pounding of her own pulse.
“It is ajar,” Mordred said, his gaze sweeping over the magical working Nyneve could not see. “Or perhaps I should say one of its many locks is undone.”
“Something is flowing out of it,” Nyneve warned, tucking her head to her chin and clamping both hands over her skull as a sudden and splitting headache hit her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to push the pain aside, weaving a quick healing charm. That quieted the headache enough for her to glance up through narrowed, sensitive eyes.
