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“How exactly would they have even done that?” Lancelet asked, her face pale.
Draven grimaced. “I suppose you’d have to ask the faction who did it, wouldn’t you? In any case, they released it into Miridmiun that day. Did they expect to wipe everyone out? Yes, I think so.” He paused. “There was an unexpected outcome.”
“What was it?” I demanded.
“The plague had never been used before. They weren’t certain what its effects would be. The fae are usually very resistant to illness and disease. They heal quickly, far quicker than humans. But this–this was no ordinary plague. They assumed some would suffer and some would die, yes, but not necessarily all.”
“So they allowed for a few survivors. How merciful,” I said sardonically. What could have occurred to cause such hatred between the fae themselves to the point where one group wished to so brutally annihilate the other?
“It was cowardly, yes,” Draven allowed. “But in war, people often disintegrate, becoming versions of themselves they never thought they could ever be. Even the supposedly honorable ones find themselves willing to do dastardly things. War leaves no honor. Only horror.”
It wasn’t what I’d been expecting him to say. He spoke as if he had seen the battlefield, seen such horrors firsthand. I supposed as an assassin, the hired blade of kings, he had seen many terrible things.
“And instead?” Lancelet stepped up beside me, her shoulder touching mine. I felt comforted knowing she was there, alongside me, in this place that suddenly seemed to hold so much darkness, so much evil.
Draven hesitated, then glanced at Odelna. The little girl had wandered a little ways off and was sitting quietly on a large block of stone.
When he spoke again, his voice was low. “It only harmed the children.”
I blinked. “The children? All of them? What happened to them?”
“They sickened, faster than you or I could ever imagine.” He spoke as he was trying to get the foul words out of his mouth as swiftly as possible. “From the smallest babe in arms to children as old as your brother Kaye, they sickened and they died. They died swiftly, here, in this place. And then the fae took their children’s bodies and left Valtain.”
I heard Lancelet give a shocked gasp. My skin prickled with horror. “What kind of people would kill children? Why does no one else know of this?”
Draven shrugged. “I suppose they’re not as well-read.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Someday you’ll have to show me this incredible library you’ve been accessing all your life, Draven. The one that contains knowledge that even the priestesses of Camelot do not possess.”
Vesper was quiet, unpacking his bedroll and laying out his things for the night. He didn’t look at us, but I knew he was still listening.
“You might be surprised by what those temple guardians really know,” Draven said calmly. “And as for the library, travel the world as much as I have and you’ll learn all you need to. Now rest. Tomorrow will be a long day. Tomorrow we reach the lake. Then we find the sword. Then we get the hell out of this place. Easy.”
He turned on his heel and, marching over a little distance away, crouched down and began building a fire.
Lancelet was looking at me with a troubled expression. “Do you really think it’ll be as easy as he says?”
“Well, we’ve left the harpies behind, I suppose. So, there’s that.”
“I don’t like this place,” she murmured, rubbing her hands over her arms. “And it’s cold.”
She was right. As the sun disappeared from overhead, a chill was beginning to come from the stone walls surrounding us.
I shivered and fished for a wool sweater in my pack, pulling it quickly over my head, then untucking my braid.
“What a horrible story,” Lancelet said, as she followed me. “Do you think it’s really true? Could that have been what happened?”
I stared at Draven’s broad back as he formed a ring of stones and pile of wood debris, then pulled kindling from his pack. “I don’t know. It sounded terrible enough to be real.”
That night, even Vesper’s lute couldn’t calm my spirits at first.
I listened to him play after we had eaten a simple supper of bread, cheese, and dried fish that we had found at the caravan wreckage, and tried to feel the comfort that I usually felt from his presence, from the sight of his slender fingers dancing gently over the strings.
But all I felt was unsettled and agitated.
Was it because we were so close to the sword and because, in the end, I wanted nothing to do with it? I had never wanted to come here. I had never wanted to see the sword out. Perun’s blade, Vela’s blade, or Excalibur–whatever it might be, it held no allure for me.
And yet, hard as it was to fathom, Pendrath was at war. If all Lancelet had told us was true then Merlin and Sir Ector believed we needed the sword to gain some sort of advantage. Over Arthur or over our enemies? Because from everything Lancelet had said, Arthur claimed our allies were suddenly enemies. But the greatest enemy to peace in Pendrath might be the king who sat on its throne.
