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“Merlin? The High Priestess? What of her?”
I forced my lips to part again, my voice dry as dust. “She’s dead. Arthur...and one of his men. They slaughtered her. I was there. I saw it all.”
His grip around me tightened ever so slightly. I didn’t protest.
“Tell me everything.”
So I tried.
I told him how I had come through the portal and how Javer had followed me.
I told him of seeing Lancelet standing there at the top of the stairs.
I sensed rather than felt his shock, then his immense relief, but he asked no questions, merely continued listening as the words poured from my lips.
I told him of the meeting at the Round Table and of all we had discussed. I told him of Merlin’s idea that I return to Arthur as a spy—and then his grip truly did tighten.
I shifted in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he said hastily, relaxing his arms without releasing them.
I put my hands over top of his. They looked so small and pale there above his large, brown ones. He held absolutely still, as if afraid any motion would cause me to remove them. But I kept them just where they were.
I kept speaking. I told him of how I had gone to Lancelet’s room and made her speak to me, then of how we had gone out into the city. He made a slight disapproving sound at that but didn’t interrupt. I told him of Camelot, how bleak and terrible the city had looked.
I told him about the two boys Lancelet had found frozen in their tent.
And then I came to the attack. I hesitated, then hurtled on, describing the way Lancelet and I had found the guard in the tunnel. Of how she had frozen, and I had stepped forward, marveling when my Flamebloom rapier had channeled my magic without any conscious thought.
I heard an approving sniff then. So he had known, perhaps had even had Laverna design it that way.
Then I reached the part where Lancelet and I had stepped out into the temple, and I stumbled over my words.
I could hardly describe what had happened next. How Merlin had led me away while the others fled. How she had taken me to her chambers and then demonstrated powers I had never known she possessed—and used them to imprison me.
A low growl rumbled through Draven’s chest.
I hurried on, eager to explain the High Priestess’s motives, squeezing his hands with mine.
I described Arthur and Fenyx’s appearance. Their conversation with Merlin.
And finally, I reached the end. Merlin’s end.
I told Draven how Fenyx had taken his sword and impaled the High Priestess with it, so savagely, so brutally.
“I saw the look in her eyes, Draven. She knew what was coming. She led me there. Everything she said to Arthur seemed to have been planned and rehearsed. Why?”
Draven was quiet for a spell. “Where are you now? Not here with me, but back in the waking world. Where are you?”
I shifted against him uneasily, knowing how he would react when I told him. “I’m back in the castle. Back in my own room in the tower. I must have fallen asleep.” I cleared my throat. “Fenyx...he carried me there.”
I felt Draven take a deep breath as if trying to calm himself.
“Well, there you have it.” He spoke lightly, but I sensed the tenseness behind the words. He was terrified for me, but he didn’t want to show it. Couldn’t show it when he was hundreds of miles away back in Myntra... and when I had abandoned him.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You’re right where she wanted you to be.”
