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I wondered if I could take a breath but even that seemed impossible. There was a sudden rushing sensation inside me, as if I could feel my own blood coursing through my veins. My temples throbbed. The call of a raven. The roar of thunder. The sound of pouring rain.
I was starting to panic. I just couldn’t take a breath. I was held fast against the wall with no way to step back and inhale. Lights were flickering in my eyes, and I thought that wasn’t down to the crystals. It was down to my respiratory system failing. I was about to keel over and die.
And then, from nowhere, I had the distinct impression I was witnessing a huge, magical battle. It was very odd because I couldn’t see anything, but I felt it, deep within me. And then began a dreadful lament, much like the one we’d heard at the funerals of Meri and Zephyr, but even more powerful. Sung, it seemed, by thousands of voices. So much grief. A farewell to hope. A farewell to Arthur.
Suddenly, with astonishing clarity, a beautiful, dark-haired woman stepped into my mind.
‘Welcome back, Wulfram Pendragon.’
A chorus of voices. ‘All hail, Wulfram Pendragon. Our Great Guardian has returned.’
Water trickled down my face, but whether it came from the wall or if it was simply sweat I couldn’t tell. Everything was starting to go dark. My head was spinning. There was no air, no way for me to breathe, no space for me to inhale the oxygen I desperately needed.
‘Look for the sword in the stone,’ the dark-haired woman whispered to me. ‘Save him, Wulfram. Give my beloved his freedom. When you find him, you will find the sword.’
I saw a dark, stone room, and could sense the presence of two people, a man and a woman. She wasn’t the dark-haired woman I’d just seen. I knew that, even though I couldn’t see their faces.
‘Only you can do this, Wulfram. This is your destiny,’ the man said.
The dark-haired woman’s face filled my mind again, obliterating everything else.
‘Free my love!’ she cried.
The sound of battle returned. Terrified screams and anguished cries filled me with grief and dread. Then there was an ominous silence and my heart thudded with fear. Something was coming. A slow, rhythmic beating sound filled the air. The beating of huge wings in the sky.
And I saw it.
My insides melted with terror as a huge dragon appeared on the horizon. Its nostrils quivered as its eyes fixed on mine. It flew closer and closer, and I couldn’t move. My legs wouldn’t work. It meant to kill me, there was no doubt about it. And I had no escape.
Then suddenly a piercing bright light shot out, as if coming from me. It radiated into the darkening sky and enveloped the huge beast. The dragon, unbelievably, was gone.
I fell to the floor, and all was silence.
I took great gasps of air, feeling as if my lungs would burst with the effort. Everything was spinning.
‘Lowen? Lowen, are you all right?’
I opened my eyes and groaned, my head spinning. Romy’s anxious face loomed into view as she cradled my head in her lap, while Trinity wiped my forehead with a tissue.
‘You had us scared. You went purple,’ she informed me.
‘I—I couldn’t breathe,’ I managed. ‘Wasn’t it that bad for you?’
They looked at each other.
‘It was weird, but not bad,’ Romy said at last. She sounded almost ashamed of the fact. ‘I could feel a sort of rushing through my veins, and my heart raced, and I heard some sounds—’
‘Nature sounds,’ Trinity added. ‘Like running water, and the ocean waves, and the wind on the mountain tops. That kind of thing.’
‘Yes, but then I just felt really blissfully happy,’ Romy admitted. ‘Honestly, I could have happily stayed there hugging that wall for hours, but it seemed to decide I’d had enough, and it let me go. When I pulled away, Trinity was just doing the same. But you…’
She shuddered and Trinity said, ‘You looked ready to pass out. Your eyes were white, and you weren’t breathing. I was just going to get Emrick when you fell to the floor.’
‘I guess recovering the magic of the Great Guardian takes a lot more doing than simple witch/fae magic,’ Romy said.
As she said it we stared at each other. It finally dawned on us that we had our magic back.
‘Do you feel any different?’ Trinity asked cautiously.
