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Tiny tears formed at the corners of his eyes but still his mouth didn’t open.
“Tighter,” I demanded. Arran was at my shoulder, breathing heavily, his beast’s growl coming in waves through the air even in his fae form.
I savored the way that Percival clenched his hands tight, his knuckles bulging—
He was holding something. It peeked out of his fisted hand, no more than a flash of pale light. I slammed my heel down on his wrist, his howl of pain lost to the pounding in my own head as the object he’d held fell loose on the grass, rolling out of his grasp.
An opaque white crystal the length of my palm.
Before I could ask again, Percival whimpered. “It is a communication crystal. They only make them on Avalon. Just like your blades.”
I was shaking my head.
Or was Percival the one shaking?
That couldn’t be. He was held tight by Arran’s vines.
My mind was swirling. My head was shaking. Percivalwasshaking—just his hands. Just his hands where they were visible, below his tightly bound wrists.
“My blades?” I heard myself ask distantly.
Percival’s eyes turned wild.What—
Arran was behind me. Towering over my shoulder. One look at him and I knew where that fear in Percival’s eyes came from. Percival understood it too. He would talk now, or he would die.
“They were forged in Avalon,” he said, his voice trembling in time with his hands. All the bravado gone. “You did not know… I didn’t realize…”
“How would I know that?” I said sharply, gripping the hilts tighter. The curved blades in my pack, which I’d replaced with Excalibur. The daggers at my waist. “That is why the metal is swirled. They aren’t fae made after all.”
“There are fae in Avalon,” Percival said.
I flinched, Arran growled, Percival looked like he was about to piss himself.
“They were a gift from Arthur.” I wasn’t sure who I was talking to—no one, everyone, myself. I’d once prided myself on my ability to think clearly in dire situations. But this was different. This wasn’t maintaining a logical mind under torture. This felt like my chest cleaving in two… like the way I understood the world was shifting. Up was down, aural was water, and my brother…
“Were the scabbards as well?”
Percival. Percival had asked that question.
I was afraid to answer. Afraid of what it might mean. But the word fell from my lips just the same. “Yes.”
“They are special also,” Arran added for me, raking his eyes over me in wonder. Over my blades. The scabbards.
“I assumed you knew. You have two of them—the scabbards, the sword.” Percival was babbling. His eyes were round, the cleverness gone. I wasn’t sure I could believe the words coming out of his mouth.
But apparently I couldn’t believe the ones Arthur had told me, either.
I turned away. I was going to run. I was going to run far and fast, and away.
Arran’s arm caught me. Ilethim catch me. I let the waves of confusion inside of me break against my mate’s steady wall.
My chest was caving in. I was going to die. For once, I didn’t feel the void calling to me through my panic. I almost craved it—that dark nothingness. If everything I knew was a lie, what did it matter if my soul was shredded into pieces?
“Two of what?”
Cyara’s voice was soft. She held Maisri’s hand a few yards away. Mostly hidden in shadow. But she’d been listening—always listening. And she’d heard what I couldn’t through the fog of betrayal.
“The sacred trinity.” The way the words fell from Percival’s mouth… the uncharacteristic reverence… I shuddered.
