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I couldn’t look at him. My eyes were pressed closed. I was pretty sure the only reason I was still standing was the steady grip of Arran’s arm around my waist.
But someone urged Percival to continue.
“The sword, the scabbards, and the chalice… all made in Avalon tens of thousands of years ago. They have unique magical properties, each of them. It is said when they are united, the bearer will be…” he paused, his voice catching. “The bearer will be master of death.”
Cyara again—“How do you know all of this?”
“I told you, my homelands are near to Avalon.”
“How near?”
A grunt. Pain. Percival. Then words. “I was raised on the Sacred Isle.”
I opened my eyes. I took in the hazy sunlight of dawn, the damp chill coating my skin. I heard the chirping of some small animal, or maybe dozens or hundreds of small animals. A chorus.
The others were still talking, questioning.
Percival’s voice was melodic. How had I never noticed that? “My sister wears a crystal around her neck. All the acolytes do. Smaller, only good for communicating very short distances. But I thought that if I had the larger one… maybe I would be able to contact her.”
“Your sister is an acolyte to the priestesses on Avalon.” Arran. Rough, like scratched leather.
“She was—until she was taken.”
“You could have asked us to retrieve the crystal,” Lyrena said, her voice devoid of all humor. I hated to hear it that way.
“You hate me.”
“You hate us,” Arran growled back.
“It doesn’t even matter,” Percival said, his tone shifting. “I tried to call her before they caught me. It didn’t work.”
Cyara’s heavy sigh wrapped around us. The same one she’d used to moderate her sisters—now dead. Like Arthur was dead.
Did Carly and Charis haunt my friend from the grave, like my brother did me?
“Perhaps we should try for less hate and more understanding,” Cyara said.
She was a good Knight of the Round Table. The best of us, really. Perhaps because she’d never had to wield that little knife in her belt. She could still see the light, even after the loss she’d suffered.
All I let myself see was my immediate surroundings. We were at the edge of a forest. A true forest—not like the ones we’d seen in the human realm so far with their scrubby trees and barren understory. This was a tangle of branches, bushes, and leaves. A jungle, really. There were no jungles in Annwyn, but I’d read about them in one of Parys’ books. Except that jungles were meant to be warm, and I was still shivering.
Shivering as a persistent word tapped against my consciousness. Against my mind.
I do not know if it was the sister, the Queen, or the female who held sway; but I knew that tapping would not stop until I said the word aloud.
“Magic.” My throat hurt.
They all fell silent.
“You said each of the objects has a unique magical property.” It was a lot of words, but I managed. I had to know the answer.
“The sword will only present itself to the worthy wielder. No other will be able to pull it from the stone.”
Arran’s grip on me tightened to the point of pain. I relished it, let it ground me. I knew he was remembering what I’d recounted, the vision now rolling through my mind as if it had happened yesterday. Killing the witch. Pulling the sword from the stone in the Tower of Myda.
“The bearer of the scabbards shall be protected from injury. Not a drop of their blood may be spilled while they wear them.”
If Arran hadn’t been holding me up, I would have fallen over.
