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I swallowed. “I see.”
There was something else here. Something I didn’t wish to see. Didn’t wish to remember. Merlin was hinting at it.
I pushed the thought away.
“Do you remember now?” she asked softly.
I nodded. “I think so. I came through the arch. I came home. I’m in the temple.”
“Good.” She hesitated. “You have told me the same thing before.”
I stared at her. “Have I?”
She nodded. “You remember. You tell me you remember. Then you push memory away.”
I was the reason for her weariness then. I was the cause for those new white hairs. I felt a pulse of guilt.
“No, no,” she said quickly, as if able to see my mind. She touched a hand to her face. “This is not from you, my dear.”
“Then from what?”
“If I tell you, will you remember anything I have said later on? That is the question. I have tried to tell you the state of things before.” She sighed. “The fastest way would be to give you a mirror. But it is also the cruelest.”
“The cruelest? I don’t understand.”
I didn’t want to understand. My mind began to scream, to push back into the recesses it had hidden in.
But from those recesses also came the dark nightmares, like the one I had just escaped from. I didn’t want to go back to those.
I was here now. I had to make an effort to stay.
There was already a mirror on Merlin's lap, I belatedly realized. A gilded oval, lying face-down. Now she began to raise it slowly, the long white flared sleeves of her gown fluttering like the wings of a bird in flight.
My stomach churned. I wanted to turn my head.
The mirror was lifted into view.
I looked into it.
A stranger gazed back.
I had never considered myself a true beauty, though secretly I was well aware that I was not unpleasant to look upon. Many women had thought me lovely. I had become used to their praise. Even counted upon it.
Well, no one would ever call Lancelet de Troyes “lovely” ever again.
The face that stared back at me from the mirror could barely be described as human.
Matted blonde hair, still sticky in spots with crusted blood. Worse were the places where hair had been ripped from scalp entirely, leaving gaping spots of angry pink flesh.
My face. The jagged hole in my cheek had not been a nightmare. It was there, though it had begun to slowly heal. Already I could touch the inside of my cheek without wincing. But on the outside, the wound was raw and red.
The edges of the gap showed signs of scabbing. Fresh pink flesh around the border suggested the wound would close in time.
But there would always be a scar. A scar edged with the marks of teeth.
As for the rest of me. I lowered the mirror to my neck, then beyond.
The less said about it the better.
