Half Sick of Shadows by Laura Sebastian

Author:Laura Sebastian [Sebastian, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780593200513
Google: DUH1zQEACAAJ
Amazon: 0593200519
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-07-14T23:00:00+00:00

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MORGANA WILL BE standing over a rushing river dressed in a dirty black dress with wide, ratty lace sleeves and a low neckline. Though she must be more than a decade older than she is now, I will still recognize her, if only barely. Her dark hair will be overgrown and matted, and her eyes will look more animal than human, bloodshot and hungry. She will look like a story to frighten children; she will even frighten me.

She will hold a sword with a gold hilt etched with a word in a language I can’t name, but I will understand what it means all the same. The sword will look like it could be one of my brothers’, or my father’s, but I know right away that it’s nothing like theirs. There will be an aura of magic surrounding it. The word on the hilt, the sword’s name, whispers through my mind, sending a shiver down my spine.

Excalibur.

A young man will stand beside Morgana, dark-eyed and sullen, his face all hard angles, sharp enough to cut. Though he will look like he would bite someone for looking at him the wrong way, his hands will shake, his eyes anxiously darting around the scene. He won’t reach for the sword, though desire for it will be clearly etched into his expression.

Morgana will whisper to him, her voice low and seductive. “I know your anger, my darling. I can feel it rolling off you in waves. I can taste it in the air. It’s delicious.”

He will shake his head, feebly at first, then stronger. He will whisper a word so quietly that I won’t be able to hear it, though I know what it is. No.

But Morgana won’t be dissuaded. She will lean toward him, touching her hand to his cheek in a caress. He will lean into it, eyes fluttering closed, a fan of dark lashes over alabaster white skin.

“Just this one thing, Accolon,” she will tell him, her voice weaving around him like a spell, though there is no magic in the air. “Then I’ll take you to Avalon, just as I promised, and we can be together always.”

She will paint a dream he will want so desperately to come true, no matter what he will have to do to get there.

“Always,” he will repeat, his voice reverent. He will take the sword from her, holding it aloft so the midday sun glints off the blade. It will look wrong in his hands. Like the traveling fair I saw as a child that brought a bear dressed in a ball gown.

And then the boy will stalk off into the woods, and Morgana will stand alone by the bank of the river, eyes wild and roving, searching for answers that the river won’t be able to provide.

The vision began to fade then, and I felt myself coming back into my own body, back to Avalon and the Cave of Prophecies, a slight tingle in my fingers and toes as if they had fallen asleep.

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