The Excalibur Curse by Kiersten White

Author:Kiersten White [White, Kiersten]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2021-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Morgana, the sorceress, lover of the Green Knight, mother of Mordred, champion of the fairies, and determined foe of Merlin, capable of seeing through other people and commanding more magic than any other mortal woman, died in a single breath.

Guinevere could not even scream. The swirling dread of being unmade, the inescapable sickness of Excalibur, seized her, and she fell, back into the cave, back underwater, the end of herself.

She was scooped up by arms she knew, arms she had been destined for, created for.

“I have you,” Arthur said, his voice a confident rumble, his heart steady and sure, his hands covered in Morgana’s blood.

He carried her swiftly through the trees. The trees that had been verdant and ageless minutes ago were now dropping their leaves in the full, sudden grasp of autumn. They had been something sacred, something special. But Excalibur had walked their paths and devoured it all. Now, they were just trees.

And because of Excalibur, Guinevere did not have the strength to get down, to shout at Arthur, to process what had just happened. “Why?” she whispered. “Why did you kill Morgana?”

“Because I had to.” There was no satisfaction in his voice. He sounded sad. “Merlin told me that I must never let her speak to me, and he has never led me to harm.”

Guinevere closed her eyes against the nausea that the memory of Merlin’s face triggered. She could only see him standing next to the real Guinevere, watching. He had harmed Arthur in countless ways, and brutally harmed too many women in Arthur’s life. She could not have this argument with Arthur now, though. She did not have the strength for it. After what Morgana had done to her and now, close to Excalibur, it was all she could do to stay conscious. Part of her despaired and longed for oblivion.

Morgana was dead. The Dark Queen was gone. And Guinevere was still herself—this terrible possession.

“Where is Mordred?” Arthur asked.

“I do not know.” At least Excalibur had only claimed Morgana, and not her son, too.

Guinevere was still trying to claw her way back from the cold void where Excalibur wanted her to be when they broke free of the trees. Men were everywhere. An incomprehensible number of men and horses and swords and shields, all in Arthur’s colors, a field of yellow and blue against the dusty green and gray of the land.

Nechtan, the king who had sold himself to the Dark Queen to avoid serving another king, lay on the ground, his throat slashed, his heavy fur mantle sodden and blackening with blood.

“Fina!” Guinevere cried. She shoved Arthur so hard that he dropped her. She stumbled when she landed, but kept going. She found Fina kneeling at the end of a line of corpses, her face bloodied, shoulders sloped with defeat, eyes down so she would not have to look on the body of her father. A soldier was lowering a knife to her neck.

“No,” Guinevere commanded, at last finding the tone she had used when she refused to fear Merlin.

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