“Because then you really would be Merlin, and you would do it anyway.” Mordred shifted as though he would stand. “Are your friends looking for you, or only enemies?”
Guinevere reached for him, wrapping her arm around his neck and pulling him close. “Lancelot and Sir Tristan and Brangien and Isolde are waiting for me when I wake up. I think. I hope. But stay. Can we just stay here for a little while? I do not want to go back. It is hard and confusing.” Camelot was dreams of the Lady of the Lake, questions about her mother, politics and stress even when she was not faced with dangers like Guinevach. And when she saw Arthur—oh, she would have to tell him, she would have to say all the terrible things she had done.
The trees were not safe, but at least they were simple.
“Are you certain?” Mordred’s voice betrayed nothing, but his forehead rested against hers.
“I am not certain about anything. Why are you asking me so many questions? Can you just kiss me?”
Mordred let out a long, slow breath. “No. Not yet. But I will the next time you ask me.” He gently removed her arm from around his neck, tucking something into her hand where it was wrapped against her torso.
She leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes. A scent of smoke found her and she wept again, thinking about how she had used the dragon. How sad it had felt, trying to convince her to go with it. “I keep trying to be clever, and it works, but it causes so much damage.”
“Ah. Yes, that is the price of being clever. We win, and we hurt other people, and we always, always hurt ourselves. Better to be dull and good, barreling through the world like Arthur. It makes things simpler.”
“You told me I made the wrong choice.”
“That sounds like me.” He did not rejoin her and she was cold and her shoulder ached and she wanted him back at her side. Branches snapped and broke, and then there was the scent of smoke again. Always smoke. Reminding her of what she had done. Who she had hurt.
“I wish you would stay with me,” she whispered.
“And now you know how I feel.” A soft brush of his fingers ignited sparks along her cheek that did not fade as she drifted away on delirium.
* * *
“My queen? My queen!” The voice got softer, more worried. “Guinevere?”
Guinevere peeled her eyes open. “Lancelot.”
Lancelot pulled her into a fierce hug. It hurt. Guinevere’s face was smashed against the leather armor of Lancelot’s shoulder, a comforting scent. When Lancelot released her, the vulnerability that had been communicated by the rib-crushing intensity of the hug was replaced by determination. Lancelot stomped out the remains of a small fire that was smoking heavily from too much green wood. “That was smart,” she said. “But we do not want anyone else finding you. Are they pursuing you?”
Guinevere used the tree to leverage herself up. One of her arms was bound against her, keeping it from moving. Her shoulder hurt, but not as much as it should. She did not remember binding it, or starting this signal fire.
“You are hurt.” Lancelot was careful this time not to make it sound like an accusation as she examined Guinevere’s arm. “You did a good job with this dressing.”
Guinevere looked at the ground where she had been propped against the tree. There, among the fallen leaves, was a single delicate purple-and-yellow blossom, just like the one Mordred had given her after soothing her burned hand beneath a tree a lifetime ago.
“Not a dream.” She picked up the flower and stared at it with both wonder and horror. Mordred had been here. He had fixed her shoulder, set up a signal so she could be found by her knights, and then…left. Again.
Maybe she was still delirious. Maybe the confusion knots she had tied had been far more powerful than she meant them to be. She held up the flower. It was an impossible bloom, far too late in the season for something like it. “Do you see this?” she demanded.
Lancelot looked alarmed. “Yes?”
Guinevere tucked the flower into her bodice, pressing it against her heart. It felt like it would disappear if she did not keep track of it, melting in the light of reality like her dreams always did.
“What happened?” Lancelot asked.
A spike of guilt pierced Guinevere, as though Lancelot would know she had once again been with Mordred and had not fought him. She could not explain their encounters. First, he proved he wished her no harm. And now he helped her and then walked away.
Why had Mordred said he had been there? She could not remember. If he was following her or stalking them, why help and then leave? The whole encounter had the quality of a dream, nebulous and impossible to remember details.
It did not matter. She could not let Lancelot be distracted by chasing Mordred. They had to get to Arthur. And once again, Mordred had done no harm. The opposite, even.
“I…I got away. There was a fire.” She could not bring herself to tell this truth, either. That she had used the poor dragon and then sent it away. Lancelot would not understand. Hild’s scream echoed through her memory, and she shuddered. She hoped Hild was not hurt. “I used magic to confuse them so they could not track me.” The memory of Ramm rolling on the ground to put out flames that could not be extinguished made her shudder so hard it hurt her shoulder. “I should have waited for the ransom,” Guinevere whispered.
Lancelot lifted her onto her horse, then climbed on behind her. “After you are safe with Sir Tristan, I will go back and deliver a message.” Lancelot’s voice was cold.
“No!” Guinevere half turned, nearly falling off the horse. Lancelot grabbed her and readjusted her seat. She did not want Lancelot to see what had happened. The cost of her ransoming herself. “Ramm has paid. They all have.” Everyone paid the price of her magic.