The Camelot Betrayal (Camelot Rising 2)

“Yes, the forest is nice, but that was not your home. I searched Guinevach for any evidence of magic. No one has touched her or her mind. And she loves her sister more than anything. She would never be fooled by a changeling. Whoever else you are—whatever else you are—you are Guinevere. Or you were.”

“I am not.” Guinevere wished Morgan le Fay would stop saying that. It was mean. “I had another name. I gave it away to the fire so I would not say it. Did you send me to see Mordred on purpose? In the forest?”

Morgan le Fay smiled. “Well, I certainly pushed you in that direction. I was surprised you did not put it together. I was hardly subtle in my advice to make you visit Rhoslyn. He misses you. I thought—I hoped—it would have a different outcome. But you have changed the subject. What was your other name?”

“I do not have it anymore.” Guinevere shook her head. “It is very sad. I am sad. Are you here to kill Arthur?” She should signal to Lancelot, but Lancelot was so far away and the knife was still pressed against her side and none of it felt urgent at all. Something bleated mournfully nearby. She liked things that bleated.

“Why would I kill him?” Morgan le Fay asked.

“You tried to when he was a baby.”

“Ah, yes. That story. That is what happens when men tell your stories. Would you like to hear the real story?”

Guinevere shook her head. “The real stories are always worse.”

“Yes. They are. I am going to tell you anyway.” Morgan le Fay leaned close, her voice low and melodic as she rewrote everything Guinevere knew.

The Enchantress Morgan le Fay

Morgana was not married. It was a problem, and an increasingly hard-to-hide one, as her stomach swelled with the life inside.

Lady Igraine asked who the father was, but Morgana could not answer. Not because she did not wish to, but because she physically could not. When she thought of him—her love, her only—he was moonlight and the new green of budding leaves. He was the scent of crushed grass beneath two bodies. He was the first warm breeze after the icy grip of winter.

He was fairy, and things of fairy could not be named or explained in a way that would reassure a mother her daughter was not ruined forever.

Igraine loved her daughter as fiercely and loyally as she loved her husband. She knew what their world would do to her, to the baby. And so, out of love, she sent Morgana away. Up to the north, where no one knew her, where a baby could be born in secrecy and eventually brought back with a story of a foreign husband and fresh widowhood. It was the only way Igraine could protect her child and her grandchild, and so she wept as she watched Morgana ride away.

But Morgana did not go where she was supposed to. She went into the woods, the deepest woods, the darkest woods, the ones without men and their rules and their judgments. And her love found her there and held her. And the fairy queen who created him found them there and watched, curious, as Morgana gave birth to a beautiful baby boy who was almost human.

One mother protected Morgana until she gave birth, and the other protected her after. The Dark Queen loved this wild and determined young woman, even if she did not understand her. She had little use for humans—when she noticed them, it was usually bad for them—but Morgana and the baby amused her. And her creation, the one men would come to call the Green Knight, loved Morgana and his son in the only ways he could. Fits and starts, lavishing of attention and wonder and then forgetful stretches where they did not see or hear from him for months at a time, nearly starving in their shelter in the woods. The joy of spring and summer followed by the slow decline of autumn and the cruel indifference of winter.

Morgana could have stayed there forever but for the child. Mordred was a sweet infant who grew into a clever child. If he was going to be as smart and strong as he needed to be, he would have to learn about their enemies. About how to survive in a dangerous place filled with death and treachery. He would need to know humans.

Morgana knew her mother would take them back. And Morgana’s lover would always be with her on the scent of spring, in the lazy droning of insects on infinite summer afternoons, winking at her with butterfly wings.

The Dark Queen met them at the borders of the forest. Where are you going? she said in her voice that was not a voice so much as a dream experienced while waking.

Morgana told the truth. They were returning to her mother so that Mordred could be raised as a human.

You are too late.

Morgana had not idled away her time among the fairies. She had given birth to a boy partly of their world, eaten their food, sampled their wine. She had been opened to magic in a way no human before her was. Seized with terror at the Dark Queen’s words, Morgana used her newfound power to pierce time and distance. To see what had happened, and what was to come. She saw it all. She wished she had not.

Merlin plotting with Uther Pendragon. Her mother, her beautiful mother, her kind mother who loved fiercely, tricked. Used. There would be a baby. Her own half brother. And then she saw—

The wizard.

The wizard.

The wizard.

Morgana could not see past the wizard. Everywhere she searched for her mother’s future, for the coming baby’s future, she saw only Merlin. She screamed, unable to stop seeing him, realizing she could not find her mother, Igraine, in the future, because there was no future for her beyond this. Sobbing, tearing at her face, she looked instead for the baby. For her half brother.

And still she saw Merlin. He was like a fog, settling over everything. She could not pierce it.

She would not allow the wizard to have that baby. Not after everything else he had taken. Morgana ripped power from the fairy world around her. Even the Dark Queen shied from the rage she wore like a crown as she left the forest, a child on her hip and a baby her goal.

But Morgana was too late. By the time she arrived home, her mother was dead and the baby had been stolen. She tried everything to find him, but the wizard blocked every attempt, as she had already seen that he would. He had taken her mother, and then taken everything that was left behind.