The Guinevere Deception (Camelot Rising 1)

“What? Why?”

“Arthur is afraid it will be dangerous.”

Brangien scoffed. “No more dangerous than riding across the entire country with these fools.”

“I could not live with myself if something happened to you.”

“But it is my job to serve you.”

Guinevere turned, interrupting Brangien’s progress and forcing her to meet her gaze. “But you are also my friend. If Arthur thinks it is too dangerous to bring you, I trust him. He takes care of his people. I will be fine. Better than fine, because I will know you are safe.”

Brangien’s eyes lowered. A flash of some emotion Guinevere could not place went over her maid’s face. Then Brangien got back to work, unlacing Guinevere’s sleeves and helping her remove her outer clothes. “Very well. But if you mess up your plaits by riding too fast, I will not be there to fix them, and all the Picts will blame me for your state. My reputation will be ruined.”

Guinevere dutifully turned around so Brangien could undo her braids and comb out the decidedly unmagical knots. “I promise I will do right by you.”

“And stay safe,” Brangien whispered.

“And stay safe,” Guinevere agreed. She hoped it was a promise she could keep.

There is nothing to hold on to in Camelot. Wings flutter, legs skitter, but the little bodies have nothing to pull them, no source of light to be drawn toward.

Magic has left Camelot.

She will have to wait until it returns. But she is hungry. And more than hungry, she is bored. A child has wandered from her parents. The dark queen winks with insects, flashes butterfly wings. Lures the child deeper and deeper into the woods.

Devours.

Never sated but not starving, she moves on. She ripples through the earth, nudging against the borders of Camelot. Trying to find a weak spot. Trying to find a place that will allow her, make room for her, feed her.

A river stops her. It is not any normal river, eternal, rushing, uncaring.

This river is livid.

She forgets her hunger. She forgets her boredom. A hundred bats flap into the sky, a colony of darkness against the blue, and if anyone were looking, it would look like a smile. With very sharp teeth.

Arthur rode with his knights. At the front, at the back, ranging to the outer reaches of their company. He was everywhere except at Guinevere’s side. Even Mordred did not talk to her. No one did. Not as a rejection of her, but as a response to their new situation.

They were not in Camelot anymore.

Guinevere had not expected the change to be so sudden and stark, but she could feel when they crossed the border. The fields fell apart, becoming patchy and disorganized. A few shabby villages clung to the borders, but there were no children playing there. The people who watched them pass did so with narrowed eyes and hands on weapons.

They also skirted around great stretches of forest. Part of Guinevere longed to go through them—she missed the cool green spaces more fiercely than she knew was possible—but the white-knuckled grips the knights kept on their swords reminded Guinevere that these were not Merlin’s trees.

Their company was twenty-five men strong. All of Arthur’s best knights, plus five servants with packhorses carrying their supplies. They were meeting on the edges of Pict land. Guinevere drew deeper into the shade of her hood as they passed the burned-out shells of an old settlement. The sooner they met the Picts, the sooner they could leave.

Glad as she was that they had left Brangien behind, she missed her maid and friend. It would have been comforting to share this with someone. Though she was in the center of the men, constantly surrounded, she felt very alone.

“Not long now,” Mordred murmured, once again at her side. Guinevere had not noticed him. Her hands were busy beneath a shawl she had draped over them. She finally had enough feeling in her fingers to work with the strands of thread she had stolen from Brangien’s things. Her knots were all about confusion, blindness, disguise. If things got bad, she could throw the knots at their enemies and buy some time. But it cost her her own vision. Everything was blurry and indistinct.

She did not mind a veil bein

g drawn over her eyes to hide the state of the world they rode through. If her journey from the convent had been punctuated by the one strike of terror in the new forest, this one was drawn low with an undercurrent of bleak dread, constantly tugging at them. How did people live out here? How could anything survive this unending stress and fear?

Arthur called something out and his men stopped as one. Mordred took Guinevere’s horse’s reins. The horses snorted and stamped, impatient.

“A party is coming to meet us,” Mordred whispered.

“What should I do?”