Page 27 of Enchanted Warrior

He hated magic, but he had chosen to trust her anyway. That meant something, and it gave her strength.

By the third time Tamsin read the words, she felt the magic drawing upon her reserves. She focused her will, concentrating on the stone melting away like ice from a warm and living body. She imagined the beat of a human heart and warm blood coursing through muscle and sinew. She envisioned the heavy yawn of the newly awakened, the first flame of intelligence lighting the sleeping features. The more intensely she projected those thoughts, the harder she felt the magic sucking at her, drawing her vitality up like a milk shake through a straw. Pressure began to build behind her eyes, and she knew she’d have a headache later. Her knees began to quiver.

But all that meant nothing, because the golden mist had steadied into a thick, constant glow. It surrounded the effigy in a dome, the surface catching rainbows like a soap bubble. Through the haze of light, Tamsin began to see the stone figure shimmer. Change began at the feet, where they rested on the lion’s back. The supple leather boots deepened in color, shifting from stony gray to brown leather. Tamsin nearly faltered in her reading as her heart pounded with excitement. Colors began seeping upward as if the stone was soaking up life from the surrounding cloud of magic. The hem of Gareth’s surcoat changed to deep blue, the mail coat beneath glittering silver. Buckles turned to brass, fur to dark sable, the scabbard of the sword to crimson leather. Finally, the loose curls of hair became auburn. The flush of youthful skin showed the knight was no more than twenty.

Tamsin finished reading and closed the book, slipping it back into her backpack. Her fingers trembled with exhaustion and the knowledge that she’d done all she could. If her magic was true, Beaumains would wake. He had to. Any other outcome was unthinkable.

Gawain was beside her now, his warmth a welcome comfort. He slid an arm around her waist, pulling her close. The affectionate gesture was so unexpected she nearly jumped, but then soon leaned against him, needing his strength.

“What happens now?” he asked.

“We wait,” she replied, hoping with every cell of her body that this would work.

The golden dome of magic seemed to harden around Beaumains. Tamsin wasn’t sure how long that took, but it felt like months. At that point, it grew dull and opaque. Tamsin imagined it cracking and falling to pieces, but instead it just began to fade in patches. Finally it shredded like mist in the wind, but the effigy remained utterly still.

Tamsin could feel the tension growing in Gawain as he watched his brother’s unmoving form. Her own body coiled like a spring under pressure, every muscle cramping with the urge to shake the young knight until he woke up. She could still see Gawain in her mind’s eye, kneeling before his brother’s tomb. She would do anything to erase the agony she’d seen in him and prayed her magic had been enough.

The hope and desire, her need to make it right for Gawain sapped the last of her strength, and she dropped to one knee.

“Tamsin!” Gawain supported her with one arm around her middle, making sure she didn’t fall. “Are you well?”

The room tilted, and Tamsin braced one hand against the floor. Gawain wrapped his arms around her, getting a better grip.

“I’m just tired,” she said. A sense of failure crept over her with a sickly touch, leaving her skin clammy. “I need to sit down for a moment, that’s all.”

Gawain gathered her up and helped her to her feet, speaking no word of reproach. That, too, meant much, but it left a hollow feeling inside her. She had longed to do better.

When she lifted her head, her gaze fell on the effigy and she was forced to blink twice. All the color was gone, but that wasn’t all. Where it had been exquisitely detailed before, now it seemed blurred, worn by time to a crude version of itself. Her first thought was that she’d damaged it.

“Gawain,” she said uncertainly. “Something?—”

A noise made them both turn. Tamsin’s lips parted, but no words came. Beaumains was standing a few feet away, wide blue eyes scanning everything around him. When he spotted Gawain, a profound look of relief flooded his features.

“Brother, this is a wondrous strange place!” he said in a voice deeper than Tamsin had expected. Then he caught sight of Gawain’s arm around her waist and one corner of his mouth quirked upward. “But it seems you have already found its secrets.”

ChapterTen

Nimueh stared out the bay window of the Victorian mansion at the garden beyond. A sky the color of ashes turned the thin light to a silvery wash. The mansion was set on a large lot shielded by trees, which provided privacy Mordred liked and scenery he ignored.

The Prince of Faery lurked by the door, demanding her attention. His presence was a claw hooked into her psychic senses, not quite painful but ready to tear on a whim. It was one of his power games, a way of making her address him first. It would have been more effective if she’d still had the capacity to care.

“I would have called this scene lovely once,” Nimueh said softly. “I know it should be. There is a lake and willow trees. Even though it is winter, there are many subtle shades of green and gray. And yet, my soul doesn’t feel the loveliness. My mind knows, but my heart does not.”

“Does that bother you?” Mordred asked mildly. “I thought you pureblood fae were no more than walking corpses.”

“That is cruel.” She said it without rancor. Once, she would have tried to scratch out his eyes for saying such a thing. She missed that capacity for rage.

“I’m asking a legitimate question,” he said. “I’m not cruel.”

“Yes, you are. It’s your reason for breathing.” She lifted a shoulder slightly, still staring out the window. “It’s not just beauty I miss. I miss hating you. That much anger felt clean.”

Once the fae had been the most creative spirits in all the realms. They had danced, laughed, made war and loved like no others. They had been capricious and quarrelsome, generous friends and implacable foes. Now they were dusty shadows bereft of purpose. Worse, they were immortal. There would be no final forgetting to end their loss.

Mordred himself had been spared. His power made him immortal, but with more witch blood than fae, he had escaped Merlin’s spell. Rather than sharing the fae’s loss, he’d found ways to exploit it.

“You could drink a soul,” Mordred suggested. “I’m told that restores all your lost perceptions. We have prisoners to spare.”

Nimueh turned to the prince, a faint echo of disgust quickening her pulse. “It hardly seems worth it. A few hours of feeling, and then the grayness begins again.” Worse was that brief moment when the fae realized what they’d done. The self-loathing was worse than not caring at all.

---