Page 27 of The Quest for Excalibur
I managed a smile. “I thought I was too.” I couldn’t get above a grating whisper, despite the drink.
“You’ve been unconscious for three days,” Coventina said, twisting her hands in the apron she wore. “Bedwyr wasn’t sure you’d waken up.”
Arthur shot her a heavy frown.
I touched my head. Bandages. “Did I get kicked?”
Arthur nodded. “You fell beneath the hooves of our horses. They couldn’t help but kick you. When I got to you…” His voice broke again, and he wiped his eyes. “When I got to you, you were face down. I-I hardly dared to turn you over.” He swallowed. “You were barely breathing. Merlin found your pulse.”
Tears trickled down my cheeks and he wiped them away with his fingers.
He had to visibly pull himself together. “I sent Llacheu galloping back to the fortress, and he brought a wagon down with Bedwyr. We put you in it and carried you back. You’ve been lying here ever since.” He gripped my hands so hard it hurt. “I was so afraid you’d not wake up.”
Coventina backed away. “I’ll tell Merlin and Cei she’s awake,” she murmured. The door banged as she went out.
I licked my lips. Still dry. “Howlong did Coventina say?” My mind felt numb and foggy, unable to retain things.
The candlelight danced over Arthur’s tired face. “Three days.” Dark shadows ringed his eyes. Had he slept since the accident?
I turned one hand over to interlace our fingers. “I was afraid, too. Afraid I wasn’t coming back.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed again. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
The unwelcome memory of my dream, of him kissing Hafren, surfaced, and I must have flinched because his eyebrows knitted in another frown. “What is it? Where does it hurt? What can I do?”
I shook my head, which did hurt. “I had a horrible dream while I was unconscious.” Small underestimation. I shivered.
But I couldn’t tell him.
He smiled. “You’re safe now. No dreams can harm you.”
But was he right? More memories filtered back. The girl in the boat whom I’d thought was Nimuë, the pale ethereal creature under the lily pads, the sword, shedding incandescent water droplets as it rose from the lake’s surface, and the girl’s words, etched into my mind. “Take him to the sword. Fulfill the prophecy. Set Excalibur in his hands.” Fevered imagination, surely? Delirium peopling my dreams with the legends I knew? Maybe even wishful thinking. How was I supposed to tell if what I’d seen hadn’t been some kind of dream?
But what about that triumphant laughter? Had I only imagined it? And those hissing, furious words as I’d struggled through the darkness back to Arthur. Who’d spoken them? Who hadn’t wanted me to return?
Morgana, of course.
I closed my eyes for a moment, seeing again the solid reality of the hospital, the darkness of those country lanes, the chasing policeman.
I shook my head. No dream-like quality had clung to it, no random leaps from one place to another. Everything I’d seen, felt, smelled, touched, had all been too horribly real. Reality and dream wound themselves together in my head like the ribbons on a maypole, and for a moment I screwed my eyes shut, trying to block out the memories.
How could she have done it?
“What is it?” Arthur’s thumb caressed the back of my hand, his voice laced with anxiety. “Tell me what’s wrong. Let me help.”
I swallowed what little spit I had and spoke the words I knew without a doubt were true. “This was more than an ordinary accident.” I gazed up into his tired, red-rimmed eyes. “Magic took me away from you, and tried to prevent me from getting back.”
He shook his head, disbelieving, and his forehead furrowed with concern. “What d’you mean? How? There’s only Merlin here with magic, and he would never have done that to you.”
I shifted my grip and caught hold of his hands in both of mine, holding them tight. “What about Morgana?”
His eyes narrowed. “She’s miles away.” But uncertainty tinged his voice.
I had to keep going, had to make him understand. “No. She may not be as far away as you think. You can’t be sure. And even if she is, maybe she can do things from afar. Who knows? I wouldn’t put anything past her…” Where my strength was coming from, I had no idea.
He frowned, perhaps not wanting to believe his sister capable of such malice. “But she only has the Sight. Not the sort of magic you’re talking about. She doesn’t have the power to harm you. It doesn’t work that way. That sort of magic isn’t real…” The uncertainty remained.
What sort of magic did he think had brought me here in the first place?
