Aprilynne Pike: Destined

Laurel nodded and Fiona hopped over the moat.

“Hold your breath.” Fiona misted them with a very fine spray of the viridefaeco. “I apologise that you will be a touch damp.”

Laurel waved her concerns away and turned to help Tamani to his feet. “Can you walk?” she whispered.

His jaw flexed several times, but he shook his head. “Not without help,” he admitted.

“Here,” Laurel said. She laid his arm across her shoulders and Chelsea was quick to join her on the other side.

Though the Queen stood only metres away, Laurel and Chelsea took Tamani across to the opposite side of the circle, where Jamison and Yasmine were, and David straddled the gap and carefully helped Tamani over so they could all sit together.

“We’ll talk over here,” Laurel called to the Queen.

Marion pursed her lips and for a moment Laurel thought she would refuse to come. But she must have realised there was nothing more she could do. Flanked by her Am Fear-faire , she picked her way round the circular trench and stood over them, looking down on what might otherwise have appeared to be a cosy group.

The Queen made a show of counting them once, and then twice. “Well, Jamison, two humans and two faeries; an Autumn and a Spring. Where is the Winter faerie you told me about?” Marion asked. “Or did she turn out to be a figment of a certain sentry’s overactive imagination?” Her eyes rested accusatorily on Tamani.

“She’s the younger one you see dead in the circle,” Jamison said, pointing.

Marion looked over and her eyes grew large, realising for the first time that the grotesquely shrivelled black forms in the circle of dead grass were, in fact, fae. “You killed her,” she said softly.

“I did not,” Jamison said. “Yuki betrayed Callista when it was revealed that Yuki was nothing more than a pawn in the Mixer’s plans. Callista killed her.”

“A pawn?” the Queen asked, scoffing, clearly unable to take seriously the idea of a Winter faerie as anyone’s pawn.

“Just like the trolls,” Jamison said, slowly, deliberately.

Momentarily, Queen Marion looked like someone had slapped her in the face — as though she took the comparison as a personal affront. Her expression slowly settled into uncertainty. “I think you had better start from the beginning.”

Slowly, and with many interruptions, Laurel shared with everyone the story of what they had done. When she got to the part about how she had discovered the final ingredient to the viridefaeco potion, Jamison beamed with pride and the Queen looked rather ill.

When Laurel finished, the clearing descended into tense silence. Marion looked over the circle where Klea and Yuki had died. The grass was blackened beyond recovery, but Fiona and two other soot-covered Autumns were spraying the viridefaeco serum, putting a final stop to the poison’s spread.

“Jamison,” Marion spoke at last, sounding tired, “you obviously need to rest. I suggest you retire to the palace and show these two humans to their quarters as well.”

“I agree. I think it would be best if David returns the sword before we reward him for his valour and escort him and his friends out of Avalon. I imagine they are all anxious to get home.”

“Don’t be foolish,” said the Queen, rejecting Jamison’s twisting of her command. “The humans cannot possibly be permitted to leave.”

Chelsea made a small noise in her throat; Tamani reached out and grabbed her hand reassuringly.

“You know as well as I that the rule is not absolute.”

“He has wielded the sword, Jamison.”

“Just because it was done before does not mean it has to be done now. The circumstances were very different,” Jamison said, his voice calm.

“I don’t see how.”

“Arthur had nothing to go back to. His life and kingdom were destroyed. This boy has a future ahead of him. I will not be part of trapping him here.”

“What do you mean, trapping me here?” David said.

Jamison looked up at David. “King Arthur never left Avalon. Ever. And it may not have been entirely of his own volition.”

“An unbeatable sword is too great a secret,” the Queen said, her tone patronising, but tinged with pity. “Surely you understand that.”

“I can keep a secret,” said David. “I’m real good at secrets.”

“Not like this.”

“I’ve kept Laurel’s true nature a secret for over two years now. Not to mention the location of the gate.”

The Queen didn’t look impressed. “That makes two things that should have been wiped from your memory, if Laurel d’Avalon’s Fear-gleidhidh had been doing his duty. Please do not think us ungrateful. It is a matter of expedience. The leaders of your world — human or otherwise — would slaughter a great many to obtain this weapon.”

“I know that.”

“Then you understand that it is for your own safety that you remain here.”

“I have a family. Chelsea too. We won’t leave them.”

“It is not your choice,” the Queen said sternly. “We aren’t monsters; you will be well cared for. But you cannot leave.”

“It isn’t your choice,” David countered, before anyone else could speak up. “You can’t keep me here.”

The Queen’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t see why not.”

“I have Excalibur.”

“And you can carry it round Avalon till you die, for all I care,” she said, her tone declaring an end to this conversation.

“What do you want to bet this sword would cut through the bars of those gates?” David said, his voice quiet, but piercing.

Laurel’s breath caught in her throat; surely David didn’t intend to destroy Avalon’s most important defence — did he?

“Arthur never cut the gates,” the Queen retorted, but there was uncertainty in her eyes.

“Maybe he didn’t really want to leave.”

“Perhaps not,” Marion replied. “Or perhaps he realised the danger such rash action would pose to Avalon. Perhaps he was too noble for that.”

David responded with a glare, which Queen Marion returned, measure for measure.

“I will not assist you in trapping them,” Jamison said, interrupting their power struggle. “If they ask me to open the gate for them, I will.”

“Then you will be executed for treason,” Marion said without hesitation. “We may be one Council, but I am still the Queen .”

“No!” Yasmine shouted, clutching Jamison’s arm, her young voice sounding strangely out of place in the midst of this particular conversation.

“Yasmine, the same fate for you,” Marion said, not meeting her eyes.

“That’s not fair!” Chelsea said, rising to her feet, her fists clenched. “She hasn’t done anything.”

“The choice belongs to the human,” Marion said, staring steadfastly at David. “It would be a shame if, after all the work you’ve done, you decided to expose Avalon to even greater danger.”

David was silent and still, his knuckles white on the hilt of the sword. Could he really cut down the gate? Would he?

David spun on his heel and presented the Queen with his back. Wordlessly he jumped the trench and stood looking at the bodies surrounding him. Klea, Yuki, Klea’s mindless warriors, the still-blackened grass that filled the circle. Then he turned and, making eye contact with the Queen, thrust the sword into the earth, almost to the hilt.

But he didn’t let go.

He just crouched, glaring at Marion for nearly a minute. Everything else was silent.

Then he released his hold on the sword, one finger at a time, until his arm fell and he stood and walked away.

When he reached them, David wrapped his arms round Chelsea and buried his face in her neck, his whole body shaking. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. After everything they’ve been through, I can’t… I’m so sorry.”