“Yes!” Vera nearly shouted it. “That’s exactly it. Actually …” She remembered her trainers stowed in the saddle bag behind her and made a quick decision to show him. He positively gushed, twirling the teal laces between his fingers, and his eyes widened as he felt the cushion on the inner sole.
“Guinevere,” his voice was hushed and reverent, “this has got to be the greatest invention of all time.”
She laughed. “It’s pretty high on the list.”
There was hardly a breath’s space of silence after that. Dark had fallen in earnest, and the velvety black night was bespattered with stars before it dawned on Vera that this was the easiest it had ever been to talk to someone other than her parents. This budding friendship was a pleasant surprise, but the more Vera warmed to Lancelot, the more her stomach churned. He watched her with a knowing look, his eyes kind.
“You thought I was Arthur when we first met, didn’t you?”
She hoped the darkness could cover the heat that rose in her cheeks. “Yes,” she said. “Why didn’t he come?”
Lancelot searched Vera’s face. “I’m sorry. This must be impossibly difficult for you.”
Vera refused to fill the silence. He hadn’t answered her question.
“I don’t want to mislead you. We didn’t know today was going to be the day that Merlin brought you back. He only sent word by messenger this afternoon, and Arthur had reservations about Merlin trying to …” Lancelot paused, his mouth in a tight line. “Well, about Merlin taking such extreme measures to bring you back.”
He seemed to choose his words so deliberately. Vera might as well come right out and ask the direct question. “Does Arthur hate Guinevere?”
“No.” This Lancelot said with certainty. “It’s been … a difficult time.” He shot Vera a heavy glance. “It’s nothing to what you’ve been through, though.”
She tensed, and the memory of Vincent bloody and dying flashed in her mind. How could he know that?
But he saw her reaction and clarified, his tone gentler. “You left your whole life.”
“Oh.” Of course. Funny she hadn’t considered that, but it was true. And her ability to go home, to get her life back, to get herself back was contingent upon a task far more complicated than Vera had naively imagined. “What if I can’t do what Merlin needs?”
Lancelot eyed her for a moment. “Merlin is single-minded in his commitment to the kingdom—to a fault, frankly. I’m not sure his expectations for you are reasonable.”
Vera scoffed. “And I’m not sure he’d trust your assessment of the situation.”
“Ah.” Lancelot flashed a crooked smile, reigniting his spark of levity. “You’ve already noticed that I’m not exactly Merlin’s favorite.”
“You’re about the only thing that broke his—” Vera searched for the right words to describe Merlin’s powerful calm.
“Stick-up-the-ass demeanor?” Lancelot offered. Vera laughed. “Go on, then. What did he say about me?”
“He said that you were Arthur’s dearest friend. And that you’re very loyal,” Vera said.
“Oh, that’s quite nice. And?”
“And … that you’re loud and foolish.”
“That’s—hmm.” At first, she thought Lancelot was indignant, but he was grinning. “He’s really coming around to me. Loud and foolish. That’s probably the nicest way he’s ever described me. Granted, he might have been edging it a bit trying to, you know, convince you to leave everything behind … but I’m calling this progress in the Merlin-Lancelot relationship.”
They’d been riding for nearly two hours before an amicable silence fell, with Vera’s eyelids close behind. They may as well have weighed a hundred pounds for the difficulty of keeping them open.
She woke with a start to a firm grip on her arm, holding her upright.
“About tumbled off there,” Lancelot said quietly. “You’ve had a thousand-year day. Go on and lie forward on your horse’s neck.”
Vera’s eyes were barely open. She nodded mutely and lay forward while Lancelot kept a steadying hand on her back.
She thought she heard him say “I’ve got you,” but it may have been a dream, for she was already asleep.
“Ishau mar domibaru.”
For a second time, unknown words reverberated through Vera’s body, words that she would have no memory of when she woke.
A soft glow brought Vera back to wakefulness, but it wasn’t the moon.
The side of her face lay on the horse’s neck, and the light came from Lancelot’s direction, not the sky.
Vera blinked, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. There was a lantern, a ball of light not unlike the ones she’d seen in Glastonbury, this one the size of a grapefruit and bobbing along between the two horses of its own accord. It didn’t create any harsh shadows nor hurt to look at directly, but lit the space around them in all directions, like a traveling bubble. She sat up and rubbed her face.
“Good morning, there,” Lancelot said. “Did you have a nice nap?”
She didn’t know how long she’d been sleeping. Long enough for her neck and back to be stiff from the awkward position and for the moonstone on her forehead to have indented her skin where it pressed against her. Her ears perked at the distinct clip-clop sound of hoof on stone. They’d left the marshland and arrived on a cobbled street. They passed a farmhouse with a thatched roof, and she saw a concentrated cluster of light not far ahead atop a great hill, guessing that it marked their destination. “Is that where we’re going?”
“Yes. Once we pass through the village gates, it’s only a few minutes to the castle.”
A few minutes to the castle. Vera’s stomach gave a jump. This was really happening.
They switch-backed along the path up the hill to a towering stone wall extending in either direction. If the wall stopped or curved, it was far enough away that Vera couldn’t see. She understood straight away why this spot might be chosen for a castle—the high ground for miles, defensible and fortifiable. The gates to town were shut and guarded, with men posted at alternating pillars atop the stone wall, only their dark silhouettes visible from the ground. The road was blocked by a massive wooden gate in the shape of an arch, split into two doors. With both swung open, it would be wide enough for most modern vehicles. Two soldiers were posted at each side of the gate. Lancelot called out to them, and they immediately recognized him.
The guard atop the wall shouted out, “Two on foot!”
The left side swung outward with an angry moan. The cobbled road snaked through the town. Homes were frequent in patches interspersed with shops and market stalls; a blacksmith here, maybe a pub there. The smell of smoky peatmoss fires rose from rudimentary chimneys, and the glow from hearths peered through cracks in window shutters where households stirred. Some lights through the town emanated a familiar sunset color, unmistakably the type of magic light that Lancelot carried.
They rounded the corner, and she saw it. She couldn’t imagine how she hadn’t noticed it sooner—perhaps clever placement of the structures on the hill. Even in the dark, though, the castle was unmistakable. It was not the cold medieval fort structure Vera expected. It was taller, the stone a light pearl color with an opalescent sheen in the moon’s glow. The same wall surrounding the town carved another path in front of the castle for an added layer of protection, each section divided by a turreted watch tower. Four much taller towers rose behind it, marking the castle’s corners. Three reached an equal and impressive height, topped by a round stone silo with a pointed cone roof. The fourth tower, farthest from Vera and Lancelot, was even taller and capped with a solid, flat-topped cylinder. Peaked roofs poked up from behind and between the wall and towers. There weren’t spires reaching twelve stories high, nor was there a moat with a draw bridge or cascading fountains, but it was beautiful in its simple and shining form.