Excerpt

Chapter One: Hwyfar

"Harlot! Menace! Disgrace! You bring the doom of Avillion!"

King Leodegraunce, my father, roared, then spat at me, flecks of mucus landing on my face and neck, as he shrieked each and every curse in my direction.

"Father, it's time for your draught." I kept my voice calm, trying again, attempting to approach the bed as I felt spittle slip down the front of my shift.

My father had been a proud, brawny man when I'd left for Carelon nearly a decade before. As Avillion's king, the task of raising my sisters and me had fallen to him after our mother's bitter departure to Lyonesse, when I was scarcely five years old. Though I would never call him a doting father, he'd been a good king and a strong man, in mind and body.

This was not the man I knew.

This King Leodegraunce was a wraith, tendons along his body straining against the leather straps keeping him tied to the very bed in which I was born, wiry muscles pulled too taut over long bones. His eyes burned with hatred, fathomless black marbles in his pale face, his uneven teeth bared behind chapped, flaking lips.

How do you mourn someone who is not yet dead? My eyes burned with tears, throat thick as I watched him struggle uselessly.

I had only been in Avillion a scant few weeks, and each time I visited him, these interactions worsened, taking a little more of my own strength and resolve. Neither the Skourr Council nor the Knights of the Body thought it prudent to alert anyone outside the Isle, even King Arthur, to the state of our king. Avillion was yet a free kingdom, and at peace for a thousand years; we could not display such weakness.

He had nearly killed one of the Skourr priestesses when she had tried to give him his food just a few days before. King Leodegraunce suffered no small sickness, and every day I lost more hope that I would ever speak with him again without fearing for my own life.

"Princess Hwyfar, we must speak," said Kian, our goursez, my father's oldest friend and chief advisor. The old bard was my childhood confidant and Gweyn's favorite person in all of Withiel. "This is just too painful to bear, and he—"

"Vile whore!" King Leodgraunce's threats went on. "Foul temptress!"

I watched my father struggle in vain as I grasped the wooden bedframe, my own breath uneven, chest constricting. From Kian's briefings, it seemed the king had been deteriorating for some time, but his descent the last two months before my arrival was precipitous. To say nothing of the blighted apple orchards and the plagues among the livestock; in ancient times, they said the land suffered when the king suffered, and I saw it now with my own eyes. I may not have had the power of the Isle in my blood any longer, but I knew magic when I saw it.

The once great King Leodegraunce let out a high, mad scream that shook the rafters of his royal bedroom, body sinking into elegantly embroidered green silks and thick golden velvets now stinking of piss and feces, while hollow-eyed servants watched in horror.

Then: he calmed. The lines in his face smoothed, his lips slipped down over his teeth, his eyes closed.

His voice came in a whisper now. "The brooms. The brooms. It's nestled amidst the brooms!" His favorite refrain.

Just as his fit fled, my own emotions spilled over. I could weather the storm, but the moment he stilled I lost my resolve. Years, I'd lived behind a mask of composure, ribaldry, and indulgence. I was infamous, unrivaled, a woman of reputation—and, I thought, freedom.

Yet now, here, among the stones of Avillion, I was run ragged and raw, the memories of my childhood—raised among the Skourr priestesses—rising like a plague of locusts from the depths of the earth.

I had no intention of finding out what Kian wanted to discuss. It was time to hide, to lick my wounds and gather what strength I had left.

I was once betrothed to King Arthur Pendragon.

Upon my arrival in Carelon, however, Arthur took one glance at my younger sister Gweynevere, who'd attended me on the journey, and decided, as powerful men often do, that he desired her above all else. Above me. And as Arthur takes what he wants without question, Gweyn went with him, weeping and shaking. She was younger than I was, only fourteen. She did not have a choice, and yet she devoted herself to him. For Avillion. For our family. For the stability of the realm.

In recompense, Arthur built me a grand apartment and dominion over a tiny kingdom of pleasure. I spent my days entertaining minstrels, troubadours, and errant knights, taking every lover I wished, and—when I emerged from whatever drinks and powders I'd been consuming—occasionally attending royal events. To the world, no doubt, I seemed a most enviable libertine, indulging in decadent food and expensive drinks and bedding renowned men and women at court; but it was a trap. I could not leave, not while Gweyn was queen. And even as those pleasures began to pall on me, ceasing to be a comfort, I lingered in those golden halls, chasing a feeling I could never quite reach.

Gweyn's death opened a chasm in me, cracked me open, changed me. I left so many words unsaid between us and was unsupportive of her new faith. I called her a coward and toyed with her servants to get information about her. In the end, I did not deserve her as a sister any more than Arthur deserved her as a wife.

Bur Arthur, not satisfied with just one of my sisters, then married my middle sister, Mawra. Now she is Queen of all Braetan, while I attend to my raving father, the King of Avillion, and this ancient land slips away beneath my grasp. I have never wanted to rule—I gave up any hope of queendom when Arthur's gaze slid off my face and beheld Gweyn. I came to Avillion for her, to help our father, because it was the right thing to do. It was what Gweyn did. But I vastly miscalculated my own abilities. I was no nurturer, no patient attendant. I resented every moment I walked the craggy passageways of the keep.

The keep is called Withiel. Once a temple city atop the long cliffs on a sizable cove, it is now little more than a charming ruin inhabited by priestesses, apple orchards encroaching on the streets, rotting fruit clogging the drains in the late fall.

I still remembered every corridor, secret passage, strange alleyway, and hidden corner in Withiel from my childhood explorations, but Kian found me anyway, drunk and sulking in my favorite alcove. I barely fit in the hollow above the throne room, being most unusually tall, but I reveled in the cool stone on my hot face and arms, the wintry draft across my ankles, the utter silence.

Until Kian peered in.

He had been chasing after me since I was seven, and I was foolish to think he would not find me now, though I was a head taller and ages older now.

I had a platter full of cheese by my side and the remnants of two very large flagons of apple mead—that was the one thing I had truly missed living in Carelon. Something about the sea journey spoiled the sweet liquor. I'd had to suffer through ale and fortified wine for far too long.

"You're already drunk." Kian frowned at me, tufty brows furrowing.

I have always been very good at getting drunk quickly.

"I am fortified." I tried not to slur my words, but my tongue felt too big for my mouth.

Kian's sigh was both familiar and effective, leaving me to ponder the dregs in the bottom of my cup. Drink was never the best solution—even I knew that—but so frequently the easiest. Sweet, dependable oblivion.

Yet even I had to admit that doing so alone and in the dark was troubling. For years my drunkenness had grown out of merriment and been enjoyed in the company of other revelers; here, it was fueled by misery and guilt.

"You're quite mistaken if you think courage is found in the bottom of that cup." Kian squatted down to look at my face. "But I think you know that."

I turned my tear-streaked face away, sniffing piteously.

"It isn't fair."

"Ah, well, my dear, fairness doesn't generally come into the tales as much as we think," he continued, nudging me to make room for him to sit. I'd lost count of how many times we'd done this when I was a child. "There are a lot more warriors and kings who die of unseen or simple matters than any kind of poetic truth. Ruptured bladders. Infections. Bad falls."

"He was a decent king," I said, jostling the flagon at him. My dress was half off my shoulder, but I did not care. Kian preferred books to people, and I had no doubt my disarray inspired nothing more than pity. I hated when people pitied me. "He was a strong king. And now he doesn't even know his own reflection, let alone his firstborn daughter."

Kian dropped his head into his knobby hands, and rubbed at his sandy locks—now quite grey about the temples—and down his short beard. Unlike so much in Avillion, he was almost unchanged by time; he'd always had a boyish face and a compact, strong build. His robes of green and striped blue were a bit faded with time, but he still wore the vestments of his duty with ease.

"He was all those things, but he is a mortal man, and some afflictions have no true explanation. They strike without warning."

"The King of Avillion should be better than this, should live longer and without affliction," I snapped at him. "I may be a drunk but I know our histories. And I know Gweyn shouldn't have died in childbirth so easily, either. Our line is failing. Putting your faith in me, in any capacity, is folly."

The goursez took my free hand in his and squeezed, falling silent. When he spoke again his voice was kind, but sad. "I know. And I do not understand what is happening to the Isle, nor do I know what to do. The last two years have been half in a mist. The decline was subtle at first, but even just in the weeks since you've been here, the change has grown more pronounced."

"Is there nothing we can do?" Reluctantly, I squeezed his hand back. Weeks ago, I could barely look at him, and now I was desperate for his comfort.

"We are keeping vigil at the temples and shrines, but I must confess to you, princess, a selfish part of me just prays he will let go. The pain he endures daily must be beyond torture."

From below, I could hear the scraping of chairs in the hall, the murmur of the Skourr Council priestesses and castle servants. Tonight was another feast day—I had forgotten just how many forsaken feast days there were in Avillion—and I had no desire to partake in the festivities.

Yet I was the only member of my family left to attend them. I had spent the majority of banquets since my return solidly drunk and making enough of a fool of myself—by singing bawdy songs and telling obscene jokes about Arthur and his horse—that Kian had to intervene on my behalf.

It was not a tactic I could employ forever. Not just because it lacked elegance, but for its toll on my body. Waking up in my tower bedroom, my mouth desiccated and sour, my skin sore and aching, Laustic cleaning up the night's sick from the floor. I had little dignity left, it was true, but even I was tiring of myself.

But my father's illness was not the only reason I drank. I drank out of guilt, for having failed to avert my sister Gweyn's death. For not having had the courage to linger in Carelon the spring I fell in love with a woman named Nimue—only to return to find her dead, and Merlin with her. For every lover I'd had who fell in love with someone else and lived happily together. For every whispered rumor in Court I'd pretended to ignore.

Pushing aside those thoughts, I swallowed down what was left of my mead and wiped at my face with the hem of my gown.

I snorted. "I know. I am every inch a princess. But nothing more."

I did not know if Kian understood where my drunken mind twisted. Before I was brought to Carelon, the Scourr priestesses severed my magic. They called the practice Sundering, and it was done without my consent, to prevent me from heeding the call of Avillion. They claimed that the call was what made Queen Igraine mad: she had not been able to return to Avillion, and her body, and its magic, had withered. They hoped, without access to magic, I would be a docile queen and pose no threat to Merlin, Morgen, and their ilk. Except Arthur never married me, Gweyn was Sundered as well, and I remained bereft of power; and always, always alone.

Kian's expression softened. "Well, you are many inches. In spite of your attempts to the contrary, you look like a warrior giantess of old."

"Or perhaps you are shrinking, old man," I said, jostling him in the ribs.

"Hwyfar…"

"Yes, Revered Elder." I felt some giggles coming on.

"The Feast of Fire begins tonight. You will be expected—"

"I am aware. The Skourr Council will be there, as well. You reminded me six times since breakfast."

Clearing his throat, Kian continued. "Well, you must forgive me, but the way you drink, it is often difficult to know whether or not my messages are received. You have missed out on quite a few important events."

"The Skourr Council is a flock of boring old women who exhaust me by simply existing," I said, petulant as a child. "They sit and blather for hours and hours, and I can feel my hair graying and my skin sagging just listening to them."

"Your fate is tied to their opinions of you," Kian reminded me, not for the first time. I was lucky, I knew. Many princesses did not have a living embodiment of their conscience attending on them, as I had in Kian. I was certain he'd wished it was any of my sisters in this situation, and yet he was left with the eldest drunk, who had more lovers than Avillion had apples.

If Gweyn hadn't died—and she should not have died—Mawra would have been here, and not married to Arthur. If she had not married Arthur, she would never have fallen in with the Christian priests, and with Lanceloch du Lac and his tiresome sermons on penitence and absolution and piety.

Every time I thought of Mawra sitting in black silks, stripped of the colors of Avillion, poring over texts advising women to be chaste and silent, my blood boiled.

I slurred a curt reply before crawling out of the alcove. "My fate is my own."

"Princess Hwyfar, I have told you this before: if you would like to leave Avillion, you may. The Skourr Council already has lists of claims to the succession, but yours is the strongest. If you do not, the safest course of action will be turning the crown over to King Arthur. We have limited forces, and if word of King Leodegraunce's illness spreads, we will be ripe for the picking." Kian was trying to get me to look him straight in the eye. But I, though well into my twenties, still found myself acting like a spoiled child around him. I pointedly looked away.

Except those last few words were more of a threat.

I heaved a petulant sigh. "Avillion will remain sovereign. Arthur can rot." Gweyn had not surrendered the crown, and nor would I.

"And there's that furious child I remember," said the goursez. "Now. You've a bell or two before you are expected downstairs. I would suggest a cold bath, some milk, and some attentions from your attendants. Then we can speak again of Avillion's fate and your role in it."