The King's Leash (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 7) by Katherine Sparrow Page B

“You look different.”
    With a wave of my hand, my clothing turned black again. My face became normal.
    Arthur stood we faced each other. He threw his arms around me. We hugged and held onto each other. I never wanted to let go.
    This wasn’t possible. The last time I had seen him was on that long and terrible day.
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    “Save him,” Merlin had begged me. “Take him to your isle of witches and healers. Take him to Avalon.”
    My brother, laid out on the dry grass of Camlann, was still alive, barely. Near him lay the fallen Mordred, already cooling and changing in all the hundred ways the dead do that make them look unequivocally changed. Mordred’s turgid blood pooled around him as he lay, all alone on the battlefield. Not one of his men came to claim him, even though the battle was ended. Cowards, or perhaps they were glad he was dead.
    I looked away, willing myself to ignore all the feelings bubbling up within me. I could not spare that dark wizard a second thought. For before me was Arthur. Still breathing. Gasping in air and breathing out pain like a fish yanked from his watery domain.
    “Save him,” Merlin begged. “If there is honor among magicians. If there is any love you still have for your brother, save him.”
    “Half-brother,” I said absentmindedly as I checked his wounds. “I don’t think….” My words died on my tongue as I saw the fissures of pain running through Merlin. “I will try.”
    Upon my orders, Arthur's steadfast men carried him quickly to the shore on a sledge that they pulled between their most fleet-footed horses. I rode alongside them, wincing at every bump along the path. I reminded myself that he was gone, my brother was already gone, and though I was tasked with trying to save him, that was an impossible quest. A grieving wizard had asked me to try to save him, and I did not have the heart to say no. Though Merlin must know, he must, the final outcome of the day whether we took Arthur to my fabled island or not.
    We arrived at the water’s edge. It seemed to have taken days.
    Small fisherman's skiffs lined the shore, and Arthur's men commandeered one of them. They laid their King and ruler down upon a cushion of blankets, and I sat at the boat's stern, directing the way for the men to row. I kept Arthur's head cradled in my lap.
    His head lay heavy upon me and his temperature cooled to the day's ambient chill. I stroked his cheek and whispered to him story after story about our younger days. Our days of running wild through the woods in a long game of stag and hunter, of laughing with our brothers and sisters in front of the hearth fire while our father was off on a campaign and we had the rule of the castle. I whispered to him the names of his most loyal and steadfast knights, and I reminded him that he had yet to avenge Lancelot and Guinevere. If there were any reason to keep on living, surely revenge was one.
    The men rowed to Avalon surely and swiftly, with the aid of every spell I could make to hurry us along. When we neared, I saw my mother, aunts, sisters, and even my shrunken grandmother waiting for us in a long line of women dressed in white. They stood upon the rock-strewn shore of my birth island. In the ways of their own magic, they knew I was coming and bringing my brother.
    And, I saw in the downward curve on my mother's face, they also knew that they could not save him.
    I glanced back down at my brother and ran my hand across his cheek. Ever cooler. His breath came ever fainter.
    “Do not travel to that far shore,” I whispered to him. “There is so much for you to do yet, Arthur.”
    And though the vast majority of his goals were ones I did not agree with, all of me wanted him to live. All of me wanted my brother to be around and if in all our days all we did was bicker and fight while he staged stupid wars and battles, so be it. I wanted my brother alive.
    The witches of Avalon waded into the water, wetting their long white skirts. They pulled our small