Sword Read online

  Published by Realm Lovejoy

  Copyright © Realm Lovejoy, 2015

  Sword (Le Fay Series) / Realm Lovejoy. First U.S. electronic edition 2015 v1.0

  You can find news of upcoming titles by Realm Lovejoy at:

  www.realmlovejoy.com

  Cover Art © Copyright Realm Lovejoy

  eBook formatting: Guido Henkel

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Chapter 01

  The Maven was supposed to be me.

  I walk toward Father’s house, clutching a piece of paper with the title of my new role typed across it: Black Knight.

  The cobbled path leading to our home—a humble cottage by the sea—seems to stretch out indefinitely. The slate-roofed house looks out of place, like a movie prop made to look like my home but that isn’t really my home.

  Redundant thoughts are cycling through my head, like a rodent running in place inside a wheel. My intent was pure and fueled with justice. I did everything. I did my best. I practiced when everyone else was resting. I ranked the highest in magic out of everyone my age in the history of the UK. The Henge itself foretold that I’d be Maven. Most importantly, I believed in myself with the force of an explosive star.

  Yet…

  I failed.

  From the very beginning, Merlin was in the way. Ever since that day when he outshined my fire magic with his water magic, I sensed that he’d be the wall blocking my path.

  Taking a breath, I shake my head. I need to compose myself. I have to face Father and tell him about the results of Arthur’s Round. Looking beyond the cottage, I try to soak in the peaceful scenery and forget my whirling thoughts. How can Tintagel with its rolling green hills and idle sheep seem unfriendly to me? The hills go on and on, the sheep unmoving. The world appears frozen and staged. The same scene will be here tomorrow. The year after. A decade later. And I can’t face this unchanging setting. It seems like everything is already chosen for me, no matter how much I try to change the direction of the flow. I’m like a fish swimming upstream, frozen in place because the current is too strong.

  Taking another deep breath of the ocean air, I try not to let my mind spiral downward. I need to get this over with. I walk hesitantly to the door and turn the handle. It opens, unlocked as always. As I step in, the light fixtures scattered around the house blink eerily. Celtic folk music emanates from the kitchen. At the dining-room table, Father sits, a book in hand as he turns to me. His eyes widen in surprise.

  “Morgan! I didn’t know you’d be visiting today,” Father says, putting down his book. He lumbers over to me, beaming. “How is Arthur’s Round going? You mentioned you were scheduled to finish your final test. Did they choose the Maven yet?”

  I open my mouth, but no words come out.

  Father grips both my arms in his strong hands, eagerly waiting for an answer.

  “It’s been good,” I finally say. “It was…”

  I have to tell him the truth, which is that I failed. And I have to do it without crying. The room scatters into a blur as tears well up in my eyes.

  Father embraces me as I break into a sob, shattering into a million pieces.

  “I wanted to do better,” I choke out. “So much better.”

  Could I have done better?

  “It’s all right, Morgan,” Father soothes. “You did your best.”

  And that’s what hurts worst of all.

  Chapter 02

  I do the only thing I can. Rest. The curtains are drawn, and I let the clock tick. My cell phone is completely powered off. Father brought in his small statue of Astolat, the first Grail Guardian, and put it on my nightstand. It was passed down from his parents and is said to listen to one’s prayers. Astolat holds a grail in her hands, looking down into it as if gazing into a pool full of people’s prayers.

  The phone rings several times a day. Each time the high shrill sounds through the house, dread fills my whole being. I creep to the stairs to catch the conversations. Camelot faculty members are wondering when I’ll return. Father tells them that I’m sick, but that I should be recovered next week.

  The phone rings again, and I head toward the stairs.

  “Hello?” Father says. “Oh, sorry, Merlin. Morgan isn’t accepting calls right now.”

  I slink back to my shadowy room, unable to stand the thought of facing Merlin.

  Father comes in sometimes with food, and I tell him I don’t want to eat. He asks me if I’d like to watch TV, but seeing the world only makes me feel worse—the lively colors and noise stand in stark contrast to what I feel inside.

  They say that after a person goes through the stages of grief, acceptance is supposed to come. But it seems impossible to accept that I’ve lost every chance I ever had to bring justice to magic users and make my late mother proud.

  “You did your best,” Father tells me again, as if it’s supposed to provide comfort. “You did all you can do. Now you just have to get back on your feet and do something new.”

  Something new. He makes it sound like I’m going to roll up my sleeves and find a shiny, unexpected career. “Something new” is already decided for me, and that’s becoming a Black Knight. I’m supposed to go to orientation tomorrow to begin training.

  Another thing Father says is that I have to get over my grief sometime soon—as in right now. Camelot will come after me for going against my contract to work for them. It’s only a matter of time before they lose their patience. I try to push that out of my mind. The mere thought of going back is suffocating. I tiredly shut my eyes.

  I sink below the covers, where it’s dark and nothing exists. Downstairs, the phone rings again. I burrow farther under the blanket, pulling the pillow over my head.

  Through the void, one question emerges: Is there anything I can do now to protect the Pendragons? Based on what I witnessed, the Luminaries want the Pendragons dead. At our final Magic Demonstration Test, Ganeida, a member of the Luminaries, tried to burn the King and Prince alive in our enclosed testing chamber. Vivian and I barely made it in time to stop her. It seems that even as a knight, if I’m not close enough to the Pendragons, I won’t be able to protect them. The only two near enough are the current Maven, Mordred, and the Maven-in-training, Merlin—both untrustworthy. Merlin knew about the Luminaries member Maleagant’s attack on me at the Henge. Merlin is somehow connected to them. Maleagant’s desire for Merlin to be Maven can only mean one thing—he somehow fits into the plan of assassinating the Pendragons, and that worries me most of all.

  As I think of Merlin, I dare let my mind wander back to Camelot. Did Merlin have his Maven Ceremony yet, where they celebrate and honor him? In Royal Relics class, we were taught that the Maven is supposed to take the young Prince to Avalon, where the sword Excalibur waits. The Prince must touch the sword to receive Pendragon the First’s power—an initiation to prepare him for his future coronation.

  The Maven Ceremony. The journey to Avalon. They all seem like faraway concepts to me. A world I’m not a part of. With that thought, I drift into blackness.

  My not-so-peaceful stupor doesn’t last long.

  Father knocks at my door the next day. “You have a visitor,” he says nervously. “You have to
get up.”

  He opens the door a crack. His eyes bulge with unease, and his face is white. Nothing scares Father. I tense my shoulders, getting up on my elbow.

  “Tell the visitor—whoever it is—that I’ll see him or her later,” I say.

  Father shakes his head. “I can’t do that,” his voice drops to a near whisper. “The visitor is the High Knight.”

  I lift the covers off abruptly and sit up. “What?”

  Father rubs his head, looking back toward the hall. “I don’t really get it either. I expected junior knights to come fetch you at some point, but a small job like this can’t be for someone high up like Sir Lancelot.”

  Sir Lancelot. The man with the strangely changeable personality. Sometimes he’s just a flirty, jocular young man, and other times he’s scary serious with a loud voice and fierce gaze. Both of his personalities agitate me. It’s like someone crammed two irritating people into one handsome identity. Though he may look pleasant, he knows how to get under my skin.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” I groan and tangle my hands into my hair. “What do I do? I can’t face Lancelot. Not while I’m a mess.”

  Father curses. “I don’t like this either, but you’ve got to speak with him. He has the authority to barge in here and drag you away.”

  My eyes dart around as if looking for an escape. “Tell him to give me five minutes to get ready.”

  “Okay. Hurry though.” Father closes the door.

  I get up from bed and look down at my wrinkled nightgown. Do I change or take care of my bird’s-nest hair first? I grab my hairbrush off the dresser and sweep it through my knotted hair turbo fast, ignoring the pain of ripping strands. Lancelot is here to yell at me, no doubt. He has every right to. I haven’t set foot in Camelot for two weeks, and I’m unacceptably behind in my training.

  Heavy boots clonk up the stairs. I freeze. The door swings open with a bang.

  In shock, I drop the hairbrush and it falls to my feet. Lancelot stands there in his uniform, gray with all the glory of gilded trims. His eyes meet mine. An envelope is tucked under his arm.

  “What on earth,” I yell in shock. “How dare you just walk into my bedroom—”

  “Ms. Le Fay,” Lancelot interrupts in a cold voice, making it clear which personality he is today. “Your father said you were sick, but failed to provide us with a doctor’s note. What’s the meaning of your absence?”

  My heartbeat quickens as my knees grow weak. The lack of food must be getting to me. I back away before slowly sitting down on the bed. I rub my forehead in an attempt to fight off the light-headedness.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I whisper.

  “If I knew, why would I be asking you a question, Le Fay?” he snaps.

  I cringe. I must be in real trouble if he’s this angry, acting as if I’m a stranger. I’ve never seen him this mad or heard him drop the “Ms.” from before my last name.

  “I figured that Mordred must have explained to you with great relish how upset I was,” I reply.

  I recall marching into Mordred’s office after the Maven was named. I was so blinded with rage that my memory is a blur, but I do know that I threw what can only be called a tantrum. It’s shocking that Mordred didn’t have me arrested. He just watched me storm out of his office. Perhaps he preferred to see me face everyone in my life and suffer through my embarrassment rather than go to prison, where I could keep my failure to myself.

  Lancelot tenses his jaw and narrows his eyes, which glimmer with dangerous fire. “Upset about what?”

  “Come on,” I say with a pained tone. “Drop the act. You know I wanted to be Maven.”

  “Do you recall signing some papers prior to joining Arthur’s Round, Ms. Le Fay?”

  The “Ms.” is back. I nod.

  “Were you bullshitting when you signed them?” Lancelot demands, holding up the envelope and raising his voice. “Were you playing a joke on Camelot?”

  “I was not, sir.”

  “Then why are you so disappointed that you got what you signed up for? You agreed to take whatever position Camelot deemed fit. Nowhere in the contract did it promise to make you Maven—in fact, the chances were slim, as everybody knew except you. Nobody else is throwing a childish fit over his or her role. Why do you feel so entitled to be Maven when you have zero experience?”

  I swallow. “Everything you say is correct. I should not feel entitled to anything. But I’m…” I trail off, staring at the rose patterns on the accent rug below my feet. “I really haven’t been well,” I continue. “It’s true that I’m too sick to attend Camelot.”

  “Are you saying you’re mentally ill, Ms. Le Fay?” Lancelot asks, not quite masking his disappointment. “Because if you are, and Ms. Laudine Pelles officially diagnoses you, of course you will be dismissed from your duty.”

  Lancelot’s cold expression doesn’t change, but something in the air does. I can feel the air thicken with his bad mood.

  I shake my head quickly. “No!”

  “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Some people get into a rut and need help sometimes. That’s okay.”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “You’re being very confusing,” Lancelot says slowly. “I am asking you yes-or-no questions so that I can create a report for Camelot regarding your status. It’s unacceptable for you to not show up to Camelot and perform your duties. Are you coming in tomorrow?”

  “But it’s too soon, I—”

  “Yes or no, Le Fay!”

  My mind screams no. My mouth remains unmoving. I stare into the floral pattern of the rug again, getting lost in the designs. When the silence becomes so heavy that I’m not sure Lancelot is still there, I finally glance up from the labyrinth of embroidered thorns.

  Lancelot’s eyes narrow. “The knights will be here to escort you to Camelot. If you do not comply, you will be punished. Do you want to walk to Camelot yourself, or do you want to be dragged by knights in your nightgown in front of everybody?”

  Anger sparks in me. It’s the first time I’ve felt remotely alive since the Maven selection.

  I meet his eyes. “I’ll show up myself,” I say, raising my voice louder than I mean to. “Anyway, isn’t this a junior knight’s job? Why are you here? You must have more important things to do than to yell at a girl in her nightgown.”

  Lancelot’s mouth twitches briefly, and a slight gleam returns to his eyes. “You’re correct,” he says. “I’d normally not carry out this kind of task, but I have a special interest in you.”

  I turn away, feeling my face flush. “There are other women who’d be happy to have you barge into their bedrooms.”

  Lancelot laughs his old laugh, which, as usual, makes me bristle because I wasn’t intending to be funny. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “I’m the one who insisted you be a Black Knight. I see talent in you.”

  I frown at the mention of “talent.”

  “But you didn’t really answer my question,” I say bitterly. “Why did you come here?”

  His mirth vanishes. He sighs and looks down. “I’m angry enough to take this into my own hands despite my swamped schedule.”

  Lancelot’s anger with me must run deeper than my not showing up to training.

  I cross my arms, unsatisfied. “But why take my absence so personally that you’d yell at me yourself?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Lancelot demands. “I personally stuck my neck out for you and fought every objection to your employment. To have you turn around and not show up for two weeks is humiliating.”

  My heart speeds up. It’s not often I see Lancelot vulnerable. I clasp my hands together and look down. “Ah, I understand. I appreciate your belief in me, but please, don’t take my absence personally. I just need time to process everything.”

  “What is there to process?” he snaps.

  “That you—and many others—didn’t think I could be Maven.”

  Lancelot
rubs his brow like he has the worst headache ever. As if I’m a child who can’t understand reasoning.

  “It’s not my job to explain the selection process to you,” Lancelot finally says, tiredly. “And it’s not as simple as who’s ‘better.’ Being Maven isn’t some kind of grand prize for the best magic user. To believe that would be childish. We did not line you and Merlin up and ask ourselves, ‘Which one is better with magic?’ We viewed you as two separate entities. Everyone is different and should be assigned roles suited for their particular abilities. I believe you’re a powerful fire user and that Merlin is a stone-cold decision maker. It makes sense that you serve Camelot with your power as a knight and Merlin serves with his wisdom as Maven.”

  I frown. “But I make calculated decisions as well, so what does Merlin have that I don’t?”

  “To put it simply… he’s not as nice as you.”

  I blink in confusion. “Anybody will tell you that Merlin is a lot ‘nicer’ person than I am.”

  “You have morals and emotions,” Lancelot says. “There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Merlin puts aside his own beliefs and follows orders.”

  “Morals and emotions,” I repeat as anger surges through me. “You put me through nine months of trials just to figure out whether I’m nice or not? What kind of crap is that?”

  “Watch your language, Le Fay,” he warns. “A Maven has to be cold to perform his duties. It makes sense.”

  “How can you be sure I can’t be cold?”

  “Can you execute someone convicted of a magical murder, Ms. Le Fay? Can you burn someone alive?”

  My breath stays trapped in my throat for a second. I remind myself that there’s no way for Lancelot to know the truth of my past. My heart pounds in my ears as I remember that Mother was burned to death by Mordred. I imagine having to execute someone the same way. I exhale.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper. “How can I—or anybody—possibly know? But Merlin? You think Merlin can—”

  “Yes,” Lancelot cuts in. “We think he will kill for Camelot.”