In Camelot’s Shadow: Book One of The Paths to Camelot Series (Prologue Fantasy) (42 page)

She pulled back and regarded Gawain, weary, unshaven, and alight with happiness with her own eyes. He did not appear at all surprised

“Come, my lady,” was all he said, taking her arm in his and pulling her close. “Let me take you home.”

It was midday when the white-haired woman came to the center of the forest, but the heavy shadows of the trees made all as dim as twilight. She bowed to the mound and looked longingly at the fresh stream that chattered down its side to pool at its feet. There was great power to be had in those waters, if one could find a way to harvest them. Perhaps one day …

But today she had other business. Amid this ancient forest of oaks and maples, ash and alder, there stood a single thorn-apple tree. It looked lost and small, trying to spread its blossoming branches to catch what meager sunlight the other trees permitted to fall so far. It did not look like it would live for long and another witness might have wondered how such a tree came to be in such a place. A lone raven sat in its branches, croaking angrily at the intruder.

But Morgaine just laid her hand against the thorn-apple’s bark.

“I truly am sorry, Kerra. If there had been another way, I would have done it. But you see, you liked your power too much. You tasted what it was to rule over men, and would no more have been content to wait at my side until stars and men were ready. So when I needed a sacrifice, I’m afraid you had to be the one.” She snapped off three blossoming twigs. “These yet will serve, as you ever have.” She held them up as if the tree could see. “You did well,” she added as she stepped back. “Without your interference with the girl, the Easterner might have had his way and brought Camelot to its knees. It is not time, though, my dear. Not yet.” She turned her face toward the west. “Soon though, Arthur, my love. Soon.”

And she was gone, and there was only the whispering of the trees to the wind and a soft, distant sound that might have been a woman’s tears.

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Copyright © 2004 by Sarah Zettel
Cover images
istockphoto.com
/©Mike Kiev, ©Duncan Walker
All rights reserved.

Published in association with Athans & Associates Creative Consulting

Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 10: 1-4405-4367-4
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4367-8
eISBN 10: 1-4405-4366-6
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4366-1