Shades of Avalon by Carol Oates

Maybe it was the way she repeatedly ran her thumb in circles over the palm of her hand as if recalling the ghost of a touch. She was either a proficient liar, or she genuinely had lost love.
    “So what happened?” I pushed, ignoring the loud thud of my heart, a pang of guilt or pity for making her talk about the apparently distressing subject. We had to know. We needed to know.
    She clenched her fist tightly, bringing it below the table before she started again.
    “Emrys had a vision for Briton, and he needed Arthur and the sword to see it through. Arthur was never the Keeper. He may not have even been a Pendragon. Emrys used ancient alchemy to poison Arthur’s blood so the sword would accept him for a short time. By then it didn’t matter the metal no longer shone for him. The people already believed in Arthur, they accepted him as their king, and I had my mortality. The crux of the matter, sadly, was Emrys wanted power, but he also wanted Briton to prosper and find peace, and he believed the end justified the means. I knew we had tricked fate and the gatekeepers of the Otherworld. Humans of the land at that time referred to it as Avalon. I knew I should have defied Emrys. I should have taken the sword and fled…but I didn’t. I allowed Excalibur to remain with Arthur.”
    “Myrddin Emrys was a name Merlin went by, right?” I asked.
    She nodded. “He went by many names.”
    “Then that’s not how we heard the story,” I told her. “We were led to believe Merlin was a mad tyrant, locked away for the good of humanity.”
    “He is mad all right, but it doesn’t mean he was wrong about Arthur’s potential. Emrys practiced magic openly and encouraged Guardians to defy the Council and reveal themselves. History is written by the victors, Ben. Maybe if things hadn’t gone so terribly wrong…”
    Right then I picked up a scent in the room, a sharp, metallic fragrance. By the quizzical expression on both John and Triona’s faces, they smelled it too. I realized with horror it was emanating from Guinevere and growing stronger by the second.
    “What the—” I cried out, leaping to my feet and snatching up her wrist from under the table.
    A dark trickle of blood dribbled from her curled fist toward her forearm. Amanda pushed her chair back with a screech across the wooden floor. John stood but didn’t move from Triona’s side. Emma’s jaw went slack with shock.
    “We need a cloth,” Amanda said.
    Emma’s lips snapped closed, and she darted toward the door with Amanda.
    In fact, the only person having no reaction at all was Triona. She sat there with a sad, distant look in her eyes, her lips curling down at the edges. Alarm rose up before I swallowed it down again. Her non-reaction was empathy. Triona empathized with Guinevere’s pain.
    I’d been so busy stroking my own ego that I hadn’t allowed the reality of our situation to sink in. I couldn’t be sure, but knowing Triona as well as I did, she was already preparing herself for the worst. An intense and probably unreasonable desire to prove myself a worthy Guardian burned inside me, but not at the cost of the people I loved. I’d been pretending I had a handle on it all, pretending carrying royal blood meant I held all the answers too. I had started to realize Amanda and I were just what people in Camden thought we were. We were kids, playing at being grown up, and we needed help. I needed help. Too much blood had been spilled already: Triona, Caleb, Emma, and now this. I didn’t want to turn to Samuel, or anyone, but we needed his experience here.
    “It’s fine,” Guinevere snapped, breathing harshly and attempting to jerk her hand out of my grip.
    When I didn’t release it, she opened her fist to reveal the four small, healing crescent wounds on her palm.
    “It’s fine,” she repeated starkly.
    I slackened my hold and allowed her to pull her hand away. Amanda rushed back into the room with a damp white cloth and placed it over Guinevere’s