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Gwenhwyfach went white with fury. But before she or anyone else could say another word—

There was a cry and a flash of light on metal up on the slope, where the two armies had drawn near—dangerously near—one another.

And another great chorus of shouts and the cry of “Treachery!” and the parley disintegrated into chaos as fighting erupted on that slope and, in a flash, spread over the entire field.

Screaming warriors charged from both sides and overran where Arthur’s party stood. Gwen found herself separated from the rest and trying to beat her way back to her archers as the two armies surged forward and clashed. For a moment, before any real blows were struck, she felt hysterical laughter bubbling up inside her.

And then, as always, her world narrowed to the fighting in front of her, everything blurring into stroke and counterstroke, spin and blow and evasion. The noise was deafening; she shut it out. Once, she caught a glimpse of Lancelin riding through a sea of fighters, striking out on either side with his sword. Once, of Medraut and Arthur, fighting furiously like a pair of stags, oblivious to everything around them. Arthur’s skill was greater than Medraut’s, but Medraut was younger . . .

But mostly, it was just trying to stay alive, slipping in mud and blood, breathing the stink of spilled guts and voided bowels, with a stitch in her side and a burning gash across her forehead, with her arm growing heavier with every swing, and her heart in bits at her feet.

It all blurred together, until she was fighting in a kind of animal stupor, going on nothing but training and instinct.

And then, it seemed, she woke to find herself alone and without an opponent. And there was nothing more to fight. Somehow she had gotten to the edge of the battlefield, and as she looked about and saw no more enemies, her sword dropped from fingers too tired to hold it. Then she dropped to her knees, legs too weary to keep her upright. Numbly, she looked over the field again and saw nothing standing, nothing moving, nothing but the dead and a mist rolling over the battlefield to hide it. It was a vision of horror and carnage out of the end of some epic tale, one that does not end well for anyone—a tale that ends with all the heroes dead.

Despair overwhelmed her. She threw back her head and howled, sobbed, and keened a wordless lament, and she wasn’t even sure who she was weeping for. Arthur? Lancelin?

Herself?

The end of the world?

For surely this was the end, the very end, of the world. After this, what could there be? Death, death, death; nothing left but darkness and death.

She sagged back on her heels, and the tears poured from that void where her heart had been. She had thought she had wept before. It had been nothing to this; the only thought left to her, if thought it could be at all, was that she would sit her forever, and weep forever, until she turned into a weeping stone and poured her waters into the little river that must now run red with blood until the end of time.

“Gwenhwyfar! Gwenhwyfar!” Someone was calling her name. Shaking her. Would not let her mourn in peace. Shook her again, harder. Finally, to make it stop, she looked up through eyes so swollen with weeping they were only slits.

And the shock of what she saw, with mist weaving around them both, dried her tears in an instant.

“You—queen—” she gasped.

Arthur’s second wife, cloaked and robed like one of Gildas’ monks, put back her hood with an impatient hand. There was no doubt; it was the same woman who was supposed to be dead. “Yes, well, queen no longer, but yes, I was Arthur’s second wife. Now get up and come with me. We have need of you.”

“We—” She shook her head. This was impossible. How had anyone survived? “Who—”

“Come, warrior. I tell you, you are needed for the journey across Anwnn, and Gwyn ap Nudd cannot hold the door forever.”

As if she had no will of her own, Gwen got to her feet and yielded to the phantom’s urgent tugs on her arm. Though if the second Gwenhwyfar was a