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“Gildas persuaded Arthur to put me aside. Melwas’s love didn’t last past being confronted with an army.” The queen’s voice dripped with contempt, then softened. “Gildas is a good man. I have been . . . doing penance for my sins under his instruction. But Arthur needs us now. Arthur needs all of us now.” Her voice cracked a little. “He is dying.”

I thought he was already dead . . .

The mist swirled and billowed around them, making it seem as if they moved through a landscape of dream—or nightmare. They picked their way through tangled, motionless bodies and seemed to be heading for the single patch of light in the thickening shadows.

And then the mist parted before them. Lit by torches, Arthur lay on a crude stretcher, his head pillowed on someone’s wadded-up tunic, surrounded by a handful of his Companions, all of them with faces contorted with grief. It was obvious to Gwen that no one could survive the terrible wound in his gut; it had been bound up, but from the amount of blood that had soaked the bandages, he could not have much longer.

Kneeling beside him, his hand clutched in both of hers, was Gwenhwyfach.

“And . . . you really are . . . the sister?” he was saying.

Little Gwen bent over his hand, weeping, and nodded.

He sighed. “Then . . . you are the one that I loved most truly, most dearly, and I could never be healed of that sickness of love,” he said tenderly. “You are my true queen and ruler of my heart, who knew the desires of mine without my ever needing to speak them.” His free hand moved feebly to the bandages, and his breath caught. “Medraut is dead; no one has ever survived a single blow of Caliburn, and I struck him nine times. But his return blow was as deep as mine, and full as fatal. I shall die soon—”

“No!” Little Gwen cried out. “No, no, you can’t leave me! I need you! I’m meant to be your queen!”

He could only shake his head a very little, as his Companions wept.

A new figure loomed out of the mist. Gwyn ap Nudd, who nodded to the old queen and Gwen. “Arthur,” he said, his voice deep and sonorous. “It is time.”

Little Gwen looked up at him as if to protest, but at a single stern look from him, she shut her mouth, muffled her weeping, got up and stood aside. Four shadowy figures came from behind the King of Annwn; they approached the stretcher and took it up. Gwyn ap Nudd gestured to all three women to follow.

“You bear witness,” said Gwyn, as the Companions watched, seemingly unable to move. “You see that these three queens, all beloved of Arthur, come to bear him through Annwn to the Isle of Glass.”

The Companions stared; Gwen wanted to say something to them, but a power greater than she could deny pulled her after the others.

The mist closed behind them as they approached the riverbank. The shadow warriors put the stretcher gently on a boat that was tied to the bank; Gwyn gestured to the three of them to enter it as well. “I can go no further,” Gwyn said. “But the gate is open for you, cousin, and by your bargain with my people, none will harm you in passage.” Gwen went to the prow and stood there, facing the river and the mist; Little Gwen again took her place at Arthur’s side and held his hand.

“And you, Queen-that-was, you know the way. Yours will be the guiding hand.” The old queen took the tiller, and the shadow warriors, which all seemed to have the heads of beasts, stag, wolf, bear and otter, pushed it off.

For a long time, there was only mist and water, the splashing of waves interrupted only by Little Gwen’s sobs. Gwen thought she saw vague shadows in the water and in the mist, but they never approached the boat, so she was never entirely sure what she saw. She felt empty and exhausted, as if she had left all of her emotions back there on the riverbank. And then, out of the mist, loomed a small wooden dock with more shadow figures on it, silhouetted by torches.

But these were not Gwyn ap Nudd’s beast-men. Somehow, Gwen was unsurprised to see that they were robed in the garb of monks and that Abbot Gildas led