have gathered about that place.
Levon saw them. “He’ll be all right,” he said, walking over. Dave nodded, then he reached out and pulled Levon to him in a fierce embrace.
Ivor looked up. He released Tabor’s hand and came over to where they stood. There was a brightness in his eyes, shining through his weariness. “He will be all right,” he echoed. “Thanks to the mage and to Arthur he will be all right.”
“And to Pwyll,” said Teyrnon quietly. “He was the one who guessed. I would never have caught him, without that warning.”
Dave looked for Paul and saw him standing a little way apart from everyone else, farther along the ridge. Even now, he thought. He considered walking over but was reluctant to intrude. There was something very self-contained, very private about Paul in that moment.
“What happened?” someone said. Dave looked down. It was Mabon of Rhoden, lying on a makeshift pallet not far away. The Duke smiled at him and winked. Then he repeated, “Does anyone know exactly what happened?”
Dave saw Jennifer coming toward them. There was a gentle radiance in her face, but it did not hide the deeper well of sorrow in her eyes. Before anyone spoke, Dave had an unexpected glimmer of understanding.
“It was Darien,” said Kim, approaching as well. “But I don’t know how. I wish I did.”
“So do I,” said Teyrnon. “But I could not see far enough to know what happened there.”
“I did,” said a third voice, very gently, very clearly.
They all turned to Gereint. And it was the old blind shaman of the Plain who gave voice to Darien’s dying wish.
In the soft light and the deeply woven peace that had come, he said, “I thought there might be a reason for me to fly with Tabor. This was it. I could not fight in battle, but I was far enough north, standing here, to send my awareness into Starkadh.”
He paused, and asked gently, “Where is the Queen?”
Dave was confused for a second, but Jennifer said, “Here I am, shaman.”
Gereint turned to the sound of her voice. He said, “He is dead, my lady. I am sorry to say that the child is dead. But through the gift of my blindness I saw what he did. He chose for the Light at the last. The Circlet of Lisen blazed on his brow, and he threw himself upon a blade and died in such a way that Maugrim died with him.”
“Lokdal!” Kim exclaimed. “Of course. Rakoth killed without love, and so he died! Oh, Jen. You were right after all. You were so terribly right.” She was crying, and Dave saw that Jennifer Lowell, who was Guinevere, was weeping now as well, though silently.
In mourning for her child, who had taken the Darkest Road and had come at last to the end of it, alone, and so far away.
Dave saw Jaelle, the High Priestess, no longer so coldly arrogant—it showed even in the way she moved—walk over to comfort Jennifer, to gather her in her arms.
There were so many tilings warring for a place in his heart: joy and weariness, deep sorrow, pain, an infinite relief. He turned and walked down the slope of the ridge.
He picked his way along the southern edge of what had been, so little time ago, the battlefield whereon the Light was to have been lost, and would have been, were it not for Jennifer’s child. Guinevere’s child.
He was wounded in many places, and exhaustion was slowly catching up to him. He thought of his father, for the second time that day, standing there on the edge of the battle plain, looking out upon the dead.
But one of them was not dead.
Would the old estrangement never leave him? Paul was wondering. Even here? Even now, in the moment when the towers of Darkness fell? Would he always feel this way?
And the answer that came back to him within his mind was in the form of another question: What right had he even to ask?
He was alive by sufferance of Mórnir. He had gone to the Summer Tree to die, named surrogate by the old King, Ailell. Who had told him about the price of power during a chess game that seemed centuries ago.
He had gone to die but had been sent back. He was still alive: Twiceborn. He was Lord of the Summer Tree, and there was a price to power. He was marked, named to be apart. And in this moment, while all around him quiet joy