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Mordred stopped, placing his vambrace down on the bench, his heart sinking. For a moment he concentrates completely on his armour, how could he answer such a question? Telling her would mean her life and the lives of those whom called Camelot home. An impossible predicament.
The young knight turns to face her, his fingers brushing lightly against the metal of his armour. “I’m not hiding anything” he tells her simply.
Summer can’t say what Morgana did to her — her magic has always been so very limited, despite its seeming power. Whatever it is, she can’t shut out anyone’s emotions now, can’t call that one magic that’s always been hers, and the sorceress has brought her to share the vantage point above the battle.
True to Morgana’s word, she is forced to watch, chained and powerless and broken open, as the soldiers and knights of Camelot die all across the field, and the Saxons die with them. Long minutes now she’s been in a daze, helpless in the face of so much death.
Morgana guards Mordred, and Summer is unwillingly grateful, both for the guardianship and for that it means the mad sorceress is not standing over her. He seems to move as a dark angel across the killing field, untouched and untouchable, his sword stabbing bright and rising bloody. She sees him confront Arthur, whose hair still somehow shines golden amongst the blood and dirt.
She sees them pause, and the swords flash, and both bodies fall. The pain of both wounds does something to her; magic pours into her veins like some kind of burning cordial. From a great distance, it seems, Summer looks at the men guarding her, and they fall, flaming, burning, dead. She rises to her feet, and the chains crumble from her limbs. A hot wind stirs around her body, swirling her hair in mad waves about her.
Somehow, she is at Mordred’s side. Merlin is there, too, with Arthur, though his form is strangely altered, and as he takes the fallen King’s body he whispers, “What are you?”
“Yr wyf tân,” Summer says, in a voice unlike her own. She takes Mordred from that terrible place, by main force of will keeping the life in him. She doesn’t know where Morgana is; she doesn’t care. All the threats, all the prophecy, none of it matters.
His footing goes before anything else and he stumbles backwards, collapsing to the ground as he feels the magic from Arthur’s sword wash over his body, stealing the life from him as his blade was doing to the king. For a moment he struggles for breath before the final one left him and his eyes shut.
A warmth washed over him before everything went cold and his blood froze in his veins.
“Don’t leave me, anwyl, cariad,” Summer whispers shakily. She lays Mordred out in the little thicket, setting the fingers of one hand to the wound and cauterizing it. Her hands tremble as she lifts away his breastplate, pushes the chainmail aside. “If you leave me, I will go myself barefoot and unarmed to the very gates of Annwn and bring you back, do you hear, so do you stay now, with me.”
HIs skin is terribly cold now, breathing shallow and heartbeat so faint. Recklessly she warms the air, and sets fingers to the wound again. There’s something inimical there, something that sucks away his spirit from between her clinging fingers, and she sets herself against it. The magic that has burnt in her blood since she saw him fall surges, sliding in golden strands and bright threads through and around.
Fire cleanses.
“Stay with me,” she chants, raggedly, “do not go where I cannot follow. Rwy’n dy garu di, peidiwch â gadael i mi.”
Fire purifies.
Crying, Summer bends over him, her hair falling to shield their faces, and kisses him.