This time she had destroyed an entire mind.
She staggered and leaned against a wall, looking down at this man. This monster, yes, but still a man. Had she not hated him for using his power to hurt others? And had she not just used her own power to hurt him? She wanted to be better than Merlin, to do better than he did, and yet once again she found herself using magic for her own needs and leaving destruction in her wake.
Maybe it was not so bad. Maybe he was just sleeping. He was breathing, after all. Guinevere crouched and brushed her fingers across his forehead, then recoiled as though burned.
There was nothing there.
Whoever—whatever—he had been, she had erased it. Washed it all away.
She stood, shaking out her hands, wishing she could remove them, separate them from herself. They felt so much, and they did so much, and she had not controlled them. She had been mindless with terror, whatever had roared to the surface at his attack now receding beyond her efforts to examine it. In truth, she did not want to. She wanted to forget this. All of it. What she had done but also what she had felt from this vicious, vile man when he had touched her. What she had felt from Isolde.
Isolde. Guinevere did not have time to dwell on her own horror. She leaned out the window. Isolde had navigated the branches to the center of the tree, and her face was pressed against its trunk.
“Stay there,” Guinevere whispered.
Isolde looked up in shock. She had not believed Guinevere would win, not really. But at least she had hoped enough to get out of the room. “Guinevere!”
“Give me a few minutes. Do not move.”
Guinevere ducked back inside. She had to do something. Anything. She had to fix this.
She could not fix this.
All their careful planning. All her insistence that she could do it without endangering Camelot. It had all been undone because she could not control herself. One sleeping knot and she could have drugged King Mark. He would have awoken thinking his brother had kidnapped his wife.
But no. She never would have had time to tie the knot. He was never going to let her leave the room alive. She should have walked away as soon as she realized the original plan would not work. It was what she had promised both Lancelot and Arthur she would do. She had betrayed them both.
She closed her eyes, trying to calm her breathing. Isolde deserved to be free. Guinevere could not have chosen to walk away, no matter what she promised.
Guinevere lifted her chin and opened her eyes. It was time to improvise. What was a little more chaos compared with what she had already done? She placed her palms against the far wall. The rough wood was old. Dry. Ready and waiting for Guinevere to destroy it.
She coaxed sparks out, not minding when they bit her hands. The pain kept her focused, reminded her of the costs of these choices. When the wood caught and began to burn, Guinevere threw open the door. She grabbed King Mark under his arms and dragged him into the hallway. His head bumped roughly along the floorboards. At least it was already empty.
“Help!” Her voice was raw and tortured from the damage to her throat, but with smoke already billowing out of the room, she had an excuse for sounding that way. “Help me!”
Three men came running down the hallway. They stopped short at the sight of the king on the ground, Guinevere still trying to drag him farther from the burning room.
“She burned herself alive!” Guinevere wailed. “The queen! She lit herself on fire! The king fainted. She would have killed them both!”
The guards stepped toward the door, but a rush of burning air and smoke greeted them and they shielded their eyes from the heat. Guinevere fought a surge of annoyance that their priority was to make certain the queen was actually dead rather than to help save more lives. “Where are the rest of the men?” she asked. “Where is everyone?”
“Already outside for the burning!” one of the men answered, staring wide-eyed at the flames devouring the room.
Guinevere still had some luck on her side, then. The castle was empty. “Hurry, we must get the king out. Sound the alarm before the whole castle burns!”
This spurred them into action. Two of them picked up the king, carrying him awkwardly down the hallway while the third sprinted ahead, shouting, “Fire!”
Guinevere followed, covering her face with her sleeve and coughing. It was only partly an act to keep anyone from looking closely at her and being able to identify her later. Mostly, it filtered her breathing. With this much smoke already, she doubted the castle could be saved.
“Fire!” she screamed. “Fire!” The stairway was emptying as people flattened themselves against the walls to let the unconscious king pass, then filled in behind them. “The queen is dead!” she shouted for good measure, to help that part of the story settle into place. “Fire! Fire! The queen is dead!” Others took up the call.
Guinevere twisted her hope like a knot, wishing she could encircle the whole castle.
Let everyone get out.
Let everyone get out.
Let everyone get out.