Page 173 of The Mirror of Beasts

Fire blew over my back as Olwen sang out another spell, scorching the Children. With breathtaking control, she threaded the fire through the trees once more, sparing them certain destruction.

“Fight, you coward!” Caitriona bellowed. “Fight!”

I looked back just as Caitriona sliced Excalibur down through the night, the steel singing as it neared Lord Death’s neck. Still on the ground, he rolled away and unsheathed his blade in a single, smooth motion.

Two blades, one pure silver, the other stained by dark magic, swung toward each other.

A clap of thunderous magic exploded around us as the swords met—and Excalibur’s blade shattered like glass.

A lone sound pierced the haze of my disbelief.

Laughter.

Lord Death’s chortling broke into booming laughter. He lowered his own sword, seeming to savor the sight of Caitriona staring down at the hilt still clutched in her hand, at the jagged piece of the blade that remained. The pallor of her face emphasized its spray of freckles.

God’s teeth. This couldn’t be happening.

“No,” Olwen breathed out, returning to my side. “Oh, Mother, no …”

“This is the divine blade?” Lord Death’s head fell back with another bark of laughter. “This is the slayer of gods?”

Only Neve’s line can use its full power, I thought, sitting up but not loosening my grip on Cabell. Otherwise it’s just a blade.

And now the one weapon we’d believed capable of destroying Lord Death lay in pieces at Caitriona’s feet.

My body felt like it was vibrating with adrenaline, throbbing with every heartbeat.

Do something, I thought to myself. Anything.

I knew what my power was now—but recognizing the magic and tapping into it were two different things.

What am I missing? I squeezed my eyes shut. There were the dreams—dreams that Olwen had claimed allowed me to connect to messages from something greater. From the Goddess.

And then there was the white rose of Avalon.

That dream had been unlike all the others. After I’d found the flower in the courtyard of the tower, blooming up between a crack in the stones where nothing else had grown, I’d wondered if I’d somehow dreamt it into being. I’d told myself it had only been a premonition, but what if it wasn’t?

What if I’d been right, and I’d somehow created it, transforming the decay in Avalon’s soil to give it new form—new life?

Lord Death circled Caitriona, watching as her shoulders heaved, his amusement plain.

“Do you recall that very first day I arrived at the tower,” Lord Death began, “and you came to me, your dress still stained with the blood of your beloved High Priestess, and asked to be trained? Do you remember what I said to you then?”

Caitriona only lifted her chin, jaw clenched.

“Skill can be taught, but courage cannot,” Lord Death said, continuing his slow, spiraling path around her. “I always knew that you were special in that way.”

Olwen appeared again at my side, wrapping an arm around my shoulders, holding both of us there. I stared up at her face. She was bruised and worn from the strain of the last ten days, but she held herself with a serenity I couldn’t fathom.

“You were quick on your feet, quicker of the mind,” Lord Death continued. “And you seemed to enjoy it—there truly is no comparison to the rush of blood, to the exhilaration, that comes with running headlong into battle, knowing at any moment you might die, or you might live.”

Caitriona stood as straight as a blade, her face revealing nothing.

“Perhaps you will feel it even now, as I offer you this,” Lord Death said. “Kill the hound, and I shall release the souls of Avalon to be reborn.”

Nash used to say that living your life was like shuffling a deck of cards. One day you might draw a good hand, the next, a bad beat. But buying into that meant surrendering what control we did have.

Life wasn’t drawing cards at random, it was choosing to pick up the deck, it was choosing how to shuffle, it was choosing the rules of play. It was the thousands of choices we made every single day, and the path those choices created for us.

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