Avalon Rising by Kathryn Rose Read Free Book Online Page B

Jerusalem, and he’s trying to save Merlin, and I need—” I stop there, lost in worry over the sheer possibility of Azur fending off rogues as I speak.
    But then, “ Jaseemat ,” Rufus says with a knowing nod.
    “Yes,” I breathe.
    He firms his lips into a line and looks up at the gas lanterns decorating the cobblestone streets. The lights flicker against his violet pupils, highlighting the gray, and my breath catches. I’ve never missed Marcus as much as I do right now.
    “For years, I warned the sorcerer against alchemy. He was convinced it was a way to use nature to its fullest potential. But in Lyonesse … ” He pulls his sleeves over his wrists. The inked images disappear like one could ignore the choice between right and wrong. “What else do you need?”
    “What?”
    “You said you built an aeroship. Where is it? The catacombs are empty, and it’s certainly not in the clock tower. And when the old fool built the aerohawk, it was an enormous inconvenience behind my shop. Yet I stand here unbothered. Where is it? And what else do you need?”
    I run my own scrawled blueprints through my mind. The sails are finely made, a delicate arrangement of drapes that once shielded Merlin’s bed, with the addition of fine dresses Guinevere will never again wear. The farmlands offered plenty of space, and everything I constructed remains outside of Camelot, hidden by autumn trees. The aeroship’s cabin is stark and bare, but it has my touch and my attention to detail that Merlin would never consider, like the navigational piece on the helm. The engine is a remarkable reworking of Victor’s leather-encapsulated iron lungs, expanded to work with a charcoal furnace to propel the ship faster. The clockwork heart’s veins spread throughout the ship, up to the sails. But no, it’s not ready. The wings are too weak, and the vessel might be too heavy to take flight.
    “I need to reinforce parts of the ship to prepare for high winds, and, yes, jaseemat ,” I confess. “God help me, I need jaseemat in order to get the ship high enough to … ” To reach Avalon, the castle in the clouds, truth be told. But no, Rufus can’t know that just yet. And although Azur needs help, I can be of no use in a war where the knowledge in my mind is a clear prize.
    And so, “Help me find instructions on how to make jaseemat , and I will find your son,” I hear myself say. A solemn promise. A promise Marcus would hate hearing me make.
    Rufus’s expression changes. He doesn’t regard me as though I were a lady of Camelot; now, he sees me as an artisan like himself. “Show me.”
    I lead Rufus through the break in the citadel wall Marcus showed me in the spring, the blacksmith with a heavy satchel of tools strapped to his back and the same coppertipped hook he used in Morgan’s war tight against his hip. “There are no knights to protect us now, my lady,” he tells me. And with the new threat of rogues foregoing their own Grail quest to attack cities and kingdoms, I can offer no argument. With thick black furs long enough to be feathers around his shoulders, he stalks after me like a raven hungry to find an unlucky mouse. I pull my cloak closer to my face and breathe into my gloved hands to keep warm.
    I come out on the other side of the dry, bristly bushes, my boots crunching the snow with each step. I lift my hood over my hair and steal a glance at the wall: there are no guards keeping watch. I can escape into the woods without fear I’ll be spotted. I run, pushing aside the paralyzing fear that comes about as I let my mind drift to the idea of Marcus missing, of Azur being cornered by danger, of an aeroship on its way for me. Rufus is not far behind.
    We reach the woods that surround the lake. As we approach the snow-covered cellar where I hid my aeroship in pieces—the dug-out ground a forgotten casualty of Morgan’s war—I lower my hood, glancing about for the demigoddess who once told me she made her home in this very