After what Garet had said, words that had struck me down like a blow from a broadsword, my first experience of scrying did not stagger me much. There was Nyneve, that was all, making my heart watery; at the sight of her I whimpered like a pup. I could not speak.

Nyneve spoke to me. I heard the words in my mind. Courage, Mordred, she said. It is all true, yet it is all false. Have courage. I am coming to you.

Courage, she said.

I needed courage, and I wanted it; I lacked it. I did not have enough courage to face King Lothe at supper. Though I felt little for him, still, to think that he was not my father after all—I could not face him or my own thoughts. I kept to my chamber.

King Arthur, my father? Every day, almost, I heard someone say Thank the goodliness of our blessed King Arthur—a crofter admiring the thickness of a fleece, the castle steward exclaiming over the barley crop, the cook hefting a fat capon—but if our blessed King was my father and he had tried to kill me, I hated him. I hated him. With a black flame burning in my heart I hated him.

I hated King Arthur.

But—but King Arthur was good. The people said so, the bards said so. Prince of kings, jewel of kings, flower of kings, they hailed him. If I hated King Arthur, then I must be what Garet had said, devil spawn. Evil.

I was the child of the King and his—his sister? My stomach heaved at the thought. Evil.

If good King Arthur had tried to kill me, then I must be evil.

But—if he was so good, why had he begotten me? I hated him. I hated him.

Around and around within me churned this moil of hatred and misery. Morgause brought me chicken stew and asked me what was the matter, but I could not tell her. I could not eat the food; I gave it to Gull. I could not sleep.

In the morning, desperation gave me a sort of fledgling courage. Without permission, I took the second-best horse in the stable and rode out of Lothian gate, a skinny boy far too small atop a skewing, slewing war courser. Gull ran ahead of me, her white tail flagging gaily above the heather, and for want of any better plan I followed her southward. I did not know what urging had made me ride forth on my own. I was sure to be punished when I returned. Perhaps that was why I was doing it. Or perhaps I would not return.

The war horse carried me swiftly but fought the heavy bit at every stride. My arms ached from pulling on the reins by the time I realized where we were going: the Forest Perilous.