I want to cry. I want to scream. But Arthur is in control of my voice and body, and even though he uses my eyes, he doesn’t see Nick at all.

“My brother Lancelot. My right hand. Camlann has come.”

Nick’s eyes go round.

We’d all seen Nick collapse, heard the ancient knight proclaim his presence and Awaken his Scion. Nick had been Called. Just not by Arthur.

Because I am Arthur’s Scion.

A screeching, grating laugh echoes back from the cavern ceiling. All of us turn, reminded of the immediate threat.

Rhaz and his army of demons, prowling on the banks. A hellbear, imps, foxes, and hounds, waiting for his command.

“Abomination!” Rhaz cries, his face split in a wicked grin. “But an Arthur just the same!” The demons yowl and yip, roar and scream—a war cry from the underworld. “Kill her!” he roars.

The beasts surge forward. Arthur raises Excalibur high. In our dual voice, he shouts, “To me, my knights!”

And then I’m sprinting off the island, vaulting in the air over the moat. The Legendborn are running with weapons raised—

I scream mid-leap, my will overpowering Arthur’s. “No!” I swing my free hand in a wide arc, fingers splayed. A twenty-foot wall of red flames erupts in front of the Legendborn. A barrier between them and the demons. Arthur’s confusion fills me as I land on the bank. “No more deaths!” I say, and switch the sword back to my right hand.

He doesn’t argue. Instead, he calls on aether to create a heavy, solid shield strapped to my left forearm, and we go to work.

The beasts converge on us. Arthur thrusts Excalibur down deep into the earth at my feet, sending a hot pulse of swirling aether out wide in a shining circle. The wave hits them all, knocking them back against the cave walls.

The imps recover first and dive at me in one howling flock.

There are three. Too fast and nimble for a single attack. Too far away for a sword.

Root crackles in my ears, alive and ready.

I open the furnace in my chest—and scream. Flame pours out of my mouth in a rolling ball, exploding into the first imp’s face. It shrieks, burns, bursts. Smoke everywhere. The second imp pulls up and away. The other is close enough. Got you. I use Arthur’s strength to jump, spearing it through its scaly belly. It dusts over me in a shower of green aether and smoke that blocks my vision.

A roar in the mist. A paw like concrete strikes me in the face, knocking me back. Crushes my nose and jaw. Pressing me down. Suffocating me. I flail with the sword, reaching for an impossible angle around the bear. I can’t breathe! I can’t—

‘Drop the sword.’

I do.