Swords & Spells (Book One):The Magic of Emrys

The Call (Emrys)

"You're distracted, Emrys."

Emrys jumped as the sound of Arthur's voice pulled her from her own thoughts. She shook her head and tried to refocus herself on her current task: training. She lifted her sword just in time to catch Gwaine's attack. She tightened her grip on her sword's handle and dug her feet into the grass to ground herself.

"That's no good, moppet," said Gwaine with a wicked smile. "You can't hope to beat me drifting off that way."

She gave a sudden push against his sword, surprising him. When he attempted to throw off her balance in return, she sidestepped to her left, watching as he stumbled forward. Emrys lifted her foot and planted a kick on his arse, driving the knight to the ground. Before he could stand, she stepped on his dominant wrist and pointed the tip of her sword at his neck.

As he yielded, Emrys smiled and said, "I don't think I have to worry too much about that."

She started to turn around and was shocked to see Arthur's sword as it swung down toward her head. She raised her sword, but was not quick enough to brace herself against the impact—her weapon was knocked out of her hand. Emrys tried to scramble backwards, but tripped over Gwaine's abdomen.

She glared up at Arthur defiantly as she pushed herself up from the ground. "What was that?"

"You're distracted," he said again. He didn't offer her a hand. "What are you thinking about?"

Emrys turned her gaze downward as she crossed her arms. In truth, there were a lot of things that had happened in the past two weeks that she'd been thinking about: Bayard's split from Essetir as the newly formed kingdom of Mercia and his subsequent declaration of war on his previous kingdom, Baelfire's sudden interest in training her magic, and, of course, Uther's increasingly watchful eye on Emrys.

Instead, Emrys opted to say none of those things: "I don't know what you're talking about."

Arthur peered at her for a moment and then sheathed his sword. "Fine, don't tell me. But you're done with training for the day."

"You can't just do that!" She knew full well that he absolutely could do that, but she stuck to her argument. "You were the one who said my swordsmanship needs work."

"You were the one who asked if you could join training," he shot back. "Why did you ask if you weren't going to take it seriously?"

In truth, Emrys had asked Arthur because it was the only thing she'd been able to think of as an excuse for looking for him last week. She'd found herself thinking of him at the oddest of times. So much so, that Emrys had been almost certain she was going mad when she'd imagined his presence with her so vividly while she was doing laundry that she had almost convinced herself he was actually there.

But she couldn't tell him that, couldn't tell him that she'd been having more and more thoughts like this since he'd spent the night in her room. She especially couldn't tell him that him being this close to her rendered her almost completely unable to form a clear thought.

"Well," Arthur said, making Emrys realize how long she had been silent, "it's either you say what's wrong, or you—"

He cut off suddenly as a high-pitched melody pierced the air. As the chillingly beautiful sound ebbed and flowed, the other knights lowered their weapons and glanced around the field. Though she hadn't heard it in years, Emrys recognized the song, the familiar way that the singer's voice faltered on the last note before the next melodic verse began.

She was aware of the muted voices behind her, but she did her best to tune them out, focusing only on the wordless song. Emrys realized a frown was forming on her face as the muffled voices suddenly grew more and more persistent. Finally, she was brought back to her full attention by someone wrapping their fingers around her arm.