I didn’t truly know then, as I know now, what was happening. I didn’t realize that I wasn’t sharing, I was giving, and I equally didn’t realize that my giving became your stealing the deeper in love we fell. Or I fell, at least.
For several heady weeks, we spent the long hours of the day and night tangled with each other, making love some times and fucking like animals some others, and every time you’d blink up at me with those sultry blue eyes and beg for more of my “glow” as you called it. More of that shimmering magic from my body into yours. And I shared it willingly.
At some point, you began to tell me you loved me. Shy whispers at first, as if you couldn’t believe it yourself, and then more often, more unabashed. I’d look up from my bowl of stew to find you staring at me. “I love you,” you’d declare, as if my eating stew were some kind of revelation you never could have imagined. Or I’d be washing myself in the small spring-fed pool in the back of the cave, and you’d be teasing me about my catlike obsession with cleanliness, and then your jibes would abruptly transform into grinning statements of love.
You fell in love like you did everything—happily, merrily, singing.
But as often as you sang, you cried. I often caught you with tears on your face and your shoulders hunched in and shaking. Sitting by the mouth of the cave, or farther down by the sea, where you thought I could not follow. I could have, could have broken the wards trapping me inside the cave easily, but I also didn’t want to crowd you or press you when you didn’t want to be pressed. I would do what I could to cheer you, thinking that you cried because you feared your mother’s anger or because you didn’t think I’d be willing to marry you after all this, but your sadness had a deeper source.
And I eventually found out what it was.
You slept cradled in my arms one night, naked as I liked you, and limp and well-fucked as I liked you even more, and I was close to sleep myself when I felt something wet against my chest. I thought you might be crying in your sleep, and the idea was heartbreaking enough that I leaned back to check. But no, in the low light of the fire, your face was dry. I pulled back even more, nestling you carefully into the blankets and I would have missed it had the firelight not made it glisten.
A single drop of something golden-clear beading at the tip of your nipple.
I knew nothing of women and women’s bodies; my destiny from birth had been kings and war. When you told me that it wasn’t uncommon for you not to bleed for months at a time, in response to my observation that we hadn’t needed to curb our lusts for any monthly bleeding, I had no reason not to believe you. But even I knew only breeding women produced milk. I tugged the blanket down farther, shaping my hand to the curve of your belly. It was subtle—so subtle I’d missed it, thinking it just another curve added by our weeks of sleep and sex and eating the food left near our cave by the holy women who honored the Princess of Avalon—but now I knew. My babe grew there.
For a short moment, I was elated. I can’t even tell you how joyful. I loved you and I’d created a child inside you—what further happiness could I ever grasp at? And perhaps finally you’d consent to marry me, despite my strange position at court and lack of land.
Then you woke. “What is it?” you asked, all dozy and flush-cheeked with sleep.
I ducked my head and licked the sweet milk from your breast. “You’re breeding,” I said hoarsely, happily. “You carry my child.”
You froze then, blinking fast, and your hand came up to cover your breast.
“Nimue?” I asked, puzzled, and you wrapped yourself in a blanket and stood. You were crying, but your voice was curiously wooden when you said, “I wondered when you would notice.”
“You should have told me,” I said gently. “Is this what’s been troubling you? Of course I’ll marry you, little moon. It’s been fated to be so; I dreamt of you when you were born, you know. The moonlight spoke in your voice, and the moment I first glimpsed you at court, I knew. Come back to bed, and let me prove to you that fate was right.”
You winced. “You can’t marry me, Merlin.”
“I know I have no land or titles, but if I ask, Arthur will—”
“No,” you grated out. “You can’t marry me because I’m already married.”
I stared at you, unable to understand. Or maybe unwilling.
“Don’t you see?” you said, pressing your face into your hands. “Mother made me marry Pelleas in secret months ago. It’s his child. Everything I told you was a lie.”
“But…then…why…”
You looked at me with something like pity. “Can you not guess?”
And then you went down to the sea, and this time, I could not follow because I couldn’t break the wards.
My power was gone.
You didn’t return until the next day, and when you did, Queen Nyneve was with you.
I sat on a small outcrop just on the inside of the cave. I’d been waiting for you to return, watching the rocky approach to our little domicile, not sure if I was going to roar at you like a wounded bear or beg you to stay, only knowing I needed to see you again. I was like a starving man wanting just one more crumb—no matter that the crumb was poisoned. I missed you, I ached for you, even as I felt I could hate you for being married to another, for stealing my power. And most of all, for planning to leave.
I knew I l
ooked pathetic sitting there—forlorn and bitter and without the strength my magic used to give me—but I didn’t care. I just wanted to see your face and hear your voice.
And then there you were, dark hair blowing in the wind, blue eyes red-rimmed, that merry mouth pulled into a frown I couldn’t help but regret.
“Well done,” Nyneve told you when she saw me, and you looked miserable. Despite everything you’d done to me, I wanted to comfort you, to pull you into my arms and tell you I would make everything right.
