Chapter 10 - An Overdue Conversation

"You asked to see me, Professor?" she asked as the last of her classmates filtered out of the room.

"You can just call me Nimueh when we're alone, child." The address made her stiffen. It was condescending, and not to mention overly-familiar. Morgana did not appreciate being spoken to like that. "No need to be so formal," the Defence Professor added with a smile, as if her reaction had amused her.

"I don't think that's appropriate, Professor," she replied, stressing the final word to make her point.

"Come now, Morgana," Professor Nimueh goaded, "We're family after all."

"Family?" she asked sharply. Why was this the first she was hearing of this? Of course the thought had occurred to her but -

"Morgana Le Fay, Nimueh Le Fay . . . well surely you aren't that stupid, child."

But, "I thought it was a coincidence," she told her. "Or just some connection because of our shared -" Nope. She cut her sentence off quickly, her mind spinning with a way to innocuously end her sentence that wasn't a dead give away for how much she knew.

She didn't know anything about who Nimueh was - past or present. She couldn't afford to reveal so much about herself and what she remembered without any assurances from the woman.

"Oh, because of our shared history, you mean?" Nimueh asked, interrupting her thoughts, sounding far too casual about the whole situation.

Morgana could not keep the shock out of her expression. She had spent the last few months exhausting herself by keeping everything inside. Other than a few vague remarks to Arthur that he wouldn't be able to decipher until he regained his own memories, she had suffered silently and entirely on her own. She had been dealing with her guilt and her fears and her nightmares without anyone to turn to.

So you would have to forgive her for not being able to control her expression as a stranger talked about their 'shared history' so cavalierly. Especially when Morgana had no idea exactly what history they shared.

"Oh, don't pull that face, you were so obvious about it," Nimueh said with a roll of her eyes. "Though I am wondering whether the little Pendragon remembers. He was so feisty in his lesson, but the poor boy seemed more confused than afraid." Her voice was almost pitying, to the point where it sounded more like mocking.

Morgana tensed. "Don't you so much as think of hurting Arthur, or I'll -"

"You'll what, you silly child?" Nimueh asked, cutting her off. Though she did not give Morgana the time to scramble for a response. "You have no more of a connection to the Old Religion than I do right now, which means all you have is the ordinary magic of a twelve year old girl." She smirked. "Not very threatening, is it?"

Morgana grit her teeth at the insinuation that she was powerless. She had never been powerless. "I almost had Uther assassinated before I ever realised I had magic," she warned. "Do not underestimate me."

The woman asked, looking almost giddy with facinaction. "Really?" She grinned. "Then why ever didn't you go through with it?"

Morgana had no suitable answer to this question. She remembered sitting with Uther at her father's grave, listening to him apologise for Tom's death, and truly believing that he was sorry. She had felt so loved at that moment. So understood. As though the man who had raised her was finally listening to her, trusting her.

And she had been a fool.

"Oh," Nimueh remarked, her voice sounding truly sympathetic this time as though she had been struck with a realisation that saddened her. "You really are a silly child." She sighed as if the knowledge personally disappointed her. "You loved him."

"I made sure he died in the end," Morgana said quickly. Defensively. She raised her head high. "I did what needed to be done."

"But it hurt you to kill him, didn't it? To know he died because of you?" She was asking, even though Morgana knew she already had the answer to her questions. "Even after you knew who you really were? Even when you knew he'd rather see you dead than see you for who you really are?"

The bafflement in her voice made the need to defend herself rise in Morgana. She knew it was complicated, her relationship with Uther. It always had been. In her final years she had hated him as much as she loved him. Missed him as much as she relished in his demise. And she had hated herself for it.

"He's not like that now," Morgana told her, possessed with a foreign desperation to make her understand. "He knows I have magic," she insisted. "He loves me."

"And if he remembered?" she asked.

Morgana said nothing.

"Do you think he would still love you, even then?"

Morgana thought of the countless hours she had spent torturing herself with the same question. What would he do? Would he care? Would he hate her? Would he declare war on magic once more?

"I don't . . ." know.

She didn't know. She didn't even know if she wanted to know. Was it not easier to live in ignorance? She could simply go about her life, knowing that she was loved for who she was.

. . . and live with the everlasting fear that it wasn't real.

"I changed," she defended. "When I remembered everything I had done, with hindsight and clarity, without the constant fear for my life clouding my judgement, I changed. I realised how horrible so much of it was." She took a deep breath. "And now I'm trying to fix it. I'm trying to mend things with Arthur. So he won't hate me when he remembers what I've done, how many I've killed . . . I'm trying to be better."

Nimueh scoffed. "And you think Uther Pendragon would do the same?" She asked scornfully. "Has he ever? In this life or the last, has he ever admitted that he was wrong?"

Morgana understood what she was saying. Uther was a prideful man. Truly, how likely would it be that he would admit to his past wrongdoings? But he had before. "Once," Morgana confided, her voice as prideful as her father's. "It was why I stopped the assassination that day. He said that he was sorry, and that he was wrong, and that if given the choice he would choose differently this time."

"And, let me guess," Nimueh speculated. "He continued to do whatever it was that drove you to end his life in the first place?"

Morgana could not contain her flinch as countless executions flashed before her eyes. The deaths of so many innocents on his words, on his orders. She remembered after she ran away to the druids, fearing for her safety, that Merlin had come after her with news that the king had a list of everyone who had even so much as crossed paths with the druids . . . and that he was planning on executing them all if she wasn't returned to Camelot.

Just as he had executed Tom for unknowingly working with a sorcerer.

He never even got a trial.

"He really wouldn't, would he?" she asked, distraught. God, she was so stupid. "He wouldn't change for me, he wouldn't change for anyone, not even for Arthur." It was stupid of her to ever think anything different could possibly happen.

"It's okay, Morgana," Nimueh said calmly. "You won't ever have to find out."

"What do you mean?" she asked, panic gripping her despite her recent realisation. "You can't kill him! He hasn't done anything! You can't kill him for a life he doesn't even remember?" she said desperately.

"I'm not going to kill him," she dismissed, standing, moving out of the reclined position she had been in for their whole conversation so far. "You needn't worry, child, it's already been taken care of."

"What's been taken care of?" she demanded. "And stop calling me 'child', you know better than anyone that I am a woman grown, and I expect you to treat me as such!"

"My, my, that royal attitude really does come out when you're angry, doesn't it?" she mocked.

"Stop dodging the question. What have you done to my father?"

"Is he your father?" she needled. "I know he was the last time around - one of Uther's many dirty little secrets I was privy to - but is he the same adulterous lech this time too?"

Morgana glared. She couldn't stand this woman.

"Oh, you poor thing," she mocked. "Do you not know who your daddy is?"

"Enough!" she shouted. "Tell me what you did."

"Fine," she shrugged with a roll of her eyes. "I was just trying to get to know my niece a bit better, but if you must know, I erased his memories."

"You mean . . ." she tried to comprehend, "that he remembered and you took it away?"

"No," she scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. His memories, just like everyone's memories, are already there in his brain. Yours were too, before something triggered them out of your subconscious and into the front of your mind. All I did was go and remove what he wasn't even aware of. Obliviate. It's such a useful spell. You know, I don't think we had anything quite so accurate back home. Sure, you could erase a man's mind, manipulate them into your puppet, make them forget their own name even . . . but nothing quite so subtle as to erase specific memories. You could write an entire person out of someone's memories and not have them notice a difference."

"That's sick," she said, horrified. She couldn't believe she was hearing this woman talk so casually about just erasing a person's mind.

"Maybe," Nimueh agreed. "But useful. And more importantly, it's effective."

Morgana shook her head. This was wrong. It was so wrong. What if the same had been decided for her? What if Merlin had remembered first, and had decided that Morgana was too much of a risk to let know who she really was? It would be horrible to go her whole life always missing a part of her.

No matter how traumatic it had been to remember all that she had done, it made her who she was. Nimueh had no right to take that from anyone.

"Now you get to keep your precious daddy who loves you for who you are - so sweet of him - and the monster he would become is gone, never to return," she gloated.

Morgana stared at her in horror.

"You're welcome," Nimueh said with a smile.

"Don't act like you did this for me," Morgana hissed.

"I did this for us all," Nimueh corrected, her sickeningly-sweet smile falling from her face. Behind her mask was nothing but a grim determination and eyes filled with anger. "You think you know what Uther Pendragon was like because you saw him execute a few innocents?" she asked, voice low and dangerous. "You have no idea what he was capable of. What he did to us. You were just a child when the purge began."

She laughed hollowly. "Thousands of our people were slaughtered on his orders. Men and women were burned. Children were drowned. Pregnant women cut through like cattle. None of it mattered to him. If they had even a hint of magic in them then they didn't deserve to live, not in his eyes. My sisters -!"

She cut herself off, the grief in her throat overwhelming her ability to speak.

Morgana could not help but pity her. She herself had lost much to Uther's tirade, but Nimueh was right, she could not imagine having lived through the purge at its height. She had heard the stories when she fled to the druids. There had been families torn apart, children barely escaping with their lives, being forced to choose between survival and a futile attempt to save those that were precious to you.

Morgana didn't know what it might have turned her into had she been forced to live through that.

"He tried to commit genocide against our people," Nimueh told her, voice dismayed and full of hate. "And he succeeded. Why do you think that magic has reverted to this weakened state where we need wands to be able to perform the most simple of magics, and only the extraordinary can go without? We had to reinvent our entire spell system, because our weaker magic could not sustain the power that the Old Religion required from us. Uther wanted to kill magic, and he did.

"Now we survive in its sickness, hiding in the shadows, afraid to let muggles even know we exist," she spat. "If I had chosen to kill him he would have deserved it, memories or no memories. His crimes have lasted far more than his two pathetic lifetimes, his punishments should be the same."

Morgana had no argument she could give. Truly, what could she possibly say in the face of all that their kind had lost to Uther Pendragon? That she loved him?

That would not atone for his crimes.

"So why didn't you?" she asked. "Why did you spare him?"

Nimueh moved out from behind her desk. For a moment Morgana thought that she would simply exit the room and leave Morgana with a hundred unanswered questions. But instead she simply walked around the room until she stopped in front of a random table.

"Emrys," she answered, her voice rough from all of the emotion that had just been poured out of it. She sounded empty now.

"Him?" Morgana asked incredulously. "Why would he care about what happens to Uther? And why do you care what he thinks?"

Nimueh sighed. "Do you really understand so little about what he is?"

He is my destiny and my doom, she wanted to say. But she wasn't so self-centered to think that that was the answer that Nimueh was looking for.

The Professor - because that was the role Morgana saw her slipping back into - turned back around to face her, resting against the desk she had inexplicably decided to stop in front of. "There's something in muggle science called the conservation of mass," she explained. Morgana stared at her blankly. "What it essentially means is that matter cannot be created or destroyed, only changed."

"What does that have to do with anything?" she asked, not even questioning the science. Uther may have had her and Arthur continuing their muggle education, but she certainly hadn't gotten to whatever that was.

"Think about the purge," Professor Nimueh instructed, apparently deciding not to just answer the question. "Thousands of sorcerers died. And not only regular sorcerers, but my sisters - High Priestesses - among them. What do you think happened to all of that magic?"

"It was destroyed," Morgana said automatically, the hours upon hours of Uther's lectures of his triumph over magic echoing through her head.

Nimueh stared at her as if she was an idiot. "Did you not listen to anything I just said?"

"Fine, it was lost then." Morgana said, having no idea what the difference was. "That's why our magic is weaker now, that's why we're so powerless."

"It is why we're weaker," Professor Nimueh agreed, "but the magic wasn't lost. All of that magic - the magic of a thousand sorcerers - went to a single baby . . . The son of a Dragon Lord. A child of Prophecy. So much magic that he became magic itself. As long as that magic lives, there's hope. It was Emrys's destiny to unite Albion under the Once and Future King. And together they would return magic to the land."

"Arthur," she breathed in realisation. How had she underestimated him all this time? "Merlin spent all of his time protecting Arthur so they could bring back magic together."

"Yes. And they failed," Nimueh said bluntly.

"Because of me," Morgana realised. "I hardened Arthur's heart to magic. He helped me save a druid boy, Mordred, before. He even knighted him. He was open to change. I should have seen it. I should have helped him."

Nimueh shook her head. "That was their destiny, not yours."

"You don't understand," she told her, shaking her head. How had she been so foolish?

"When Uther was dying, a spy in Camelot told me that Arthur was seeking out a sorcerer to heal his father. That was the moment." She knew without a doubt that that sorcerer would have been Merlin in his ridiculous old-man disguise. He would have made sure that Arthur could have seen magic for all it could be. "Arthur could have seen magic being used for good. He would have repealed the ban - he was regent, he had the power to do it - but I ruined it. I had Agravaine place an amulet around Uther's neck. It would reverse any spell done on the wearer and increase it tenfold. My revenge ruined Merlin's plan."

Despite the fact that she had wanted it so badly, she was the reason that magic had remained outlawed in Camelot. She was the ruin of her own life's goal.

Nimueh hummed.

"What?" Morgana snapped, nerves raw from her realisation.

"Well, I did wonder why you were brought back," she mused casually. "As penance or as aid."

"What do you mean?" Morgana asked tiredly, sick of this woman talking her in circles, and yet not willing to leave and give up on the chance for more information.

"Arthur is the Once and Future King, so he was always meant to return. And Emrys quite literally means immortal, so Merlin was destined to be by his side when he did. But the rest of us? Friends and foes alike? What's our purpose here?" she asked, once more sounding like she already knew the answer.

"That doesn't make any sense," Morgana sighed. "Merlin isn't immortal. He's a child. He had parents. An uncle and aunt. He hasn't just been living all this time."

"No, he hasn't," she agreed. Then, "Do you know who his uncle is?"

"I can't say that I cared to ask," she said flatly, not even bothering to question where she was going with her questions this time.

"Well, I've been watching the Emrys family since my memories returned. When Balinor Emrys was born I wasn't surprised, that meant that it was just one more generation until Merlin himself would be here. Only then a few years later . . . the birth of Cenred Emrys was announced," she revealed smugly.

"King Cenred or Escetir?" she asked, in shock. There was no way that Merlin was related to royalty. She didn't care if he was the most powerful sorcerer to walk the earth, he was not royal.

"So it seems," Nimueh confirmed. "I was, admittedly, confused. You see, the Dragon Lords had no familial ties to the throne of Escetir." Morgana sighed in relief. "And I just could not understand why that worm had not only been gifted rebirth, but gifted a life so close to Emrys." Morgana had several opinions on proximity to Merlin being considered any sort of gift except a gag-gift. "And then, of course, Balinor and Hunith Emrys were tragically killed blah blah blah, before they even had the chance to raise their son. So Merlin was passed over to the care of a bitter squib who happily took his envy over his extraordinary brother out on an innocent child."

Morgana allowed herself to feel irked that her supposed 'aunt' had known what was happening to an 'innocent child' and done nothing to help the situation. "What does this have to do with anything?" she sighed.

"Cenred's purpose in this life finally made sense," she explained. "It was a punishment. Not his own, of course. That man barely left a scratch on history - any mark he left was as a tool in the hand of another. And so that is what he became once more: a tool. Destiny's tool. His sole purpose was to punish Emrys."

Well, after all Merlin had done to her, Morgana couldn't say that she was totally against the idea of him being punished. But she'd much rather him be aware of all he had done to ruin her life than be an unknowing child simply forced to suffer.

"He's being punished for failing his destiny?" she asked, since surely the Triple Goddess did not care enough for Morgana's suffering to punish her chosen child.

"In a way. But not in the way you're thinking."

No, of course not, she thought with a roll of her eyes, glaring at Nimueh when she noticed.

"Emrys," she said pointedly. "Immortal. He was supposed to wait for the Once and Future King." She snorted, "One day my prince will come."

Morgana could not even find it within herself to react to a Disney reference from this woman. She was so used to wizards simply not acknowledging the muggle world, that hearing Nimueh talk about science and cartoon princesses was completely absurd. And she no longer had the energy to deal with it.

"But he didn't," Nimueh carried on, uncaring of Morgana's bafflement. "You hear so many stories of great wizards trying to cheat death, well this one tried to cheat life. I suppose he didn't want to wait a millennium all by himself. So instead he found a way to guarantee his rebirth at the same time as his king's. Even tried to let himself have a family, parents. But here's the funny thing about Balinor and Hunith Emrys . . . they're not Balinor and Hunith. Not the original ones, at least.

"Your mother and father - well, who we're assuming is your father for now - they aren't the same as your first parents, because destiny doesn't deem them necessary. Balinor and Hunith are not supposed to be necessary because Merlin was never supposed to be reborn as a child. And so he was punished. Cenred was made necessary by Merlin's actions. Because he tried to cheat. He didn't want to suffer fifteen-hundred years of solitude, so instead he was made to suffer a childhood of abuse and neglect."

"You're saying he deserved it?!" she asked furiously.

"I'm saying destiny demanded it," Nimueh corrected, though she didn't look like she disagreed too much with Morgana's question.

Perhaps she wasn't the only one with a grudge?

"It's not right," she said.

Nimueh sighed tiredly, as if she was the frustrated one in this conversation. "Destiny is a cruel mistress. We both know that, Morgana."

"So that's what you meant by purpose? We were all brought back because we had some sort of effect on history, on Merlin's choices, to either help or hinder him."

"Yes, but, once again, not quite." Morgana was getting so sick of this whole discussion. She just wanted to sleep and be done with Nimueh. "You're still attributing our presence now to our decisions then. Which may be the case for some, but not all of us. Think of Princess Elena, do you truly believe that she made some great mark on the world? I mean, she was a sweet girl, but not much more. But here and now? A young woman, from a well-received background, with a lifetime's memories of politics and ruling a country . . . that makes quite the ally for Emrys."

"Aid or penance," Morgana mused. She supposed it all made some sort of bastardised sense. "So what am I here for? Am I here to help him or am I here as punishment? And if so, who's? My punishment or his?"

"That's the question."

Morgana rolled her eyes at the non-answer. "Which are you?" she questioned. Because somehow she still couldn't tell if she was dealing with someone who wanted to help Merlin or hurt him.

"I believe the answer to that question will depend on Emrys," she replied cryptically.

"That's not an answer," Morgana protested.

"I believe it is," she said with finality.

"Fine," Morgana conceded through gritted teeth. "Then do you mean to harm him?"

"Do you care?" she dodged.

"Stop answering my questions with questions," she said frustratedly.

"I'm being serious," she insisted. "Do you care? In your little crusade to win back your beloved brother and redeem yourself for your past mistakes, where does Emrys fit in? He will always remain by Arthur's side. The only way you'd be getting rid of him would be to kill him. And, of course, you couldn't do that now; you're trying to prove that you've changed. But if someone else was to do it? If he was simply removed from the equation . . . ? Would you care?"

Would she care? Morgana wasn't sure of the answer.

Merlin had done so much to hurt her. He had been the first person she trusted with the secret of her magic and he had betrayed her. Not only by poisoning her, but by never telling her about his own magic in return. If she had known from the start then she could have helped him with Arthur. She had still loved them all so very much before he went and tried to kill her. Because if she couldn't trust Merlin - someone she knew had never hated magic - not to turn on her, then how could she have ever trusted Arthur when he was still just Uther's puppet?

But did that mean he deserved to die?

The correct answer was no. She knew that.

But how did she feel?

"You would be relieved," Nimueh told her. "It's okay, you can admit it."

"He means so much to Arthur," she protested weakly. Because really, how could she feel relieved by something that would cause someone she loved so much pain? She wouldn't. She couldn't.

"Yes. That's how Arthur feels, not how you feel, child."

"Don't call me that," she protested distractedly. She stopped for a moment to think about it, really think about it.

"I don't want to see him dead," she admitted eventually.

Nimueh regarded her closely for a few moments before sighing. Morgana could not tell whether it was in frustration or relief.

"No," she said eventually.

"Excuse me," Morgana said, hackles rising. What, was she just refusing to accept Morgana's answer?

"The answer to your question," she explained, sounding almost bored. "It's 'no'. No, I don't mean to harm him. Do you know, I only realised just what he was only shortly before my death. I offered him the chance to work together," she sighed. "Apparently, he didn't like my methods, because his answer was to kill me instead."

"Who were you?" Morgana pressed, taking in the new information. "I know your name from the legends but I don't remember you from Camelot."

Nimueh seemed to draw herself up as he recounted, "I was a High Priestess of the Old Religion."

Morgana gaped. "You were Morgause's teacher," she realised. "She said she returned to the Isle of the Blessed to your ashes by the altar. She never found out what happened to you." Apparently Merlin had happened to her. "She only knew that you were dead and that the Cup of Life was missing. We found out later that the druids had it, but she said that that never made sense because the druids were far too peaceful to kill you for it, and even if they weren't they never could."

Nimueh regarded her thoughtfully. It was clear that this was new information to her and Morgana wondered just how much she knew about what happened in Camelot after her death. She had clearly had years to research, but how many credible sources were there really about events that happened over a thousand years ago.

"So she told you about me, but not my name? Interesting," she commented.

"Is she here?" Morgana asked desperately, the realisation fully hitting her that Nimueh knew her sister. "Morgause? Is she here? You've been around longer than I have. Surely you would know if she was?"

"Ah yes," Nimueh said lightly. "My niece."

"She was your niece?" Did that mean atht Morgana had been related to her back in Camelot too?

"Not then, now," she explained, waving her hand casually. "Morgause Le Fay. My niece. Your aunt."

Le Fay. All of them. Three generations of Le Fay women for the last three High Priestesses of the Old Religion. She wondered what it might have been like to learn from Nimueh, right by her sister's side. "So that makes you my great aunt?"

"Of course not; that makes me sound far too old," she admonished. "Though it is technically correct," she conceded with a look on her face that promised revenge if Morgana ever dared to call her by the title.

"I have family," she said flatly. "Magical family? Why have I never met either of you?"

Why did you leave me to Uther if you knew who he was?

"Your mother was a squib," she said, as if that justified ignoring Morgana's existence for the last twelve years. "And one smart enough to distance herself from the wizarding world. Even smarter, though, to ensure that her child carried her maiden name. As you know, names and blood . . . they mean a lot in the wizarding world. She knew there was a chance you would be born with magic and so she gave you the best chance she could. I'm sure had she lived she would have put us in contact. But I, quite frankly, didn't know you even existed until you came up while I was keeping an eye on Uther."

"And you didn't think you should introduce yourself?" she said angrily, not quite sure why she was protesting so much. She didn't even like the woman. She might be a well of information, but she was kind of a bitch.

"And force myself to interact with Uther without killing him? Absolutely not," she scoffed. "Besides, I knew I was coming to teach at Hogwarts once Emrys was a student here. With the turnaround of Defence Against the Dark Arts professors I knew I'd get the job sooner or later," she shrugged, "Our meeting could wait until then.

"Of course, then I saw you and realised we had so much more in common than family ties. You remembered. And that put you in a unique situation to be either extremely helpful or an awful hindrance. I needed to see where you stood, and the best way to get an honest reaction is to throw you off guard and then ask questions. Which is the only reason I've been revealing so much information," she smirked. "You've been telling me so much more."

"Where is my sister?" she asked again, deciding to ignore all of that, because she really couldn't find it in herself to care right now that she hadn't been keeping control of her emotions or reactions like a Slytherin - like royalty - ought to do. She just wanted her sister. She loved Arthur, she truly did, but it wasn't the same.

"Morgause?" Nimueh said blithely. "I'm afraid I don't know."

"Bullshit," Morgana accused. "You said she was your niece, how can you not know?"

"We lost touch," she said casually.

She was lying. Morgana knew she was lying. "You wouldn't let that happen," she said with certainty. "You've been watching Uther for years. You're here to spy on Merlin, or try to control him, or whatever. You're here, right now, trying to figure out whether or not I'm a threat. So I have no doubt you'll be doing the same to the others whether they realise it or not," she deduced. "You wouldn't just lose touch with her. Not with your little theory about everyone being brought back for a reason. You wouldn't risk it."

"Fine," she conceded with a pleased little smile, as if this had all been a test for Morgana to endure. "Yes, you're right, we didn't lose touch in the ordinary sense of the word."

She paused to look Morgana directly in the eyes. "I stopped paying attention after I erased her memories like I did to Uther."

"You what?" she all but screeched.

"It was necessary," Nimueh said calmly, way too calmly for someone who was about to get hexed.

"She was my sister!" she shouted. "I'll be nothing to her now. Just her squib-sister's daughter who she never cared to know!"

How had her sister been taken from her once more? Losing her had been one of the greatest pains of Morgana's life. And now, she was still out there, and yet lost to Morgana in an entirely different way.

"Is that really so different from what you were the first time around?" Nimueh said cavalierly.

"What?" Morgana demanded. How dare she say such a thing! Nimueh knew nothing about all they had been through together. Her sister had sacrificed herself for their dream. She had died so that Morgana could live on to succeed. Nimueh had no right to cheapen that sacrifice! No right to cheapen everything they shared! "She was my sister, she loved me!"

"Maybe," Nimueh shrugged carelessly. "Even so, she only loved you after she realised you had magic."

"That's not true," she defended furiously.

"Isn't it? Tell me then, where was she for the first twenty years of your life?" she pressed.

"I was in Camelot, she had magic, she would have been suicidal to go there!"

"And yet, she did go to Camelot, didn't she? To challenge Arthur?" Nimueh said snidely.

How would she know? She was dead by then, Morgana thought savagely.

"She didn't tell you then that you were sisters, did she?" she continued.

"She gave me my bracelet," Morgana told her. "She protected me."

"The bracelet that blocked your dreams? Your seer dreams that were a blessing from the Triple Goddess?"

"I was suffering from them, she helped me!"

"You needed training, not blinding," Nimueh criticised. "The truth is that Morgause only reached out to you when she realised you had magic in Camelot, when she realised you would make a useful tool. Or maybe an ally if we're being generous."

From their conversation so far Morgana knew that Nimueh was not in the habit of being generous.

"It doesn't matter!" she shouted. "It doesn't matter what you think! All that matters is that you took my sister from me!"

"It was too dangerous to risk her remembering!" Nimueh snapped, for the first time properly losing her own temper.

"Why?!" she demanded.

"Because she had joined the Dark Lord!"

"No," Morgana breathed.

She was lying. Morgana knew her sister, Morgause wouldn't support a man that was killing their own kind in the name of 'blood purity'.

It was a lie. It had to be.

"The last I heard about her . . . she died in his service."