Goddess of Legend Read Free

isle in the middle of her mystical lake. She’d willingly become his lover. As a goddess, she couldn’t conceive of not being able to heal that which the world had broken inside him.
    “I could have healed him, had it not been for that wretched Arthur!” she cried. Her angry words made the usually placid waters of the lake begin to roil, and their cool blue depths darkened ominously as the morning light became veiled. Viviane frowned, lifted her hand and, bringing her temper under control, flicked her fingers out at the lake and commanded, “Darkness, be gone! Whether my anger is stirred or not, you are not welcome in my realm!”
    Instantly the waters obeyed her. They quieted and the darkness that had begun to stain them dissipated like dew in the noonday sun. Viviane stared out at the familiar waters, disturbed more than she liked to admit by the swiftness with which the depths had reacted to her temper. Darkness had actually touched her lake—that was alarming.
    “Balance of light and dark? Bah!” Viviane hurled the word into the mist, but this time the reaction to her outburst was under her control, and the water-thickened air around her swirled and shimmered in reflection of the goddess’s power. “There is no balance when one mortal can draw so much darkness that my realm is even tainted.”
    I should be honest with myself, she thought as she began to pace back and forth along the moss-lined bank. It isn’t as simple as focusing my anger on the king of the Britons. Guinevere plays a role in this tragedy. As does the all-too-perfect knight, Lancelot. The goddess grimaced.
    Merlin hadn’t shared many of Camelot’s secrets with her. He’d said she was his escape, his respite from pain, and so he didn’t wish to speak of those dark things, but the Lady of the Lake had eyes and ears everywhere there was water, and she had certainly seen and heard enough to know that Merlin’s direful predictions were going to come true.
    “And that truth broke your heart, my love,” she whispered to the mist.
    No! She wouldn’t allow it. She was a goddess. She had powers mortals couldn’t begin to comprehend, not even a mortal as spectacular as her Merlin.
    Viviane stopped pacing and stared out at the familiar waters of her home. “I need someone not of this time—not of this place. Someone who has a unique way of seeing people and situations, who embraces light instead of darkness and who will also not be awed by the beauty of Camelot, nor too dazzled to consider ...” Consider what? What was it she needed to do to change the future enough to save Arthur from his tragic fate and thus free her lover?
    Her lover . . . Viviane felt her shoulders slump and she pressed her face in her hands and wept bitterly. She missed him already and had to struggle with herself not to rush back to the crystal cave and sit beside his still form. Her breath caught on a sob. She was a goddess, but she was also a woman, and a brokenhearted one at the loss of her Merlin. Even her realm—that which had given her such thorough pleasure for eons—seemed somehow less now. Nothing meant as much without—
    Viviane’s head came up. “That’s it! Arthur may lose everything, but if he still has his love, his Guinevere, then his heart will not be broken and his fate will change.” Excitedly, the goddess began to pace again. “That is what I must do. I must find a woman—a spectacular woman from another time, another place, and bring her here to seduce Lancelot from Guinevere so that Guinevere returns to Arthur and is balm to his wounded soul!” All would be well. Merlin would awake and, she decided, would make love to her as he’d never done before. Oh, how she already missed the lovemaking. A magician in truth Merlin was, in more ways than any of those dolts at Camelot could possible imagine.
    Resolutely Viviane moved to the edge of the water, so that her bare feet were caressed by the kiss of the waves meeting the bank. She raised her arms