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Avalon had fallen into a deep winter. The trees she passed bore bare branches. The fruit died on the vine. Snow fell in patches a foot deep sometimes, and on the shore there were small floes of ice. Ice coated the dock where ships would have once made berth, and Avalon slipped more than once mounting the stairs into the forest; but now all of that was no longer an issue, for she stood inside the walls of the chapterhouse, and the ceiling was shattered in places but mostly it was whole. Snowflakes drifted down to form small mounds below the hole in the ceiling.

“I’m here,” she said, her voice dull. Somewhere here, in this place, there would be her ancestor. Somewhere here would be that hell-bird, Arawn. But hopefully they would not find her before she found what she was looking for.

Avalon’s boots clicked on the floor, where they did not swish through the dust and snow, as she traversed the sept towards the long table. Dead brown and gray vines poked holes through stone and seemed to reach for her feet as she passed, and she closed her eyes tight, ignoring them as best she could. In the fall of Earth, so long ago, this place had been broken, shattered, ruined. She nearly twisted an ankle on a beam from a destroyed pew--or perhaps it had been a bench, or a table. Who could ever know?

She stopped before the one whole piece of furniture in the chapel: a long table, at which a skeleton had collapsed into the seat of a throne. A brittle piece of dingy fabric still hung from the tabletop, anchored by dusty and rusted dishware. Avalon ran a finger around the inside edge, exposing elaborate knotwork and runic writing that she could not read. “Arcelite,” she repeated, lowly, into her crystal.

“You,” said a familiar, echoing voice behind her. Avalon jerked straight up, and turned towards the voice.

There was the familiar face of her ancestor, a barely-corporeal ghost whose feet faded just before they touched the ground. Her hair hung back in a long ponytail, dark as the night sky overhead. Her robes--she had never been more than a squire, Avalon remembered, never more than a child--fluttered in the breeze, but in the wrong direction. “Nimue,” she said.

Avalon forced her feet to move, rounded the dais to the other side of the table, which did not dissuade the ancient memory from following her. “You’re corrupted,” said Nimue, and Avalon did not think she was imagining the glee and disgust in the other Avalon knight’s voice. “You gave up. You’re a monster, now, no Avalon knight in the history of the Wonder has corrupted--you’ve failed.”

She bared her teeth at the ghost, and turned towards the seat. What she was looking for was here, it had to be. It called to her, that sing-song in the back of her head, louder now that she stood so close to the core of her wonder. Arthur my king lay dying, his golden crown was broken… came three witches on eagle’s wings to carry him home to Avalon.

The General didn’t realize she had spoken aloud until she heard the soft coo of an owl, and looked up to see the great white face of Arawn inches away from hers. He hooted, softly, and sidled along the table. His wicked claws left gouges in the table, gouges in the cloth, and Avalon finally found what she was looking for beneath the throne.

Another sword, in a sheath.

“Put that down,” said Nimue suddenly, all joy gone out of her voice.

“No,” said Avalon, and she took hold of the sword’s hilt, levered it up just so. “I don’t think I will, Nimue.”

The ancient squire took a step forward and grabbed for the sword, but her hand passed through it as it ever had. “Put it down,” said Nimue. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I think I do,” she said, and she drew the sword in one smooth motion.

In Avalon’s hands, the blade was uncommonly bright, formed of light and stardust and the glimmer of moonlight off the sea. In her mind, the name of the blade was whispered, and she looked up to Nimue for only a moment. She had found it--she had found what they had needed her to find. It’d taken hardly any time at all, and in the end, it made sense.

Excalibur had been forged on Avalon. It was only right that, in the end, the blade would be the heart of its homeland.

It is time, a voice whispered inside Avalon’s head. Are you ready?

Ready or not, the power slammed into Avalon like a tidal wave, painful and cold; and in reaction, the sword blazed brighter, blindingly bright. Metallia’s darkness surged through Avalon’s starseed, through her and into the heart of her wonder. Avalon screamed, a pure high note of pain, one that startled the owl into flight--and then, in a moment, it was over.

Avalon stood still as a statue, surrounded by a pale green crystal, golden threads pulsing through it. In her hands, she still clutched the sword.

She did not move. She did not think. General Avalon was, for all purposes... gone.