AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes, my prince?”
Mordred sank into a chair by a table, staring down at a map of Avalon. Picking up a small iron statue of Grinn, he placed it at the foot of the mountain, where the main entrance to the caverns was located. “You will be freed within the week.”
The Knight in Gold sounded doubtful but did not argue. “What are my orders?”
Good man. He knew not to ask for the details, as they did not matter. “Gather the other knights. Prepare them for a march on horseback. We cannot take our dragons, as we cannot alert the bastard. I will split my forces. They will block the other exits so he cannot retreat.”
“Will the six of us suffice?”
“Sixteen. Lady Thorn has decided to join us. For a price.”
The stretch of silence between them told Mordred all he needed to know. Galahad understood the price that Lady Thorn must have asked for. And it seemed he did not wish to pry further. “Shall I send Zoe a message to meet us there?”
“Yes.”
Galahad hesitated for a moment but said nothing else before he departed from the tent. Mordred shut his eyes, and let the reality of it all slowly sink in. He was going to die. But so would the bastard Grinn.
And he could rest well with that knowledge.
One thought would not leave him, would not stop troubling him. He was more and more certain that he had done the right thing by sending his firebird away. Her suffering would be lessened if she did not know his fate. It was cruel, yes—but the less cruel of the two options.
Such was the way of his existence.
Always performing the lesser of two evils.
Forgive me, Gwendolyn.
ELEVEN
Even with the constant jostling of the cart and the creak of the wheels, Gwen nodded off. She’d hoped her nap would be peaceful. Normal.
Nope.
But it wasn’t Mordred’s dreams she found herself in. Wherever she had suddenly found herself—it wasn’t Avalon. Not because the landscape was any weirder than anything she had seen on the island, but because the sky was entirely wrong.
Because it was purple.
Solid purple.
With black clouds.
To say that it was a little fucked up would be to put it mildly.
That was before she considered the fact that the trees weren’t trees at all, but enormous, glowing mushrooms. They stretched a hundred feet above her like evergreens. This must be how Alice would have felt. Jeez. She didn’t like how small it made her feel, even if the rest of the strange, jungle-like environment was exactly how she would have expected it. Ferns, vines, other smaller trees and shrubs. Just purple sky, black clouds, and enormous goddamn super-mushrooms.
“Where the hell am I?”
Something told her that was exactly where she was, however. Hell. She wasn’t sure how she knew. She just did. Probably because if she was in someone else’s dreams, she knew because they knew.
And if she was in hell?
There was only one person who could be responsible for this.
Letting out a heavy sigh, she started walking down a trail through the overgrowth. The air was filled with chirps and animal cries that she didn’t recognize. She supposed this was better than fields of lava with screaming, tortured souls—or some sort of Martian wasteland. She hadn’t really thought too much about what hell must look like.
Rounding a corner, she heard voices. She ducked close to the tree, not wanting to be seen yet. What she saw was even more surprising and strange than the giant mushrooms and purple-black sky.
It was Grinn.
