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His hands clenched into fists. “He was not yet dead before the knights turned upon me. They thought that if I died, perhaps the magic would try again. That it would rightly choose Arthur. That it had picked me by mistake. Like lightning finding the incorrect path to ground. And there was some part of me that believed them.” He sneered. “But the other part of me was greedy. I wish I could say that it was simply my desire to continue living that bade me to strike them all down. But it was not. I saw the chance for the throne ahead of me—to rule the magic of Avalon—and I wished to take it. I wished to exit the shadow of my uncle and become something of myself. To prove that I was not simply his lesser.”
Gwen held perfectly still, rapt in his words, as Mordred walked up to the dais, his boots heavy on the marble floor, his steps echoing off the stone walls in the dreary crypt.
“I sought to save this world in the only way I knew how. With the only tool at my disposal. I tried compassion. I tried diplomacy. But the death and the chaos that the elementals rained upon the populace of Avalon could not be tolerated.” He shook his head.
The leather of his gauntlets creaked as he clenched his fists somehow tighter. “Now, I shall make my last stand. I shall lay down my life to protect Avalon from the demon—to do that which no one else is willing to do. And I shall do it, not because I despise the demon—but because my honor shall not allow me to do otherwise.”
Finally, he reached the side of Arthur’s sarcophagus, molten, rusted, iron eyes focusing on the features of the dead king’s representation. “I hated him for most of my life, Gwendolyn. And no small part of me still does. I was never my own self. I was never Mordred. I was his nephew. The usurper. The shadow that haunted him. The unwanted. The prince who would never be king. Every waking moment of my life has been judged in comparison to him.”
“Not by me.”
Her voice sounded so small in the chamber. And for a moment, she didn’t even realize she had said the words out loud. She hadn’t really meant to. It had just happened. Her eyes stung with tears she blinked back.
Mordred smiled, if mournfully. “I love you, Gwendolyn.” He opened his arms to her. She hugged him, which still felt like hugging a Buick, but whatever. He held her, kissing the top of her head. “And I shall go to my grave, grateful to fate that it saw fit to deliver me you, even if I could not keep you for long.”
“What if…” She wanted to say, What if I’m not really gone? What if I’m really on the island, and I’m now some sort of witch-thing, and we can be together, if we can just get Grinn to agree to stop being an asshole? Which, okay, is like asking the sun not to shine, but you did that once before, so?—
She held it all back. While Mordred sounded defeated and resigned, she knew better, deep down. If he realized there was another player on the board that he might be able to use to win, he wouldn’t hesitate. He was, above all, a warlord, and a military general. He wanted to win. And he wanted to win by the largest, safest margin possible. Wouldn’t she, in his situation?
Yeah. Yeah, she would.
She’d also be scratching at the walls trying to find a way out of whatever shady deal he had made with the elementals to stand trial. But she knew that no small part of his acceptance of death was the fact that he believed she was on Earth.
Which she wasn’t.
Which made her feel like a total shit-heel.
But she didn’t know what else to do.
“What if there’s another way?” She held onto him a little tighter.
“I have made my deal with Lady Thorn. I am not one to go back on my word.”
Oh great. Her. “I don’t like her. At all.”
“Have you met?” He crooked a clawed finger under her chin to tilt her head toward him.
Fuck. “Uh—no. I mean, I just don’t like the sound of her.” She kicked herself internally for nearly screwing that up and then coming up with the worst cover line ever.
“Hm.” He shrugged. “She does what she feels she must. She has lived an unkind life. And I have made it worse, I fear.”
“I don’t want you to die, Mordred.”
“I know. And for that, again, I am grateful beyond words. But if I must join the demon in the grave to see the threat he poses removed from Avalon, so be it. It is something I should have done a long time ago.” He smiled faintly.
“But you have a whole army. You’re Mordred. You have iron. Why do you need more help against Grinn?”
He chuckled. “You do not know the extent of that mad creature’s power. Or the lengths that he will go to for victory. I do not wish to scorch the world to save it—he owns no such restraint. To make matters worse, the caves in which he hides are like a spider’s web of connecting tunnels that link to a dormant volcano. If I do not have the means to smoke him out and ensure that I can strike quickly, he will retreat, and likely do the unthinkable. Armies are capable of a great many things, but swift attacks are not one of them.”
She hated how much sense that made. And that he’d already predicted Grinn’s plan to blow up the volcano. “So…you get Zoe to hurt you and bait the trap. Then Lady Thorn and her crew jump in to help take Grinn out?”
“Precisely.”
“Fuck.” It was a good plan. Grunting, she shut her eyes. “I hate this. I hate this so much.”
“I wished to spare this from you. I wish we could have continued in our dreams as if nothing was wrong. I would have quietly vanished one night, and you would have been left to think that the magic that bound us simply faded. But you ask too many questions.”
“What is the magic that’s binding us, anyway?”
