AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Goodbye, demon.” Mordred lifted his sword, ready to drive it through Grinn’s throat and end it.
“No—no—please!” Gwen couldn’t help it. She couldn’t. Before she even knew what she was doing, her feet had moved and she was standing between Mordred and Grinn, holding her hands up to try to stop the Prince in Iron. “Please, you win—you win, he’s defeated—stop!”
Mordred’s chest was heaving with a desperate attempt to catch his breath as he stared down at her from behind the dark sockets of his helm. He looked like something from a nightmare as well. A demon and a dark lord, fighting to the death. There were no knights in shining armor here. There was no good guy.
Well, okay, but Galahad didn’t count.
“Please—” she begged. “Please, don’t kill him.”
Grinn laughed from where he lay, half-collapsed behind her, one paw-like hand pressed over his face where his only good eye had been destroyed. “Foolish, naive child. Let him end it. I am sick of this. Sick of all of you.”
“Get out of the way, Gwendolyn.” Mordred shifted his grip on his sword. “The demon must die.”
There had to be another way. There had to be. She shook her head no. “I won’t let you do this. He’s blinded now. He’s harmless.”
“Harmless? Harmless? He is not your cat, Gwendolyn! He is not your friend! He never has been!” Mordred pointed at Grinn. “Look at him—do you think he will stop? Do you think he will not seek to find a way to destroy us all? To destroy you, along with the rest of us?” Mordred’s hand tightened into a fist. “Step aside. This ends now.”
Grinn was laughing, low and sarcastic and mocking. It wasn’t helping her case.
But it just felt wrong. Wrong down to her soul that Grinn was going to die. “No.”
Mordred paced away, clearly irate. “I would think you were in league with him if I could not attribute this to your childishness. You have one last chance, Gwendolyn, to step aside of your own volition.”
“Or what?” Now she was getting angry. “You’ll make me?”
“Yes. If that is what it takes.” He turned to face her, some ten feet away. “Step aside.”
“Go away, stupid girl.” Grinn lowered himself down to the ground, surrendering. “You can’t win here.”
“I don’t care.” She clenched her fists at her sides. “This isn’t right. And I’m not a child or a stupid girl.” She glared at Mordred. “I won’t let you kill him.”
“Very well.” Mordred squared his shoulders. “I fear I must tell you a secret of my own, Gwendolyn. The magic I embedded in you? I only meant for it to bind us. However—” He lifted his clawed gauntlet. “It has other uses as well.”
“Wh—” She never got the rest out.
Her mind went white as pain seared through her like she had been plugged into a live socket. She heard screaming, and it took her a second to realize it was her voice doing it. She fell to her knees, then to her elbows, as spots appeared in her vision.
When the pain finally let up, she could barely breathe. Everything ached and tingled. It was like she had been struck by lightning.
And Mordred had done that to her.
The shock of it was almost as bad as the pain.
Almost.
Grinn was laughing, defiant and mocking, as Mordred walked past her, his sword lifted.
“No—” She couldn’t see straight. She could barely move. And she couldn’t stop the Prince in Iron as he drove his blade deep into Grinn’s chest.
The demon howled once, in agony.
Mordred wrenched the blade from the demon, blood the color of tar oozing from the wound. The fatal wound.
Grinn was dying.
“No!” Something in her took over. Something else. Through her grief, something in her simply snapped. Forcing herself back up to her feet, she felt power surge through her. She gestured at Mordred, honestly unsure of what she was even doing, until columns of iron shot up from the ground and smashed into the prince, sending him flying.
Mordred hit the ground hard, grunting in pain as he rolled to a stop.
