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“He is Charles Lancaster. I am Sebastian Alexander. I know no magic. I don’t know why you think I am this Mordred.” He scrunched up his face. “What a ghastly name.”
Gawaine wasn’t listening to him but kept looking over Arthur. It had to be as obvious to Gawaine as it had been to him. If he found Merlin and Mordred in a room with another guy who could perform magic, he’d guess that guy was King Arthur, too.
“She said you might be with Merlin,” Gawaine told them with a grin. “She was correct. Luke, go get the queen.”
“No,” Sebastian heard Arthur say softly.
“Do you know how long we have been looking for you?” Gawaine told him with a fierce yet joyous grin.
Sebastian pulled Noelle closer. He had to help Arthur. What was he capable of and would Noelle hate him when it was all over? He tried to give Arthur a reassuring look, but he had no idea how powerful this Morgan was.
“Maybe she won’t try to kill you,” Noelle told him. “You are her son, after all.”
“She will try to kill Arthur.”
“Yes,” she whispered, folding her arms across her chest. “You can’t let her. You can’t let it end the way it did before.”
“You know the stories?” he asked.
“Yes, most people do.”
“Who is she?” Gawaine demanded, pointing to her.
“She is with me,” Sebastian told him. “Touch her and die.”
The knight smiled. “Why do you defend her so, Mordred? What will you do?”
Arthur assured him there was nothing to smile about. There wasn’t a more powerful sorcerer alive than Mordred.
Noelle tugged his sleeve. “Is it true?”
He was about to tell her he didn’t know, when the air grew thick with the smell of apples. Arthur looked toward the left, where the dazzling Christmas tree was, and the slight rift in the air that split it down the middle.
Instinctively, he moved closer to his son.
Sebastian let him stand between them for a moment, liking the fact that Arthur had wanted to protect him, and not hurt him. The man who raised him had never cared about Sebastian’s safety.
The rift opened and the knight Gawaine had called Luke rode toward them on his horse. Behind him, a woman rode bareback on a black stallion, her horse’s mane snapping across her thighs.
His mother. Her skin was alabaster white against her loose black hair waving behind her like a flag. Her eyes were large and greener than a fresh spring day. Like his, they slanted upward at the outer edges. Her cheekbones were high, and her mouth carved like that of a statue. She was beautiful, like a cold empress, dismounting and walking toward them.
She wore a green gown made of some kind of mesh fabric with silk leaves sewn in to cover her private parts and more. She glided rather than walked and Sebastian wondered if Arthur was affected by her.
“Mordred,” she spoke, and her voice was like music. Was she already trying to weave a spell on him? “My son. He has kept you from me long enough.”
This was real. It was happening. He was Mordred Pendragon.
When Arthur, who was blocking her path, didn’t move out of her way, she waved her arm and he flew across the room.
Sebastian held out his arm and spoke words he instinctually knew, slowing Arthur’s flight so that he landed softly into a wooden table.
“Do you know how long I have searched for you, Mordred?”
“’Tis Sebastian,” he corrected.
“No.” She shook her head and reaching him, she lifted her hand to his face. “You are my Mordred.”
He said a single word. “Stop.” And she did. Her hand remained frozen in the air near his face.
