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“I—” She couldn’t breathe. She forced herself to slow down. She put her hand atop Eod’s head, using the dog to ground her.
“It doesn’t matter. He’ll be dead soon. Most of the guards are out on the field. They’ll be dead with him. But you’ll need to get past the one at the door if you want to say goodbye.Peh.”He huffed. “Disgusting. I must go back to the field to fight the remaining knights.”
With that, the demon disappeared.
She gave herself a few seconds to slow her breathing. Otherwise, she’d make it two steps before collapsing in a heap. Tears were already clouding her vision when she went to the door and knocked on it. “Tim—Tim, it’s an emergency, please open up.”
The lock clicked and it swung open. The half-finished guard tilted his head at her in his silent question.
“Mordred is—Mordred is dying. I need to go see him. Please.” She moved to step forward.
Tim blocked her way, shaking his head with asqueak-squeak-squeak.
She wanted to scream. Threading her fingers into her hair, she clenched the strands, trying to use the sting to center herself. “Please, Tim. Please. I need to see him. I need to.”
Another shake of his head.
She was still chained and shackled. She couldn’t force the matter. She couldn’t jump out the window and fly away. She had to get past Tim.
There was only one card she had left to play.
One thing she could try.
But it meant she would have to say it aloud.
Shutting her eyes for a moment, tears streamed down her cheeks. Her words were almost broken in a sob.Please, no, don’t let me lose him. I don’t know if I can take it.“Tim, I—I love him. Please. Let me at least say goodbye. Let me at least tell him how I feel. He doesn’t know.”
A small clank as Tim’s shoulders sank. He looked down the hallway for a moment, then back to her, then back down the hallway. He sighed, breathlessly as it was…and then began to half run half walk down the hall toward the entrance. He waved at her to follow.
She followed eagerly, grateful for the escort. The other few guards who were stationed through the keep watched them as they passed, but with Tim leading the way, none of them moved to stop her.
They would all be gone when Mordred died. Maewenn and Tim with them.
Eod had run ahead, barking and snarling, ready to join the fray. She was worried sick about the dog, but there was nothing she could do to stop the animal from doing his job. She could only pray she didn’t lose him too.
The keep had never felt larger in her life. Each second the dread and panic and horror grew. The only hope she had that there was still time to tell Mordred she loved him was because Tim had not dropped to the ground in a pile of parts and pieces. If he lived, so did Mordred.
There was still time!
For now.
Please, please, please—hold on, Mordred. Please, I’m coming!
It didn’t take her long to get outside. Seeing a normal war would have been one thing. Seeing anelementalwar was something else entirely, Gwen decided. “Holy shit—” She stopped just outside the gate to the keep.
It was total mayhem. Fire roared off to one side of the field, charring the ground. Sections of the grass were frozen solid into ice. There were rocky structures where there shouldn’t have been, and if she wasn’t mistaken there was a twenty-footboulder giantlumbering around some hundreds of feet away.
The ground was littered with bits and pieces of armor.
And corpses.
Putting her hands over her mouth, she could only gape at the horror. Of the blood that mixed with the dirt. Of the empty, staring eyes that looked upon the cheerfully colored sky that they could not see. Nor would they ever see again.
One thing was clear, however—Mordred’s side was winning.
But where was he? Where had he fallen?
Eod was standing a hundred feet ahead of her, barking and snarling, warning the chaos not to get too close to his home and his human.
