Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mordred
For the barest of moments, Nyneve Or’Afon’s gaze widened with surprise. Then she turned and tried to run.
Mordred laughed. He no longer had any need to hide his preternatural speed or weaken all his boundless strength. In this meadow at the edge of the worlds, he could be exactly who he was.
A monster.
He captured Nyneve in his arms and tossed the Druid girl over his shoulder.
Predictably, she cursed vividly and kicked him hard in the hip.
That was the humorous thing about pain: he hardly even felt it anymore.
He carried an iron sword at his waist, a dagger in his boot.
He stood beside Arthur all day with that horribly cursed blade shrieking the entire time.
Even as Nyneve shifted her weight and sank her teeth into his shoulder, it was little more than a curiosity.
Mordred turned back toward the door, preparing to face the courier. “Careful, love,” he murmured. “I rather enjoy your teeth in my flesh.”
Nyneve stilled against him, but he did not for a moment believe she had surrendered.
“Changeling,” the courier greeted, spreading their arms wide. In celebration of Nos Galan Haf, they wore a deep russet cloak richly embroidered with dancing flames. Faceted beads winked like embers. “You brought your mortal guest, as commanded.”
“The wishes of the High King are, after all, my command,” Mordred replied, standing before the door. Nyneve slammed the toe of her boot into his ribs.
“Yes,” the courier said, the word drawn out.
Then they straightened, their robes shimmering.
“Do enter the fete, child of the Morrigan. And recall that though your guest is protected by our laws, she is your charge. Should she commit any crimes against the High Court, you will answer for it.” The courier bared blackened, sharpened teeth before scuttling aside to allow the pair to enter.
Mordred tightened his grasp on Nyneve and passed into the sidhe hall. Behind them, the faerie door sealed shut, blinking out of existence as though it had never been there at all.
The entry hall was empty. Its earthen walls, carefully held in place by ancient enchantments and spiderweb-like vines, soared above their heads. Mordred took a deep breath, the scent of mulled wine, poached fruit, and rich spices greeting him. The bliss of not wearing his glamour was euphoric.
Nyneve’s voice broke his reverie. “Put me the fuck down,” she snarled, trying to bite into the muscle of his back.
“Will you behave?” he drawled, shifting his weight.
“You kidnapped me,” she spat, pounding her fists into his spine with each word. “Why should I?”
As far as complaints went, it was fair enough.
Mordred looked both ways and set Nyneve down, backing her into an earthen alcove lined with candles.
Even pressed against a wall beneath a faerie hill, boxed in by someone twice her size, she still looked up at him with unadulterated fury burning in her gaze.
“Why am I here?” she demanded, smoothing her skirts.
“Did you think I would not find this?” he hissed, pulling the seeing stone from his pocket.
Despite the gloom, he saw her go pale beneath her freckles.
With a humorless laugh, he dropped the stone to the ground and crushed it beneath the heel of his boot.
“Do not blame me for the consequences of your own behavior.”
She lunged for him, but Mordred caught her wrists in his hands.
“You knew I would come looking for you,” she spat. “That’s why you cut off Sir Oran’s hand.”
Mordred shook his head. “No, I cut off Sir Oran’s hand because my threats are not idle,” he said, leaning down to look into her eyes. “I left it on your door because I knew it would enrage you and then you would use your little hag-stone to find me.”
Her gaze was alight with anger, as if her green eyes were somehow reflecting a hearth. “Why?” she demanded, the word ground out from between her teeth. “Why bring me here?”
He shrugged one shoulder to his ear. “My High King requested a mortal from Arthur’s court for tonight’s festivities,” he replied. “You were convenient. Would you like to stay alive?”
Nyneve tried to yank her wrists out of his grasp, but he held tight. “What kind of a godsdamn question is that?” she demanded. She clamped down on her jaw and drew in a long breath, as if trying to get a handle on her anger.
“I will take that as a yes,” Mordred replied, releasing her wrists. She drew her hands to her chest and held them there, eyeing him with enough poison to kill a kelpie. “Keep your eyes down. Only speak when spoken to. Do not eat or drink anything.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Nyneve snarled.
“I hope you do,” he replied in earnest, peering over his shoulder into the earthen hall.
More guests had begun to trickle in, fine garments rustling, the sound of the fete swelling in volume.
Then he turned back to the sorceress. For a moment, he lost himself in the fury of her gaze, the set of her jaw, the power gathering inside of her.
“If you behave, this will be over before you know it,” he said. “But I beg you, please do not try to escape.” Mordred leaned close to Nyneve, his lips brushing her ear. “I cannot promise I will remain so chivalrous if you run. Mortals are, after all, my natural prey.”
When he pulled away, Mordred expected to find instinctive animal fear in her expression, but instead her chin was tipped up to hold his gaze, her eyes ravenous as she watched him. Her mouth was parted, cheeks flushed. Something inconvenient surged in his body.
“Why,” Nyneve breathed, “did you choose me, Mordred?”
Mordred considered. “Because I knew you would be foolish enough to follow me,” he admitted.
“And because you are the king’s ward, the only child of Uther Pendragon’s late and favored advisor, soon to be named the Queen’s Sorceress.
Enough meat on the bone, so to speak, without the risk of losing someone truly integral to the citadel. ”
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. “Does Guinevere know what you are?”
He smiled at her, fingertips under her chin. “Do you? Truly?” he murmured, so close his lips nearly brushed hers.
The Druid girl reeled back, trying to headbutt him, but Mordred neatly stepped away and then used her own momentum to toss her over his shoulder again. This time, he conjured a binding for her wrists.
“You’re a monster,” she grunted, trying to pull herself free.
“And, pray tell, why would you follow a monster into the woods?” Mordred asked blithely, raising a hand in greeting to a few other Fey.
Nyneve had nothing to say, so he continued toward the mouth of the fete hall, greeting noble houses and warrior clans and footmen alike.
He played the same game he did in Arthur’s court, giving everyone just a little of what they wanted, taking more of what he needed, and slipping away before anyone saw through his mask.
Nyneve only tried to bite one Fey who got too close.
Such politeness probably meant she was plotting.
The two Eyes at the mouth of the hall bowed to him.
He felt the Druid girl go still against him, her heart rate spiking.
He could not blame her; the High King’s royal guards were quite frightening.
Both were dressed in armor made of sun-bleached bone, the antlers that spiraled into the air ending in sharpened points.
Instead of soft brown fuzz, the antlers were covered in eyes of all different sizes, blinking and staring and watching independently.
A trained Eye could see through every single eye on both their own helm and those of the rest of their cohort, and fight remarkably well while doing so.
Several of the pupils on one of the Eye’s helms narrowed to focus on Mordred and Nyneve. “Did you bring the High King a mortal from King Arthur’s court?” the guard asked.
Mordred’s hand closed protectively around her hip before he even realized what he was doing. “Yes, as requested,” he replied. With that, he stepped into the fete hall, shifting the sorceress into his arms, the way one might carry a damsel in a very different kind of story.
“I’m going to kill you,” she hissed, though she was smart enough not to continue openly fighting him. Towering creatures in antlered helms dotted with a thousand eyes had that impact on most.
“You mentioned,” Mordred replied distractedly, surveying the fete hall. Nyneve’s gaze followed his, her eyes widening at the particular kind of chaos that only the Fair Folk seemed capable of creating.
Long tables seemed to stretch forever, laden with strange fruits, delicate carafes of golden faerie wine, and bodies writhing in pleasure and pain.
Festive buntings trailed from the barrel-vaulted ceiling: silk, muslin, feathers, butterfly wings, gemstones, human skin.
Creatures gowned in thunderstorms, piskys crowned in glovewort, and warriors dressed in their rarely worn finery milled about the space.
Magic lived and breathed here, impossible things happening every moment.
Mordred hated that he loved it.
Though one side of the hall looked as though it went on forever, the other end held a dais with a massive throne.
On the steps, naked bodies writhed against one another, just a few paces from where a mortal man, his throat slit, bled out.
The earthen floors soaked up the violence with all the greed of a ravenous beast. The High King was nowhere to be seen, his throne empty, though a few of the Sunken still wandered aimlessly about the space, goblets and pitchers in their hands.