Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mordred
The Eyes were talking to Mordred, but all he could hear was Nyneve’s breathless little noises as she permitted him to bring his mouth to her heavy breasts, to taste the nectar between her lovely thighs . . .
Mordred pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath, trying to get himself together.
He answered one of the Eyes’ questions as they led him back to the fete hall.
Even though the earthen walls glimmered with rare, enchanting tapestries in the flickering light, all he could see was Nyneve.
Her auburn hair fanned out halo-like about her head.
The pale, undyed linen of her shift making her freckles glow.
Gods, how badly he wanted to finish what he had started. To see her shatter on his tongue.
He should absolutely leave her behind.
It would solve so many problems. No more Queen’s Sorceress.
No more being outmaneuvered. He would lose a useful soldier in the war against Merlin, but he could surely find another beautiful, clever, sharp-tongued girl to tempt the wretched sorcerer.
Nyneve was not special, he told himself.
And she knew too much about him now. Even if he convinced her it was safe to drink the spelled brews of the underground, he worried her mind would not go blank like any other mortal.
He worried he did not want her to forget.
Mordred clenched his jaw and entered the fete hall, greeted by a thousand gazes falling on him.
Ragrshydan was playing his own game. Arthur’s men were bored with peace.
Merlin was back. He did not have the time to be bogged down by a Druid girl.
It was better this way. Perhaps she might even outwit the High Court and come back to wreak her vengeance on him.
Mordred smiled at the thought, smoothing out the front of his aketon.
A tall, lithe knight from one of the lower courts approached and offered him a sip of their wine.
He wrapped his fingers around the ornate glass stem, taking another step deeper into the hall.
And then he paused, the goddess-borne darkness in him stretching so taut he could not breathe.
Swallowing down the pain, he let the knight slip their fingers around his sleeve and pull him toward an alcove.
He made it halfway across the hall before he came to a halt.
Trying to leave Nyneve behind felt like being torn in half.
“Godsdamn Druidic working,” Mordred muttered furiously, turning on his heel without a glance at the knight and stalking back toward the Eyes at the door.
It took him less than a minute to convince them he had forgotten something in the guest chambers.
He prowled through the dark halls of the hill and slipped through the door.
Nyneve jumped back from where she had apparently been crouched by the door, her magic trained on the locking spell. She stared at him with an open kind of bewilderment that made his chest pang.
“You came back,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. She had thrown her kirtle back on but had not laced the sides just yet. Her eyes were wild.
“I did,” Mordred replied, just as surprised himself.
“I thought you were going to leave me,” Nyneve said, crossing her arms. “Why didn’t you?”
Mordred inhaled sharply and found he could not locate the right words. She smiled at him, fox-like, as she stood and began to lace the sides of her kirtle.
He leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms, seeking his footing. “I much prefer when you undress,” he told her blithely, a clumsy course-correction.
Nyneve glanced up at him, expression blank. “We are being held prisoner. Get yourself together, Mordred,” she said flatly. Then she snatched her belt from the end of the bed and buckled it around her waist. “How many guards? Are we headed out the way we came?”
“Ragrshydan pulled some of the Eyes back,” Mordred said, rolling his shoulders. “He usually does this late at night. He was not even in the fete hall yet, so his interest in us may have waned, particularly if he feels I was not lying to him.”
He paused, rubbing the back of his neck as he considered. A surge of satisfaction rose in his chest as he watched Nyneve’s gaze linger too long on his bicep. Mordred pounced. “All those lovely sounds I coaxed out of you would certainly convince any eavesdropper.”
Nyneve leaned over to pull her boots on, her hair hanging in a curtain of metallic curls he wanted to bury his hands in. “So? You’re a good fuck,” she said, her voice muffled. “Well, you would be, if you had made me come. Plenty of other people have managed it.”
Irritation simmered in his belly at the same moment his desire tightened. “You were going to come,” he reminded her as she straightened to stand.
Something sly moved across her expression as she folded her arms, looking pointedly at the door. “Is this really what you want to argue about? Or can we, you know, escape?” she demanded. “I am a bit focused on not being tortured, debased, and turned into a hollow shell of myself.”
Mordred rarely lost, whether it be a joust or a bet, a game of politics in court, or a decision made in the heat of battle. “Let us escape,” he confirmed with a nod of his head instead of confessing that Nyneve Or’Afon was the only game he enjoyed losing.
They both moved toward the large, arched door, coming to a halt in front of it, shoulder-to-shoulder.
Mordred reached out and rested his hand on the handle.
Turning to look at her was a mistake. Those damned eyes captured his, the scent of river water and poisonous petals flooding his senses. His breath hitched.
“How are we escaping?” Nyneve asked, her voice unsteady.
She paused for too long, and a log in the fireplace crashed.
They both startled, something about the moment splintering, their gazes returning to the door before them.
When Nyneve spoke again, her voice was stronger.
“Violence? Trickery? Disguise? Bribes? Seduction?”
“I was hoping some seduction and a little bribery would do,” Mordred admitted with a shrug. “But we must adapt to whatever circumstances we are given.”
“I prefer violence, for what it’s worth,” Nyneve replied. “But trickery might work. You do run your mouth a lot.”
“Still thinking about my mouth?” he asked, turning to look down at her.
Nyneve hauled back and punched him hard, her blow landing right on the rib she had just healed. He grunted; it was still sore.
Then she continued as if she had not just struck him.
“Two guards at the end of the hallway,” she said, though her sentence tipped up at the end like a question.
“Fourteen in the passageway between the fete hall and the visiting quarters. Two more at the entrance to the hall itself. How many at the door once the fete gets going?”
Mordred straightened. He should have known the Druid girl would be sharp enough to remember the guards, but he still found himself impressed.
Something deep inside him, deeper than even the Cynosbythrae, drew taut.
“Down to seven in the passageway, but there will be at least four at the mouth of the hill.”
“Oh, wonderful odds,” Nyneve said brightly, reaching for the handle and yanking the door open.
Mordred slammed his shoulder into the door, closing it again with a muffled thud. “Follow my lead,” he commanded. “I can still leave you behind.”
Then he opened the door and slunk into the hallway.
He looked over his shoulder, gesturing for Nyneve to follow.
She stood tensely for a moment before acquiescing, her hand ghosting over the empty scabbard where her dagger usually was.
Mordred’s mind raced quick as a doe with a thousand decisions before he called to the Cynosbythrae in a soft voice.
The apocalypse that lived in his marrow had taken many years to learn to live with, and he still had not come close to mastering the beast—so unlike any other magic he had ever seen or practiced.
Even Morgana had been mystified at first. There were no Threads to strum, no incantations or charms, no vivid imagination or vicious self-discipline required.
Mordred had found that it was more like a bloody, desperate wrestling match in the mud.
His will had to be stronger than the Cynosbythrae.
The great and terrible power did not bend easily, not even to its vessel.
As he slipped down the hallway, silent on the mosaic tiles, the darkness fought him as it always did. But Mordred was stronger. He had no other choice. In a few moments, he pulled the shadows cast by the torchlight around him and Nyneve, cloak-like. Not invisibility, not quite. But damn close.
“I know you will not divulge it,” Nyneve whispered from his side, “but I would very much like to know the working behind what you just did.”
Mordred answered too honestly. “So should I.”
In his peripheral vision, he saw her turn toward him, her brow furrowed.
But then voices came from up ahead, and around the bend, he could make out the two guards at the end of the passageway.
The dark hide of their horned helms shone softly in the torchlight, the carved bone blades of their spears bright in the gloom.
Mordred held a hand out, gesturing for Nyneve to pause.
She did, so close he could feel the heat of her.
Before he could listen carefully and figure out who was serving as their jailers, he felt Nyneve’s magic curl around his own.
She deepened the intensity of the shadows around them and then covered them with a difficult glamour that Mordred also preferred: a working that made curious eyes want to look away.
It was more complex than other glamours by half, but for those who could manage the working, it tended to hold up better under stressful situations and the weight of additional spellwork.
Nyneve wove the Threads so elegantly. Almost like she was singing to them.