Page 11 of To Break a Dark Cage

“I know.” Galahad reached out a hand and placed it atop the carved dragon’s head. Its eyes flickered and came to life, glowing the same eerie whitish opal color as the rest of Mordred’s creations. “Take her home.”

It lurched, and the skiff shoved off the beach backward. It wasn’t until Gwen was a foot away from the shore that it all sank in. This was goodbye. She was never going to see them again. Mordred was sending her away, and he didn’t even have the balls to do it himself.

Maewenn was weeping on Tim’s shoulder, the unfinished guard seemingly unsure of what to do with the hysterical cook. Galahad was watching her with the same, dreary, heartbroken expression.

A mist came from nowhere, quickly swallowing the boat. They were moving, she could tell by the ripples in the water next to her. But there were no waves. Nothing but calm waters as they sailed somewhere.

Home.

Whatever that meant.

Mordred watched from the top balcony as the skiff was swallowed up by the mist that had appeared to take Gwendolyn home. Back to where she belonged—back to where she would be safe from the mayhem and inevitable war. His inevitable war.

There had been no other choice.

Yet he still wondered if he should not throw himself from the balcony and end it all. Whether that would be less painful than what he had just done.

The mist dissipated. Mordred stood and watched, waiting for its return. Perhaps a half hour later, it did just that—the mist appearing magically, and the boat returning to the rocky shore. This time, it was empty, devoid of its passengers.

The deed was done.

Gwendolyn was gone.

It was until precisely that moment he had almost managed to fool himself into thinking this was all a terrible dream. But as the wooden vessel beached itself without her and Eod on board, the reality of what he had done sank in.

Lowering his head, he shut his eyes and allowed a tear to slip down his cheek. How long he stood there on his own, he did not know. But the sound of heavy steps behind him jarred him out of his dark thoughts.

It was Galahad. The Knight in Gold wordlessly produced a letter from his breastplate and handed it to Mordred.

He took it. The letter was addressed to him in simple, somewhat sloppy handwriting. It must be from Gwendolyn.

Galahad turned and left Mordred alone. But not before casting a disapproving, hateful, and mournful expression his way. Mordred deserved that. That, and more.

Once Galahad had gone, Mordred looked down at the letter in his hand. He was tempted to crumple it into a ball and let the wind have it—or perhaps to burn it. Whatever it contained would only make his agony worse. It was likely a diatribe, scolding him for being too cowardly to send her away personally.

Perhaps it was berating him, carefully outlining all his many failures as a tyrant of the realm. Explaining how he deserved whatever horrible fate befell him in the end. Resigning himself to whatever she had to say, he broke the wax seal with the end of his jagged pointer finger and opened the letter.

Whatever he had been expecting her to say, however much he had expected it to hurt, he had sorely underestimated its magnitude.

Dear Mordred,

I’m sorry I didn’t have the spine to tell you this in person. I guess I just couldn’t handle your rejection on top of everything else. But I knew that if I left without ever telling you the truth, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

I know you’ll brush this off as childish and I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I do. I will spend every day of the rest of my mortal life thinking about you.

And I will spend every night dreaming of the time we spent together.

I love you.

Gwen

What a wretched creature he had become.

To not see what was before him. To be so set on his righteous path as not to recognize—not to believe?—

Mordred folded the letter and tucked it away. Though he was once more tempted to destroy it, he opted to keep it instead so that he might read it a hundred thousand times.

He had made a terrible mistake.

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