Page 76 of To Charm a Dark Prince

And Mordred hoped she’d be something else.

She didn’t like being people’shope.She was just a dumb kid from Kansas. She didn’t have any business trying to save a whole world.

But it didn’t seem like she was going to have much say in the matter.

TWENTY-TWO

“Where’re we going?” Gwen looked down at the ground beneath them as Tiny soared over the landscape. Because of the huge mountain in the center of the island, she was pretty sure the keep was to the northwest. And they were headed southeast, straight toward the mountain in question.

“I wish to show you something.”

It was kind of wonderful, flying—once she wasn’t afraid she was about to fall to her death. The view below them was stunning. Faded as it was, cloudy as it was, it was still a beautiful place. They flew over an enormous waterfall that poured into a lake that emptied into the ocean, dotted with rocks that jutted above the surface. She could almost imagine mermaids playing there.

It looked as though there was every kind of terrain in Avalon—she could see what seemed like a damn lava flow to the south, surrounded by dusty desert and bouldery terrain. She figured that elementals liked to live in their own, well, element. It would make sense.

But most of Avalon was a thick forest, interspersed with dirt roads that wound between sporadic villages, farms, and cities like the one they had just left. The island was bigger than she had imagined it to be from the maps. But she supposed everything looked smaller on paper.

As they approached the mountain in the center, she spied a ruined castle at the base of it. It was a strange place to put a castle—half in a valley, half on the rocks. It was as if it had just been dropped there randomly, not placed with any kind of thought or care.

Weird.

Wait.

“Is that?”

“You’ll see soon enough.” Mordred clicked his tongue. It wasn’t nearly loud enough in the wind for the dragon to hear him, but the beast seemed to know what to do regardless. Tiny began to slowly swoop lower, circling before landing with aka-thudout in front of the castle.

A castle that had seen much better days.

Parts of the walls and roof had crumbled away. If there were originally windows, they were long gone. The enormous wooden front doors were open, leaves piled up in front of them. It was clear they had not moved in a very long time.

Mordred let Gwen climb off the dragon first. When he joined her, he walked into the castle without a word. She assumed she was supposed to follow him. She couldn’t help but stare at the building as they walked along the crumbling ruins deeper into the structure. Ripped and tattered tapestries hung lopsidedly on the walls, too stained and faded from time for her to make out what they once showed.

He looked like a nightmare, with his black hood over his head and his jagged claws. It was something she’d never get used to—and part of her never wanted to. He was, as he kept saying, who he was. She followed close behind him, careful to avoid the portions of the wooden floor that looked as though they were about to give out, or already had.

Finally, he brought her to a central chamber.

And then she knew for certain where she was.

The center of the room was dominated by a large, circular, wooden table. It resembled the one Mordred had in his own keep, though this one was in far worse shape. Chairs, mostly fallen apart or reduced to rubble, sat around it.

Surrounding the room were statues, each sculpted out of their own kind of metal. Each one was a work of art—slightly stylized, but unmistakable for what they were. Beneath each was a placard that read out their name and their title. Galahad, the Knight in Gold. Lancelot, the Knight in Silver. Percival, the Knight in Copper. Tristan, the Knight in Tin. Gawain, the Knight in Cobalt. And Bors, the Knight in Nickel.

And Mordred, the Prince in Iron. Looking as fearsome and terrifying as ever.

But standing at the head of the room was an enormous statue sculpted from an alloy of something that Gwen couldn’t recognize. It was of a regal figure, his hands clasping the hilt of an enormous blade that she recognized—though it was in much better condition in the statue than it was now. Caliburn.

Atop the man’s head sat a crown of gold, decorated with each of the other metals that surrounded her. She didn’t need to read the plaque to know who it was meant to represent.

That was King Arthur.

She walked up to the statue, marveling at it. He looked stern, but with gentle eyes. This place felt like a…tomb, for lack of a better word. “Is he buried here?”

“Yes.”

That would do it. She turned to Mordred, and found him glowering up at his own likeness. “I thought Camelot was on Earth.”

“It was. Arthur was too wounded to travel. So that lunatic Merlin decided to move him, the castle, and all the rest of us at once.” He let out a half-hearted laugh.

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