Page 87 of To Charm a Dark Prince

But not with Gwendolyn watching.

Throwing the Knight in Silver over his shoulder, Mordred carried him down the stairs into the abyss beneath the keep.

“Where are we going?” Gwen was following close behind him.

“You wished for me to spare his life.”

“I—I do. That isn’t an answer.” She jogged to try to keep up with him.

“Lancelot will live. But he may not thank you for it.” He kept his gaze straight ahead. He did not wish to see the pain on her features.

“You’re still not telling me where we’re going or what you’re going to do.”

He didn’t answer her. Instead, he walked the winding paths down and down and down again until he came to the corridor that housed the two enormous iron doors that were so familiar to him. The glow of glimmering white and opalescent light from underneath illuminated the cracks and the seams in the stone floor. It shimmered in a thousand colors.

“Mordred?” Her voice was quieter. Smaller. Afraid. She was beginning to suspect. “What’s behind those doors?”

He gestured his hand, and the giant iron doors swung open in total silence, revealing the terrible majesty of his life’s work beyond it. “The Iron Crystal.”

* * *

Gwen had never felt smaller than when watching a pair of twenty-foot-tall, two-foot-thick, elaborate iron doors swing open intotal silence.They should have creaked. Or whined. Or anything. But they opened up in front of her like ghosts from a nightmare. The curling, twisting vines and figures she couldn’t quite wrap her head around gave way to the chamber beyond. She had never once been to anywhere like the Ancient Greek temples, or even any of the grander churches of Europe. But she had to imagine this was what it must feel like to be someplace so grand, so enormous in its purpose alone—that it made her feel microscopic by comparison.

What she saw next didn’t help her feel any better in the slightest.

The room on the other side was circular, some eighty feet or so in diameter. She couldn’t see the far walls, not really—they were obscured in stark shadows cast by the combination of a thousand flickering candles and the overwhelming opalescent glow from a pool in the center, filled with what looked at first like liquid with an odd texture.

Ringing the pool were seven stone pillars. About twenty feet up each stone column was the carved stone head of a monster, each one grotesque in its own unique way. From their mouths ran thick metal chains that connected to the centerpiece of the room, suspending it over the glowing eerie pool.

The Iron Crystal.

It was at least twice her height and probably five feet across. It was jagged and crude, like raw shards of rock. The metal was oxidized into a brilliant array of colors. She watched in awe as a strange liquid condensed on the side of it like water on the side of a glass on a hot day. It glowed the same brilliant tone as the pool beneath it. The glowing opal liquid hardened and fell to the pool with atink.

Then she understood why the pool looked so strange. It wasn’t filled with liquid. It was filled with crystals. The same ones that powered Mordred’s armored creations—the same that were keeping his knights alive.

“Behold my masterpiece.” The Prince in Iron didn’t sound at all proud or enthusiastic. He dropped Lancelot at the edge of the pool with zero grace or care. “Is it not beautiful?”

It was horrifying, was what it was. Sure, it waspretty, she guessed. But there was something about it that was making her blood run cold and her heart pound.

It was the whispers.

“Save us—please—mercy, my liege—please—free us—it is so cold—”On and on, a thousand voices whispered as one, crying out in muted tones.

Her stomach lurched with the sudden realization that the people within the Crystalknewthey were there. Knew what was going on. And they were suffering. She covered her mouth with her hands in an attempt to keep her lunch where she had put it. She wanted to weep. She wanted to run. She wanted to scream.

Any thought in her head that she could keep going on after seeing that terrible thing was gone. No. It had to be destroyed. It had to. She had no ideahowshe was going to do it—but now she knew she had no choice.

Mordred nudged Lancelot with his boot none-too-gently. “On your knees, traitor.”

The Knight in Silver groaned, rolling onto his side.

For a moment, Gwen had forgotten why they had come down here in the first place. She had forgotten all about Lancelot and what was going to happen to him. She ran to Mordred and grabbed his arm. “Please—Oh God, no—”

Mordred laughed, quiet and tired. “It is this or the grave. Which do you choose, firefly?”

She was crying again. She didn’t care. She shoved Mordred—or tried. Once more he didn’t even budge. “Why do you have to be like this?”

His smile was tinged with sadness. “I am who I am, and as I have always been. If you truly grasped the cruelty that those within the Crystal have committed, you would not despise me so. But you will not understand. You are too young.”

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