Page 77 of To Bind a Dark Heart

“My lord. They have arrived. We have spotted fires in the woods.”

Mordred was up and dressing while she was still blearily wiping the sleep from her eyes.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

“Dress and return to your room, Gwendolyn.” Mordred summoned his armor. It flowed over him like liquid before hardening into shape. “Do not argue.”

Gwen nodded.

Fear twisted and tangled in her stomach like angry snakes. She wanted to cry. But it was like a tornado warning—you just did what you had to do. You just went into action mode.

The others had come. It was about to begin.

War.

TWENTY-THREE

It was almost dawn on the seventh day, and Lancelot was nervous.

He was pacing. And he hated pacing. It was useless. Especially when he was not trying to reason his way through a problem. No, he was simply pacing because he waswaiting.And he hatedwaiting.

But here he was—doing exactly that. Waiting and pacing. Pacing and waiting. He kept his gaze locked on the structure in the near distance—Mordred’s keep. The building he had called home for over a thousand years.

And one he now planned to burn to the ground, along with all the cursed, corrupted magic that the rusted bastard had stolen and put into hiscreations.But while Mordred himself was immune to elemental magic—his guards were merely resistant. They could be destroyed.

He weighed the sides and tried to calculate the odds for success. Elementals were more powerful than an iron soldier in a one-on-one fight. The Prince in Iron had about a hundred guards. And six dragons.

Lancelot had his own dragon that he would summon when it came time to reveal their location. But one versus six was not a brilliant strategy, especially when Lancelot himself was likely to be on the front lines personally. It would make him an easy target, and he might fall quickly to a lucky shot.

Enin and Zoe had arrived with their recruits, and so had those that Lancelot had spoken to personally. That gave him twenty-one in his ranks. But Lady Thorn had yet to arrive, and there was still time for stragglers to appear.

Would Lady Thorn arrive at all? Would she come with ten? Twenty? Zero? How many even remained to recruit at all?

Of the seventy or more that went into the Crystal, how many had been driven mad or drained of their own being to be turned into those hideous iron soldiers?

There was no way for him to know.

Hence, the pacing.

It was just as the sun began to peek over the horizon, casting rays of amber light across the field, that he heard a voice from behind him.

“Knight.”

He never once believed that he would feel relief at hearing Thorn’s voice. But as he turned toward the harsh greeting, he felt exactly that. She had come. And she had not come alone.

Standing behind her were atleastthirty more elementals of all shapes, colors, and sizes.

He could not help but smile. That gave him hope. That gave him something even near certainty.

“The bastard dies today.” Thorn spat on the ground in front of her. “I am sick of waiting.”

“As am I.” Lancelot whistled, getting the attention of the others. “Prepare yourselves! We march!”

Someone bumped his elbow. The wizard was standing beside him, offering him a cup of coffee. “Drink it, you’ll need it.”

“I hate this vile substance.” He took it all the same. Sipping it, he made a face. It didn’t stop him from taking another sip a moment later.

“It grows on you.” The mage sipped from his own mug, looking out over the field at the keep beyond.

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