The Darkest Knight (Guardians of Camelot #3) - Victoria Sue Page 0,54

for how long they are able to appear.” Mel looked pointedly at Charles. “You are feeling sick. Tired, exhausted, however you want to put it. Bluntly, you look like you’ve aged ten years in the last week.”

Charles managed not to raise a hand to his face, even though he knew what Mel meant. He had thought the same.

“What if the magic that keeps you here isn’t strong enough to keep you here for long periods of time?”

Tom gasped. “What do you mean?”

Mel gazed at Charles. “You told me that you felt a pull, and that not only was this the first time you were aware of it, but that you resisted.”

Charles still wasn’t sure what Merlin was trying to say. “I am refusing another task.” But even he could hear the doubt in his voice.

“Or maybe there is no other task,” Lance said, his tone gentler this time and less accusing.

“What do you mean?” Charles said, but the cold weight of dread that formed inside told him he knew what Lance’s answer would be.

“Magic isn’t finite. It must take an enormous amount to keep you here fifteen hundred years after you lived originally.”

Charles froze as an icy chill seemed to seep into his very bones. “So it’s a lie? My life? I haven’t been serving the greater good for a millennia; I’ve simply been a pawn on evil’s chessboard?” But what was worse—far worse—he had rejected Kay, believing he was doing the right thing.

“You told us when you came here the first time that you are shown the light.”

“Kay. It was Kay. It is Kay.” He refused to use the past tense.

Mel nodded. “And sometime after that you were shown the dark. The greatest threat to Kay.”

Charles thought hard. He tried to visualize in the same way he always did, but the scene of Kay touching his hand in the camp was the last thing he remembered. It had been playing over and over in his mind, but every time he saw it, the last image wasn’t him looking at Kay—even though he remembered the utter determination on Kay’s face not to let go—it was the resignation and the sorrow on his own.

Charles’s breath hitched.

And sometime after that you were shown the dark. The greatest threat to Kay.

He knew. He’d been looking at the threat to Kay. The greatest threat.

It was him. He was the dark. With barely a wounded whisper from an agonized throat, he buried his face in his hands.

Chapter 15

The stone floor was so cold and unforgiving. Shivering and movement hurt, and his brain couldn’t seem to work out why. Why everything hurt, and why on earth he was laid on cold stone.

“Well, well. Kay of Isca. While this is a pleasant surprise, she still wants the other returned. Where is he?”

The rattle of chains next to him and the cold hard voice tempted him to open his eyes, but he immediately wished he hadn’t.

“I don’t know,” came the low whisper from the boy chained to his side. Kay recognized him immediately. The gray eyes and the blond hair so much like Lance’s it almost made him physically hurt knowing where he was. Or enough of an idea even if not why.

“Then you had better hurry. She has need of him. We cannot kill this one.” The cruel voice he also recognized sent a shiver down his spine. He’d only heard Mordred speak once before Badon, and it wasn’t something he wanted to remember. It was a shame he had no choice.

“What in God’s name do you think you are doing?”

The harsh demand had Kay turning around and startled the horse he was leading. Kay swallowed, recognizing Sir Mordred. The king’s brother wasn’t someone you wished to cross.

“Yes, sir?” He tried to bow his head respectfully. He’d been in Camelot three weeks and so far had managed to avoid any interaction with Mordred. But the knight tended to keep to his own friends.

“I asked you what you were doing?” Mordred caught up with him, and Kay seemed to have to look up a really long way to meet his face.

“I-I—”

“Out with it, for pity’s sake,” Mordred snapped.

Kay tried to swallow and clear his throat. “I was going to train with the lance.”

Mordred’s face turned even angrier. “And who gave you leave to use my horse to do it?”

Kay’s heart stuttered in his chest, and he looked at the bay stallion, immediately realizing he had been set up. At eleven he was fairly used to ordering servants, but