Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,75

he was literally always sat down. I wanted to be able to punch people in the face and laugh at them when they fell down.”

“Really?” Hel asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No, not really,” Mordred said. “I just wanted . . . something. Instead, I’ve got people telling me it’s all in hand, and I should go have a cup of tea or something. That’s the other thing—nowhere in this fucking palace is a goddamn kettle. I can’t even find tea bags in the kitchen. It’s like they were all bloody savages. Who doesn’t own any tea bags? What kind of people don’t drink bloody tea?”

“You done?” Hel asked with a smirk.

“Probably,” Mordred said, throwing his arms in the air and taking a deep breath. “I haven’t been here for centuries. The last time I was here, it didn’t end well for anyone. I was apprehensive about having to come back, and now that I’m here, I just wanted something to feel like everything is worthwhile, you know?”

Hel nodded. “I do. I don’t want you to think that people are coddling you. I think they just want you to relax because they think they’re helping.”

“They’re not,” Mordred said.

“I know this, and most people who know you well enough understand that too,” Hel said, kissing the back of Mordred’s hand. “But people out there now see you as a king. And when the king is walking around asking people if he can help tidy up and if he can help heal anyone injured, it goes over really well, but it also makes people nervous.”

Mordred chuckled. “I make people nervous.” He shook his head with amusement. “I guess that will have to do. Let’s go back outside and find out how Nate’s doing. There’s a fair few people who ran off that way, and I don’t want any more clashes between Avalon supporters and those people who’d like to murder Avalon supporters. One side has a lot of grudges, and the other side are just arseholes.”

“They executed a lot of people,” Hel said. “I think anger from the populace is going to be a serious problem. We need to show them that we’re not Arthur and his people. We need to show them that King Mordred is a good king. How about we head over to the district—you can see how Nate is doing, and we can let the people see you?”

“I do not enjoy being shown around,” Mordred said.

“And I do not enjoy having to hunt you down because you’re bored and don’t know what to do with yourself, so how about we do my thing so I don’t have to put a GPS tag on you?”

“It won’t work here,” Mordred muttered.

“What was that?” Hel asked, with a smile that Mordred knew well.

“Nothing,” he said quickly.

Hel kissed Mordred on the lips. “Thought so.”

The pair left the throne room and made their way through the palace to the outside, where they met Persephone and Brynhildr. The former was talking to three soldiers, and the latter was currently dragging a man by his ankle across the ground toward them.

“That’s not how you usually move people,” Mordred said as he walked to the bottom of the steps outside the palace.

“He threw a punch at me,” Brynhildr said. “He’s lucky he still has his arms.”

Mordred noticed that the man appeared to be semiconscious, and his face was a mangled mess. “Nice work,” he said.

Brynhildr dropped the man’s leg, and two soldiers immediately ran over from nearby, dragged the man upright, and applied a sorcerer’s band to his wrist.

“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” Hel said.

“I kind of expected a fight,” Brynhildr told her. “My Valkyries came here for a fight. We’ve mostly just been making sure that those who rose up against their oppressors are safe. Occasionally, we run across Avalon employees who think they can take a shot at us. It does not end well for them.”

“We’re going to the lower quarter,” Mordred said. “You want to join us? We’ll be seeing how Nate is doing too.”

“Well, nothing exploded yet, so I’m going to guess it’s either going really well or really badly,” Brynhildr said.

“Have you been back to Valhalla?” Hel asked Brynhildr as the three of them started to walk through the city.

“Yes,” Brynhildr said sadly. “Briefly. It’s a mess there. We’ve brought pretty much everyone out to live in Shadow Falls for now, but with the combined population of Valhalla, Asgard, and Shadow Falls itself, it’s not a long-term solution. Asgard is destroyed;