Free The King's Leash (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 7) by Katherine Sparrow Page B

heard no hint of reluctance within him. “Anyway, race you home!”
    He turned and ran for his horse, tethered to a tree just outside the clearing. I sprinted to my Sidan and the race was on. We rode breathless down the path and through the hinterlands surrounding Camelot. Arthur won by two paces.
    Days later, I watched as a hundred burly and scarred men tried and failed at pulling out the sword. Then my slight brother walked up and pulled it out easily. Thus I saw the first of his many legends unfold.
----
    I glared at that famed blade and wondered if it might still be mine. Unlike some objects of power, I did not yearn for this one, but rather wanted my brother not to have it.
    Arthur’s fingers clenched around the hilt. He held the blade up toward his face, smiling at the murderous weapon. In its day, the blade had cut through flesh like butter. Through armor like the thinnest sheet of metal, cleaving flesh from soul, time and again.
    Merlin reached into his bag and pulled out the blade's sheath. An old leather thing, nothing special, but I relaxed when Arthur put the blade in and hung it at his side.
    So too did the nervous couple sitting across from us.
    “What were you saying about me being useless?” Arthur asked, with steel as sharp as his sword laced through his voice.
    I said nothing more, though the whole reason he had been brought forward to this time still made little sense to me. Why go to all the trouble of bringing Arthur to this era? The sword was legendary, but it did not rival a machine gun nor any of the myriad and hideous weapons of war modernity had created.
    “Come along then, brother and Merlin.” I stood. Though I longed to learn more, to ferret out all the truths of Arthur and this mysterious government organization, the problem in faerie loomed.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 11
    Death Caps
     
    We all stood in front of the door that led into the faerie realm.
    “Lila, Merlin, and Arthur,” I said. “I must caution you again about the Gray. It is—”
    “Whatever,” Lila said. “I'll eat it, no biggie.”
    Adam, his arm slung around her waist, cast her a confused look.
    He had not been there when she'd eaten her father. Perhaps he thought she spoke metaphorically. Young love was not always truthful love. “Stay behind Merlin and I. Follow our lead. We run, if need be.”
    I looked at each of them until they nodded their assent.
    “Adam, is there something you aren’t telling us about the Department and its machinations with Guinevere?” I asked.
    “No,” he said. “If this is their thing, it’s some other part of it than where I work. And, I don’t know, are we all sure we should mess with it?”
    “Whatever the Departments reaction to our actions, they can’t be worse than dear Guin,” Arthur said. “Tell me, young Adam, have you ever had someone tear your heart from your chest and play keep-away with it? Or met a lady highly skilled in the art of seduction for the sole purpose of destruction? Or have you—”
    I put a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Let’s go inside and stop her coming back.”
    He nodded. “Lead on, sir wizard and witch. Let us embark upon this grand quest of keeping my wife away!”
    Our entire party brightened at my brother’s word and the kind gaze he cast upon us all. Even I felt lifted to see his smile: to stand with my brother.
    Merlin opened the door with some well-spoken spells. It swung open.
    Inside, the faerie trees lay rotten and limp, lying in the gray and moldy grass that stretched in all directions. Where there had been flowers and vines full of glow sticks and tinsel before, now there were merely layers of disgusting muck. For as far as the eye could see, the ground had turned gray and filmed over with mold. Clumps of death cap mushrooms grew up here and there. Where the placid pond had been, the land lay thick with mud, no different than anywhere else.
    “This is a faerie place?” Arthur asked quietly as we stepped