Page 61 of Enchanted Warrior

“I don’t doubt it,” Hector growled. “You had better start explaining yourself, boy.”

Gawain didn’t get a chance to reply. Tamsin flung herself at her father, thumping him once on his breastplate with the flat of her hand. She was crying, her face mottled with tears. “Why did you leave me? Why did you lie about who you are?”

“I didn’t leave you,” said Hector. “Benjamin Waller trapped me in the Forest Sauvage and locked the portal tight.”

ChapterTwenty-Four

“Explain everything,” said Tamsin once she had steered her father into the kitchen. She couldn’t seem to let go of his arm, and clung there as if he might vanish without her touch. He looked sunburned and shaggier, but every feature was exactly as she remembered it. He hadn’t aged a day, which matched what Angmar had said about the old faery queen making her father an immortal guardian of the knights.

He put his hand over hers. It was broad and capable, just as she remembered it. “Surely you understand why I never told you who I am?”

His voice was kind, but the words rankled. She didn’t understand—not at all. Hot, sour disappointment pounded through her, bringing heat to her cheeks as she met her father’s brown eyes—so like her own. Tamsin dropped her hand from his sleeve, not wanting the contact now. “I suppose it’s like the old wartime saying that loose lips sink ships. No one can accidentally tell what they don’t know.”

“That’s it exactly,” Hector replied gently. “Arthur’s safety has always been paramount.”

And trust between father and daughter came second. Tamsin looked away, hiding her hurt. “Did you tell the Elders?”

Gawain had been occupied with tending Hector’s horse. Now he set out more food and ale, pushing a tankard into her father’s hands. Hector drank deeply, wiping foam from his mustache and beard and then heaving a satisfied sigh. “No, never. But after centuries of drifting from coven to coven, covering my tracks as best I could, I slipped and Waller figured it out.”

“And?” Tamsin asked.

“Things became complicated, but let me launch this story at the beginning. When Morgan LaFaye took the crown from the old faery queen, it took a long time to consolidate her power.” Hector took another long swallow of ale. “It was only in the last fifty years that LaFaye gathered enough strength to mount her campaign on the mortal world, and her first order of business became finding and destroying the tombs.”

Gawain made a strangled noise.

Hector nodded slowly. “That was my signal to act. I was instrumental in arranging the move of the old church to America. In time, I also scattered the tombs across the States. I reasoned that if I split up the tombs, Mordred or his mother might find some of the knights, but not all.”

“So you’re the culprit who put me in a museum basement,” grumbled Gawain.

Hector chuckled. “I thought Los Angeles would suit you. Somewhere there is an action-adventure movie in want of a barbarian.”

Gawain raised his eyebrows as if about to utter a scathing comment, but Hector went on. “You were just a girl, Tamsin, when I went to Carlyle. Not long before that, Angmar’s friends had whisked Arthur’s tomb to the Forest Sauvage for safekeeping. This was not my choice of hiding place, particularly since the rebel fae closed the portal when they left and promptly went into hiding. I had no means of getting here.”

“Why did they do that?” Gawain asked.

“LaFaye was hot on their heels and they weren’t thinking about my problems. I understand many ended up in a dungeon after that.”

That detail fit with what Angmar had said. Tamsin wondered how many of the bones in Mordred’s dungeon had belonged to those fae. It was the stuff of nightmares.

Hector continued. “I knew the church in Carlyle had Merlin’s old books and the spell for the forest portal was in those pages. He learned it from the Lady of the Lake and recorded it there.”

Tamsin had been sitting with her head bowed, unable to look up at her father. Finally, she met his eyes. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. You’re talking about something that happened ten years ago. Why didn’t the fae mount a full-on attack then?”

“The fae are immortal and have time on their side,” Hector answered. “They do not march an army into the human lands, but they come in twos and threes, set up lives among the population, and bide their time. When they rise up and conquer the human world, there will be no place of safety left to hide in. Excalibur is the only weapon that will defeat LaFaye and her son. Failing that, the only spells strong enough to combat fae magic were in Merlin’s library, and he is gone.”

“Not quite. We found his books in the house of a man named Henderson,” said Tamsin.

“Henderson bought those books from the church,” said Hector. “I approached him as the loremaster of Shadowring. When I asked to use them, he agreed. However, he kept very close watch on everything I did. So, I told him I was researching demons. I said nothing about Arthur’s tomb.”

Hector sighed, as if the events still depressed him. “It turns out Henderson was a close friend of Waller and told him everything I did. Unknown to me, Waller had a diplomatic understanding with LaFaye. They saw a way to get rid of a pesky guardian by locking me inside the Forest Sauvage.”

“So Waller convinced Henderson to trick you?” asked Gawain.

“Indeed. Thus I ended up trapped here without the spell to get myself home.”

“Why not simply kill you?”

Hector laughed, the sound like an amused bear. “It is one thing to trick me, but I am not so easy to kill, either by sword or by spell. Not by the likes of Henderson, at least.”

---