Page 64 of Enchanted Warrior

“There!” Tamsin pointed. “I can see it.”

Gawain followed her gesture, frowning. “So can I.” He urged the bay forward, and they cantered toward the castle grounds. Already familiar with the twists and turns that led them up the hill and through the gate, Gawain rode with confidence, eagerness in every line of his body. Tamsin held on tight. At that speed, all her focus had to be on staying in the saddle.

They thundered into Camelot’s courtyard, the bay’s horseshoes ringing on the stones. The blue thread of magic had thinned the farther they’d traveled from Hector, but Tamsin could see where it snaked into one corner of the yard, where a heavily carved door stood open.

“That’s the Great Hall,” said Gawain. He dismounted and lifted her down from the bay. “Let me have a look around before coming in.”

“I could provide a light.”

“The less magic the better, if spies are watching.” He drew his sword and marched toward the door.

Tamsin cursed inwardly as Gawain disappeared inside. He was right about the magic, but it was hard to accept. She was too much a twenty-first-century woman to stay behind while a man did the fighting, especially when she had effective weapons of her own. The horse snorted, as if agreeing with her thoughts, and began cropping the grass that sprouted between the cobblestones. Time passed. Tamsin looked at her watch impatiently, realized she wasn’t wearing one and then took her backpack from the horse’s saddle and started for the door.

Her stomach churned with impatience. This was Camelot—home of a king who’d led armies, battled demons and convinced the Round Table to travel through time. Gawain spoke of King Arthur with affection and reverence. Her father guarded Arthur even though the king had banished him. Tamsin hadn’t known it, but Arthur and his deeds were a magnetic force around which much of her life had revolved. It felt as if he had the power to make or break her happiness.

She wasn’t waiting a moment longer to clap her eyes on this man.

ChapterTwenty-Five

Gawain lingered in the gloom of the Great Hall. Before him stood the Round Table and the hundred and fifty tall chairs that surrounded it, each hung with the shield of the knight who had won the right to sit there. Tapestries lined the walls in brilliant hues, showing the exploits of Arthur and his knights. Above, there was a gallery for onlookers and another for musicians. The feasts in the glory days had been something to behold.

The polished wood table was not, as some imagined, a solid circle. Instead, it was made in sections that fit together in a ring. Speakers could address the Round Table from the center, essentially giving each member a front row seat. That was where the Green Knight had issued his challenge, and where Lancelot had publicly taken Beaumains to be his squire. For many, many years Gawain’s life had been tied to the events that took place in this room. He stole a glance at his own seat at Arthur’s side, and for once was filled with hope instead of loss. They could build this all again, couldn’t they?

They would have to build it better. Mordred had been a master of half-truths, pitting friend against friend until the company of knights fell to pieces. That couldn’t happen again. This time, they couldn’t swerve in their loyalty to king and cause. This time, they had to hold Arthur’s word above their own petty concerns. The stakes were even higher than before and, if they faltered, Mordred and LaFaye would crush the mortal world.

“Gawain?” Tamsin stood in the doorway. “Is everything all right?”

“Come in,” he said, and wasn’t surprised when she stopped in her tracks to stare. With the doors wide open, there was just enough light to glimpse the splendor of the room. He tried to see the place with a stranger’s eyes, but it was too close to his heart.

“Everything is fine,” he said. “Or it will be, once we find the king. Look, the seeking spell stops right there.” Gawain pointed to a spot in the middle of the Round Table’s circle, where the pale blue thread shimmered to nothing.

“I see that,” Tamsin replied, still turning in place to see all of the room. “This is amazing.”

“Of course it is,” he said. “It’s Camelot.”

They slipped through the aisle between sections of the table, following the spell to its end. Tamsin wound the thread of light around her wrist and give it a sharp tug. The signal for Hector to join them, Gawain supposed.

He swept a foot through the empty air where the seeking spell stopped. “I don’t feel anything.”

“You won’t,” Tamsin said. “If the tomb is truly obscured, it’s more than just invisible.”

“Then how do we move it through the portal?”

“We don’t,” said Tamsin. Then she reached inside her pocket and retrieved the tiny volume she’d used the night she’d awakened Beaumains. “There’s a much faster way. I don’t see why we should drag the tomb with us when all we need is your king. If I bring him back from the stone sleep, the cloaking spell will dissolve on its own.”

Gawain laughed, drawing a surprised look from her beautiful dark eyes. He dropped a kiss on her sun-bright head. “Have I ever told you how truly magnificent you are?”

“Not nearly often enough.”

Tamsin began reading from the spell book, her light, sweet voice rising and falling in a language Gawain didn’t understand. His first impulse was to stand and stare at the space where the tomb should have been, hungry for the first glimpse of his king and friend, but that would help nothing. Instead, he went to the door and looked out, sword in hand and alert to any danger.

The wash of magic behind him raised the hair along his arms, but he was growing accustomed to being around a witch’s power again. It stirred the dormant magic in his veins, heating it the way her beauty heated other parts of him. For the first time in many, many years, he yearned to reclaim that lost part of himself—and yet the very idea disturbed him in the extreme. Gawain had learned not to play with fire, literally or in metaphor.

This time, though, the tingling power signaled that the quest for Arthur was nearly done. Gawain and Tamsin had kept their bargain, to the betterment of everyone. Did that not make this alliance with magic worthwhile? Wasn’t there something here to learn? Gawain pushed the question away, but not as far as he might have done once upon a time.

He felt rather than heard trouble arrive. A tapestry fluttered with a draft that shouldn’t have been there. Gawain spun, sword raised.

“Hello, cousin,” said Mordred, his face puffy and bruised from the beating Gawain had given him. Tamsin cried out in shock. Gawain’s sword twitched, but he checked his blow. There was no way he could strike, for Hector was on his knees before Mordred, his head bloody and back arched in pain. It wasn’t hard to see why—Mordred’s fingers were wound in the older knight’s gray-streaked hair. As Gawain watched, his cousin gave the hair a twist, bringing a grunt from his prisoner.

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