Sword of Darkness Read Free Page A

over or see this woman die.” With his orders issued, Kerrigan spoke the sacred words that took him away from the world of man, into the nether realm of Camelot.
    In an eerie black mist, the visible world faded into darkness. The veil that separated the two realms mingled until he found himself once more on the black soil of Camelot.
    Here Kerrigan was more than a knight. Here he was king and champion. Laughing in triumph, Kerrigan rode over the black drawbridge, into the outer, then inner bailey. As he reined his horse before the donjon, a misshapen grayling male came forward to take his horse.
    Theirs was a cursed elfin race that had once been tall and graceful. But they had run amok of a Celtic god who had made their exterior as abhorrent as their hearts. Now they were damned to serve here at Morgen’s behest.
    Giving no thought to the haggard creature, Kerrigan gripped the woman tightly in his arms before he slid to the ground with his precious bundle. She was the key he needed that would open up the world and make it his.
    “Give him extra oats,” he told the fey grayling.
    “Aye, my lord.”
    Kerrigan shifted the woman’s slight weight before he headed toward the blackened doors of the once-famed castle. They parted of their own volition as he approached, allowing him to enter. Withevery step he took, his heels and spurs clicked eerily against the stone floor.
    As he walked through the hallway that was scented with nutmeg and mace, torches lit themselves to illuminate the way to the turret stairs. He was headed to a bedchamber on the uppermost floor. One that would guarantee this woman had no choice except to stay here until they killed her.
    It was a room that was segregated in the northernmost tower where no one could hear her screams. Not that it would matter. There was none here, including he, who would ever render aid to another. It was merely a courtesy to the others that their ears wouldn’t be abused by her wretched cries and pleas for mercy.
    Like the rest of the castle, the room was decorated in black and gray. The only color in this land was found in Morgen’s direct domain. The fey queen wanted nothing to detract from her beauty or her presence. So all color had been banished.
    Kerrigan laid the woman down upon the black bed and pulled back the covers for her. She was pale and fragile against the darkness. Her long, straight hair was so fair as to be almost white.
    To his surprise, she wasn’t a beautiful woman. In truth, her features leaned toward plain, except for her eyes. A clear, crystal green, they were large and almond-shaped like a cat’s. Her nose was of average shape and form, and her lips were full. Her body was undernourished and thin, with next to no feminine curves to cushion a man who might take her.
    There was nothing remarkable about her. Nothing that marked her as the future mother of a Merlin.
    She reminded him of a simple mouse.
    And even unconscious, she still clung to the vibrant red cloth in her hands. He frowned at her actions, wondering why she bothered. He started to take it away from her, then paused for reasons unknown.
    “You trusting fool,” he snarled at her. He couldn’t imagine ever reaching out his hand to someone for help.
    And what had it gotten her? Nothing but her own doom.
    A shadow slithered into the room from the keyhole of the door. “Mistress Morgen wants word with you, my lord.”
    “Tell her I will come in my own good time.” It never boded well to keep her waiting. Morgen possessed a nasty temperament that was matched only by his own. But then Kerrigan refused to let anyone, even Morgen, command him.
    Besides, there was nothing more the fey queen could do to him. He was already damned by his own actions, and no one, not even she, could kill him.
    The sharoc, or shadow fey, continued to hover beside him as if it were trying to rush him.
    “Leave me,” Kerrigan snarled.
    The sharoc retreated immediately.
    Again alone with the unknown woman,