Royal Enchantment. Sharon Ashwood
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find. Just as Arthur reached him, the dragon roared again, then thrust its head through the trees toward Arthur. He scrabbled for Excalibur, but it wasn’t needed. The dragon simply wanted to mock them now.
“This match goes to me. Have a worthy army waiting for my return, and bring reporters so that they can sing the song of my victory.”
“Reporters?” Arthur repeated the word with confusion. What did a dragon know about the human press?
He didn’t get a reply. With a huff of smoke, the dragon drew its head out of the trees and turned its back to the forest. Then it broke into a thundering run across the grass and unfurled huge leathery wings, each spine tipped with a glittering claw. The wingspan was enormous, blotting out the light. With a thunderous flap, Rukon Shadow Wing sprang into the sky, beating hard until the long, twisting form soared above the wild landscape.
As it rose higher and higher, a bright spiral of light appeared in the clouds. It was no bigger than a coin to Arthur’s sight, but he knew it was a rift into another realm—a doorway no dragon should have been able to create. Rukon dived through it, and the light winked out. The sky was suddenly empty of anything but the coming rain.
Gawain moaned and rolled onto his back. “Did I ever mention dragon breath smells like old barbecue?”
“How badly are you hurt?” Arthur asked, helping Gawain as he struggled to sit up.
The knight paused before answering, as if doing a mental check of his bruises. “Hitting the bushes hurt the worst.” He peered at the sleeve of his leather jacket. The fabric was scarred by the dragon’s fangs, but not torn. For some reason, Rukon had spared him.
Arthur clapped his friend on the shoulder, unable to speak. Relief had closed his throat with a burning ache. They had survived, but he had a feeling their good luck had just run out. Too much didn’t make sense. How was the dragon traveling between realms? Was Rukon really so hungry for glory—for the chance to kill Arthur before the cameras of the human media—that it was willing to risk starting a war with every magical creature that preferred to hide from human eyes? And why hadn’t it butchered Gawain?
“Have you ever heard of Rukon Shadow Wing?” Gawain asked.
“No,” Arthur replied, getting to his feet. “And I’d remember if we’d met.”
Arthur picked up Excalibur and scowled at the blade. The strike against the dragon’s scales had dulled the edge. He slammed the sword back into its scabbard and paced the loamy ground, anger and confusion prickling along his nerves. What was going on and, more to the point, how could he stop it?
Both men jumped when Gawain’s phone rang with the sound of a tiny fanfare. The knight was still sitting on the ground, but he unzipped his pocket and extracted the smartphone in its shockproof case. “Hello?”
Arthur watched his friend’s face pucker in confusion. He knew most of Gawain’s trademark scowls, but this was different. The knight held out the phone with a faintly dazed expression. “It’s your wife.”
The clouds picked that moment to unlock their downpour.
Minutes later, Guinevere handed the phone back to Merlin the Wise. They sat in his workshop, the light dim and the details of the room lost in shadow. It didn’t bother her that she couldn’t see much. Her mind was already far too crowded.
“That voice,” she said, the words faint. “That was his voice.”
She’d heard her husband speak through a tiny square of a slippery, unfamiliar material called plastic. Impossible. Disorienting. A bone-deep queasiness made her clutch the edge of her chair.
“What about Arthur’s voice?” Merlin asked gently.
She wasn’t sure what to say. That hearing Arthur speak had made the blood rush to her cheeks? That she’d thought him lost to her forever? That hearing his words—she could barely recall what those were, she’d been so flustered—brought back bitter disappointment that Arthur had left her behind?
No, she’d never reveal that much vulnerability to Merlin. He was too arrogant and too manipulative for trust. She had no wish to be a pawn on his chessboard.
“Has Arthur changed?” she asked instead. Despite the unfamiliar form of communication, she’d recognized the force of Arthur’s personality through his shock. There had been something different, more grim.
“Yes, he’s had to change. This is a new world,” Merlin said, offering no details as he pocketed the phone. “And, no, he’s the same as he always was. That’s the strength and the curse of Arthur.”
“He left you behind, as well,” she said, suddenly putting things together. “That must have been a blow.”
“There is no need to concern yourself with that. I am here with Arthur now, and so are you.” The enchanter’s eyes were an odd amber color that reminded her of a hawk. She had no idea how old he was, but he appeared to be a man in his thirties, lean and dark and with the air of someone too smart for his own good. He watched her now as if afraid she’d turn hysterical. Maybe she would.
Her eyes strayed to the tomb at the center of the gloomy workshop. On top of it was an elegant effigy made of white marble, every fold of cloth expertly carved. She would have admired its beauty, except the face on that statue was hers. She was that stone woman with the budding rose in her folded hands—and that Gwen was dead. It was a tomb for her, and it was very old. So why was she alive?
She tried to swallow, but her mouth was as dry as the grave. “Tell me again how I woke up inside that statue?”
“Magic,” he said with an airy wave. “I cast the same spell on you as I did on the knights of Camelot. While you were part of the stone, you slept. No age or disease touched you. But now you are awake and fully mortal again. Your life picks up exactly where you left off.”
“Oh.” She didn’t sound enthusiastic even to herself.
Had she asked for this? She couldn’t remember Merlin’s spell, much less discussing it beforehand—and yet somehow that seemed the least of her problems. “Does this mean I shall continue as Arthur’s wife and the Queen of Camelot?”
Merlin gave an affirmative nod.
“Why?” The word came out before she could stop it.
“Why?” He tilted his head. “I brought you here because Camelot requires a queen.” He said it casually, the way someone might say Camelot required a gate or a carpet or new furniture in the reception hall. She was an object taken out of storage.
Gwen had always done what was required of her, but a hot nugget of anger was coming to life, as if emerging from its own block of stone. She hadn’t asked to be abandoned, but she hadn’t asked to be turned into a gigantic paperweight, either. Of course, there was only one man who was ultimately responsible for anything that happened in Camelot. “I want to speak to Arthur. Take me to him.”
Merlin gave a sly smile and bowed low. “At once, my queen.”
Merlin’s obedience was about as reliable as a cat’s but, for the moment, she was at his mercy. She watched with unease while he sketched an arc in the air with his hand. Where his fingertips passed, a bright, tremulous light followed, as if he’d opened a seam in reality. Gwen blinked and stepped back in alarm as the golden luminescence dripped across the air like honey from a spoon. She’d seen many of Merlin’s tricks, but this was new. She swallowed hard, trying to look as if this sort of thing happened every day.
When the light had filled in the impromptu doorway, he bowed again and reached for her hand. Stiffly, she allowed him to take it, and they stepped through the brilliance. A buzzing sensation rippled across her skin and, in the time it took Gwen to gasp, they emerged into a long hallway punctuated with closed doors. Merlin began walking, Gwen trailing after him. When she