Once the walls around me were no longer alight, I kicked in the charred remains of Arthur’s door. Mordred had changed the room little since moving in when he ascended power. Here and there he had made it his own—the tusk of the boar he’d killed on the day he became a man hung on one wall, and the remains of his tunics dripped from their place inside a ruined wardrobe—but for the most part, it was as I remembered.
I ventured farther in, turning, seeking anything out of place. My gaze swept over the far side of the room, and I started. A large, black, man-shaped figure loomed from the shadows, and I swallowed down a rush of bile. If the perpetrator had been caught in here, he wouldn’t have made it out alive. I took a few cautious steps closer and breathed a sigh of relief. The bulbous shap
