The End of Magic Read Online Free

unlikely—and he
     still sounded breathless and flustered.
    “Of course it wasn’t personal. He likes you,” Morgan reassured him. She took his hand and turned her head to the side to kiss
     it.
    “I often wonder what he’d do if he
didn’t
like me,” Frik muttered under his breath, staring directly at Mordred.
    Mordred gazed back expressionlessly. As always, Frik irritated him, but Mordred knew better than to challenge the gnome openly.
     There would be time enough for that, when Auntie Mab stopped stalling and granted him the power he needed to take the crown.
     Until then, he had to restrain himself and be nice to the people who mattered.
    “Oh, stop fussing, Mother,” he snapped. “Auntie Mab understands. Don’t you, Auntie Mab?” he appealed, looking toward her.
    “Of course I do,” Mab cooed in her graveyard voice. “You were testing yourself. Now come sit by me.”
    The avidity in her voice was plain to hear, and it soothed Mordred’s wounded feelings. He swaggered over to her, seating himself
     at the head of the table. Mab, seated in a chair behind him, reached out to stroke his cherry-black hair.
    “You know you’re my favorite, Mordred,” she said wheedlingly. “But you must learn to channel your aggression.”
    “Against Arthur,” Mordred said promptly. That had been the first and most constant lesson of his life: Arthur was the enemy,
     Arthur must be destroyed.
    “Yes, always Arthur—and Merlin,” Mab added, smoothing Mordred’s hair as though she could not get enough of touching him. Mordred
     was her future—a future in which the Old Ways would be restored and all those who had dared to challenge her would be punished.
     “You’re looking pale, Mordred. You’re not eating enough.”
    There was a flash of lightning, and suddenly the whole length of the table was covered with trays of savory delicacies in
     dishes of gold and silver, plucked from other lands and other feasts through the power of the Old Ways. Morgan sat forward
     with an expression of greedy interest, inspecting the treats closest to her as if she actually intended to eat something.
    Mordred picked up a morsel of sweet-and-sour chicken and glared at it as if it were a personal enemy. “I already have the
     strength of ten men,” he said pettishly. He regarded the banquet that lay before him without favor.
    “Listen to your aunt,” Morgan said from the foot of the table. “And please do something about your hair.”
    Mordred glanced over his shoulder at his patron. She nodded, indicating he was to agree. Mordred knew that his Auntie Mab
     liked his hair just the way it was. But Mother was jealous and spiteful—Mordred could recognize his own best qualities in
     another without regret—and yet did not dare to go against the power of the Old Ways. So she sniped at him, and he criticized
     her, and round and round they went on the Wheel of Years, waiting for the day when each of them might come into their power.
    But Morgan’s day was past, Mordred knew. And his was yet to come.
    “Very well, Mother,” Mordred said reluctantly. He popped the chicken into his mouth and bit down on it savagely, wishing it
     were her finger. At the other end of the table, Frik was using Mordred’s silver-tipped arrow to offer Morgan a choice dainty,
     and Morgan had always been easily distracted by her gnomish cavalier.
    She’d never loved him. Only Mab loved him. And then only if he did what she wanted.
    “There’s a good boy,” Morgan said obliviously, the matter already forgotten.
    Mordred sneered once he was sure she wasn’t looking. He wasn’t good, and he was fast leaving his boyhood behind. As soon as
     he proved himself ready, Auntie Mab would take him to the Land of Magic, and give him the fairy gifts that would make him
     unstoppable.
    And then…
    Mordred was not entirely sure what came next, but he had his dreams. Smash Camelot, smash Avalon, kill Arthur and every one
     of his knights who followed the New