Excalibur's Seven | ✓ [LGBT]

~ 30 ~

THE PAIN WAS AGONIZING, even after Morgana put a stop to it. Giselle couldn't feel her hand anymore, but even that didn't compare to the pain she felt when she looked at her friend. The guards listened to him. They wouldn't listen to him unless they trusted him, so what did he do?

From beneath his high collar, Giselle could see angry red skin at his neck, red like the iron burn on her wrist. She had enough sense to know he'd be tortured, but she didn't think they'd choke him with iron, perhaps the cruellest way to hurt a faery. It weakened everything about them, right down to their magic.

"Mog, please," she whispered, voice crumbling as guards yanked her to her feet. They were far more gentle with her than they were with everyone else, but even she felt their vicious grips on her body.

Her eyes searched Morgana's, for any sign that he was playing a trick. Even just a glint in his eyes to give her a sign that maybe he had a plan, that he was going to get them out of this.

There was nothing in those cold baby blues.

"Mog," she whimpered again as the guards dragged her past him. He didn't even look at her.

This was almost worse than the pain she felt when they left him behind to die. Because he did die, but his body was still walking the halls as a traitor, the face she loved so much now the face of a man she didn't know.

The King was no less smug than Giselle expected him to be; an old, cruel man, the lines on his face as deep as his corruption. She didn't know much of his transgressions, but she could see what a wicked king he was. And yet somehow, he wasn't as dark as she thought he would be.

She let out a grunt as she was thrown to the ground violently enough to launch the crown from her forehead. Her usually kind eyes were full of hate as she stared up at the King. He did something to her Morgana, but she didn't know what.

"You were fools to come here just for him," the King said.

"We came here for more than that ungrateful bastard," Selene spat. "You know that, I'm sure."

The King chuckled. "A few of you don't seem to know that, though. Do you, Kristofer?"

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Kit gritted. There was a pain in his voice Giselle couldn't comprehend, an impossibly human emotion in his wild eyes.

"You're fond of him," he crowed. "You had such a lovely woman years ago, it's a shame you let her go and settled for an Unseelie."

"I don't like him, he's a traitor and a morally incompetent asshole. He's intolerable even for a pixie." It was unlike Kit to be so cruel, eyes hard on Morgana's unmoving face. Anyone else wouldn't be able to see the twitch in his lip, know what it meant, but Giselle knew every part of him.

"If you hate him so much, why did you stay?" King Wylan pressed on. "Why did you betray your kingdom? Your duties? Your own father?"

"You are not my father!" Kit cried, silencing the room. The tension settled over them all as the King clenched his jaw, as though he was shocked the Prince spoke to him like that.

It was quiet until Kit spoke again.

"You are not my father, and you never were. And if you wanted me to stay, if you gave a damn about my duties, you would have fucking treated me like you did," he continued on. "You never cared. You never wanted me to be a Prince, you never wanted to give me any duties other than keeping quiet and being your complacent prisoner."

"If you wanted to be treated like a Prince, you should have been better!" the King bellowed. "You would have been more obedient, more diplomatic, a better listener like your brother. But you are distracted, you are forgetful, you cannot hold still. You are impolite, loud, arrogant, impulsive. You're not even the son of royal blood."