It befell in the days of Uther Pendragon, when he was King of all England, and so reigned, that there was a mighty duke in Cornwall that held war against him long time..... A Round Table in a mythical kingdom. Armored knights, a lost treasure, an enchanted sword. A dragon—the fire-breathing kind. You’ve heard this story? Me too. I loved it when it was a fairy tale. Then it befell in the days long after Uther, when the kingdom of his son Arthur was but small and nearly forgotten, that the throne came to a most unlikely heir: me. I'm Judy Avery. I was a young American, a lonely romantic. I was a nerdy archaeologist whose career was over before it started. I believed in my heart there might be some beautiful truth in the King Arthur legends. I wanted answers. When I got them, the truth wasn’t beautiful. There was no explanation for why I was chosen to find Excalibur, Arthur's legendary blade, or for how five strange old men running a British tourist trap turned out to be the last Knights of the Round Table. But the local sorceress and her army of monsters didn't need an explanation. I was King, so they wanted me dead. It wasn't the Age of Chivalry. It wasn’t a fairy tale about mythic warriors. It was now, and the story was my own. In this version, a tacky Cornish village was Arthur’s Camelot. Dragons were real. So was the sword in my hands. So was love. Unbelievable. And if I didn't believe it all, I wouldn't survive the day.