by Scott, Helen
The wind had died and the bubbles in the lake were no more. Time had nullified both, drawing them to a halt, but even though everything was at a standstill, even the air that billowed in and out of my lungs, I heard a laugh that had awareness shuddering through me.
Merlin had arrived.
And as stressed as I was, all I could think was: about damn time.
Chapter
Merlin
“So, my darling, it has come to this.”
I stared at the woman who had chosen to be my nemesis when she could have been my queen. Nimue glowered at me, the only creature here strong enough, even in her diminished form, to ignore the deceleration of time as the shadows and light wove together to create a new dawn.
“I’m not your darling,” she spat.
“You are, even if you choose not to enjoy what that position offers you.” I narrowed my eyes at her and slowly shook my head. “Look at you, Nimue. Look at what this war between us has done. Me tied into the earth, you tied to the water. Our useless offspring ruling the roost and failing in all aspects.”
The Lady peered up at the sky—where once there’d been two moons, now there was a singular, larger one. Thrice the size of the satellite that had ruled over us since time began.
She grated out, “I assume that’s them.”
I shrugged, unapologetic over what I’d done. “They’d served their purpose, and they served it poorly. They’re fortunate I didn’t make them suffer.”
“You’re all heart,” she seethed. “And what now? How will the world cope without them?”
I snorted at the notion that Arthur, Morgause, Morgana, and Elayne had been anything other than detrimental to the planet. Rather than say that, I pointed at the large moon. “The world will feel their power, just in a different way. The moon affects the tides, does it not? The moon shadows the day as the sun shadows the night. The Earth will forever feel their touch now, but it will be in a purely innocent form. Free from their machinations and skewing of my will.”
If the last few words were uttered on a growl, then what could I say? I was growling. I was furious, infuriated by how the Sires, my own children, had taken my wishes and manipulated them, morphed them into something else entirely for their own gain.
“All you’ve done is cause tidal waves,” she snarled, ever prickly, ever delicious with her wrath.
She was the one that got away. The one, in my very long life, I only ever thought about. She was my match, my equal, but she insisted on trying to find ways to best me.
She was evil, to be sure, but so was I. And yet we were both good too.
Nothing was cut and dry in this world. If anyone knew that, it was us. We had sacrificed more than most to stand here today, staring at one another on the shore of the lake that belonged to a set of brothers who had followed me for a lifetime, while another set had crossed the Earth on Nimue’s behalf.
“At first, yes, there will be destruction, but from destruction, creation shall stir. That is what we must focus on. The Earth should never have been this way. Truly, Nimue, when you looked upon the world, when you tucked me inside my cozy nest, did you imagine that this was what we struggled and strived over?” I shook my head, because I knew the answer to that.
Raising my arms, I turned in a circle. The motion was melodramatic, but it highlighted the truth. Nothing was as it should have been, all because we had fought and battled when we should have merged into one.
Her jaw worked as she admitted, “No, I did not see it this way.”
“The first truth you have told me in too long, sweetling.” Shaking my head at her, I continued, “We should have ruled this realm together—”
“Cease talking this way. You loathe me as much as I loathe you. Don’t preach at me,” she snarled, finally drifting over the shallows of the lake and heading for land. Her rage, as always, did my bidding like nothing else could.
I spoke no word of a lie. She was my equal, and we should have reigned together, but these feminists… There were far too shortsighted.
As she proved when she took those final steps away from safety, away from the one place I could not touch her save through the lights and shadows the child wove on my behalf, and she came into my world. Her dainty feet emerged from the final few splashes of water and crossed onto the earth as she glowed with her righteous indignation.
The last few droplets rolled from her skin, glinting in the moonlight like diamonds. When they were gone, I landed my first blow. It wasn’t physical, but rather metaphysical, my emotions manifesting themselves as I finally unleashed my vengeance.
Nimue stumbled as the force of my blow struck her, but it only served to draw her farther away from the water. Bringing her to me, like two magnets that had been born to be stuck together for an eternity.
Again and again my blows landed, not giving her enough time to recover before the next one struck. Each was designed to distance her from her source of power, to drag her, kicking and screaming, toward me.
It was a few moments before she realized what I was doing, but by that time, she was far enough away from the water that I knew I could keep her from returning to it. Her form was weak, not to say she wasn’t still powerful or a threat, but I knew, thanks to the prison I’d trapped her in so long ago, that it took a massive amount of energy for her to appear and walk on land.
The thing that no one knew, not even my Reapers, was that I expended that same amount of energy to appear. I put up a pretense of unlimited power, that I knew we could defeat the Lady, but the truth was it would be a much closer battle than any of them realized if my visions came to pass, and so far they hadn’t been off by even a second.
Ever since I’d emerged from the tree, the prison I’d been shackled to, it felt like the world had been sucking the energy out of me at an ever-increasing rate. Each time I performed a task for Marcella and her mates, it took a little more time to recover, and moving them to this property had nearly wiped me out for a full day, never mind dealing with my children.
Once I felt my energy waning and Nimue beginning to strike back, I dropped my hold on time, letting it snap back into place like a rubber band. The feeling seemed to echo down to the depths of my soul, if I even had one, and I knew that my time was running out.
❖
Marcella
I sucked in a breath of air as the feeling of being frozen slowly left me. Based on the fact that Merlin and the Lady had moved in a blink, I assumed that someone had frozen time, but with a quick check on my bond with Cade, I knew it hadn’t been him.
The moon I had been so focused on still called to me, but so did my mates. My bonds glowed brightly in my mind, humming with power. Now was our time, not just the end of Merlin and the Lady, but the end of the council and the corruption that had infested it, and most of all the end, or at least the beginning of the end, of the barriers between salsangs and pursangs.
For a brief moment, I knew it was only the touch of the anchor, a union forged from a connection with Elizabeth and Lily, that kept me grounded and allowed for me to focus on the battle in front of me between the Lady and Merlin. It was as though my mind had expanded and was busy processing too many things at once. Most of the problems my mind was wandering through weren’t pressing though, so I redirected my focus on containing the damage the two ancient beings in front of me were doing to the world around them.
Trees were split and there were great gouges in the earth, none of which they looked like they’d even lifted a finger to accomplish. I pushed a field of magic into existence by drawing on my connection with the two women behind me, and knew that it would keep them contained.
While normally I would have been happy to sit back, and watch the two of them duke it out until they were both tired enough that I could step in and easily defeat one or both, I felt like I didn’t have that option this time. Their powers were so great that waiting for them to weaken each other could mean waiting weeks or months. None of us had that kind of time, not if we still wanted
to hide our existence from the humans. Although, there had been two moons until a moment ago, so they had to know something was going on by now.
For the moment, the two of them seemed happy to fight between themselves, but I knew as soon as one of us waded into the battle, their focus would change and we would become the targets of their rage—depending on if the Cavalry were as good as their word. I couldn’t help but glance at my mates, who were spread out in a loose cluster around me, and the other women. Each of them nodded at me in silent encouragement as we made eye contact, each offering themselves as an energy source for me to channel and push, to do what was needed to bring this to a close.
Darius was the last one I made eye contact with. He surprised me by mouthing, “I love you,” at me before he nodded and refocused on the battle. It was as though he’d known I needed the push, and exactly what the push should be.
I wanted more with my mates than running in fear, fighting battles we didn’t truly have any business being involved in, and defending ourselves from the council. It was my love for them that spurred me into action.
I drew on my connection with Lily and Elizabeth, pulling as much power from them as I could without driving them both to their knees, and held it within myself. My dragon roared as it soared overhead, evidently deciding to join us for the final battle. It had been missing since it carted its egg, the second moon, up into the sky and I hadn’t expected to see it again. Relief filled me at the sight of it and when it roared for a second time all my other creatures returned its call. I wasn’t sure why it had come back or how it had known that we needed it but I wasn’t complaining, and hoped it was just something to do with the fact that we were connected in a way not many other beings were.
Within a blink of an eye, I called on all the connections in my power. The anchor, the soul shard with the Lady, Elizabeth and Lily, but more importantly, the six links I had with each of the Maker’s kind—my mates.
For a second, I felt like the bowl in a Kitchen Aid mixer. Each of the powers tumbling together like ingredients in a cake batter, and me, the entity that was going to mix everything into one.
I shuddered with the power I was containing, and struggled to forge that physical energy into a mental kind. I depended on the anchor more than ever, using it to ground me, before I mentally packed it all together before sending it out into the battlefield like a bomb.
As it soared forth, I called to the soul-shard, the part of the Lady that had been hidden away in Limbo for so long again. She came willingly, riding the unicorn that had served as an anchor while I’d held the Lady in place before Merlin arrived. As soon as the shard of the Lady appeared on the battlefield, she rode straight toward the rest of her being, launching herself and my magic bomb into the air and directly toward our target, even as the Lady herself moved around, the soul shard was there—her shadow.
When the shard and the magic bomb hit the Lady, she recoiled and her form flickered, showing us how weak she truly was, not that she wasn’t still a formidable opponent, but I knew in my gut that if she had been at full strength, there would have been no way for us to defeat her. I was thankful for any small advantage we had over her.
As soon as she recovered from the hit, her eyes narrowed on me and I braced myself for whatever was going to come my way. Her form flickered a few more times and it was obvious that something was going on inside her and I sent a silent thank you to the shard for helping us and reclaiming her rightful place.
It was that moment the Reapers and Cavalry chose to attack, rushing into the fray and lobbing magic like they were trying to tag someone out in dodge ball. Her scream of indignation was deafening to all around her, and without thinking, we all yanked our hands up to our ears. I felt the disconnect immediately, the loss of power from Lily and Elizabeth. When I turned to find them, they weren’t there. Instead, they’d been blown back to the point that they had hit the shield I’d erected, and fallen down.
A blast of power hit me from the back, letting me know that the Lady was aware I was more vulnerable like this. My mates swarmed around me, practically blocking me from her view, but it wasn’t enough to protect me from one of the most powerful beings to ever walk the Earth.
The next blast seemed to pass through them entirely while hitting me squarely in the chest. It pushed them all away from me, forcing them to the ground while I was pinned in the center, held upright in the air. If she wanted to attack me, she was more than welcome to, but the second she hurt my mates, a rage bubbled up inside me the likes of which I hadn’t felt before. I thought I knew wrath, but this? It was a thousand times stronger, and it flowed through me, flooding me with power.
While they were still down, I drew on my mates, winding the abilities to walk through time, minds, and dreams, to connect with and channel the earth’s magics, and the power to shift all together, shoving it at her with as much force as I could muster. When she stumbled, my heart leapt with hope, especially when I dropped to the ground in a puddle of limbs as her magic dropped me the six feet from where I’d been dangling like a puppet with no strings.
The Reapers and Cavalry were busy fighting some weird creatures that seemed to be crawling out of the ground, but were made mostly of water. They were like a Hydra’s head, every time one of them was frozen or destroyed, two more would take its place. I was nervous for what that meant in the long run, but I couldn’t afford to think about it in that moment.
What I needed was the strength of the triangle, which left me no choice but to run to Lily and Elizabeth where they still lay, seemingly unconscious, on the ground. I ran straight toward them for a while, until one of the Lady’s blasts of magic grazed me and almost took me to the ground, then I began to zigzag and do anything to make my path unpredictable as I made my way across a large field to the downed women. I should have made my shield smaller, then I wouldn’t have had so far to run, although if I had done that, then the force of the impact could have easily killed Elizabeth who was still mortal, and would be until she was claimed by her mates. Even now, I was watching her to see if she was breathing.
Finally, I reached them, only to find them both staring up at the sky as though they were dead. Fortunately their chests were rising and falling, so I knew they were alive, but they weren’t responsive and they weren’t unconscious, which worried me more.
Can you get a couple members of both the Cavalry and the Reapers to come back here and guard Elizabeth and Lily? I mentally asked Raven.
I got a sense of him nodding his head, while I slipped my hands into theirs and pulled on the remaining power I could glean from their frozen bodies. It felt unfair to try and take more power from them when they were like this, but I needed it for what I had planned.
Henrick and Rhys were there a moment later, and part of me wanted to yell at them. They were the de facto leaders of their groups, one elected and one ingrained, so removing themselves from the battle didn’t seem like a good idea at all to me, but then when I glanced behind them, their brothers were still fighting just as hard, so I figured they had to know what they were doing.
“I don’t know what she did to them, but they aren’t responding,” I panted, adrenaline coursing through me like a raging river. “I figured we should have someone keep watch over them so they aren’t attacked while they can’t defend themselves.”
“Agreed,” Henrick said as he glanced at Rhys who simply nodded.
“You two figure it out,” I ordered, as I pushed to my feet and ran back in the other direction.
As soon as the Lady saw me coming, she began sending what looked like lightning bolts at me, forcing me to dodge and weave as I made my way back to the main battle. How she could direct so many different forms of magic in so many different directions, I would never understand, but she kept Merlin at bay while also trying to take me out and keeping the Knights of the Round Table and my mates entertained with her water creatures.
When Merlin stumbled and fell to his knees, I almost lost my footing as well. It was
distracting enough that I didn’t see the last bolt the Lady had sent my way, and it hit me squarely in the chest. It felt like my whole world lit on fire. Every nerve ending was in scorching pain and I couldn’t even tell if I was screaming or not. My vision flickered and the world grayed out, all the colors draining out of the sky and trees I could see around me.
Get up! Merlin shouted in my head.
I tried, but my body felt wrong, contorted, and jumbled. I couldn’t connect to anything past the pain, it was my whole world.
You are of the Lady. You are of me. Use that. Take her magic and repurpose it, he demanded, although his voice sounded strained, like he couldn’t talk to me and defend himself against the Lady at the same time.
Darius’s face appeared above me and my heart thudded in my chest, which only caused another wave of pain to overtake me. I wasn’t sure what he was saying, since I couldn’t hear it over the roar of pain in my ears, but as soon as I tasted his blood on my lips the pain eased slightly, and the more I drank the more I could think through it. Finally, Merlin’s words made sense, and I was able to take the feeling of the lightning, the fire, and the universe collapsing in on me and absorb it. I drew the power into the well that lay deep within me and stored it there for the time being. The act was instinctual, and I knew if I was ever asked how I’d done it, I’d never know the answer to that question.
As his blood recharged me, I sighed into the act of feeding. It grounded me, more than even the anchor had, and finally, I released Darius and took a long, shaky breath. My eyes locked with his and I saw fear shining bright and true within his, which made my heart clench. He thought I’d gone down and wasn’t going to get back up.
After a moment of his throat working, he croaked out, “Are you okay, Mate?”
“Thank you,” I breathed. “I’m okay, but it’s all thanks to you. I couldn’t...” I started, but now wasn’t the time to say I couldn’t find my way back to the surface, back to a world without pain, until I drank from him.
