“So they did approve your marriage,” Val said. “How suddenly convenient.”
Gwen rubbed a ring on her hand, one that Merlin hadn’t noticed before. “We should have come straight back to Lionel. We never should have gone to that damn planet.”
The words were out, and Gwen didn’t try to take them back, though she did recoil. Merlin expected Kay to have a serious allergic reaction to the suggestion that his parents should have been left to die. Instead he swept an arm around Gwen that she surprisingly took him up on. He lifted her into a hug, and she dangled like a small child from his arms.
Val cleared his throat. “Gwen? What do we do?”
Kay put her down, and she pressed her face on his shirt. “You smell like her,” she said. Kay gave Gwen a strange, twisting look, as if she’d said both the best and worst possible thing at the same time. “Thank you for staying,” Gwen added, her composure back in place—like armor.
“I’m staying, too,” Merlin said.
Gwen slayed Merlin’s excitement with a glance. “I thought you’d made it clear that you don’t care for me.”
“Ancient grudges die hard,” he admitted. “But I never should have treated you as Ari’s enemy. The enemy is obvious enough.”
Merlin looked out over the field of ships. He wasn’t Arthur—he wouldn’t defeat the greatest evil in the universe, or unite humankind. He couldn’t stop the cycle by himself. But he thought of Val’s home, about to be invaded. Val’s words. I wanted to make a difference in this ridiculous universe. Merlin looked from knight to knight, each of their faces echoing the doom that he’d felt when he thought about going back to the crystal cave.
Magic prickled back to life in his fingertips.
The most imposing bit of Beethoven he could remember slipped through his lips. His hands rose and conducted a frantic composition. A web of crackling, golden energy bolts sprang into existence between the black Mercer ships and the surface of Lionel. A single ship advanced, and was zapped so hard that it looked like a finger stuck in a heavenly socket.
“Let’s get you home,” Merlin said, poking a tiny hole in the web so Error could fly through, energy snapping wildly around them. They sailed toward Lionel, and Merlin mended the tear in the web, the Mercer ships stuck behind them—for now. Merlin imagined Ari at his side, slinging one arm over his shoulder and saying “Not bad, old man.”
For a single second, he let himself believe she was still with them.
Ari was still on Urite… except she wasn’t.
She spun inside while Morgana rummaged through her memories, feelings, and fears as if the enchantress were a burglar pillaging the jewelry store of her mind. Ari couldn’t stomach a second more of the smash and grab sensation.
She grasped at an image Morgana had tossed aside.
In the memory, Captain Mom was teaching Ari how to park Error on a crowded space dock, two hands on the controls, squared shoulders, clear eyes. The keen memory of success and pride overwhelmed Morgana’s theft for a moment, and Ari didn’t hesitate. She latched on to another memory, winding up with that time on Tanaka when Kay and Ari had gotten into fisticuffs over a girl with forever legs who’d given both of them her ship’s call code.
From there Ari searched until she found it, knowing it would drive Morgana mad: the recent snapshot of Merlin’s cracked-egg smile after they’d come out of their worst memories together, closer, united. Hands joined.
Morgana’s voracious spirit paused, her voice issuing from inside Ari’s mind. You’re fighting me. Stop.
Not a chance, Ari responded, digging deeper, tumbling into the bedsheets of her new favorite memory, the one that spun through her when she was doing everything else, making her flush, dizzy, and spread with a warmth that fought the cold of infinite stars. Gwen was naked, chest heaving, curling fingers into Ari’s hair while her legs trembled, whispering, You’re going to leave me again. I don’t trust you. I can’t… Ari kissed up her thighs, hips, to the smooth plane between her breasts. Ari tasted Gwen’s fingers, promised that she would stay… that this time belonged to them and could be no one else’s. Not Lionel’s or Mercer’s. Not King Arthur’s or Merlin’s.
And Gwen had cried like Ari didn’t know how much Gwen needed to hear those words, and Ari had found surprising tears because she hadn’t known how much she needed to say them.
Morgana withdrew as if she’d been burned by the fire of the memory. I don’t want your mortal passions! If you stop fighting, I’ll give you what your heart desires.
Ari knew a trap when she heard one, and yet her longings burst forth as if a door had been thrown open—possibly by Arthur himself. Did he want this to happen? Wouldn’t he stand with her against Morgana?
At first Ari’s desires were a neat arrangement of her knights, Merlin, Gwen, Error, but the surface rippled like a mirage on blistering sand, revealing a deeper ache. Ari wanted to go home, but then, Arthur wanted it, too. She could feel his guiding hand as if she didn’t just want to go back to Ketch; she needed to.
Home, Ari whispered.
Morgana made an exasperated sound and chucked Ari like a stone.
Ari landed hard on the frozen ground, face first, still gripping Excalibur. By a miracle, she hadn’t impaled herself on her own sword. She gasped, sore all over. And opened her eyes.
Ari wasn’t on Urite.
She was on a crystal-clear shell. Some kind of thick glass. And below her—a solid death drop below—lay an intricate, crenellated city made of red stone with wide-arching windows.
“Omaira!” Ari sat up, reeling around to take in her surroundings. Beyond the capital city, a red desert spread out below her, highlighted with magnificent oranges and yellows. Large animals crawled in the distance, bragging of life. Tears stung Ari’s eyes and at the back of her throat where she could taste how much she’d missed Ketch—a sensation swiftly soured by a logo stamped into the glass barrier. The Mercer M.
Morgana hunkered beside Ari. “Interesting. My magic cannot get you through this.”
“Great.” Ari dusted her hands off and stood. “I didn’t actually ask you to bring me here.”
“But you did. And Arthur did as well.” Her dark eyes gleamed, and Ari hated that she was right. The fact that she hadn’t spoken her desire out loud was true, but also a technicality. “He is close to speaking with me, I can tell. I’ve waited several millennia for this.”
“Morgana, my friends are back on Urite. They—”
“Left that planet as planned, without you. I saw them escape the molten cannons myself.”
“Cannons?” Ari almost yelled. “Did Mercer go after them?”
Morgana leaned closer, a little too close, squinting at Ari’s face. “You are home, you insignificant string bean. That is what you asked for. Home. Focus on that.”
Ari was dizzy from the height and also maybe from the thin atmosphere. She looked down at Ketch. “Right, home. Down there. How am I supposed to get through the barrier?”
“My power is internal. So is time travel, although the physical aspects of space travel do require a little blood from a certain scrawny, self-aggrandizing—”
“Morgana.”
“Yes, well, we probably needed Merlin for this. An oversight on both of our parts, come to think of it. I don’t have any physical magic. Technically, I cannot even touch you.” Ari felt a chill that might have been Morgana’s fingers. “All of you waste your bodies. You have no idea of their power, of what you’d be without them. If I hear Merlin complain about his frail, backward body once more, I’ll lock him in the cell of his worst memory and be done with it.”
Ari couldn’t help herself. “I’ve seen his worst memory. It isn’t a prison. He’s going to face his fears. Even if that means facing down Nin herself.”
“How could you be naïve about the Lady of the Lake?” Morgana asked, stunned. Ari didn’t like that she’d shocked her; it felt like sipping spoiled milk. “You say her name like she’s one of your friends or enemies. She is neither, and y
ou would do well to remember it.”
Ari sheathed Excalibur at her back. “Fine, but you’re jealous of Merlin’s frail body. Admit it.”
Morgana cocked her head. “Imagine going through existence as a ghost. An unwelcome whisper. A living curse.” She huffed. “You would be jealous, too. Even of that gangly—”
“I bet he could make you a body. You could work together to solve the cycle. You could join us instead of being a huge damn intangible thorn in everyone’s side.”
“He could make me a body. This I have recently proved to be true.” She smiled evilly.
“You did something on Urite, didn’t you? I saw how you looked at Merlin’s blood.”
That evil smile grew.
“What did you do?”
“I bought us some time to be together. To get you to Ketch and find a way to talk with my brother. If you wish this chat to be over, give me access to Arthur. If he’s not in your head, perhaps he’s in your heart. Trickier. Such a fickle organ. So fragile and easily… stilled.”
Morgana pressed closer, and Ari stepped backward on the glass, her magboot sliding on the surface.
“Wait,” she tried, holding one arm across her chest as if that might keep the woman from reaching inside her blood and muscle, clawing through her very pulse. A hundred feet beneath her, she saw the crenellated top floor of the city’s largest tower. A central meeting place called Ras Almal—where her parents had worked. Memories poured in, and she couldn’t help smiling.
Home was so close… and yet still impossible to reach. Unless she could send out a signal.
Ari grasped at her bare wrist, swearing. She’d given Gwen her watch, her only way to communicate with Error, or anyone else. I’ll be right back, Ari’d said when she stepped off Error on Urite. Gwen had known something would go wrong; Ari hadn’t listened.
“I’m going to die up here. Alone. Or with you, but that’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
Morgana’s face showed the first sign of humanity. “Perhaps. You can’t break this barrier with your hands, can you? Wouldn’t it be a kindness then, to let me inside to see my brother with your last breaths. You do seem kind, albeit brash, silly, and boastfully truthful. All of Arthur’s best—and worst—traits.”
Morgana reached toward Ari’s chest, and Ari drew Excalibur, pointing the blade at this wisp of a human. “I am not your long-dead king.”
Morgana laughed, choking the air with a sudden sadness. “I knew no such being. Arthur is a pawn in a magical, self-fulfilling torture, devised by Merlin in either his powerful ineptness or his purposeful corruptness. I cannot tell which.”
“Merlin isn’t evil. He’s overenthusiastic and shortsighted, I’ll give you that,” Ari said. “But he loves his Arthurs. They give him purpose.”
“Merlin’s purpose is calamity. His love is hollow. Fake. A plastic plant. A garbage mountain. A lazy lover.” Morgana’s anger lifted her voice. “All these countless years, my Arthur is undead, unrested. His soul flits in and out of reality like a bird with a broken wing, landing on small creatures that might have the fortitude to help. Those beings get distracted by quests. By Merlin. By a love story that confuses tragedy with triteness. I loathe the very—”
“What is it about this doomed love story?” Ari interrupted, her hand straying to the ring on her index finger. “Merlin seemed terrified of it.”
“I could show you things that Merlin keeps secret. I could change your understanding of what it means to be Arthur. Merlin has fed you the morality and grandeur. I could show you the tragedies that fall in the wake of such foolhardiness.” Morgana’s whisper dwindled. “These endless years Merlin has played hero games while my little brother’s soul lingers, suffers, fractures.”
“I get it,” Ari tried. “I have a brother, too. I’d do anything for him.”
Morgana paused. “You do not seem surprised to hear that King Arthur is my brother. Merlin told you, did he? Perhaps he is maturing as he… immatures.” She tittered at her own joke. “Still, I’m surprised. My brother’s creation is Merlin’s greatest shame. The living proof that his heart is corrupt, that in the end, Earth’s great magician is no more than a demon.”
Ari wanted to thumb off Morgana’s anger, but her curiosity edged forward. “What?”
“He created the rape of my mother.”
Ari narrowed her eyes, confused.
Morgana sneered. “You are trying to imagine young, prancing, what is the phrase?—gay as a maypole—Merlin committing such an act. I would have you picture him as he was in the beginning. Ancient, gnarled, miserable.” Ari knew Morgana spoke truly. She had seen Old Merlin firsthand in that memory, his dark hunger, his insatiable need for power. “On the night my father was murdered by Uther Pendragon, Merlin used his magic to make Uther identical to my father. And in that guise, Uther entered my castle, my home, and violated my mother.”
Ari’s mind smacked into the memory of wearing Kay’s body—and Merlin making her promise that she would do no harm with it. Ari glanced at the tower hundreds of feet below her magboots. “Maybe Merlin didn’t know what that psychopath was going to do, Morgana.”
“Maybe he did not care.” Morgana curled her hands into fists as if she were imagining squeezing the life from Merlin. “That would be enough to loathe him, but there’s more. When that violation turned into my beautiful brother, Merlin stole him. He corrupted Arthur with his trainings and self-aggrandizing importance. The once and future king. The unifying force of mankind. Merlin convinced Arthur to give himself to the machinations of warring men. And he has been lost to them ever since.”
Ari looked down at her hands, clutching Excalibur. She could feel a limp, bird-boned Merlin in her arms, newly pulled from the frozen ground of Urite. His words had been as brittle as flecks of ice.
There are worse things to steal. Like children from their families.
“You believe me,” Morgana said, “because you know no woman would create such lies. Perhaps the cycle has finally solved one problem.”
“We are close to figuring out how to end the cycle. And you’re going to help, whether you like it or not.”
Ari’s drive came from somewhere deeper than a long-dead king. She turned her sword point down and cast the blade into the crystal casing, through the damn Mercer logo like a bull’s-eye. Ari imagined ice breaking, fracturing, and snapping apart around her.
That wasn’t what happened.
The barrier popped like a glass bubble, and she fell mercilessly toward the surface of the red planet.
Ari didn’t let go of Excalibur, even if it made her fall faster, harsher, spinning. And the sword had its own ideas, guiding her toward that skyscraper of a tower, snagging on the top edge. The blade slammed into the sandstone in a way that yanked Ari’s arm in its socket. She swung from a height that was impossible. Improbable. Insane.
Ari instantly tried to get a second hand on the pommel, but twisted and nearly fell.
“Help!” she called out.
No one came—perhaps because she was speaking the wrong language.
“Musaeada!” she called, the word smooth and strong.
Still, no one appeared.
Ari’s teeth gnashed, her whole body began to shake, and there on the edge of the tower, Morgana appeared, sitting with her legs crossed, elbow on knee, chin in palm. “Death by gravity? Interesting choice. I admit you are my favorite Arthur thus far. I honestly didn’t think my misguided brother with his antiquated beliefs would ever choose a girl. Still, why you?”
“I don’t know,” Ari said, each word loosening her grip on the sword. “Help me.”
“Why?” Morgana asked, no longer cold or dangerous. All of a sudden she seemed like a girl who’d gotten the worst fate in the world. Worse than Ari’s. “If you fall, I’ll simply have to wait for a new Arthur. Another chance. I think that’s the best choice at this point in the game.”
“Merlin is dying. What do you think will happen to your cycle when he’s gone?”
&nbs
p; Morgana shook her head and—was Ari imagining it?—she seemed angered by the idea of losing Merlin. “He’s too stubborn to die.”
“He’s getting too young. He’s scared. Terrified.” Ari’s grip burned. “And you’re not going to let me die like you did to all those other Arthurs. The ones you killed.”
Morgana leaned closer. “I killed the ones who were poisoned by Merlin. I release my brother’s spirit so he might take flight again, find a new creature to mend his broken soul. So tell me, forty-second King Arthur, do you believe your fate is to unite humankind?”
“My fate…” Ari gasped, “… is mine.”
Morgana vanished.
Ari swung from the sword, the wind pressing her closer to the tower in a way that helped her wedge her feet against the stone. She adjusted her grip in a moment of sheer terror that left her heart firing off its beat. All she had to do was climb.
She kicked into the tower, lifted herself—and Excalibur wobbled in its hold.
She froze.
Something caught her eye from below. A large four-legged creature scaled the tower at rapid speed. A giant gods damn taneen—the desert lizards Kay always called dragons—scurried up to meet her with the hungriest look on its face. Ari scrabbled against the tower, not caring if she fell. Falling would be better than being eaten alive.
But when the lizard came up underneath her, nearly half the size of Error, it lifted her up with its scaled head, dropping her off on the roof of the tower. She sprawled, shaking. Excalibur was still stuck in the stone, out of reach, as the taneen started sniffing her. Admittedly she didn’t remember much about Ketch, but she was certain these creatures weren’t supposed to be this big… or inside the city.
A primal fear took over. The kind that wasn’t organized and complicated like her fear of Mercer. It was bold and raw. A pounding, resounding, Oh, holy shit.
Taneens were only dangerous when they were hungry; that’s what her father had always promised. She glanced along the harsh, platelike scales folded into a hard ridge down its back, ending in a long, alarming tail. The large triangular head made its way to her face, huffing dry, hot breath into her hair. Its eyes were a bluish red that blazed purple when the sun lit on them.
Once & Future Page 18
