As fear clenches me, anger also manifests. “What are you going to do? Attack me? Force me to go back?”
Merlin looks down, his eyes hooded under knotted brows. “Not if I don’t have to.”
“Not if I don’t have to,” I repeat bitterly. “You know I’m not going willingly. I want to see you try to attack. I’m dying to see you try!”
Merlin blinks rapidly and there’s vulnerability in his eyes. “Morgan. Please. Just surrender. Why create any more disasters than you already have?”
“I’m not going down without a fight,” I warn as I back away, not taking my eyes off him. “I’m running. If you want to stop me, go ahead.”
I go back into the lake, toward the boat. The fog is unfortunately thinning. My chances of making it out of here are slim, but it’s my only option. I’m willing to gamble that Merlin doesn’t have the nerve to fight me. And why wouldn’t he want to let me go anyway? He cares for me. His pursuit of me is just a charade to keep his job. Once I row away, he can pretend I escaped.
I push the boat into the water and jump in. It glides across the water briefly then halts with a jolt, causing me to fall back. I look over the edge of the boat into the water, which has become opaque. The water surrounding the boat has frozen solid while the rest of the lake remains liquid. Why are you stopping me, Merlin? I scream with anger and climb out of the boat, nearly slipping on the ice before splashing into the freezing water. With no other choice than to confront Merlin, I march across the shallow water, back to shore. The firewall is still burning behind Merlin as he watches me. Once I reach the shore, I grab Merlin by the scruff of his sweatshirt.
“What’s the matter with you?” I shout. “You want me to die? Just let me go.”
“Don’t go across the water,” Merlin warns firmly. “Snipers surround this lake. There is no way I’m letting you get in that boat.”
Is he bluffing? Logically though, I have to be surrounded. Camelot knows where I am. So which way to go? How do I want to die? My lips twitch as I try to muster courage not to break down in front of him.
“I’d rather be sniped than tortured to death. You can understand that, can’t you?”
Merlin puts his hands on mine, which are still holding him by the collar. His touch is firm, matching my grip. “If you try to run, you have no chance at living. If you’re captured, there’s a chance. Trust me, okay? Just come back with me.”
“Are you delusional? What do you think is going to happen to me? Me, going to Camelot, packaged into a cell with a tidy trial ahead of me? That’s what you think, is it? I know what happens there. When I was little I saw my mother in her cell—she was starved, beaten, and executed by fire. I’m not going to Camelot, so damn you!”
I push him and stride back toward the boat. “If you care about me,” I continue, “you’d let me go the peaceful way.”
“Morgan,” Merlin warns, panic in his voice.
I aim my hand at the patch of ice below the boat, dissolving it.
“Morgan!”
I hoist myself up on the boat.
“You idiot!” Merlin screams.
Pain strikes my left shoulder. I scream, falling into the water before standing back up. I feel my shoulder with my hand.
Bright red blood.
I stare with disbelief, almost not comprehending it.
But I have known deep inside Merlin is capable of this. I recall the icicle in Maleagant’s neck. Precise. Decisive. Cold.
The icicle didn’t embed itself too deeply into my flesh. It falls out of my shoulder and into the water, leaving a red trail behind.
“You stabbed me,” I say, looking back at the blood on my hand.
“You cannot leave,” Merlin repeats. “I will bring you back to Camelot, no matter what it takes.”
Merlin’s eyes are as dangerously icy as his magic.
I glance back at the blood dissipating in the water, and perhaps because of nervous energy, I can’t help but smile.
“This is amazing,” I say, and laughter erupts out of my throat. I close my bloodied hand before looking him in the eyes. Once my laugh dies, I take a breath, and for a second the world goes still. “I like you now more than I ever have,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to see which one of us was really better at magic.”
“I don’t care who’s better,” Merlin says with disgust. “I just want you to live. I have always cared about you more than you could ever know.”
I will have to take out Merlin. I don’t want to kill him or burn him with fire, but perhaps I could knock him out. It seems to be the only option. It will require trickery to execute.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll let you take me back.”
I walk toward him, but Merlin backs away, his eyes still narrowed.
“You will walk in front of me and extinguish your firewall,” Merlin says.
I swallow, realizing my plan will not work if he’s this cautious. The firewall roars on. It will die once I tire from fueling it and knights will close in. Time is ticking. Helplessness swells inside of me like a crushing wave. There’s no time for trickery.
I break into a yell and run at Merlin, knocking him on his back. I try to put my hand over his face as he struggles. He grabs me by the arms and flips me over onto my back, my shoulders slamming into rocks embedded in the sand. The air rushes out of my lungs. Now he’s in the dominant position.
“Don’t fight,” he pants, keeping his grip firm on my wrists, pinning me onto the sand. “Don’t.”
“Let go of me.”
“Please don’t fight.”
“Let go of me!” I cry.
I conjure flames over my palms, burning his hands. He grimaces with a shout and rolls off of me. We’re both on our feet, lightning quick. I throw a fireball at him. Merlin evaporates the attack with a swift movement of his hand, the fire sputtering into steam in midair.
“No, Morgan, no…”
I lash more roaring, dangerous ribbons of flame toward him. He backs away.
“If you’d only stay out of my way,” I say. “You wouldn’t get hurt.”
He parries the ribbons, turning them to steam. His brows are tense. The firewall roars on to our left. I have to use more power to scratch Merlin, and yet a part of my energy is still being used to keep the wall going, which is necessary to protect myself from the knights. I take a step back, preparing for another attack. What kind of attack? Something unpredictable. But what?
Then… I slip.
My back slams into the hard ice that Merlin created beneath my feet.
Merlin saw a moment of hesitation, and he struck. My breath gets knocked out of me. Coldness loops around my body: an ice belt, moving like a snake through the air. I struggle against the forming ice.
“This is useless, and you know it!” I shout, melting the ice around me and standing back up.
I conjure fire in my hand and throw it at him. It hits his shoulder. Merlin’s sweatshirt brilliantly blazes, lighting up his face before he puts it out. He grimaces as he touches his exposed reddened shoulder.
“See what you’ve made me do?” I snap. “Stay back!”
I create another firewall between us. I turn around and start running. The stretch of sand along the coast seems to go on forever somehow, like I’ll never reach the woods that will hide me. Behind me is a young man worse than any fictional monster—he is calm, cold, and powerful. The uneasy itch is in my heart again. An allergic reaction that I can’t handle—the suffocating feeling that he’ll win.
Why should he always win?
Ice forms across the ground before me. Gritting my teeth, I halt and whip around. Merlin extinguishes the firewall between us. I’m afraid that I’ll kill him. I’m afraid to be pushed.
“I don’t want to kill you,” I warn as I get up. “Don’t make me do something I’ll regret.”
My hands shake as I approach Merlin, glaring at him, not because I dislike him but because I cannot escape this fighting
ring. The fear of killing him is all I can feel.
“Come on then,” he says sternly. “You know hurting me won’t get you anywhere. Killing me is the only way to stop me from capturing you. So kill me or else you’ll be caught.”
“What makes you think I won’t,” I snap and throw a fiery blast his way.
The fire disintegrates around him like red butterflies scattering. His barrier is strong.
“You can’t win unless you really try,” he says. “You understand my skill more than anyone else.”
“I am trying!” I shout and blast out another wave of volcanic energy.
The same thing happens. My vision blurs as I grow light-headed. I’m running out of power.
With the last of my energy, I’ve got to throw a bomb-like blast his way with the intent to blaze up his whole being—his face scorching, limbs burning away. The intent to kill. It’s dangerous magic—one that needs sincere emotions without holding back. I search inside of every shadow in my being, trying to find this will. Whirling in a circle, my emotions find no conclusion.
Kill Merlin.
Merlin.
I begin sobbing.
The truth is I can’t kill him.
A chill runs through me, causing me to shiver. Merlin’s magic. He is creeping his ice magic onto me to lower my power. He walks toward me slowly.
“Stay away!” I yell.
“It’s okay,” he says.
“That’s not the truth,” I cry. “It’s not okay. If only you would be honest…” As he nears me, I pound his chest with my fist, no longer using magic. “Go away. Just go.”
My breath fogs as he weakens me further.
He circles his cold hands around my shoulders. My firewall begins to flutter weakly.
“No, no,” I weep. “Please don’t do this to me. Please let me go.”
“I’m sorry, Morgan. I don’t want you to die.”
“You’re turning me in to be tortured. To die painfully. How can you do this to me?”
“I don’t view it that way.”
He holds me tight against his sweatshirt, encaging me in his arms. Under different circumstances our embrace would appear as two people tenderly in love. But his hold on me is a dominant hold. He knows he must keep me under his power or else I could scorch him to cinders, should I choose to go insane.
The firewall that protected me from the knights sinks down with a whoosh, vanishing.
I cry into Merlin’s shoulder. He rocks me gently as my world shatters.
Jail. Pain. Cuffs. I shudder against Merlin’s chest.
“Please kill me,” I beg. “I don’t want to go. You can kill me. I know you can.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“The same reason why you can’t.”
If he’s saying he cares for me… it’s hard to accept. We both know what’s next.
Over Merlin’s shoulder, I see knights running toward me.
If he cares for me, why let me go through this?
As I turn my head from the sight of them, I hear boots stomping across sand. The clicking of guns. And another metal sound. Handcuffs.
“I have her,” Merlin says to them. “Violence is not necessary.”
“Let go of her,” I hear Lancelot command.
“Violence is not necessary,” Merlin repeats firmly.
Hands grip my arms and pry me off Merlin. I cover my eyes with my hands as if not seeing the soldiers will make them vanish.
Metal strikes against the back of my neck. I scream and crash into the sand below. Rocks cut my knees open. When I look up, I see Agravain sneering down at me.
“Stop!” Merlin shouts. “She has no power left. She’s harmless now!”
The knights ignore him as I’m dragged up by my hair. I try to conjure fire but nothing happens. Merlin dampened my powers completely.
A needle pricks my neck. I struggle, clawing at the air.
“No! Merlin!”
I scream his name over and over as if he can make this stop. As if he can save me.
Or that it’s all his fault.
I fall against the sand again. All I see are boots and my dirtied hand reaching out toward where Merlin is.
Darkness closes in.
Merlin.
I dread waking up.
Chapter 13
I wake up in total silence, feeling inhuman. I feel like something made of earth—a rock caught between two hard places.
I can’t see.
I can’t move my mouth.
There’s pain from every angle. I can’t say if my arms hurt or if my head hurts. All-encompassing agony, like that of a rodent swallowed whole by a snake.
Then metal clinks. I struggle. Chains are looped around my body. I’m bound to some kind of structure behind me. The links hold the weight of my body. I try to shake out of the bind, but only hear metal rattling. I scream and the sound is trapped within my throat by a gag. My ribs throb with pain as if the bones are cracked. In panic, I try to raise a fire, but even before a spark forms, an alarm sounds, jolting me.
Sound of a door opening. The alarm shuts off. Boots clunk across the floor.
“Careful now,” the voice says. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Le Fay. The sprinklers will go off and I promise the water pressure will hurt you badly.”
I recognize the voice. Hands lift up the blinders over my eyes. Drab grayness swirls in front of me. I blink, wincing. Slowly, I make out the concrete floor and walls.
In front of me, Lancelot is clean and well-dressed as ever. His right hand is in a sling, injured from the scalding gun. He holds a clipboard with the other hand. Lancelot’s eyes are stone cold, his jaw set.
I tremble as I try to make a sound, to move, anything.
Next, Lancelot reaches behind my head to unclasp the gag and pulls it off of my face. I gasp, pain ripping through my jaw. My headache amplifies. I grimace until the muscle spasms stop and then take a rattled breath. Looking below, I see that I’m wearing white hospital gown-like clothing. It’s stained with sweat and spots of old blood. How long have I been here? What have they done to me?
But these questions do not come out of my mouth.
“Where’s Merlin?” I rasp.
I take another shaky gulp of stale air, surprised by my question. He was the last person I saw before I blacked out.
Lancelot blinks before narrowing his eyes. “I don’t think I heard you right, because I thought I heard you ask me where Merlin was. Merlin is the future Maven, on top of the pyramid…” Lancelot raises his voice. “And you are at the very bottom of the bottom as a criminal of high treason!”
I wince as his voice rings in my ears.
“And anyway,” Lancelot continues in a harsh tone. “He’s the one who rendered you powerless and captured you, so it’s strange that you act as if he’s a friend you want to see. You’re either confused, or just really messed up.”
I take a breath, not sure if I’m one or the other in my current state.
“How long am I going to be tied here?” I ask.
Lancelot keeps his eyes on me. If he feels any speck of pity, I can’t tell. “I don’t know,” he says. “You’ll have to go to trial eventually.”
“Trial?” I wheeze. “What kind of useless crap is that? You all plan to kill me.”
“It’s just the law.”
“It’s formalities,” I correct bitterly. “A stupid show prior to the grand execution.”
Lancelot shudders at the mention of execution and rubs his head. “Damn. The hell’s wrong with you?” For a second he looks like he’s on the brink of a meltdown, and then he walks to me, bringing his face close to me. “What is wrong with you?”
Flinching, I turn away.
“Why did you kidnap the Prince?”
I have no intention of telling him the truth. It will achieve nothing to say that I suspect Merlin to be a Luminary. His word against mine. And there�
�s no way I’d throw him under the bus.
“Because…,” I say, my voice still weak. “Because I felt responsible to take him to Excalibur safely.” I watch him tiredly as I try to think of reasons that will satisfy him. “Because it was the right thing to do.”
“The right thing to do?” Lancelot repeats, his voice dangerously on edge. “What kind of sick mind do you possess? What made you so insane that you thought to harm and kidnap the most important person in the UK?”
“You’re mad because you let it happen.”
Lancelot lunges like a viper and punches the wall next to me with a loud smack making me jump. He slams the wall with his fist again.
“This is not a conversation, Le Fay! You are under interrogation. So answer me. Why?”
He’s staring up at the concrete wall as if he’s not even talking to me. I swallow painfully, my mouth bone-dry. My head is too light from dehydration and starvation to think about an answer. Lancelot takes a breath and slowly pulls himself upright. He turns his back to me.
“Yes, Le Fay,” he says finally. “Part of it is my fault for leaving you with Arthur. But I thought you were a normal human being. I had no idea that you were this messed up. Not even in my wildest imaginings would I have EVER thought you’d brutally knock out the Prince and drag his unconscious body into your car.”
So either Arthur told them the full story or they had a video from King’s Hall.
“I’m not going to justify myself to you,” I say. “I didn’t mean you harm though.”
“You think I care whether you meant me harm or not?” Lancelot lashes out. “This is about you endangering our country! You nearly destroyed the UK! How can you be so self-absorbed to think that I got my feelings hurt? You know, you’re such a teenager.”
I bristle, stung by his accusation, especially since I just threw away my life to save the country. “I’m not self-absorbed. I care about you; that’s why I wanted you to know…” I trail off.
It’s the first time I’ve admitted caring for Lancelot. And I do. He’s one of the few people that I’ve met who didn’t fear me. He treated me with frankness and playfulness as if I were a friend.
“I have to know why,” Lancelot says. “I have to understand this. I lie awake at night wondering why, why did you do it? Did your failure to become Maven make you so crazy that you had to take things into your own hands? You just had to be the one to take him to Excalibur?”
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