Sword in the Stars Read online

  “As if that were my first time at the bottom of a well.” Merlin scoffed. “Hardly.” He turned to Lam, only to find them looking over the crowd at Gwen, their height a great help in the effort. “What in the blazes is happening?”

  “You’ve missed a lot, old man,” Lam said without taking their eyes off Gwen.

  “Missed what?” he snapped. Lamarack ignored him, and the mage spun back to his most pressing concern. “What happened to ‘steal the cup and get out unnoticed’?” Lam quirked an eyebrow. Before they all went through the time portal, Merlin had told them not to interfere with the past—hadn’t he? There had been so much happening. An unborn baby to protect from Mercer, who wanted to claim it as a price for rebellion. A cycle of tragedy and torment to stop. Surely he’d told them not to demolish the past in the process?

  Surely he shouldn’t need to explain that one.

  “You’ve heard of the butterfly effect?” Merlin barked. “Changing the tiniest thing in the past can damage the future. Gwen has leapt into the middle of a mythological hurricane! She and Arthur are bound to each other! Literally!” He paused. “Are they handfasting?”

  Handfasting was a scrap of history he’d forgotten about in the great heap of time that came after it. He’d never paid much attention to anything having to do with traditions of love and romance. He’d called it idiocy, or brainmelt in his kinder moments, but he did remember this test of loyalty and devotion. Those who meant to marry were tied together for the length of their engagement, the knots cut on their wedding day. Most couples handfasted for a year, but Gwen had arrived today, mere hours ago.

  Unless… she hadn’t.

  He flashed back to the portal’s winds, everyone separated. Merlin had imagined they landed in different places, but what about different times? “Did you arrive—”

  “Months ago,” Lam finished wearily.

  “Tell me everything,” he yelled. “Now!”

  His outburst drew looks from the crowd. Lam—who had lost a hand to Mercer in the future—angled to grab Merlin with the remaining one and hauled him many yards away. “We have to lay low, Merlin. We’ve been here for a long time. Me, Gwen, and Jordan.” Lam pointed to the sturdy blonde girl in the lineup of handmaidens with flowers in their hair.

  “That was Jordan!” Merlin squinted. She looked like she wanted to hack her white dress and garlands from her body with the nearest battle-axe. Her hair hung to her waist, her cheeks the severe pink of barely restrained fury. He was afraid to ask his next question. “Ari? Val?”

  Lam shook their head. “No sign of them.”

  “But how long have they been missing? How long have I been missing?”

  “Four months… ish?” Lam managed. It made sense. Tracking Earth’s moon wouldn’t be an obvious business to Merlin’s space-born friends. “Gwen keeps better track of it than I do.”

  “Naturally.” She had an internal calendar, set to the progression of her pregnancy, no doubt. “But four months,” Merlin said, swallowing the loss, trying to glimpse Gwen’s stomach and finding that her wedding dress had a strategic shape that turned her into a formless bell. “Does Arthur know she’s…?” He pantomimed having a round stomach, and then having the contents of that stomach, well, slide out.

  Lam grabbed one of Merlin’s hands, stopping him. “We’ll explain when we’re all together. Gwen will want to tell you. This place…” Lam winced. “Camelot is not what we thought.”

  Looking around, Merlin had to agree. And while he was delighted to be wrong about certain things—such as the total whiteness of ye olde Britain—his lack of clarity about the past was its own kind of danger. Merlin was meant to be their guide. Not just to Old Earth, but to the story itself. As King Arthur and Gwen recited vows in strong, unwavering voices, he pressed himself to remember anything about the original Gweneviere. Too many movie actresses shot through his mind, and only one memory rang true: telling Arthur that he’d read the omens and that the young woman he’d fallen for was a curse on the king’s heart as well as his reign.

  No wonder the people of Camelot didn’t trust her—Merlin had told them not to—and Arthur had claimed his first youthful rebellion by marrying Gweneviere anyway, while Merlin had kept to his tower during the ceremony like a miserable old falcon.

  He would not glance at that tower right now. Rivers of sweat sprang up on his palms. “Gwen has put herself in horrible danger.”

  “She knows what she’s doing,” Lam said as if they needed the reminder, too.

  Arthur used a silver dagger to cut the knot binding him to Gwen. They slipped rings on each other’s fingers, and then the inevitable moment came when their lips met. He tucked one of her curls behind her ear. It looked fairly chaste in a picturesque sort of way. Still. King Arthur had just kissed Gweneviere. Their Gwen.

  Ari’s Gwen.

  “This is all so wrong,” Merlin whispered. Another cheer broke loose, but this time it didn’t die. It grew in pitch and frenzy, twisting from celebration to something more primal. Screams shattered the moment, turning it into a riot. Swords flew from sheaths. Villagers ran, while nobles were tightly circled by their personal guards. Merlin spun. “Who’s attacking?”

  “It’s the Middle Ages, man. Who isn’t attacking?” Lam pounded him on the shoulder and rushed against the escaping masses. He kept close behind Lam, whose immense height divided the crowds on both sides. Merlin’s magic was still exhausted, but he couldn’t be a slouch in battle. He popped blue sparks in the face of a man who tried to stab Lam in the back.

  “Get to Gwen!” Lam shouted.

  It was hard to keep her in sight now that the architecture of the crowd had collapsed, but Merlin caught glimpses of her holding Arthur’s hand at the center of the tournament ring. The knights from the procession had begun battling each other, no order apparent in their attack. They seemed determined to take each other apart.

  “Where are Arthur’s knights?” Merlin hollered to Lam as they hopped the railing and entered the straw and muck of the ring.

  “Great question,” they called back. “Nothing here is like the story!”

  He caught sight of Jordan running to Gwen’s side. She raised her skirts, kicked one of Arthur’s guards in the back, and ripped his sword out of his hand before he fell. Within moments she was taking down attackers, the only one in the crowd with a smile on her face.

  An avian cry sliced the sky, making both Lam and Merlin stop. Everyone looked up. Merlin’s chest squeezed tight as a large falcon circled over the ring and landed on Arthur’s shoulder. The king cried out, but with a spark of magic, he became a tiny songbird. Merlin had loved the trick of turning Arthur into animals, but this was no whimsical adventure. It was an escape. One that pointedly didn’t include the new queen. The two birds flew high, and when the songbird tried to return to Gwen, the old falcon bullied it back to the castle, leaving her in the center of the fight, white dress a beacon for all of those who wished to hurt the king—and were now closing in.

  “Dude, the old version of you is cold,” Lam yelled.

  Merlin’s cheeks were ablaze, his nerves fizzing. He wanted to hide from his shame, but there was nowhere safe in all of Camelot. This place was his shame.

  Merlin fought sudden tears. No, he would not cry when faced with medieval battle. He was a mage… whose magic was exhausted. When a knight ran at him, sword raised, Merlin crouched and hugged his knees, only to hear the unmistakable sound of someone pounding his attacker into oblivion. When he looked up, the knight with the blue armor was standing over him.

  They were mercilessly tall. Merlin yelled as the knight used the back of his robes to lift him to his feet like a dog taken by the scruff. “Help Gwen!” the voice commanded.

  A familiar voice. One he sometimes heard in his head. One that laughed at him when he was being foolish and cheered him on when he was being, well, foolish.

  “Ari?” he shouted as the knight spun away and took on a challenger in red who swung a short sword in his right hand and a
great axe in his left. Merlin watched as the blue knight leveled both with a hard swing and then charged, using their breastplate as a battering ram. Which felt Ari-like, indeed.

  The red knight toppled like a turtle on his back, and the blue knight grabbed the axe out of his grip and used one hand to shove his helmet back and the other to bring the blade’s arc down on his neck. In a great, foul spurt of red much darker than his painted armor, he went limp. Merlin must have been wrong; Ari was never so violent.

  He tripped toward Gwen, who breathed the biggest sigh of relief at the sight of him. “I’m here, I’m here!” he hollered.

  Jordan had found a sword and was protecting the queen with her entire muscled, dress-covered body. “Good, now help!”

  Merlin tried to create a protective bubble, but only wound up out of breath. Gwen pulled him close as if she was now determined to protect him.

  The blue knight swung toward Gwen, and Jordan stepped between them.

  “Stop!” Jordan barked. The knight sheathed their sword and began the process of pulling their gloves free, while Jordan frowned at the dragon on their breastplate. “Who are you?”

  “Your biggest fan, Jordan.” The knight flung away their gloves to lift their visor.

  It really was Ari. Looking and swaggering and smelling for all the world like a medieval knight.

  Ari clapped eyes on Gwen, her voice clear and promising. “Hey lady.”

  Gwen’s face flooded with happiness and tears, and Ari’s was poised to do the same. They moved toward each other, but Lamarack suddenly shouted, “Yield, Sir Kay!”

  “Kay?” Ari and Merlin asked in unison, both turning just as a knight pinned Ari’s wrist behind her back, stole the rounded dagger from her belt, and slammed it through the chainmail beneath her arm.

  Ari screamed as she fell to her knees. It was the worst sound Merlin had heard in his long, painful history. Gwen’s shredded cry was a close second. He and Gwen ran for Ari while Jordan felled the attacking knight with a great blow to the helmet.

  Ari tipped forward into Gwen’s arms. Merlin hovered over them, inspecting Ari’s wound. The dagger was in up to the hilt—which meant it had gone all the way through her chest. Now it was Merlin’s turn to cry out. An hour ago he and Ari had been standing in the red sands of Ketch, imagining a future without Mercer.

  Now he’d fast-forwarded to a part of their story he could not recognize.

  “Heal her!” Jordan commanded.

  Merlin needed a spark that could disintegrate that dagger without causing more damage. He had to seal Ari’s wound and cauterize it, fast. He couldn’t survive all the ages and all of the Arthurs and come back to blasted Camelot only to lose her. But when he closed his eyes and hummed, his fingers fizzled and went cold. Merlin had returned just in time to not save anyone.

  The battle died out around them. Gwen screamed a command at Jordan. Jordan hunkered in her ruined dress, took something small out of her cleavage and shoved it in Ari’s mouth, forcing her jaw closed. Merlin didn’t understand what was happening. He opened and closed his useless, magic-drained hands. His power hadn’t come back quickly enough.

  Time was against him—it always had been.

  Ari was hiding out in the Middle Ages, but the future was never far from her mind.

  Especially now.

  She couldn’t seem to lose consciousness but she wasn’t truly there, either. Her thoughts screamed foul memories while the Mercer first aid pill—bitter and boiling in her veins—drowned her body with adrenaline that made her, well, feisty as fuck. When the Administrator loomed suddenly, Ari swung so hard she spun and missed.

  “Grab her legs!” Lamarack hollered just as someone Merlin-shaped dove for her knees, locking tight arms around her until her balance was compromised. Lam pinned one arm while the other arced in a left hook that caught Jordan in the face.

  Jordan smiled, a drop of blood at the corner of her mouth and a look of dark pleasure in her eye as she hit Ari so hard that she went down and stayed down. When Ari closed her eyes, she saw an endlessly swirling taneen on fire, spinning in a tight circle. She shivered as her frozen moms were dug up from a mass prison grave. She lost her breath at the sight of so many murdered Ketchans, half-buried in the shifting red sand. She saw Kay…

  She saw Kay with empty, lifeless eyes.

  Ari thrashed until it all evaporated, coming back to her senses in strong arms. Sharp, real smells filtered through her. Hay, mold, horses. A lot of horses.

  “This isn’t how I imagined our reunion.” Lam’s voice was in her head, or close to it.

  Merlin’s voice floated down. “Have you ever seen that happen before?”

  “I’ve never seen someone take one of those before. I’ve heard it can be unpredictable.”

  “Unpredictable? I think I prefer Miracle Max’s miracle pill.”

  “Merlin, what are you going on about?” Jordan’s taut words made Ari wince.

  “I’ll have you know that’s a timeless cultural reference!”

  “Shut up,” Ari managed, her mouth cotton. “I’m stuck in my worst memories.”

  “That sounds like Ari!” Merlin knelt close, and Ari turned away, still fighting the desire to scream or punch. She peered out a window, searching the night sky and its pinpricks of stars for home. But Ketch wasn’t out there. Neither was Lionel, or even Error. They didn’t exist yet, and it left Ari feeling like she had these long months on her own. Like a futuristic ghost.

  Ari closed her eyes. “Damnit, Kay. Help me, will you?”

  “No doubt he’d upend Camelot for you, if he were here,” Merlin said, finally drawing her attention to the here and now. She was lying back on Lamarack in the straw mountain of a stable.

  “If I let you go, will you behave?” Lam’s tone was gentle, but their hold wasn’t.

  “I always behave.” Ari sat up gingerly, her heart still racing, tightening her chest with anxiety. She winced through the bitter aftertaste of Mercer’s famed first aid pills, the kind that could regenerate major tissue damage if immediately administered but were so high priced no one ever had one lying around. Ari had only used a pill like it once before, the day her mothers and Kay saved her from the void, her body riddled with infected burns.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Lam rubbed her back. “You appeared like an armored angel in the midst of battle, took a dagger through both lungs, and yet you’re still with us. Thank God.”

  “God? Since when do any of you reference singular, all-powerful deities?” Merlin asked.

  “Lamarack is a little too good at adapting,” Jordan replied dismissively. “And you’ve been missing for a long time, mage.”

  Ari held the spot under her arm that was hot and numb. For the first time in weeks, she wasn’t in her armor. Her clothes were stained and ripped, her breasts barely concealed beneath the ragged linen. “Where’s Gwen?”

  “In the keep with her husband, the king,” Jordan said with far too much satisfaction.

  “He came back for her,” Lam said, “after you magically appeared in the fray, saving Gwen only to get stabbed by our resident asswipe.”

  Jordan narrowed her eyes. “You don’t know what you’ve cost Gwen. Again. That pill was for her.”

  Ari stood too fast. Lam steadied her with a soft arm around her waist. “You had that pill for when the baby comes, in case something goes wrong.” Clarity struck like a match. “Shit.”

  “No doubt the idiot people here will think this miraculous recovery is witchcraft and burn you at the stake,” Jordan said, “but apart from that you’ll be fine in a few hours.”

  “You make it all sound so romantic,” Ari deadpanned. “Did I… hurt Gwen, too?”

  “No,” Lam said. “Just us. We brought you here. You called me ‘Administrator’ and Merlin ‘Hector’ and tried to attack us. Who is Hector?”

  “No one.” Ari closed her eyes. “I kept hallucinating. Seeing my enemies. What did I call Jordan?”

  “Jordan,” sh
e said.

  Ari cracked an eye to peer at Lionel’s famed black knight. Jordan smirked, and Ari didn’t stop her own smile. “Perhaps it was just worthy opponents then.”

  Merlin wandered to the large, open doors of the stable and back again.

  “Why do you keep doing that?” Jordan asked.

  “It’s just… if Ari and I returned on the same day, Val must not be far behind. Perhaps he’s in Camelot now, looking for us,” Merlin said. “Perhaps I should go look for him.”

  Lamarack’s smile was sad. “If my brother were here, we’d all know it. He’s never made a single entrance in his life without significant fanfare. The same hour he was born an ice volcano erupted on Pluto so huge that a new frozen range formed. Our parents named the highest mountain after him. Percival’s Point.”

  Merlin wrung his hands. “But then, where could he be?”

  “Judging by where the portal dumped me out, anywhere.” Now that Ari could see her friends clearly—Jordan in a handmaiden’s dress and Lamarack in servant’s rags, she started to put together the hard truths. They must have been here for a while. And it hadn’t been easy. “Tell me what’s happened.”

  Lam turned Ari toward them. “Gwen, Jordan, and I found ourselves in Camelot during the last snow of the winter. We were freezing, starving. And desperate to find the rest of you.” Ari winced, imagining Gwen in the melting snow, pregnant and searching for her. “We worked our way into the villagers’ trust. Labored for them, found ways to be paid in food and lodging. It was near impossible because… because…”

  “Because when you don’t slot into people’s expectations here, they get suspicious at best and violent at worst? Because you’re used to the future, where it’s no big deal that you’re nonbinary, Jordan is a famous knight, and Gwen is knocked up and not here for patriarchal nonsense?” Merlin said, surprising Ari with robust anger. “This whole planet can kiss my ass!”

  Ari held down a smile. That might have been the first time she’d heard Merlin swear. “The people here aren’t welcoming, but at least they don’t seem to treat us poorly based on skin tone. Didn’t you say that was a bizarre, evil thing they did?”