Sword in the Stars Page 8

  “Yikes,” Lam said.

  “Wait, the melee made him horny?” Ari nearly shouted.

  Jordan did a full-body swivel toward the stage, giving them her back, acting as if the puppets had become suddenly fascinating. At least they were fighting now and not wagging swords.

  Gwen focused on Merlin, because of course she didn’t want to talk to Ari about her “husband.” “I keep thinking Arthur is as young as Ari says, and then he gets this look in his eye…”

  “Like there’s suddenly Prince playing in the background?” Merlin asked.

  Gwen stared at him blankly. “The prince of what?”

  A long lecture on the Artist Formerly Known as Prince formed in Merlin’s mind, but he dismissed it. There would be plenty of time for Purple Rain when they got back to the future. Right now, they needed to stay focused.

  “I’m sorry you have to deal with this, lady.” Ari’s hands slipped across Gwen’s shoulders, threading her dark hair and doing something to the back of Gwen’s neck that made Gwen close her eyes, her mouth tipping open as if by instinct.

  “Stop it, you two! At once.”

  Ari and Gwen weren’t listening. Lam looked delighted, while Jordan seemed ready to bolt and reveal Merlin’s invisibility spell.

  “Eyes on me!” Merlin said, feeling like the coach of an unruly sports team. “Ari, if you’re headed to Avalon, you might as well kill two birds with one quest. We need the help of an enchantress. We can’t involve Morgana, since that would affect the future. We must find someone willing to sacrifice some magic, so we can form the portal to take us back.”

  “’Course,” she said. Which felt a little too easy, and she was staring at Gwen again.

  “What did I say, Ari?” Merlin asked querulously.

  “Enchantress. Not Morgana. Some magic.”

  A troubled look fell over Lam. They fiddled with the tie on their bracer. “And what about Val?”

  “Perhaps the Lady of the Lake will release him once she knows we’re close to returning.”

  “I really could use my best advisor right now,” Gwen said. “What are your reasons for believing Nin’s helping us, Merlin?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “History?” he managed. “She’s always saved me from the worst of the cycle. Perhaps she’s doing the same for Val.”

  “Why?” Lam demanded, an unexpected tone for them. But this was their brother stuck in Nin’s cave.

  “No clue!” Merlin cried. “I’ve never been able to figure out the Lady of the Lake.” He started to explain, but the harder he tried, the more he realized he didn’t know. So much of Nin’s life had gotten lost in the fog of Arthurian backstory. She had been an enchantress once, but she wasn’t human anymore. She was eternal in some way that he didn’t understand. Merlin didn’t even know what to call her. A magical being. Somewhere between a ghost and a goddess.

  “What is her power?” Gwen asked. “What can she do?”

  “She usually… watches. Keeps track of Arthur’s story. Nudges things from her cave. Kidnaps me occasionally, especially when I’m about to die. Oh, and she makes magical weapons.”

  “Holy shit, I miss Excalibur,” Ari murmured, fingers grasping the air as if the sword might appear.

  “And I’m going to miss you,” Gwen said, sliding both hands into Ari’s. “Again.”

  Ari glanced at each one of her friends, and Merlin fought back a strange instinct that she was saying some kind of goodbye that was about more than jetting off to Avalon for a few days. “Merlin, can anyone see us?”

  “No. This is the spell I used in the alley when we first met. Remember?”

  Ari smiled sadly. “Can you three… turn around for a second?”

  Merlin turned, shoulder to shoulder with Lam and Jordan. “How long should we give them?”

  “Not too long,” Lam said with a chuckle. “Or we’ll never get them apart.”

  Merlin hummed his way through Taylor Swift’s “Ours” and then turned back around. He expected to find a post-makeout hormonal haze, but Ari was kissing Gwen’s wrists, silvery tear tracks on both of their cheeks.

  “Be well,” Ari murmured, “both of you.”

  She left, and Merlin watched her go, armor blaring in the midday sun. She moved differently here. Held herself differently. As if walking a very high wire.

  “I’ve never seen her so serious,” Lam said. “She’s somehow stronger and yet more fragile. Beneath that armor, she’s tired and scared. Maybe more than when we faced the Administrator.”

  Merlin put words to a theory that had been forming ever since she walked into the square. “She’s getting lost in playing Lancelot.”

  “That’s because she is Lancelot,” Gwen said. “She always was, even before she knew it.” Lam looked at Gwen questioningly. “I can feel it, too. I’m Gwen of Lionel, but I’m also the Queen of Camelot. It’s… too much. Like being the hero and the victim at the same time.”

  “The puppeteer and the puppet.” Merlin understood too well.

  As if on cue, the stage erupted into a final battle. These shows were equally violent and whimsical, an unsettling combination. “Plus Ari doesn’t have Kay to keep her grounded anymore,” Lam said. “Believe it or not, he could always make her feel better.”

  “I believe it,” Gwen said quietly, rubbing her stomach like a good luck charm.

  Even though they were talking about difficult things, Merlin found himself relieved to have his friends around him once again. After a short while Lam had to return to their duties at the stable, and Merlin was left to shop with Gwen and Jordan, hunting down the items on Old Merlin’s list while enjoying their companionship.

  When the trumpets sounded and the people of Camelot arranged themselves on the main road to bid farewell to King Arthur and Sir Lancelot, he felt Gwen’s fear rise. Side by side they watched Ari disappear into the dark feral woods that separated the kingdom from Nin’s distant crystal lake.

  Merlin had never seen the legend from this angle before. Through all the cycles, he’d been Arthur’s mage, focused on Arthur’s heartbreak. But this time around he truly understood how much Gweneviere and Lancelot loved each other. Anyone who got in the way—from a rampant corporation to a lovesick king—barely stood a chance. They were the original love story of the Western canon, two girls from the future hidden in the folds of the past.

  Merlin realized with a start that he was finally rooting for the other team.

  Jordan loomed behind them as they made their way through the market, Gwen’s bodyguard even though the queen was still in her dressed-down disguise. After finding the last of Old Merlin’s items, they headed back toward the castle just as the sun sank below the horizon.

  “Mage!” Jordan shouted.

  It happened so quickly his brain whirled. He dropped the supplies, glass bursting, as four—no, five men swarmed out of the alleys, one jumping down from the thatch of a nearby roof. Merlin belted the chorus of “Raspberry Beret” and threw up a protection bubble around Gwen.

  “Not me! They’re attacking Jordan!” Gwen cried. The men flew down the streets, lashing out wildly at the knight with the long blonde braid slung over her shoulder.

  “I see that now!” Merlin said, all in the time it took for Jordan to slam down her visor, draw her sword, and take out the first attacker with a hard swing. These men were not knights. They wore no colors and fought with no sense of grace. They moved at a quick, brutal, deadly pace. “Hired assassins.”

  “Sir Kay must have sent them,” Gwen said, with a certainty that Merlin shared. He’d been bested in front of all of Camelot by a woman in armor. He wasn’t going to let that stand. And he wasn’t going to face her again, knowing he would lose. That would involve honor he didn’t have.

  Jordan cut off the second assassin at the knees—literally—when Merlin charged forward to help. Jordan saw him coming and backhanded him so hard he actually left the ground. “Don’t you dare, mage,” Jordan’s voice rang over the dull pain in his head. “Remembe
r, I know what it costs you.”

  “I’m not going to let you die in the medieval version of Street Fighter!” he cried, wobbling to his feet. Jordan had hit him really hard.

  Her smile flared bright. “You think I can’t take five men?”

  They drew a small crowd as two assassins fought her at once. She led them into a corner where they lost the space to maneuver and were as likely to slash each other as they were to find their mark. Then she jumped onto a hitching post and launched herself downward, taking one of the men down with the hilt of her sword to the forehead. When they landed, the fourth one was on her, using his leverage to flip her over. He climbed over her, crowded down, her sword arm pinned so she could no longer swing.

  “Jordan!” Gwen cried, palms bashing against Merlin’s magical barrier.

  He ran forward, ready to fling a few sparks, but then he saw the quick flash of silver. The man groaned, then retched. The attacker on top of Jordan keeled over as she swung herself out, a dagger sticking out of the man’s gut. Jordan turned, arms outstretched, sword blazing, ready to take on the fifth attacker. But he was nowhere to be seen. The crowd waited. They didn’t care if this girl in armor won or lost. They just wanted to see more blood spilled.

  “Looks like I scared him off,” Jordan said with satisfaction.

  The crowd booed, deprived of their frenzied enjoyment. The knot of people around them loosened. Merlin popped the invisible bubble that held Gwen, and Jordan took her arm as Gwen seethed with relief and worry for her best friend and even better knight. Merlin didn’t care whether the people of Camelot were ready to acknowledge her prowess—it didn’t change the fact that Jordan of Lionel was the finest knight in any place or time.

  A thunk sounded from far off.

  Red sprayed across Merlin’s vision. The missing assassin had run off to a cowardly distance and shot an arrow straight into her neck.

  Jordan went down.

  Ari couldn’t help feeling that something would go wrong in Camelot the moment King Arthur left. She pushed the thoughts down, keeping her focus on the quest at hand.

  Ari watched Arthur polish Excalibur from across the small campfire. She’d never seen him care for the sword before. She’d seen him train with it, fight with it, but never treasure it. Ari more than longed to hold the sword again. Merlin had taken the broken pieces when she arrived in Camelot, and the absence of the enchanted blade was never far from her mind.

  Arthur’s sharpening stone sang over the edge of the blade as if he’d lovingly done this every night since he’d plucked the sword from the stone. Or was this the sword handed to Arthur straight from the Lady of the Lake’s disembodied arm? Jordan’s book offered two possibilities—which engendered new thought on the so-called legend. Most of it had been imagined much later by romantic writers—and less romantic screenwriters—based on certain foundational truths. An old magician, Excalibur, a love triangle, a round table, a murderous son…

  That was, perhaps, the only reason they had any wiggle room with the time continuum.

  “You are watching me as if contemplating eating me,” Arthur said, just loud enough for his timid voice to reach across the fire. “We rode long and far enough this day for me to imagine the possibility that you’ve only been playacting the role of a friend. Making a game of luring me out of my kingdom, away from my guards, so that you might kill me.”

  “Not everyone wants to kill you, Arthur,” Ari said, feeling a pang for the reluctant royal. She’d been hunted by Mercer for most of her life, forced to always watch her back. “Besides, I told you the enchantresses will never take your offer of peace seriously if you arrive surrounded by armed men on horseback.”

  “And you don’t count as such?” Arthur paused in his sharpening, staring at Ari with a daring look. “I watch you as much as you watch me, Lancelot. I know you keep secrets.”

  Ari studied him. “I won’t keep the truth quiet if you ask the right questions.”

  She swore she could hear Merlin exclaiming curses at the heavens for this offer.

  Arthur slid Excalibur in its long, leather sheath. “Then my question is, why have you placed yourself at my side, good knight? Why do you seek to train me, improve public opinion of me, strengthen my kingdom with allies?”

  Ari stood, pacing beside the fire.

  “Will you sleep in your armor?” he asked, making her pause.

  “Of course,” she snapped. “What if we were attacked in the night?”

  “And what if I beheld your female shape?”

  “My… what?” Ari actually drew her sword. Arthur pressed his lips nervously.

  “You’re a woman. I suspected it from the start, but after the melee, I could just tell.” Arthur’s serious face split with a sweet, tentative smile.

  Ari thrust her sword into the ground. “So you’re not surprised? Upset?”

  “Everyone lies to me. The only control I have is to know how much someone lies. You’re not a man, but you are a mighty hero.” He nodded to himself as if this truth had taxed him, but not broken him. “If that is the worst secret between us, we can be friends.”

  Ari was dumbstruck. She felt rather acutely as if she’d acquired a little brother. He was heartfelt to a fault, trusting, loving… lonely.

  Like Kay.

  And like Kay, the worst dealings between Ari and Arthur would not be the chalice or Ari’s ladyhood or any other subject. It would be one specific, vivacious queen.

  Ari added more wood to the fire. “How far do we still have to go?”

  “A day or less. We must arrive by nightfall tomorrow. That is when the door to Avalon appears through the mist.” Arthur curled on the ground, punching the roll of clothes that served as his pillow. That was the other thing about this trip; Arthur had left his finery behind. He wore plain clothes, no crown. Two people on the road had already treated Arthur as if he were Ari’s squire, carrying her fancy sword, and he’d seemed pleased with the arrangement.

  “I believe I’ve underestimated you,” Ari managed.

  Arthur nodded. “Imagine,” he said, “that you are no one. You are small and have no family. Imagine someone gives you a sword and tells you it was all a dream, your nothingness, your powerlessness. Instead, you are a king and this blade in your hands comes with a kingdom.”

  Arthur’s voice dwindled, and Ari picked up his words, adding her own. “And with that kingdom comes thousands of voices. Those in pain, those who have been silenced or abused or even killed. You’re supposed to listen to all of them. You’re supposed to answer every single plea. You’re supposed to take down a monster larger than galaxies with a sword as long as your leg.”

  “Yes. Exactly.” Arthur turned his back, his voice sleepy. “And I must do it all myself. Power is the worst kind of loneliness.”

  Arthur fell asleep while Ari managed camp. Night was never silent in the woods, never safe. Large creatures hunted in the darkness while smaller ones hid. While Arthur slept, Ari examined him: thick blonde hair, mouth slightly open, his body all twisted up like a child.

  While she stared, she felt the connection between the boy king and the ancient cursed spirit perched in her soul. This was the person who would one day save Ari’s life during the Mercer attack. “Where are you buried?” she murmured to the silent voice inside. “Why aren’t you at rest?”

  Ari relieved the horses of their saddles and then sat against a tree, pulling a blanket over her. It was no easy revelation to feel sorry for the king, both the young man and the ancient spirit. It had been so much easier when she merely glared at the way he smiled longingly at Gwen. She wished Merlin were here so that she could ask for his advice. How had he dealt with wanting so badly to help someone who was set up for failure? And that was really it, wasn’t it? King Arthur and his knights ended in tragedy. Every single version of the story agreed on that much.

  Equality failed. Love failed. Kingdom failed.

  That was his true legacy.

  Ari pressed her memories back to the moment
within Merlin’s magical curtain. Ari hadn’t had time to plan something romantic, she’d simply slid to one knee, her face against Gwen’s chest, enveloping her entire lady—and the baby—in her arms. Gwen held on to Ari just as tightly, and they laughed and shook off biting tears. Relieved to have found each other. Blinded by the complications still between them. Ari kissed Gwen’s belly, waiting to see if she got a response, but the bump was still. “She’s sleeping.” Gwen lifted Ari’s arms until she stood back up, towering over Gwen.

  “Still she?” Ari asked. “Shouldn’t we use they until we know more?”

  “I say she because I hope it’s a girl.” Gwen fisted her hands. Something was hurting her.

  “Are you in pain? Contractions?”

  “No. Ari, do you know the stories about Arthur’s son?”

  Ari’s mind turned a corner and ran into a stone wall. Something Merlin had said when they first met floated through her thoughts like a dark cloud through a blue sky. You don’t have children, by any chance? He’d been terrified of the idea that any Arthur reincarnations might have kids. “Gwen, the baby couldn’t possibly be…”

  Mordred.

  Even the name made her stomach turn and her hand close on the sword at her belt.

  “Mordred was the son of…” Ari had to pause and peer backward into her memories of Morgana’s Arthurian lessons on Ketch. “… Someone else. I’m sure of it.”

  Gwen put a hand on Ari’s heart. Each breath felt heavy with the weight of the space between them. “But that’s just it, Ari. All the stories are different. I don’t know. I can’t know. What if I’m the one who gives birth to Arthur’s son? The murderer.”

  “Won’t happen. This kid is half-Kay, not half-Camelot, and that means the only murdering will be sandwiches. Believe me?” Ari leaned in, so close to Gwen’s face that she felt that spinning inside. That perfect, out-of-control sensation of their love.

  Gwen nodded many times, tears slipping free.

  “I should probably kiss you before Merlin drops that curtain. I mean, can I kiss you, Gwen?”

  Gwen’s yes was a press up on her toes. Their lips met soft and joyous. Warm and light. Then they parted. For the last fucking time, Ari vowed. “I don’t care that this place can’t accept us together. I know how magical we are. I’m growing old with you, lady.”