He smashed the long, dramatic points of the crown into Kay’s chest.
Kay’s mouth overflowed with red so fast he coughed instead of crying out, and Ari screamed while the Administrator gave one final shove that stole the laughter—and life—from her brother’s eyes.
Ari couldn’t move. This wasn’t happening. She stared at his shredded chest, urging herself to wake up. Wake up! She couldn’t tear her eyes away, not even as she heard the heartrending cries of her parents’ grief.
“There,” the Administrator stood. “A demonstration always smooths matters. Now we’ll have no more resistance. The show must go on, yes?”
On the other side of the sliding doors, a massive creature howled in pain and anger.
Ari closed her eyes, recognizing that call.
Big Mama.
“Now,” the Administrator said, wiping his hands on a towel. “There’s a large dragon out there who is rather furious that we filled her baby full of holes. Your first job as a Mercer employee is to entertain the masses. Go shove that beautiful sword through her thick skull. Or die trying. A fake king or a dead rebel? Both are brilliant crowd pleasers. What will it be? Honestly, the suspense is just killing us! And, Ari?”
He put a hand on her arm. His nails bit through the chain mail, and he drew her so close that his terrible, hot breath was all over her neck. “Checkmate.”
Merlin screamed, as if that would help. As if anyone in the universe could hear him.
He was suspended inside a Merlin-sized bubble in the Lady of the Lake’s deep, shining waters. Dark-blue surrounded him on all sides, as far as he could see. The sides of the bubble were slippery, and Merlin couldn’t keep his footing. He kept sliding, betrayed by the leg that Morgana had stabbed. When he could no longer move, he pinged the sides of the bubble with magic, but whatever enchantment Nin had created held up.
“Ari!” he shouted. “Ari, I’m coming!”
He was hoarse from hopeful lies. The truth was that Merlin had no idea how much time had passed since he fainted. Nin had taken him out of the story—ripped him away right at the moment when Ari needed him most.
And trapped him here.
Like last time… when King Arthur… when he…
Merlin banged and banged and banged because apparently the one thing Nin couldn’t stand was being disturbed.
“What is it now?” she asked, her voice a watery ripple moving through the lake.
“I need to leave this cursed place,” Merlin said, his heartbeat frantic.
“No, Merlin,” Nin sighed. “I’m doing this for your good. If you had unleashed your magic, Mercer would have killed you, and I haven’t waited all this time to watch you cut down by a CEO with a blank soul and an unfortunate haircut. You’re safe here.”
Merlin snorted. Benevolence from Nin was highly suspect. The only helpful thing she’d ever done was give Arthur a sword.
“She’s a supplier of weapons,” Merlin whispered, remembering.
There had to be magical weapons around here. A few notes bobbed under Merlin’s breath as he sang about all things good and pointy. Then he watched the deep-blue water, trying not to look too eager.
A moment later, a sword sailed through the lake, deep-gray and aimed at Merlin. The bubble popped, and the inside flooded, earthy lake water rushing in. Merlin grabbed the sword as the whole thing collapsed inward.
Opening his eyes to peer through the murkiness, he swam toward the only source of light, a faint glow in the distance. All the while, the Lady of the Lake fought him with a sudden riptide, the kind that belonged in a great, salty ocean.
“Stop fighting me,” she said, her voice trembling the water. “You’re making this into a battle that it doesn’t need to be.”
Merlin kept swimming at a hard pace even though his stabbed leg sent out rays of pain. The feeling was almost unbearable, but at the same time it brought him strange comfort. It was a connection to Ari. If he was in pain, he was alive. If he was alive, there was still a chance of getting back to her.
The water churned to nearly white, tossing him viciously. He felt as if his lungs would fail, giving up before his heart did. He emerged on the underground shores of the lake, dragging himself out dripping wet, chest on fire. Merlin held up the sword he’d summoned, trying to look fierce, or at least not entirely waterlogged—and waited.
He should have felt better now that he was no longer a bubble prisoner, but this place was even worse. The light in Nin’s cave shone vaguely blue. The sounds muted, as if someone put a finger to their lips and shushed the entire world.
He’d been here before. This was the home of Merlin’s worst memory, the one he’d relived with Ari. Shame flooded him, even darker and colder than Nin’s lake.
The Lady of the Lake glimmered into being. Her outline burned gold, the rest of her body wavering like a reflection on water. “Welcome back, Merlin,” she said, her voice rippling through him like his body was a plucked string. “Are you ready to stop this childish, one-sided fight?”
He raised the sword higher, his arm weak, his body faintish with hunger. Nin had forgotten that Merlin having a body meant she needed to feed him if she was going to keep him as a magical pet, and their time together had already felt like a mad stretch of days. Anything could have happened to Ari and his friends by now. He took a step forward, even though his leg protested with throbbing pain.
“I will not let Ari die,” Merlin said, pushing out the words. “I just got her back! And I will not let Arthur down. Again.”
“What will you do instead?” she asked idly. “Kill me?”
The Lady of the Lake looked sternly at the sword in Merlin’s hands and said a few words in a language that sounded older than the water and earth around them. The sword shot out of his grip and landed in Nin’s gut as she laughed.
“Now,” she said, speaking to him while impaled, as if she’d settled their debate and hoped they could move on. “What happened to you, Merlin? I haven’t had to keep you from dying in many cycles. I thought you had mastered the art of self-preservation.” She frowned mildly. “Go back to not caring, please. It was saving me so much trouble.”
Nin’s words scratched on the door of his deepest questions. Was she the reason he couldn’t seem to die? He pushed the matter aside with a great deal of effort and focused on what he’d been torn from.
“What has become of Ari?” Merlin begged. “Let me see what’s going to happen. You’ve allowed me that much before.” Nin had given him that power the last time he was in her cave.
“I had to take your future-vision back,” she said coldly. “Some vows are older even than your magic, and I promised I wouldn’t interfere with this part of the story.” Nin studied him through eyes that were silver as mercury, except when they were blue as flame. In that moment, he saw Nin clearly—and was struck by how little she cared.
He used to be more like her. He used to be able to turn off parts of his empathy, put his soul on mute. But he couldn’t go back to that, even if he wanted to.
“Show me what I’m missing,” he demanded.
“You want to know what Ari is facing?” she asked, with a sigh as weary as time. “Fine.”
She removed the sword from her abdomen with one clean sweep. Then she stirred the air as if it were water. The rippled texture gave way to a picture of Ari in armor, in the center of a sand-filled tournament ring. She looked harried, exhausted, and she was holding Excalibur in a flagging grip as an enormous dragonlike creature circled her. Its jaws descended with a vile metallic crunch. Ari winced at a spot where the dragon’s teeth had caught her between armored plates. Blood was everywhere, darkening the sand, spilling through the vision in a way that seemed to turn the pools of water around Merlin red.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.”