It was happening all over again. History had doubled over on itself. Ari was going to die as he stood at Nin’s side, powerless. The picture of Ari’s battle faded, but the pain stayed with Merlin. “She needs me,” he whimpered. “We’re… friends.”
“Friends? That’s an interesting word for your relationship,” Nin mocked. “Besides, when have you ever had friends? You have Arthurs who outgrow your help. Pretending you are part of their lives will make things far more painful, Merlin. You’re just… passing through.”
Even though Merlin couldn’t see the future, he could still fear it. He imagined the horror and disgust on Val’s face when he realized that Merlin was too young for him. He saw Ari growing into her power—and leaving him behind.
Even if she lived past this day, they were doomed to lose each other. Merlin’s shaking leg gave out, and he fell to the rocks. Nin studied him with a cocked head, a finger to her perfectly formed chin. “You know, I thought watching you age backward would be more fun, but we’ve gotten to the point where it’s mostly ridiculous and mildly shameful.”
“You try being a teenager.” Merlin pushed to his feet, looking for a way out of this place, even though he doubted one existed. But if Nin had thought showing him Ari in a tournament ring would be enough to mollify him, she didn’t know him. She only knew the Old Merlin.
He hummed, warming up his magic.
Nin’s ethereal face turned slightly frantic. “If you stop being a child about all of this, I will end your backward aging.”
“You… what?”
Nin took a step closer to Merlin, closer than she’d ever been, crowding his thoughts, pushing out Ari with her all-consuming glow. Nin reached out, her bright fingers touching the wound on his leg.
It faded, just like the picture of Ari had.
“The time has come,” Nin said. “You’ve gotten close enough, and frankly I don’t want to watch this show anymore. It’s become so formulaic. The good ones always do.” Anger clawed its way into Merlin’s thoughts. All this time, through all of this tragedy, the Lady of the Lake had been watching as if his life were some cheap form of entertainment?
“You’ve watched those Arthurs die, and you did nothing?” His questions took a hard left into the personal. “You watched me kiss Art and… walk away?”
“That bit was quite sad,” she said, putting her fingers to her lips as if she still savored the memory. “Now, dear Merlin, let me return you to your parents. You’ll be done with your backward stroll through time. You won’t be alone, and you’ll never have to be a squalling infant. Everyone gets what they want.”
Her words pierced Merlin’s mind like a lance, shattering his determination to return to Ari into a thousand tiny shards.
“I have… parents?” he asked blankly. There were no parents in his memories, even the earliest ones. He’d searched them endlessly, looking for the smallest clue of their existence. With so many centuries at his disposal, he’d had plenty of time to torture himself over it. The only bit of physical evidence that he’d even had of a life before he first awoke in the crystal cave had been that tiny wooden falcon. He stuck a hand in his pocket, suddenly afraid that he’d lost the one from Lionel. It was still there, small and solid and rough at the edges, tethering him to his new life.
“Did you think someone made you out of sticks and robes?” Nin asked with a laugh. “Of course you have parents.”
“Who are they?” Merlin’s voice was hoarse, twisting, strange in his own ears.
“That I can’t say. They’re quite powerful, and I doubt they would like me being the one to give you the news of who you really are, where you come from, et cetera and so forth.”
“Or you just don’t want to lose out on the dramatic potential of watching me confront my secret, magical parents,” Merlin spat.
“Oh, well, yes. That’s part of it,” she said with a mild, infuriating grin. “Tell me you’re ready, and I’ll return you to them. They are so nearly ready to see you again.” Nin folded her hands, waiting for Merlin to accept her offer.
He let himself sink into that sweet, tempting possibility. He didn’t have to keep inching toward childhood. The loneliness that had kept his life separate from everyone else’s could be over. The special oblivion that waited for him at the end of this would be banished, with one word.
Yes.
“What will happen to Ari?” he asked, unable to stop himself. “Will she defeat Mercer? Unite humankind?”
“Oh, Merlin, uniting humankind under one banner?” She tutted like a grandmother, even though she looked eternally twenty-five. “That sounds like imperialism, doesn’t it? The suns never set on the Arthurian empire? Do you remember how many problems that impulse caused in the past? What about the future? Doesn’t this Mercer Company want to unite everyone, too? How can any single entity know what’s best for all people? These humans keep making the same boring mistake of demonizing difference, but believe me, if unity for all worked, I would have gotten into the deity game a long time ago.”
“But… you’re the one who gave me the steps,” Merlin said. “That’s the last step. And Ari will be the one to finally do it. She knows that bringing people together doesn’t mean making them the same.” Merlin felt everything inessential begin to slip away. “She’s more like the first Arthur than any I’ve trained. I can’t leave them.”
The Lady of the Lake’s smile curled like a burning page. “What makes you think Ari will live through the day? You could be giving up everything for a dead girl and a wisp of ancient spirit.”
The idea that Ari might be dying only made Merlin more desperate. But what Nin had offered still glimmered like diamonds on water in the dying sun. Merlin wanted to stop aging backward so much he could taste it. It was a meal with his family. A kiss finally shared without fear. Only that kiss wouldn’t be with Val, and that family would be far away from Ari—if she even survived.
Merlin had made this mistake before. He’d taken Nin’s bargain, and let Arthur die.
He might not have started the cycle, but if he wanted to end it, he was going to have to stop making the same mistakes. It wasn’t just a question of plodding through the steps, again and again and again.
Merlin had to change the story.
“Let me go, Nin,” he said, the depths of his commanding old-man voice returning for a single moment. He had one card left to play, and he would throw it down. Nin had brought him here twice, and both times she’d bargained with him to stay as if he did have the power to get himself out if he wanted to. Merlin pointed his magic straight at her. A song came to him: he hummed the sprightly tune to that old Camelot musical.
“What are you doing?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Using the power you’ve already given me,” Merlin said, her doubt encouraging him. After all, Nin had only started bargaining when Merlin looked for a way out of the cave. If he was truly trapped here, she would not have offered a deal.
“Do you believe you can touch me with magic?” Nin asked, her voice fading into the air as her form vanished.
“It’s like you said before, this isn’t a battle.” The first sparks flew out of Merlin’s hands and hit the cave wall, crumbling a section, letting in the blinding light of pure time. “This is a prison break. Fortunately, I have some practice with those.”
More magic flew out, and another great chunk of the wall fell, rocks hitting water with a great crash. He didn’t need to give Nin a body, like he had with Morgana, if he wanted to use his magic on her. The cave was her body—it was her physical creation.
All he needed was a way out.
“Stop that,” Nin said, her voice shaking the ground.
“Let me go!” Merlin cried.
The cave blasted white as all of his magic came out of him at once.
Merlin returned to a room filled with medical equipment and Mercer associates, all of them scattered in a rough, broken circle. The ground was covered with jagged white scorch marks.