“You’ve always used magic like a child.”
“And you’ve hidden down here like a lake monster,” Merlin shouted, voice spiky with youth and pain.
“Don’t be jealous because you have to live the human way,” she said. “All that work to stop your backward aging and now you have to age forward in time because of that silly little body of yours.”
“I could make my body older in a snap!” Merlin swam for the nearest shore, dragging himself out of the viscous black waters. “I even have practice.”
“You know that won’t work,” Nin said. “Fast-forwarding the body does not age the spirit, which only changes as time moves and wisdom is gained. You’ve just given Kairos an amazing case of soul-lag. It will take him decades to catch up. But you know that already, don’t you? You remember how miserable you were… don’t you?” Merlin tried not to fume and give away exactly how right Nin was. “Still, go ahead and give yourself a teenage body and a child’s mind before you reunite with Val. I’d love to see that festival of misery.”
It was a sharp reminder that Nin was watching him. Always watching.
That was the next thing to fix.
Merlin threw every protection spell in the book around himself at once. Nin couldn’t see him anymore—her eyes slid out of focus. She wouldn’t be able to watch him. She could comb through time all she wanted.
“Cloaking yourself won’t help,” she said. “I know your next move. You’re going to the future to save your headstrong Ari. It won’t work. But it’s going to be quite the show. The grand finale.”
“Why do you want to watch it so badly?” he asked. She stared blankly, as if there was no answer to that question stored in her magical, glowing mind. “Why are you doing any of this?”
There had to be a reason, even if it was buried so deeply in the past that the enchantresses of Avalon couldn’t find it. Morgause had told him no one knew how she became the Lady of the Lake. Nin was the biggest blank in the Arthurian cycle.
Merlin might be able to fight her. But he would never beat her while she was still a perfect mystery. And if she wouldn’t tell him why, he’d have to find out for himself.
“I don’t want to keep you,” Nin said dismissively, while Ari’s bier lowered back into the lake. The cave dissolved around him. Merlin was back in the portal, hurtling toward the future. Nin’s voice grew faint. “Don’t worry about me. I have a front row seat to Ari’s final moments.”
Merlin wanted nothing more than to save Ari, to tell Gwen the truth about who he was, to fight his way back to Val. But he was done playing Nin’s game. He turned around in the portal and, with a great deal of magic, swam against the tide, back toward the actual beginning.
Ari landed in Ketch on her feet. Her legs sank up to the shins in the shifting red sand, but she recovered fast.
The night was on fire. Smoke stained each breath, and her eyes stung until she could barely take in the sight before her. She’d come out of the portal in the dunes outside of Omaira. The cityscape was lit up against the night: red, orange, and harsh white devouring flame. Exactly as it had looked following Old Merlin’s magical blow that tossed her into Nin’s lake.
“Gwen! Val?”
“Ari!” Gwen’s shout cut across the wind. Ari tried to yell back, to peer into the darkness of the desert around her. Instead, her eyes watered beyond sight and when she rubbed them, she irritated the burn across her cheek—the one that wouldn’t even be healed by the day she died.
Fuck.
“Ari!” This time it was Val. She willed her feet to move, starting out at a jog toward the sound of their voices. How would she tell Gwen that their plan to get home had come with a new Nin clause? A particularly merciless one?
Ari ran faster, and the flames of destruction in the near distance illuminated a large, swiftly moving shadow. A taneen. A really big one from the size of its legs. The great desert lizard was sniffing her out, had probably caught her scent a mile away. It paused when it saw her, crouching low. Ari eyed the creature and recognized the broken plating.
“Big Mama?” her voice scratched. “That you?”
The taneen pounced, knocking Ari down, and she waited for the moment when its enormous needle teeth pierced her in a hundred places at once. Instead she got a great wet tongue across her arm and shoulder. Two people slid down from Big Mama’s back. Val and Gwen threw their arms around her.
“How long was I gone?” Ari said, ready to hear some Nin nonsense—that they had been separated by months or miles.
“A very miserable hour,” Val said, finally letting her out of the hug. “Long enough for us to assume the worst. We didn’t know if we should stay where we came out in the dunes or make our way toward the city. Then the freakin’ dragon found us.”
“We told her to find you,” Gwen said.
“Oh, no.” Val held his hands up. “I didn’t approach the terrifying Ketchan dragon. That was all Gwen.”
Gwen held on to Ari, radiating nerves. “What is it?”
“Remember before we left, she had those eggs? She’s alone now. Her…” Gwen’s voice choked, her own loss vibrating through Big Mama’s. “Her babies are gone.”
“We’ll find them,” Ari said, speaking of the hatchlings, but also of their little one.
“What if Mercer—”
“Mercer doesn’t kill things they can sell.” It wasn’t exactly comforting, Ari knew, but it was true.
Gwen took the sides of Ari’s neck, directing Ari’s face toward her. “What about Arthur?”
“At rest.” Ari closed her eyes. “Finally.”
She breathed out, looking for that place inside that had never been lonely, that had always been a listening ear or a guiding voice. She could feel the change deeply, as if the eternal candle that was Arthur had truly been extinguished and only the waxy-scented smoke remained.
One king gone from the universe, a new one rising to take his place.
One nightmarish lady in the past.
One monstrous corporation destroying this future.
Not to mention one unforgiving time lock.
Gwen could sense Ari’s fear. “What is it?”
“Later,” Ari said, squeezing Gwen’s hand. “We have to search for survivors.” Her words were eclipsed by a blast of sound and ferocious spin of air. A shuttle pressed down on them out of nowhere, landing hard in the sand so close to Big Mama that the taneen went wild, biting at the air, clawing toward the vessel.
The very familiar vessel.
“That’s not Mercer!” Val shouted.
The headlights on the ship blinded them at first, and then lowered to a humming glow that illuminated the craft. Ari’s gaze traveled to the spot beneath the cockpit’s viewscreen. To the hand lettering Kay used to risk his life to touch up once a year. He’d shimmy into his old space suit, heading into the void with a fraying tether and a worn-out marker.
ERROR
The ship had dropped from the dark skies as if it had been looking for them. Ari thought of her moms and went wild with hope. “Whoa!” she yelled at Big Mama, who was beginning to butt the tiny starship. “Whoa!” She’d been gone too long; this taneen was no medieval horse.
When the cargo door opened, two silhouettes waited on the loading dock. Ari knew instantly that neither of these people were Mom or Captain Mom; still she ran with Gwen and Val toward the open door, caution thrown aside.
She recognized Jordan first.
No longer mortally injured or forced into a handmaiden’s dress, Jordan seemed taller, broader, and stronger than ever. She wore half of her armor from Lionel, as if she’d kept the pieces she truly needed and tossed off the rest.
Ari didn’t recognize the other person, but something about this big, tall, curvaceous warrior with brown skin and long black hair was beyond familiar. Ari thought she looked like… but no, that was impossible.
Gwen threw her arms around Jordan.
Ari hugged both of them. “I have never been so relieved to see you. And
Error.”
“Thank the gods you’re alive,” Gwen cried, kissing Jordan’s cheeks.
“Alive and in a very real hurry,” Jordan said, beckoning them in. “Where are the others?”
Val and Ari exchanged looks. Gwen spoke solemnly. “Lam stayed behind. Merlin is… taking care of the baby in a safe place… for now.”
Jordan nodded once, but Ari saw the sudden bright sadness of Jordan’s eyes. She closed the door, and Ari chased her toward the cockpit.
“We can’t leave Big Mama. The city is on fire.”
“She’ll be fine in the desert,” the newcomer said, right behind her. “We’ve been monitoring her since Mercer arrived. You don’t even want to know how many associates she’s eaten.”
“I’d love to know.” Val was looking from the new person to Ari and back again in a way that made Ari want to elbow him.
Jordan rushed Error into the sky, and then through the atmosphere to space.
Ari scanned the view for a black or white Mercer ship, her old habits sliding into place like muscle memory. “Where are they?” she muttered.
“Gone,” Jordan said. “They made their point. You’re lucky you arrived when you did. Had you been here earlier, you would have returned during the worst of it. The planet was overtaken by them.”
“How did you know how to find us?”
“This is the spot where I came through the portal weeks ago. We’ve been scanning the dunes for days. I knew you’d come back when your people most needed you.” She glanced at Gwen before adding, “I won’t make the situation sound better than it is—”
“Have you ever?”
Jordan ignored Val, throttling faster as Error charged through space. “Mercer took most of the Lionelians. And your parents, Ari. They were trying to evacuate everyone and got caught. We barely evaded the nets.”
“Of course,” Ari said, head spinning. This was how she’d die so fast. She’d run straight at Mercer for burning her planet, capturing her parents, and claiming all of Gwen’s people.
And Mercer would win.
So there really was no hope.
She found herself tripping out of the cockpit, moving through the home flavor of Error’s recycled air. The place had been distinctly Jordan-ized, with piles of weapons and armor where there had once been stockpiles of Kay’s favorite snacks. Ari made it to the back window of the cargo bay, looking out at the orange and red stripes of Ketch. Even bombed and burning, the planet was a damn beauty. Ketch might yet become a new home, a place of life and laughter, of stinging spices and soft, vibrant cloth. Of clashing Lionelian swords and herds of roaming, wild taneens. But she wouldn’t live long enough to see it.
“Good-bye,” she whispered.
“Oh, we’re coming back. Of course we’re coming back,” someone said, messing up her rather important farewell. The newcomer was definitely the warrior-type, with knives strapped down both of their long legs. “You don’t recognize me. I get it. It’s been a long time.”
Ari turned toward them, annoyed that this person was interrupting her last view of Ketch. “Look, I just need a minute to…” Her voice dwindled as she let her mind cross the gap that had been a stone wall moments before. “Yasmeen?”
The girl’s face split with a smile, wrinkling her nose and showing off handsomely spaced front teeth. “Hey, Ara.”
They hugged hard while Ari sputtered words that wouldn’t add up. “How are you… Where did you… What’s going on? Did we change the time line? Are the Ketchans alive?”
Yasmeen took her shoulders. “That’s like a hundred questions with a thousand answers.” Gwen and Val came toward them, and Gwen took in the way Ari and Yasmeen gripped each other’s arms.
“Umm, introductions?” Val asked.
“Val, Gwen, this is Yasmeen,” Ari managed.
“Mostly Yaz these days. She/her. I’m a good ol’ lesbian.”
“And I’m oh so delighted.” Val held out a hand and they shook. Gwen looked at Ari in a way that demanded further explanation.
Ari stumbled on the words. “She’s my… cousin.”
“Just cousin?” Yaz draped a long arm around Ari’s neck, pulling her into a sibling-styled headlock. “What? I am, like, fake dead for a few years and I lose my best cousin status?”
“Fake dead?” Ari and Gwen said at the same time.
Yaz seemed impressed by their synchronization; Val smirked and added, “We’ve got some baggage there.”
Ari wrestled out of Yasmeen’s hold. “Tell me how you’re alive. How did you escape during the siege?”
“I should probably wait for the others.”
“There are more Ketchans?” Ari asked, breathless.
Yasmeen’s wide smile dropped. “Not as many as we wanted.”
“Good. You’ve caught up,” Jordan said, jogging over in that unhelpful way she had. “We’re connecting with the Ketchan ship Amal in three hours.”
“Amal?” Ari asked. “There’s an entire ship?”
Yasmeen smiled again, such a crinkly, welcome sight. “We’ve got an entire jaysh.”
“Jaysh?” Val asked. “What’s jaysh?”
Gwen gripped Ari’s arm, translating for them. “Army. Ketch has fighters.”
“Not bad, queenie.” Yasmeen winked. “Hope you’re all in the mood for rebellion.” She gripped the back of Ari’s neck with a strong hand. “And, fuck, are we jazzed to dismantle Mercer with you.”
Three hours was not nearly enough time, and yet it was also an eternity. Ari paced the main cabin of Error, having a mind-altering talk with her cousin.
Yaz let slip that a few thousand Ketchans were still alive on board Amal. They were the lucky ones who hadn’t consumed poisoned water before the others started to die. Fleeing into space, they traveled beyond the Ridges, hiding out and waiting for the day when there might be a fight to win against Mercer. When they heard about Ari and Merlin and the battle on Heritage, they came back to help. “By the time we’d gotten to Ketch, you had all vanished,” Yaz said. “We took care of the people left there… until the Mercer ships arrived several weeks ago.”
Ari sat on the edge of the small, round table. “I can’t believe we missed you by a day. It would have changed everything.”
Yaz shrugged. “Doubt it. We’re still massively outgunned and outmanned and out–everything else, too.” Jordan grunted in agreement. These two had an interesting rhythm. Like they’d been locked up on Error for several weeks together. And they both liked it and hated it.
Val entered from the bathroom, swirling on the spot. “Smell me. I’m magnificent. There’s a lot of bullshit on medieval Earth, but I’m saying right now the lack of showers is up there as the worst. No wonder those people are bored with sex. No one likes to get it all grimy.”
“Were you really in Old Earth’s past?” Yaz asked. “That’s wild. And terrifying. That planet was hella problematic. It’s why our people left in the first place.”
Ari sighed. “It’s worse than you know, but there are good people there, too.” She thought of Lamarack, Roran, Arthur, and Morgause. And baby Kairos and little Merlin.
Jordan approached Gwen formally. “My queen. I tracked this down for you.” She held out Gwen’s crown from Lionel, and Gwen looked at it as if she wasn’t ready for the weight of a new kingdom.
Ari took the crown for Gwen. “Thanks, Jordan.”
Gwen took Ari’s arm. “We should get cleaned up, too, and treat this burn before it gets infected.” She touched Ari’s cheek lightly, and Ari jumped a mile.
Everyone noticed.
Particularly Val, who arched his newly sculpted eyebrows.
Without a word, Gwen tugged Ari into Kay’s old room. The pilot’s cabin was the only place untouched by Jordan. It still smelled like him. It was still a poignant mess like him. Gwen didn’t wait a moment after shutting the door before launching into her observations. “You’ve just found out that there are still Ketchans alive, that we might have a force to stand against Mercer, and you
look like you’re a brush from ultimate defeat.” Gwen smiled at Ari. Not a sweet or saucy smile, but the worst kind. The we need to talk smile. “What happened with Nin, Ara?”
Ari sat on the edge of the bed, dropping her head into her hands. “She let Arthur go like we hoped. He’s at rest now, and we’re back in our time and place.”
“Ara.”
“I saw my body. Whatever future where my body lives in her cave, after my death.” Ari looked up, too tired to cry. “I wasn’t old like Arthur. I was… like this. My cheek hadn’t even healed yet.”
“Oh.” Gwen sat down hard next to Ari. “Oh, no.”
“Please don’t tell the others.”
“Of course,” Gwen whispered.
“You don’t seem shocked.”
“I knew there’d be some kind of unforeseen cost, but this is too much.” Gwen turned at her. “It’s not going to happen.”
“You should have seen Nin. She was so damn proud of herself.” Ari dropped Gwen’s Lionelian crown on Kay’s bookshelf, next to the chalice. They looked good together.
“You’re resigned to dying. I can feel it without looking at you.” Gwen’s voice grew bolder, the queen of Lionel returning after all. “You forget that our child has magical time powers. Kairos will come back for us. All grown up and ready to save their parents.”
“That sounds more Merlin’s style. Then again, we did leave Kai in his care.” Ari closed her eyes. “Gwen, I’m going to die before Kai is able to grow up, let alone help us destroy Mercer… or stop Nin from cursing me.”
“You don’t know that.” Gwen’s voice held a warning. She still needed to believe they’d given up Kai for a reason. That they would both live to see their baby again.
Ari reached for something else. Anything. “You know, and I don’t say this lightly, we might be the worst smelling things to ever grace this room.” Gwen looked up at her, expression quirked. “Come on. That shower made Val all kinds of peppy.”
Gwen and Ari peeled layers of Old Earth off of their bodies. Once upon a time, this kind of scene had been foreplay. Now it felt like shedding, a necessary leaving behind. Ari tossed her medieval boots—which could have come with the slogan: all the lacings, none of the arch support—followed by her belt, pants, and soiled shirt. Gwen turned around, moving her hair over her shoulder to reveal her dress’s lacings. Ari untied it, pulling the string free of each slit in the fabric until the entire piece of thick, weathered cotton opened like a set of double doors, showing off Gwen’s entire back. Ari kissed her shoulder.
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