Ever My Merlin (Book 3, My Merlin Series)

by Ardis, Priya

  I strove to calm myself. I failed. “It’s impossible!”

  “I always thought so, but now that I have the Earth Shaker’s insight—the answer seems so simple. Imagine magic as one layer of a golden onion. It surrounds us. I have the ability to strip it off him and layer it on myself.”

  “You want to skin him?”

  “It won’t kill him,” Vane said.

  I shook my head. “It’s not my choice to make. Matt—”

  Vane moved so quickly I only had time to blink before he was standing directly in front of me. He caught my wrist and pulled me back until I stood toe-to-toe with him. “Merlin is no longer your crutch. This is your decision, sword-bearer. Do you have what it takes to make it? Do you want to stop this tsunami? Or will you allow millions to die because you can’t make a move without Merlin holding your hand?”

  He spat the words out and they fell on me like blows. His fingers gripped the vulnerable part of my arm, fingers that, until quite recently, held me with care. The fingers around me now, though, felt like steel manacles. These fingers would just as easily snap my bones as mend them. The truth was, I didn’t know. While I did depend on Matt, I’d always thought I made my own decisions. After Vane, I wasn’t sure. Had I listened to Matt too much?

  I looked at him steadily. “I don’t trust you.”

  Vane dropped my hand as if it burned him. I let out a breath—of relief and sorrow. I missed him so much even his touch hurt. Watching me, his eyes flashed for a brief second. Then, the mermaid hue of green hooded them again and his expression blanked.

  “You shouldn’t trust me. However, I won’t kill him. Taking his magic won’t give me Merlin’s knowledge so I still need him alive.” He retreated, putting some distance between us. “We are on the same side for the moment. Your friends don’t have long, DuLac. I need your answer now.”

  Mentally, I pulled myself away from him and focused on what was happening. “Why do you want Matt’s magic? You already have more than enough power.” I didn’t expect him to reply. Ideas tumbled around in my head until one stood out. “You need his ability. The Lady said the power of the Earth Shaker would show us what is to come. She meant visions. But she meant for Merlin to take Poseidon’s power. To enhance it. Only Merlin has visions. Not you. When you took it, Poseidon’s power didn’t grant you anything new, only enhanced what you already possessed. Therefore, you will never be able to have visions. You have ultimate power, but no ability to use it as we need.” My head jerked up to meet his shadowed gaze. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Vane said, “Ten points to my star student.”

  “You’re not my teacher anymore, Vane. I’m sure you’ve been fired by now,” I retorted. Vane was the European History teacher at Acton-Concord High. We’d been missing from school for nearly a month. I’d probably been expelled by now too. “Not even you could charm away that long of an absence.”

  “Is that a dare?” He chuckled a hollow laugh.

  My chin jutted out, but I didn’t reply. He was a predator, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Could a predator keep his word?

  His eyes narrowed. “I see you need convincing that I’m powerful enough. If that is what you require, you shall have it.” He walked closer again. “The Earth Shaker enhanced my magic to the extreme. All my magic, but especially the one I’m strongest in—persuasion.”

  Before I could blink, he took my hand from my side. His hand enclosed mine, our palms touching. As soon as he did, a sizzle of electricity shot up my arm, straight into my chest, speeding up my heart, and beyond my abdomen until it curled my toes. It left me achy, breathless, and completely wanting.

  “Please,” I whispered. I would have done anything to be near him.

  “You see—I don’t even have to speak anymore,” he said in a silky tone.

  The Dragon’s Eye amulet flared against my skin. He pushed past it. The amulet cooled and I realized I had no defense against him. Transfixed, I stared into his eyes and all I saw was a deep abyss. His grip tightened, a thumb pressing into the back of my hand with hard pressure. It filled me with an overwhelming need. I wanted nothing more than to agree to whatever he asked. “Bend to me,” his voice whispered in my head, a soft suggestion that lingered inside my eardrums until I neither heard nor thought of anything else but him.

  I was drowning.

  All I had to do was say okay and he would save me. I opened my mouth to do just that. If he’d asked me to drop to my knees and beg him, I would do just that.

  Vane let me go. Suddenly bereft, I shuddered a black emptiness left me exposed. I needed him to fill it. I shook my head and backed away. Even though he released me, the desire to please him stayed strong. I gulped, trying to swallow the longing down.

  “Convinced yet? Or do you need more?” He took a step toward me.

  I held up my hand to stop him. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t want to be that much out of control. Pulling together my bruised pride, I scowled at him. “You made your point.”

  “Good.” The predator watched me. “We are running out of time. What do you say, Ryan? Will you choose Merlin and allow your friends to die? Or will you give me what I want?”

  I stared at him.

  In reality, my body was on a rooftop and the tsunami was coming. Within my mind, through the Dragon’s Eye, I faced the tsunami already upon me. Vane.

  I bit my lip, debating.

  I knew he could fix this. Yet how I could pay his price? To pay with something that was not mine to offer. To give Matt to him when I couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t get hurt. I took a slow breath. “Even if I agreed, it wouldn’t matter. I came here looking for Matt and he’s not here.”

  Vane’s gaze dropped to my amulet. He watched it rise and fall against my chest. “Have no fear, DuLac. I can fix that too.”

  I ground my teeth. He’d used the amulet to read my thoughts again.

  I pictured smacking him in the face.

  Shadows deepened the slanted lines of Vane’s cheekbones as he gazed back at me with cold expressionless eyes. My insides twisted. The idea that he would want to do this to Matt, his brother, reminded me that he was not the Vane I knew, the one who held on to life with both hands. This Vane wanted to destroy life. He had become a monster, one I helped create. I took a deep breath. “I’ll do whatever you want if you save them.”

  “You’ll do everything I want.”

  “Let’s see you find him first.”

  Vane’s brow rose. “Do you agree to my terms?”

  “As if I have a choice.”

  “That’s my girl. Always eager to sacrifice.” The drawl to his accent emphasized the sarcastic edge to the words.

  I jerked away and put more distance between us. “I could really hate you.”

  Vane didn’t blink. “Do so. It only binds you more to me.”

  I ground my teeth harder. Another thing that always annoyed me about Vane—how I couldn’t seem to win one single argument with him.

  Vane strode to the cafeteria exit. Holding the door open, he crooked his finger at me in command. “Shall we, DuLac?”

  Wishing I had something to throw at his head, I trailed after him. We crossed an empty courtyard to the largest of the plain rectangular buildings, the main building of the school. He seemed to know exactly where he was going. It took me a few minutes to figure out. We went down a shadowed hallway lined on either side with tall, metal lockers.

  We turned a corner. Vane went straight up to a set of grey metal, heavy double doors and heaved them open. I followed him and paused just beyond the threshold. One whiff of the musty scent of books inside and I knew immediately that Vane brought us to the right place.

  The school library opened to a lobby area with ten low tables. Long, waist-high bookshelves surrounded the central lobby and made up three sides of a square. The fourth side, just to the right of the entrance, was a high bar that enclosed the librarian’s checkout area. Behind the lobby at the back of the room, row upon row of books
helves fanned out, filling up the space. The bookshelves extended from floor to ceiling. Glass windows stretched up the back wall and let in a bit of light from one wall to breathe life onto the stacks of dusty paper, wood, and other secret worlds.

  While the rest of the school was a cluster of warehouse-type buildings, the library retained the essence of Boston, the birthplace of the American Revolution. History and blood lived inside its closed tomes. Its mark on this world so deep, it escaped the confines of the page and permeated the air. It was the one room in the whole school in which Matt felt safest. His brother knew him well.

  “Yes, I do know him well.” Vane tugged me farther into the room. I stopped at one of the low tables. We spent hours in here studying before the one day that changed everything in my life. I sighed.

  “We don’t have time for sentiment,” Vane said, his eyes roving over the maze of bookshelves. “The longer we’re in here, the closer the tsunami gets.”

  “You don’t need to remind me,” I said.

  “This is taking too long,” Vane muttered, ignoring me. He extended a hand and pointed it at one of the tables. Making a fist, the table exploded with a loud boom. It burst into a million pieces, sending off a small shockwave that threw its six companion chairs across the room. One chair flew straight at me. I narrowly avoided being clobbered. Moving out of its way at the last second, I body-slammed into Vane.

  He caught me. Rigid arms wrapped around my waist and prevented us both from falling. His hot breath washed over my face.

  A loud growl filled the room. I turned around in Vane’s arms to face the center again. Out of nowhere, a lion leaped from the library stacks and landed on top of a table a few feet in front of us. Rather than terrifying us, the thin lion sported a ragged, auburn-colored mane. Its patchy state gave him a look of desperation... and hunger.

  I groaned. “Not again.”

  I saw him in his lion form once before, after Lelex, the former mermaid king, tortured him. He had to retreat into the form to protect himself.

  Vane’s hands grabbed my hips, keeping me in front of him like a shield. He pushed me forward. “You’re up, DuLac.”

  I stayed where I was. The lion watched us with tired eyes.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I hissed to Vane.

  “Get close to him. You’re the only one he’ll allow. Look for something that shouldn’t be there. A discoloration of some kind. When Lelex took him, he planted a sickness inside his mind that’s been festering and growing. Like a virus, it keeps reproducing and making him weak. I didn’t see it before until I broke through the block on your amulet. It’s why he never fully recovered from the ordeal, despite his strength.”

  I frowned but kept my eyes trained on Matt. “He’s sick? You want to help him?”

  “I want his power,” Vane said harshly from behind me. “Saving him will get me that.”

  I wanted to look at Vane, but I didn’t dare. My heart jangling in my chest, I took a step toward the hungry lion. “Matt? It’s me, Ryan.”

  Enormous jowls moved and he made a low sound in his throat. Yet, a spark lit his gaze. He looked straight at me with unfocused eyes. My heart squeezed inside my chest and I wondered if he was blind. I took another step. The lion’s ears twitched. He tensed. Suspicion colored his brown eyes, but he remained in place.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Matt.” With another slow breath, I took one last step until I stood directly in front of the beast.

  For a second, I thought he would swipe a massive paw and shred me like I was no more than lunchmeat. His hot breath blew in my face and halfway down my body. I tried not to gag. As surprisingly clean as the lion looked—a little fact that told me this was Matt and not a real lion—his breath still stunk. His teeth protruded from the rough, yellow fur on the sides of his mouth. My left arm still stung at the sight of them. Once before, I had reached out to touch him when he was in lion form and the result hadn’t been pretty. I had scars up and down my arm to prove it.

  I looked down the length of Matt’s lion body. I could see most of his back and sides from where I stood, but there was no discoloration.

  “Hurry up, Ryan,” Vane commanded.

  “Stop nagging, Vane,” I muttered. Not like he was the one standing less than a hair’s breadth away from being eaten. Although this was all happening strictly in our heads, the things that took place here would affect our bodies in the real word. In other words, if I got killed here, I would be just as dead in reality. The lion sensed my agitation and his hackles rose. He stood up and let out a great, big roar. I stumbled backwards, falling on my butt.

  On his underside, I spotted the discoloration. Vane was right. Lelex had infected Matt. A black grid of veins was visible in the lion’s long underbelly.

  “It’s there,” I said aloud.

  “Where?” Vane asked.

  “From his heart down—” I didn’t get a chance to say anymore.

  Vane moved so fast I barely had a chance to blink before he reached the lion. The lion roared and raising his massive neck, exposed his belly. With one powerful thrust, Vane plunged a green, glowing hand straight into the lion’s chest. The skin ripped open. Blood gushed out. Vane broke through the brittle barrier of his ribcage and tore open the surprised lion.

  Matt screamed and started to thrash.

  “Zyayat,” Vane commanded. Green magic spread from his hand to Matt. “Hold still or you’ll just make this worse.”

  The lion froze in place.

  “You said you weren’t going to hurt him!” I jumped up from the ground, emerging from my own stunned paralysis. I had no idea how to help Matt, but I wasn’t going to passively stand by. More than anything, I wished for Excalibur. I had to slay the monster in front of me… and I wasn’t talking about the lion. Out of nowhere, the sword appeared. The silver blade fell to the floor between Vane and me. I blinked. Of course, this was all in my head. I snatched up Excalibur and held the sword in front of me.

  I had as much power here as Vane.

  Vane turned cold green eyes toward me. “Not quite as much power.”

  “Zyayat,” he commanded again. A familiar wind buzzed against my ears as his magic wrapped around me and secured me in place. I tried to move and found I couldn’t. He’d frozen me, too.

  “I told you I wasn’t going to kill him. Stop panicking,” Vane said calmly.

  Matt roared, but under the freeze spell, it came out as a low, desperate mewl. Vane’s hand dug deeper into the lion’s chest. The metallic stench of iron in his blood made me want to gag. Yet, all I could do was watch. From under a crown of rough mane, the lion’s enormous head turned slowly toward me. Huge, amber-brown eyes—Matt’s eyes—locked on me for a moment. They were saying goodbye.

  Vane yanked out the lion’s heart. With a satisfied grunt, he stepped back and the lion fell in a heavy heap to the floor. Without another glance at the fallen beast, Vane turned to me. He held the beating muscle in his hand. Blood dripping, Vane turned Matt’s heart over in his hand. He looked at the dying organ with dispassionate eyes.

  Still frozen in place, I could only let out a suppressed cry. Closing my eyes, I pictured myself unfrozen. I opened them again and tried to move. Nothing. Even in my head, I couldn’t break through Vane’s grip.

  Vane held up the heart. Black veins crisscrossed the red flesh in a tight web, strangling the vulnerable muscle. “The infection is here. No one would think to pull this out. Lelex was clever.”

  Lelex, the mermaid king held Matt captive for fifteen days. Fifteen days, which passed as slowly as fifteen years. Days we’d never forget.

  “No one who cared about Matt would pull it out,” I managed to say despite the freeze spell.

  “We have little time for care. It takes twenty seconds for him to die if he has no heart.” Vane looked at me steadily, ice chilling his irises. He squeezed the heart with his palm. Green fire flared in his hand and surrounded the organ. Vane opened his hand. The black veins disappeared from the bloodied heart. H
e strode to the lion and knelt on the floor. Reaching deep into the lion’s mutilated chest, he put the heart back in place. Fire flowed from Vane’s fingers and he reconnected organ and tissue like it was a broken clay sculpture, not blood and bone. He worked outwardly, and within seconds, Matt’s ribs and chest were sewn together. Still, a mark of the trauma remained. A jagged sunburst scarred the lion’s chest.

  My throat dry with fear, I ached to go to him. I almost fell on my face when the spell winked out with an abrupt “snap!” I rushed closer and knelt just above the lion’s reclining head. I ran my fingers through his rough, tangled mane. The lion lay still. Too still.

  I murmured, “C’mon, Matt.”

  Vane put a hand to Matt’s now-healed chest. He looked at me. “It’s your turn.”

  I swallowed. “What do I do?”

  “Nothing.” He stood up and snapped his fingers. The Fisher King’s trident appeared in his hand. “You do nothing. You will not fight back.”

  My fingers tightened in Matt’s thick mane. The ends bit into my palm. Doubt filled me again.

  “Agreed, champion?” Vane mocked.

  My palm itched to connect with his face. I took a bracing breath, and said, “I will do nothing. I will not fight you.”

  Vane’s glacial green eyes flashed with satisfaction. It wasn’t enough to get his way. He wanted to grind me down at the same time. He aimed the trident at Matt. “Adhikaram karoti.”

  I jumped a little when a stream of green fire blasted out, hitting Matt directly in the chest. The lion’s body shuddered under the attack. A film of blue formed around Matt. Blue was the color of Matt’s magic. My hand in Matt’s mane burned with such intense heat that I had to yank it away. The fire coming out of the trident intensified. So did the blue. The room vibrated as the two wizards fought, one conscious, the other unconscious. That Matt still had enough magic left in him to fight Vane, even though weakened, filled me with hope. Then, Vane turned the trident on me.

  I cried, “What are you doing?”

  “It’s time.” He shouted, “Adhikaram karoti,” once more.

  Green fire blasted me. A blue shield winked around me before it could make contact. Still, I felt the attack like a wallop to the stomach.