Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood)

by Megan Joel Peterson

  Jamison exhaled. On the other side of the glass, the boy seated at the metal table in the center of the bare room shifted uncomfortably on his folding chair.

  “Perhaps. But for the moment, I do not care. He is my son. He belongs with me. And I have been kept waiting long enough.”

  Without another word, Jamison headed for the door.

  Brogan’s mouth tightened as the door closed, but he made no move to follow. There was only so much arguing he would allow himself since, security issues aside, he couldn’t help but understand the king’s point of view.

  He let his gaze slide to the boy in the other room. The boy who both Jamison and the rest of the Blood had assumed was dead. The boy who had somehow escaped a portal, and then dozens of wizards, only to arrive on their doorstep. They had no explanation. Cole hadn’t said a word since they brought him up here, except to ask after Jamison. Any other question was met with silence and an expression that, whether the boy knew it or not, was patently his father.

  It was interesting.

  With a coldness that could have been cloned from Jamison, the boy glanced over as the door opened. And then he froze.

  Sound vanished from the room.

  Brogan sighed. The boy was a cripple and the king was no fool. Let Jamison have his privacy, such as it was. Cole didn’t present a threat.

  His Merlin captors, on the other hand…

  Brogan drew out his cell phone. Simeon answered on the first ring.

  “Expand the perimeter. You see so much as a Merlin baby, I want it reported.”

  He hung up. On the opposite side of the glass, Cole rose, sudden uncertainty in the boy’s every motion.

  Brogan’s eyes narrowed.

  It was all so very interesting.

  Chapter Five

  Cole shifted in the metal folding chair, succeeding in almost rocking himself sideways on the uneven legs for the hundredth time in however long it’d been. White walls devoid of anything as helpful as a clock stared back at him from all sides, save the one occupied by what could only be a one-way mirror. Blazing fluorescent lights burned on the ceiling, illuminating every mind-numbing inch of the room and making his reflection look like raccoon-black circles hung beneath his eyes – although the latter might’ve just been the truth.

  He felt like he’d stumbled into a cheap cop movie somewhere between the elevator and here.

  Hours had crept by, he was fairly certain. Possibly days. His stomach was gnawing at itself with a determination that left him feeling every single moment since the candy bar he’d snagged at the bus stop, and his head had long since begun to pound in dull rhythm with his heart. The restless night aboard the bus had left him aching all over, though the sharp edge of the chair on his spine wasn’t helping anything. And meanwhile, the wizards and the Blood kept coming, asking the same questions about where the Merlin who’d sent him were hiding, as though expecting the sheer repetition to do anything other than drive him insane.

  But they said nothing of his father. And thus they got nothing in return.

  It was petty revenge and he knew it. But as each passing minute fueled the fear that his dad had died since he’d last seen the man, it’d become the best he could settle for, short of trying to see how the chair and his temper would fare against them.

  Though that option was getting more tempting.

  The door opened.

  He glanced over, idly placing odds as to whether it would be a Blood or Taliesin this time.

  “Hey, Cole.”

  His breath caught.

  Gray touched Victor Jamison’s temples and a suggestion of weathering showed around the corners of his dark eyes. A thin scar barely an inch long traced his cheekbone and his suit was nicer than anything Cole had ever seen him wear. With one hand on the doorknob, he stood motionless, the glow around him so similar to that around Lily and yet so inexplicably different at the same time, and then he carefully stepped farther into the room.

  The door closed.

  Air pressure shifted and the silence became deeper than before.

  “It’s been a long time,” Victor said.

  Broken syllables tried to order themselves in his mind, and all he could think to do was laugh, though the sound strangled itself before it could emerge.

  The council chamber in the moments after his father’s arrival flashed through his mind.

  Beneath him, the chair rocked and his hand instinctively gripped the metal table. Drawing a breath, he tried to drive the image away. Steadying himself on the table, he rose to his feet.

  “Dad,” he said.

  Victor paused and then crossed the distance between them. With infinite care, he reached out, wrapping Cole in a hug.

  Cole froze. Uncertainly, his arms rose and embraced the man. A heartbeat passed, and then Victor pushed him back, holding him at arm’s length and looking firmly into his eyes.

  “I never stopped searching for you. I want you to know that. Not for a single day.”

  Cole forced a breath into his lungs. “I know.”

  Victor hesitated, but he only nodded in response. Still gripping one of Cole’s arms, he turned and sank down onto the edge of the table.

  Shakily, Cole returned to the chair.

  The silence stretched with the awkwardness of a break in a script to which neither of them knew the lines.

  “So,” Victor said, a hint of tension leaking into his voice. “‘How’ve you been’ hardly seems appropriate, don’t you think?”

  Cole chuckled weakly. He couldn’t quite bring himself to look at the man. And all he wanted to do was stare at him.

  “They tell me you were in Utah,” Victor tried.

  “For a while.”

  “Ah.”

  Silence set up camp in the middle of the room.

  Cole forced his gaze up from the table. “They told me you were dead,” he said, a question wandering somewhere in the words.

  “I thought you were too.”

  He tensed, and after a moment, his father looked away, dropping the implicit question.

  “I’m sorry,” Victor said awkwardly. “I should not have…” He grimaced, and then seemed to regroup. “The wizards. Were they… good to you?”

  Cole couldn’t figure out how to answer.

  “They didn’t hurt you?” his father pressed.

  “No.”

  Victor nodded, seeming relieved. Silence returned.

  “Did they say anything else about me?” Victor asked after a moment.

  Cole’s gaze hit the table hard. He could feel his dad growing tense as the seconds passed.

  He closed his eyes. This was what he’d wanted. This was what he’d come here for. The chance to ask his father why. To find out the reason behind all the death and destruction from the one man who could tell it to him.

  And all he wanted in the whole world was to change the subject, to pretend he hadn’t heard or just say nothing, because in this moment, when his dad still hadn’t confirmed or denied or done any of the things Cole was afraid he’d do… he didn’t know. Not for sure.

  Suddenly, that ignorance felt more precious than gold.

  “Cole?”

  He swallowed, his gaze still on the table. “They said…” An ache moved through him. “They said you started the war.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Victor become still. A moment slid by and then the man drew a breath, folding his hands carefully.

  “I did.”

  Cole looked up.

  “I killed the Merlin king,” Victor said, his voice becoming meticulously matter-of-fact. “I broke the spell. When the guards came to his defense, an explosion I caused killed much of the Merlin royal family. And started the war.”

  He stared at his father as suddenly, the air began to share qualities with the concrete walls. Nothing of regret showed on the man’s face. No shred of remorse either. Just the acceptance of a job that had to be done.

  “Why?”

  “You have spent the past few months a
mong the Merlin,” Victor stated, partly asking.

  Feeling choked, Cole searched for an answer. “A bit,” he allowed.

  “And the Taliesin,” his father continued in the same tone. “They told you I was a madman, or some permutation thereof.”

  Cole couldn’t respond. His dad nodded anyway.

  “They have their point of view. And without fail, it works in their favor. But you are going to have to decide for yourself what to believe. I cannot – and will not – try to make up your mind for you. All I ask is that you hear me out, see what I can show you of our side, and then go from there.”

  Cole nodded, not knowing what else to do.

  “Thank you,” Victor said.

  Silence fell between them.

  “I won’t lie to you,” his dad said finally. “That night the Merlin king died… I knew what I was doing. I knew it was murder, and I knew it would mean war. Mason and I, we intended to remove the Taliesin council the moment our magic was returned, though at the time, arresting them was all we had in mind.

  “Things didn’t go the way I planned.”

  Victor gave him a hint of a rueful smile, but his gaze fell away before Cole could respond.

  “At least,” he continued. “Not overall. But in terms of killing the Merlin king…” His mouth tightened. “Yes. That went mostly according to plan.”

  A moment passed. “I don’t know what the Taliesin or Merlin told you about Nicholas’ death. I don’t know what they said about my motives either. Mason and I pretended to be deliverymen and I shot the king when he answered the door. I hadn’t ever killed anyone in my life and when I saw the look on his face…” He shook his head. “It was terrible. The worst thing I had seen till that night. And yet, I had no choice.”

  Cole looked down, his imagination struggling to compete with the memories of the past few days. Seconds crawled by, each one more uncomfortable than the last, till finally he dragged his gaze back to his dad.

  “Why?” he asked again.

  Victor paused. “Your time with the Merlin. It was spent with the remnants of the royal family, was it not?”

  Cole froze. “Some.”

  “The younger one.”

  He gave a small shrug.

  “And the elder?”

  He hesitated. “Not as much.”

  “What did you think of them?”

  Barely breathing, Cole searched for an answer. His gaze wanted to flick to the mirror, knowing someone was probably back there.

  His father seemed to read the impulse.

  “It’s okay,” Victor said.

  Cole swallowed. The truth still seemed like a risk, for all that he didn’t want to lie to his dad. But the idea had never been to give the Blood information on either of the girls. Not until he knew what the hell was really going on.

  “They’re just kids, right?” Victor said as though he’d answered. “A little girl and her sister, lost in the war?”

  Cole said nothing.

  “You didn’t know their family. And you shouldn’t believe everything you see.”

  The faint hiss of the air conditioner became the only sound in the room.

  “I didn’t start out intending to kill their king,” Victor continued, picking up the previous topic as though the last exchange hadn’t happened. “Until the week before Nicholas died, it’d never crossed my mind. To tell the truth, I’d even worked at reconciliation between our sides, if you’d believe that. It’s how your mother and I met and, for a time, what I even thought was possible. But the one thing the Merlin’s Children absolutely would not give, the one thing we needed above all else, was our magic. And while at first, it was simply a matter of equality with them, in the days before the war, it became a necessity for dealing with a larger problem I’d only just begun to understand.”

  He glanced to Cole. “We’re royalty, you and I. The descendants of a leader who, while revered by his followers as a king, still lost his children any shred of real authority. That we were symbols of that legacy, I’d always known. That we couldn’t live a life of our own, a life outside the council’s control…” His mouth twisted. “That I didn’t appreciate. Not until your grandfather died.

  “I never got along with Thelonious. He was…” Victor sighed, clearly revising whatever he’d been about to say. “He was what they wanted me to become. A stamp on their authority. A broken man, cowed by the council and dreaming of what might have been. Not that I saw it that way. Thelonious had, in his own manner, sheltered me throughout his life. I almost wish he hadn’t. I would have been better prepared, at least. Or maybe I would have taken you and Clara far from this a long time ago. After all, the council had never spoken to me. They acted like they scarcely knew I was alive. And I believed…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I believed. That the whole ‘Taliesin king’ issue wouldn’t matter. That it was enough that I’d distanced myself from my father and everything else the moment I was old enough to walk out the door.

  “And then Thelonious died.

  “The council summoned me before his body was even cold. And they explained the way things were going to be. I would leave your mother immediately. Taliesin kings didn’t marry Merlin. As a cripple, you’d be kept permanently out of sight at a location they’d designate, and if I couldn’t produce an heir with magical powers to take your place, then they’d be forced to see what could be done with you. Or really just your children. The magic in our line had to be preserved, you see. For what it meant to the people.”

  Old anger played through Victor’s eyes and then he drew a breath, burying it. “I was sent to a safe house with bodyguards under the pretense of protecting the new king. My job disappeared, my phone was monitored, and everyone I knew stopped answering my calls. I was kept from home with ‘council business’ day and night, giving me no chance to tell your mother what was happening. And meanwhile, the council was preparing to take you both away from me.”

  He grimaced. “So I reached out to the only person I could. As a child, Mason Brogan had been a neighbor and close friend. When he grew up, he went into business with his father. ‘Creative marketing and finance’, I believe he once called it. But regardless, he wasn’t on the council’s payroll and, through his work, he had resources. Contacts. Money. So when he came to pay his respects after Thelonious’ passing, I begged the guards for a moment to speak with a fellow Taliesin, and they made the terrible mistake of agreeing.

  Victor paused. “The council ruled as long as there was no one with the power to oppose them. I had to change that. If I wanted to protect my family, I had to return magic to our people, and my ability to bind the same. No matter the cost.

  “Mason assembled a team of people he trusted, people who were loyal to the crown and not the council, to serve as backup if things went wrong. He located transport while I slipped the attention of the guards, and then we were on our way to the Merlin king’s home.”

  His brow furrowed, memories playing out behind his eyes. “Nicholas knew we were Taliesin when he opened the door. Perhaps not that I was their king, though regardless, I doubt he’d have cared. Five hundred years of binding had left us beneath their notice. He simply turned to call his bodyguards to help with the packages, and that was the end. The silenced gun went off. I started a war.”

  He fell silent, studying the ground without seeming to see it. Cole swallowed hard. He couldn’t find his voice, though he didn’t know what he would have said anyway.

  “I’m sorry,” Victor told him quietly. “Saying it all so bluntly… it would be nicer to let the past die. But I need you to know the story, so that whatever they’ve said, whatever else you’ve been told… you can judge for yourself. You don’t have to believe me. I just want you to have all the facts I can provide, no matter how unpleasant, so you can make your own decisions.”

  Cole managed a nod.

  “And as a part of that…” Victor said. He shrugged off his suit jacket. Cole’s brow furrowed in confusion, but his father didn’t look up.
Carefully, he unbuttoned the wrist of his dress shirt and then rolled back the sleeve.

  Cole’s eyes widened.

  It looked like a tattoo gone horribly wrong. Jagged black lines radiated out from the inside of his elbow like an explosion beneath his skin.

  “Shooting the king wasn’t enough,” Victor said. “We hoped if I did it, it would be. But when nothing changed and the guards were coming… I did the only thing I could think of. The only thing greater than ‘simply’ killing the king. I grabbed my pocket knife, soaked it in his blood and–” he gestured to his arm, “– took it as my own.”

  “Is that why…?” Cole asked, trailing off as he pulled his gaze from the charred veins.

  “The Blood,” Victor acknowledged with a hint of a wry smile. “It changed everything. And so did we.”

  He rolled the sleeve back down, leaving it unbuttoned. “The effect of the spell breaking was like nothing I could have imagined. Painful. Agonizingly so. I felt it rip through me, into the people near me, and outward like a tidal wave. And when, through the pain, I saw the guards… I just wanted to stop them. And then the house was gone.

  “I didn’t mean to kill them, Cole. Not the whole family. No one, in fact, but the king. I know it doesn’t make it better. But… it still needs to be said.”

  Victor fell silent, his brow furrowing as though he was still trying to work through the memories.

  Cole watched him. His own thoughts felt muzzy from lack of food and sleep, and in the midst of all he’d just heard, he didn’t even know where to begin. He wanted to be furious. Indignant. To insist that whether or not you meant to kill God-knew-how-many people, it didn’t change the fact you had.

  But the regret on his father’s face made the protests die.

  “What happened then?” he asked.

  Victor looked over and, at whatever his dad saw in his eyes, the man gave him a faintly relieved smile.

  “We went back to the council. We knew something had changed about us, that we didn’t have the look of Taliesin anymore, though we didn’t realize we were the only ones. We just rushed back, intent on disarming the council before they had a chance to collect themselves, but we were too late. We’d been too late before we even reached the Merlin king.