by Carol Oates
Searing pain lanced across the skin of my face and down my neck as the flesh tore open. One of the guards had caught me from the side when the golden light temporarily blinded me. An inch higher and he would have taken my eye. I wasn’t sure if I moved fast or if I’d disappeared. I spun without a thought and kicked out, catching him behind the knee. His leg buckled, and I severed his head from behind. The pressure of the strike sent vibrations shooting up my arms, and blood pounding in my ears muffled any other sounds. My brain didn’t stop to register my actions, and my blade impaled his chest with an unexpected noise of his ribs crunching mingled with my roars.
I didn’t stop there. I couldn’t. Two more came at me from either side while a pool of scarlet seeped outward over purple-flowered weeds among the sharp stones. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the others. Guinevere stayed close to Arthur, but Triona and Caleb engaged two guards a good distance from each other. Caleb’s sword lay discarded and glinting in the morning light.
John knelt by a large stone basin to one side. They faced east toward the rising sun. Zeal fisted John’s hair, holding his head back with his neck exposed, waiting for the light to move across the ground toward them.
I leapt toward one of the approaching masked men and stepped on his bent knee, bouncing from him to his partner’s shoulder and over his head. One of them drove his nails into my calf and agony exploded through my leg. Lasair fell from my hand and clattered to stones, and my leg almost buckled on impact. I remained standing only long enough to shove one of the guards into the other, hoping I was strong enough. The momentum of their two bodies colliding was enough to send them toppling over the rail and down the sloping grass.
They didn’t come back up and must have taken the opportunity to escape. I dragged myself over stones cutting into my knees and retrieved Lasair before forcing myself to my feet. One of them had gouged a handful of meat from my leg, and it wouldn’t tolerate any weight. Blood saturated my pant leg and streamed over my shoe, staining the gray sand and stone.
Caleb ran up the steps cut into the earth at the other side and launched himself into the air, an expression of fierce determination on his face. His target was the three guards holding Merlin on his knees. One at each side restrained his arms outward and a third stood behind his head, holding it up. His grip forced Merlin to watch the scene playing out before him. It also meant none of them were looking up, and they didn’t see Caleb coming at them, joined a second later by Guinevere and Triona crashing in to them too.
Zeal turned his head and met my eyes. He smirked, yanking John’s head back. Released from the guard’s hold, Merlin fell flat on his face.
“Triona!” I yelled. Like me earlier, her nature and an unquenchable desire to dispatch our enemy had overtaken logic, and she’d taken her eyes off Zeal and John to take care of the guards.
Light touched John’s fingertip. Zeal didn’t wait any longer—he didn’t need to. John began to shake so fast he seemed to blur. The transition was complete, and he was taking on the Riastradh. Zeal cut his throat, sinking his talons so deep he almost severed John’s head completely. The ground trembled, flinging me sideways where a broken rock jabbed the knitting wound in the leg. I punched the earth, attempting to redirect the pain and get to my feet. Arthur ran at Zeal, sword flying, his mouth open in a soundless battle cry. He was no match for the powerful Guardian, and Zeal swatted him like a fly.
A waterfall of blood cascaded over John’s chest, but Zeal didn’t stop there. At blinding velocity, he carved up both of John’s arms and finally pierced his chest, twisting his hand in John’s chest, smiling at Triona as he did.
I held my breath as the temperature dropped violently despite the sun still creeping over the mound, and the wind whipped up, whistling around us. Triona froze, horrified and panting, while Caleb and Guinevere kept the four remaining guards busy. Most of her hair had come undone and hung in tangled clumps. Grime and blood coated her torn dress. Beneath the dirt, her skin paled to near white, and her eyes widened.
Zeal scooped a handful of red liquid from the cauldron and slurped it down, throwing his head back.
“You’re too late,” he taunted, releasing John’s lifeless body.
John slumped and splashed head first into the gleaming ruby pool.
“No!” Triona screamed. She bunched hair in her fists and tugged so hard I thought she might rip it clean from her head.
Too many conflicting emotions battled inside me to make sense of any of them. We’d failed. All of this death, all our strength, and we still failed. The back of my throat burned with a growl, and my jaw ached.
Zeal raised his arms and inhaled, expanding his chest. The wind whipped white hair around his face, coming away a pinkish color. “I can feel the power inside of me. It’s amazing.”
“I will tear you apart,” Triona seethed. Her shoulders slumped, and her knees bent. Her smooth nails glinted when she moved, and her hair rose up around her face, flames of burnished red glittering in the sun. Triona didn’t look like my sister anymore—she looked like a beautiful and tormented, wild animal.
Her body leaned, one heel lifted an inch from the ground, and the world blurred. I had no idea I intended to move. It wasn’t a conscious decision. The distance was so short it happened in a split second. One instant I was watching her, and the next my arms held her in a vice grip as she struggled to get at Zeal. Her heart thundered against my chest, and I caught mouthfuls of hair that tasted of wet copper when I tried to calm her. She may have been the queen, but I was the immovable mountain, far stronger than my sister was. If the stories Guinevere told me were true, I didn’t want Triona to be his first example of what he could do. Her tears dripped on the back of my hands, and the scent of salt combined with the metallic blood, overpowering the earthy fragrances of the area. Triona’s guttural cry caused a ringing in my ears.
I didn’t notice the shadow passing over us until Archú was almost at eye level. He plopped down in front of us, cutting us off from Zeal with a trench of flames. It must have taken this long to fly here, and I appreciated the loyalty of the animal. His wings flapped threateningly before settling along his scaly sides.
The sun had almost completely covered the mound and reached as far as Caleb, Guinevere, and the prone form of Merlin obscured by his colorful cloak. Had it really been only a short time ago we were at a ball?
“Now I will have your obedience,” Zeal said with a baleful sneer.
Archú snorted in disgust, a ball of smoke and green fire blazing from his black snout.
“Never,” Triona bellowed. “I would rather die.”
My cheeks grew hotter at the idea of bowing to this lunatic, and hairs prickled on the back of my neck. An image of Amanda’s face flashed in my mind’s eye. If Zeal wanted to get to her, or any of my family, he’d have to get through me first.
My head swiveled to the side as Zeal took a confident step our way. Merlin’s cloak twitched, his hand moving beneath the fabric. I didn’t realize until that moment that I had accepted he was already dead, and a sudden burst of relief welled up inside me that the old man was still with us. The fabric moved again and shot upward as though blasted from below by a high-pressure air pump, revealing the outline of a body that moved too fast to bring into focus. It moved like lightening, all arms and legs, and larger than seemed possible. A cyclone rolled through the remaining skirmishes, consuming everyone as we watched. It spun madly, leaving only Guinevere and Caleb standing in its wake.
Archú made a noise—part bark, part screech and scuttled backward, pushing us along with him. His scales folded out at right angles to his body. The tuffs of fur between them made him look larger and much more terrifying.
Zeal gasped but had time for little else as the cyclone came to a halt directly behind him in a recognizable form—almost recognizable. Bright golden irises observed Zeal coldly.
“John.” Triona breathed out the word in disbelief.
My eyes automatically fell to the corpse slumped over t
he sandstone basin. The hair was too long, the shoulders narrower than they were before. The back of the hand settled at the edge of the stone was no longer smooth. The skin bore scars—shapes similar to those carved into the walls of the caves below Camelot. The body no longer looked like John, but Merlin. What was it the old man had called it? A glamour.
John locked eyes with me, and a sad smile tweaked at the corner of his lips.
“What…” Zeal began, his voice high and panicked.
Guinevere helped Arthur to his feet. He pressed an unsteady palm to his temple and leaned on her for support. Caleb joined us and took Triona’s hand the instant I released her.
“Looks like you won’t be getting that obedience, after all,” she told Zeal.
He backed up a step meekly and flinched against John’s sturdy chest. “This isn’t real. It can’t be.”
Archú snorted, puffs of stream rising from his nostrils.
“Dragon magic. You saw what we wanted you to see,” John said. His brow creased and the muscles of his scarlet splattered cheeks jumped. He grunted and smoothed his features. Something wasn’t right with him, but I dismissed it for the moment.
Zeal scowled and swiped the back of his hand across his chin. His hand came away red with Merlin’s blood. He blinked a couple of times, looking at the appendage as though it didn’t belong to him. He had to be thinking of the power he had felt steaming through his veins. It had been a placebo. Imagined. Nevertheless, he was still too strong and too influential for us to allow him to wander free.
“What do we do with him, now?” Caleb asked in clipped words.
Triona tilted her head toward Caleb’s shoulder and pursed her lips, observing the vile man before her. John’s fingers trembled by his side, and he clenched his fist in an attempt to cover it. His lips pressed together and paled. I narrowed my eyes in question, but he only moved his head, indicating I should say nothing.
“Banishment.” She delivered the sentence with unruffled firmness. It wasn’t up for discussion. We said we wouldn’t kill anyone unless we had to. I never believed for a second that would include Zeal. “To the Never.”
Zeal’s demeanor changed, and his back straightened at the idea of eternal punishment for his crimes. He scoffed. “Do you think any prison can contain me?”
His body began to evaporate before our eyes as he made his escape to fight another day. John’s shoulders rolled back, and his golden eyes darted from Triona’s to mine. We knew we couldn’t let him leave. When the smoke cleared and only John remained, his raised hand was slick with blood dripping onto the gray stones at his feet. He held Zeal’s still beating heart in his fist. He moved so fast I hadn’t seen him move at all.
“Do it,” Caleb and I instructed in unison and exchanged a knowing look.
John’s eyes flickered to Merlin’s lifeless form, and his hand tightened. Zeal’s heart disintegrated, turning to ash as Guardian hearts did after destruction, and the fine papery remnants drifted away in the light breeze.
“It’s over.” Triona’s shoulders slumped, and her breathing came hard and fast. She spun to Caleb, throwing her arms around his neck. He embraced her with closed eyes, blocking out the rest of the world.
Guinevere turned into Arthur’s chest and sobbed as he stroked her hair. He tilted his head and murmured comforting words into her ear. I didn’t listen. Whatever he said was only for Guinevere, but I suspected it was about Merlin. Of all of us, Guinevere’s journey had been the longest. She’d lost Merlin, and with Arthur being human, she still faced losing him too. I wanted to ask her about what happened between her and Zeal, but held back. We had time.
My thoughts turned quickly to Amanda, and the sensation of her hand as it pulled away from mine before we left. How her fingers traced across my palm and the tingles that still lingered. I rubbed the spot with my thumb desperate to get back to her.
“I love you,” she said when she answered her phone after one ring.
I moved to the edge of the rail for privacy. Relief washed over me at the sound of her voice, and my death grip on my phone eased. “I love you too, and it’s all over.”
Chapter 39
The Keeper
A STARTLED SOB ESCAPED AMANDA, and she sniffled in a vain effort to hide the sound.
“We don’t have much time. What’s happening there?”
Amanda sucked in a deep breath to get control of her emotions before she spoke again. “Samuel has the entire place on lockdown. People are still scared, but they seem more cooperative.” She said the word slowly, as though it tasted of vinegar. “Not surprisingly, there are a lot of Guardians just as eager to cover up what happened here. He said with money and a little time…”
“We need some help too.” I didn’t want to ask because I didn’t want to worry her. She’d been through enough but there was no avoiding it.
“Joshua and Eila are already on their way. They left soon after you.”
“How are the parental units?”
“Carmel is fine.”
I didn’t miss the absence of Lewis in her statement or the forced breeziness. My heart constricted with a sharp pain. “And?”
The silence on the other end of the line stretched or seemed to. Only Amanda’s breathing assured me she was still on the line.
“He took a turn for the worse after you left…”
She continued to talk, but my mind was already working through a number of different scenarios. My guts screwed up like a bucket of worms slipping and curling over each other. I should have made them go home. I should have stayed closer to them or paid more attention to learning to control my gifts so I could have gotten to them faster. Amanda spoke of possible internal injuries and blood loss. She said his body went into shock. It was all a jumble of words that tangled inside my head.
“Is he dead,” I blurted.
“What? No. No, babe. He’ll be okay, but he’s been moved to Saint Vincent’s Hospital. Carmel and Emma are with him.”
I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until the pain in my chest eased when I sighed. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to worry you. I guess secrets have never been my strong point.”
“No.” I snorted a laugh in agreement and dragged my fingers through my sweat-drenched hair as relief settled in.
“It’s over, caveman.”
I closed my eyes and imagined Amanda curling herself against my chest, her flowery vanilla scent enveloping us both. “I love you, Amanda. I’ll see you soon.”
I ended the call. It may have been premature to say this was over. So much had changed, and we couldn’t return to the happy little bubble where all we had to do was lead by example. We’d have to do more. I had no idea what that would entail yet.
Satisfied with Amanda’s safety, my next thought was for John. He knelt beside Merlin but seemed reluctant to touch him. I crossed the short distance, now that the sun was up, we were exposed and surrounded by dead bodies.
John stared at the blood on his hands but didn’t try to wipe it away. “I murdered those men with my bare hands. I crushed their ribcages and destroyed their hearts without blinking an eye, and this…”
He trailed off, but I understood where he’d been headed. “It was self-defense. They’d have killed all of us if they could have.”
“And Zeal…was that self-defense?” He lifted haunted golden eyes, peering at me from under thick curling eyelashes. Deep frown lines cut into his smooth skin.
“Yes,” I responded decisively and kneeled too. “You know it was.”
John shook his head and raised a hand to his hair, stopping short of combing it through. Archú, back in dog form, padded over with his head and tail drooping. The animal whined and nudged Merlin’s leg with his nose, whining again when there was no response. I ran my fingers through the shaggy fur along his spine in a pointless attempt at comfort.
Tentatively, I pulled Merlin from the basin by his shoulders and laid him on the stones. “How
are you otherwise?” I asked John, hopeful that avoiding scrutiny would help him feel less ill at ease. Merlin’s eyes were open, fixed and dilated, so I placed my hand on his face, gently guiding them to close to the world for the last time. “Rest easy now, old man. Thank you.”
“I feel weird.”
“Weird?” I arched a brow.
He pursed his lips a moment. “Do you remember the first time you drove a car?”
I nodded.
“Do you remember how strange it seemed being in control of a machine so powerful, knowing it was something outside of yourself? I think I could swim an ocean without breaking a sweat, and I’m afraid to touch anything.”
I sat back on my heels with stones digging into my knees. “Can you control it?”
John shrugged. “I don’t know yet, but I’m hoping we won’t need my talents again anytime soon so I can learn.”
“Why did he do it?”
John pushed himself up, or at least I presumed he did. One second he was kneeling in front of me, and in the same instant, he was standing as though time didn’t exist.
I puffed out my cheeks and exhaled. That’s going to take some getting used to.
“I don’t know why. At the Brier, he promised to get me away from Zeal if getting Caleb back came to an exchange, but he didn’t say how. I think Merlin knew more about what would happen than he let on. I’m convinced of it. Perhaps he didn’t see another way to save us. We switched places when he took me from the house. I don’t know where I found the strength to hold still and not scream until the sun came up. I couldn’t help him.”
“He didn’t want to be helped,” Guinevere said, coming up behind us with her arm around Arthur’s waist. Her amber eyes were bloodshot from crying, and her cheeks were blotched with a pale blush. Archú pressed against her side, and she absently stroked the hound’s head. “He may not have looked it, but Emrys was old, probably the oldest Guardian who ever lived. His days were numbered before he was sentenced to the cave, and his mind was already letting go. He told me he couldn’t save Arthur, but he’d save John if he could.”