Harley Merlin 15: Finch Merlin and the Everlasting Vow

by Forrest, Bella

  He sipped his tea. “I will, Your Highness. For your peace of mind, I would do anything.”

  “Thank you.” I glanced back at the Sylph fish drifting through the aquamarine waters. While it was true that I wanted to ensure my friend was entirely well, there was an additional layer to my concern.

  If there is magic at work, the physician will know…

  Twenty-Five

  Kaya

  Erebus might not have taught me much, aside from how to endure the crippling ache and despair of heartbreak. It was a lesson I had been given no choice but to learn, or that pain would have shattered me. However, his behavior during his first visit had also educated me in the art of deceit.

  And when one suspected deceitful behavior afoot, one had no choice but to investigate. Apollo would, no doubt, go to the physician as I instructed. Throughout our interwoven lives, he had always heeded my advice. I, however, could not wait that long to discover whether magic had played a part in his hazy memory. So I found myself upon my father’s private dining terrace, ready to begin my subtle interrogation.

  “I spoke with Apollo earlier.” I segued smoothly from our customary chitchat, which had involved musing upon the weather, the progression of the financial sector, and other such banal topics. He had avoided speaking of the impending wedding thus far, but perhaps he had grown tired of the drama surrounding it. I could not blame him. My own patience was wearing increasingly thin, especially after that mortifying display on the boulevard. I had not even known where to look or how to cool my burning cheeks. And yet… I could not suppress a small smile at the memory.

  “You did?” he asked, with obvious disinterest. He dabbed the edge of his lips with a napkin, having finished off the majority of his meal.

  I persevered regardless. “Yes. I thought it only right to repair the rift his arrest had caused between us. He spoke of you, actually.” That was a lie, but only a small one.

  My father did not turn to acknowledge me. Instead, he gazed upon the crystal-clear waterfall that tumbled from the right-hand wall of the enclosed terrace. I imagined he viewed this terrace in the same manner I viewed the observatory—as a place of peace and solitude. Here, my father had created an oasis of calm, with high walls of natural rock on either side, where two waterfalls cascaded into deep pools he could swim in at his leisure. Our table was situated beneath lush willows with grayish green fronds.

  “Is that so?” My father took up a glass of ambrosia, still not looking at me, and sipped it casually.

  What is the meaning of this nonchalance? I had not expected exuberance, but I at least expected his respectful attention.

  “He said he had a private meeting with you in the throne room’s annex after his reinstatement.” Another partial lie. My scouts had been the ones to do the divulging. “Might I ask what you spoke about? It must have been important, or you would have spoken with him in front of the other advisors.”

  My father took another sip. “Note the words ‘private meeting’ in your speech, Kaya. What I said to Apollo is between he and I. If he did not share the details with you, then you should respect that.”

  “I ought to know such things!” I protested. “There should be no secrecy between us, Father. I am to be queen soon, so you must involve me in all Atlantis’s business.”

  He finally granted me a glance, though I could not read the blank stare. “All you need to know is that I am taking measures to ensure your marriage to Finch happens without incident. I spoke with Apollo, not out of secrecy, but with your future in mind. And our city’s future.”

  “Then why not tell me so?” I would have to speak with Apollo again to find out whether he had any memory of this discussion.

  “Can a father not do something for the protection of his daughter?” He set his glass down with a faint clink. “In truth, I thought you might be pleased.”

  “Pleased?”

  He nodded. “Yes, pleased. For this should assure you that I have come around to your way of thinking. You have my full support in your decision to marry Finch.”

  “Oh… I had not thought of it like that.” I folded my hands in my lap to stop my fidgeting. He sounded sincere, and his blank gaze had transformed into earnestness. Perhaps I had grown so used to defending my decisions that I could no longer see kindness being offered.

  “You are like your mother, in that regard. She always attacked first and felt remorse later, when she realized I had only tried to be kind.” He gave a sad chuckle—the first sign of his grief I had witnessed since my mother’s passing.

  I lowered my head. “Apologies, Father.”

  “There is no need to apologize. It is an excellent trait in a royal. No one has the option of surprising you with anything unsavory, because you are already primed for defense.” He caressed the stem of his ambrosia flute, suddenly appearing nervous. “But there is another excellent trait to be found in royal blood.”

  “Which one?” I replied.

  “That of benevolence and generosity.” His eyes darted back to the churning white foam of the waterfall. “And I hope you will wield such traits in a moment’s time, when I ask something of you.”

  The air stilled. Or perhaps it was merely my breath. “And what, pray tell, are you about to ask of me?” I fear I may already know…

  “I would beg a favor of my only child, during these final stages of your inauguration as queen. My Death Day will soon arrive. It will mean abandoning you at our nation’s time of greatest change and peril.” He paled, his lower lip trembling. “And… my dear girl… I confess, I do not want to die.”

  I reached for his hand. “None do, Father. It is natural to feel fear. After five hundred years, we come to appreciate life in a way that few others have the opportunity to do. To us, death seems all the more outlandish and unnerving. But I will be there, at your side, to help you pass from this life to the next.”

  “You misunderstand, Kaya.” He looked down at my hand upon his. “I do not want to die, at all. When I spoke of resurrection, I was not waxing theoretical. I do not want to cease this life, under any circumstances. I want to remain here, so I need not abandon you. However, I cannot achieve that alone. I need you to aid me in forcing Davin to make it happen. This is the favor I ask of you, as a father to his daughter, not as the old king to the new queen.”

  I could not say I was surprised. “Father…”

  “I have so much left to do, Kaya. I am not done in this world. I would stand with you, in secrecy if I had to, so that I might help you achieve the greatness we discussed.” He sounded strangled, raw emotion constricting his throat. “I want to see the legend of the Luminary brought to life. I want to watch your rise to magnificence. I do not want to… fade away and be forgotten, another name in the annals of history.”

  I drew my hand back. “Father, you cannot ask this of me.”

  “Please, Kaya. Can you stand to lose another parent, so soon after your mother? Grant me this, and you will not have to say farewell to me. I can continue to guide you. I do not have to go.” Tears glinted in his eyes as he desperately clawed my hand into his, holding it tight. “You can save me, Kaya.”

  “Can you stand to go on without my mother—your wife?” A battle raged within my chest, sadness against anger. Of course I did not want him to die, but we all had to leave this plane of existence. Terrible things could happen when nature felt thwarted, and I could not bear to think of my mother waiting in the afterlife alone.

  “She would understand,” he replied, his palms clammy against mine. “She would not want me to leave you, either.”

  I clenched my jaw. “But you promised her. At her bedside, when she took the serum that helped ease her into death, you promised her you would join her soon. I was there. I heard every word. And that was before you even knew an afterlife truly existed. Does your heart not ache to be reunited, now that you can be certain you will? Have you forgotten your love for her so swiftly?”

  My father straightened and removed his hand. “She will n
ot know the difference if I am reunited with her in a week, or in another five hundred years. Do you think, in this afterlife that Finch proclaimed to know, that souls have any concept of time? How cruel it would be, to let them know how long they have waited. It may only seem like a day to her when I do finally pass from this world.”

  “And it may not!” My temper rose. “How can you know what departed souls feel, or sense, or understand? And who is to say that in five hundred more years, you will not merely beg for another half-millennium?”

  My father’s gaze took on a stern edge. “I cannot say what I will do in five hundred years, but I know that I do not want to die now. It is not my destiny. Just as Finch came to you for a reason—a gift from Chaos—you must see that Davin was also sent to us for a purpose. We have not had a Necromancer within our city for generations upon generations. Yet he appears at the same time as the Luminary. It is fate, Kaya. He has been sent to us so that we may extend our lifespan and bask in further glory—evermore unique among magicals.”

  “Or that is simply what you wish to believe, in your fear of death,” I remarked coolly, trying to maintain a measure of calm.

  “Is it so shameful to be afraid?” He gulped down the majority of his ambrosia. “And is it so shameful to ask for life’s greatest fear to be removed?”

  I gripped the edge of the tablecloth. “It defies nature, Father! We are already testing its limits with our current lifespan. To ask for more is nothing but greed.”

  “Necromantic abilities are Chaos-given, and Chaos is at the very core of nature. Ergo, how can you say it defies nature? Why give such a gift if it cannot be used?” My father poured another glass and swallowed half in one go. He would be drunk by the end of his next sentence, if he was not already.

  “We can go around in circles all day, Father, but it does not change the fact that it is wrong. Had you begged this favor for Mother, and then for yourself, I might have had more inclination to help, but I will not leave her stranded in the afterlife without you.”

  I held my nerve. To some, this might have been an easy choice—saving one parent. And perhaps I sounded terribly cruel to deny him additional life, or at least the hope of it. But the mere idea left a sour taste in my mouth, as though it were furtive and despicable, a discourtesy to the first gift Ganymede had granted our nation.

  My father slumped in his chair, drinking the rest of his ambrosia. “I cannot force you, Kaya. You will take the throne soon, where you will be adored by our people. In truth, their love for you is what makes you more powerful than I have ever been or could ever be.” He refilled, and I resisted the impulse to stop him. “To hold one’s nation in the palm of your hand and have them hang upon your every word is true leadership, for better and for worse. I never possessed their love or attention. They preferred your mother to me.”

  “That is not true, Father.” I hoped I sounded convincing.

  “Do not be coy, Kaya. It is the truth. Perhaps that is why I cannot come to terms with the idea of my departure. I am not done here. I would at least see you shine as their queen and try to comfort myself in the knowledge that you came from me. Adoration by proxy.”

  I drew a deep breath. “You should not have asked me for this. A queen must lead by example, and as our only Necromancer is now incarcerated after attempting to murder me, we cannot ask Atlantis to decide whether they desire longer life. Not until I have decided how he may be of use, and what the parameters ought to be. As such, you cannot have extended life, either. Believe me, it pains me to say that, for I do not want to lose you. However, this is how it must be, or all my pursuit of fairness and justice will echo false. If you must blame someone for that, blame Davin.”

  Or had you forgotten, in your desperation to live forever, that he did almost succeed in killing me? I did not wish to resort to pettiness, so I did not say it aloud. But it felt worthwhile to think it.

  “So you refuse?” His lip curled in a bitter grimace.

  “For now, I must.” I rose from my chair and headed for the doors.

  How far will you go for this, Father? As the future queen, such decisions rested solely with me. And yet I feared his desperation. Desperation made fools of people.

  “I am still the king, remember!” my father called after me in a tone so juvenile and selfish, I understood why he had never been loved by our people.

  The very idea that he could ask me to convince my would-be assassin to help him broiled in my stomach. The truth was… he did not care what Davin had tried to do to me. As long as it served his aim to live another five hundred years, there were no limits to how low he might stoop.

  Now I had to take measures to ensure the prison officials did not permit my father, who was indeed still the king, to see Davin. That would not be well-swallowed, but he had left me no choice. With the wedding preparations, and the constant ache in my heart from missing Mother and holding on to agonizing thoughts of Erebus, I did not have a scrap of energy left to expend upon my father’s selfishness.

  Twenty-Six

  Finch

  “So it’s not going well?” Melody whispered. She glanced furtively around, not particularly good at the whole incognito thing. She looked guilty but didn’t need to. It wasn’t like I was out in public as myself.

  We were standing beside one of the garden fountains—Melody, Luke, and I—where old gods and goddesses twisted in a frankly obscene dance, with nothing but seaweed and bits of leaf to hide… uh, what needed hiding. I had a much better coverup, though, pretending to be Nash again. To anyone watching, this was nothing out of the ordinary. Just three semi-imprisoned pals having a chat. So Melody really needed to relax before she drew unwanted attention.

  “Which part?” I replied dryly.

  “The love-making mission.” Melody threw another surreptitious stare over her shoulder.

  “You might want to rename it, if that’s what you’ve been calling it.” I mustered a smirk. “But no, it’s not going well. Erebus is doing his best with the wooing thing; he even arranged a flash mob. But she’s not biting.”

  Luke huffed out a sigh. “You know you don’t have long, right? Isn’t the wedding happening in, like, three days?”

  My heart evacuated its bony, fleshy chamber. “What?!”

  “The wedding. It’s in three days. At least, that’s what folks around here are saying,” Luke explained.

  Melody nodded. “There have been caterers, planners, florists, everyone you’d need for a wedding, coming in and out all this morning and yesterday. It seems like an awful lot of work, if you ask me.”

  Luke furrowed his brow. “You didn’t know?”

  “Does it look like I knew?” I fired back. Three days? Was Kaya for real? I mean, she’d planned an engagement street party in about five minutes, but still, planning an entire wedding in a few days was insane. “I thought they were arranging things for Ovid’s Death Day. That’s coming up, right? Or am I getting that wrong? No one tells me anything around here unless I’m in the right place, in the right disguise, at the right time.”

  Melody and Luke exchanged a worried glance. “Oh, Finch, the wedding day and the Death Day are the same. The king will die the day his daughter marries, to ensure a smooth transition from one monarch to the next.”

  “What?” I was about to sputter up a lung. How could I not know that my timeline had shrunk to nearly nothing? Had Kaya kept me in the dark on purpose, in case I tried something? She was a crafty one, if that was the case. “I thought I had longer. Erebus thought he had longer! How come neither of us knew this was going on?”

  Melody wrung her hands. “You told us about Apollo’s mission to trail Erebus; perhaps that’s how. Maybe Ovid and Kaya are making sure the two of you stay out of the way, so you don’t try to rock the boat.” Someone had re-informed Apollo of the mission that had been given to me in his borrowed form. But as far as I could tell, he hadn’t had any further suspicions about the memory loss, which was good for us.

  I doubled over. “I feel sick.�
��

  “There’s still time.” Melody put her hand on my back and rubbed between my shoulder blades.

  “What friggin’ time?” I closed my eyes and struggled against the rising nausea. “If this wedding is in a few days, then I’m fresh out. Erebus has already tried the biggest tricks in his playbook, and it didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. I can’t convince her not to marry me, and I’ve got other entities determined to kick me down the aisle if need be.”

  Melody sucked air through her teeth. “Lux?”

  “Who else?” Atlantis suddenly seemed way smaller than it ever had before.

  I watched the nearby Atlanteans scurry around and arrange vast topiaries shaped like seahorses and enormous bouquets in massive vases. The same kind I’d seen on the boulevard leading to the palace. Bioluminescent crystals were being strung from the surrounding trees and hedges, and white-and-blue ribbons were being tied to anything they could be tied to. I could almost hear the wedding bells tolling.

  “I thought this was Death Day stuff.” I sighed. Now I saw my mistake. The colors were wrong; the vibe was wrong. Nothing about this spelled death. It spelled holy matrimony.

  “Sorry, Finch.” Melody kept right on rubbing my back, as if I were a drunken bachelorette after too many wine coolers. “We’d have been the first to tell you if we knew what you were thinking. Although, I can see why you assumed it would be Death Day preparations. If we hadn’t overheard the ‘W’ word, we’d probably have thought the same.”

  The gremlins might as well have come back, because this old noggin had turned to a mess of mush and confusion. Everything around me looked suddenly nightmarish, giving me anxiety on a colossal scale. My body shivered uncontrollably, forcing me to give every scrap of energy I had to keep the Mimicry going.

  “Have you guys found anything that can help me?” I rasped, desperate for a sliver of hope. I’d asked Melody to look into the legend thing for me, so I still had that to cling to. But one glance at their faces, and all my optimism went up in smoke. Abra-ca-depression.