Once & Future (Once & Future #1)(19)

“Humankind,” Ari said automatically.

The back of Merlin’s neck prickled with embarrassment. He decided this was not the best time to mention that he needed Ari—needed an Arthur who could bring this cycle to a close. To stop him from aging backward before he required diapers.

Ari crossed her arms. “What if I’m not interested in living somebody else’s life?”

Merlin nodded. He’d wanted to believe they would work together to defeat the cycle, but if that wasn’t in the cards, he would play a different hand. He crossed his own arms—alarmed at how skinny they’d grown. “You aren’t getting a bit of my magic for your parents’ prison break unless you agree to train with me first.”

That was for her own protection, as much as for Merlin’s benefit. Ari would die if she went storming into a prison with nothing but love for her adoptive mothers.

“Fine,” Ari said, waving her hand. “We’ll train.” Her eyes glimmered behind the casual acceptance. “But you should know I was a conscientious objector at knight camp.”

They returned to the courtyard where Lam and Kay had begun sparring, the clash of cheap metal ringing out.

“Get this,” Ari shouted over the din of poor swordsmanship. “Merlin wants to train me to be like your hero, Kay. King Arthur.”

“I never said he was my hero. I said I liked his exhibit on Heritage.” He turned his sword at his sister and Ari whipped out Excalibur to meet his blade. They tangoed for a little while before Merlin had all the proof he needed that swordplay was not Ari’s weak point.

“No more bickering. Your training begins now. Step one, best Lamarack,” Merlin ordered. He was surprised when Ari listened, spinning in a way that made Lam dive out of the way.

Instead of reaching for their sword, Lam caught Ari around the waist. “Hey,” they said, head lodged under Ari’s arm. “Has anyone ever told you that you look excellent from this angle?”

Ari blushed, hesitated, and Lam knocked her sword free, sounding a victorious cry.

“That was cheating,” Ari huffed, amused but unwilling to admit it.

“Lam used their charm,” Merlin said. “It’s a perfectly good way to disarm someone.”

“So, you want me to flirt past the prison guards? Make out with Mercer Associates?”

Now it was Merlin’s turn to huff. “If you can get past someone you know, you will be able to bypass greater obstacles. It’s harder to face down friends than enemies. Friends know you better and can use that knowledge against you.”

Merlin didn’t have friends, so he never got destroyed in that particular manner. Arthur was always hurt by the people he loved best. Gweneviere. Lancelot. His children—who had the unnerving tendency to kill him—starting with Mordred in that very first cycle. Come to think of it, Ari was a little too old. “You don’t have any children, do you?”

“What?” Ari asked, blanching under her tan complexion. “No.”

“Geez, dude,” Lam said.

Kay leaped in with his sword, too eager for a rematch, his black eye glistening plummy purple. He let out a blunt shout and charged Ari like an angry goat. At that moment, Merlin noticed a procession coming down the street that bordered the courtyard. A palanquin carried someone important—probably royal—toward the tournament.

Gweneviere.

The procession was headed right toward them. Merlin’s magic sparked out of him in a frantic burst. Ari, Kay, and Lam froze on the spot.

Within the small, tented carriage, he saw a young woman in a blue silk dress with dark hair pinned in an elaborate, braided style. She was waving at her subjects and tourists alike, and Merlin found himself ducking to avoid her gaze, the one that ruled everything it landed on. He noted that—by the seemingly undying Earth standards—she was of mixed Asian and European heritage.

Something about her felt familiar, but then Gweneviere was always regal, beautiful, terrifying.

When the procession was well out of sight, Merlin unfroze his knights. Ari squinted at him. “What was that?”

“Sneeze,” Merlin said.

Ari shrugged, then drove her entire weight into the softest part of Kay’s belly. They wrestled without honor. Kay tugging hanks of Ari’s hair, Ari yanking at Kay’s belt, pulling his cargo shorts low enough to produce an unseemly crack. But it was a final kick to his shin and a few crunched toes that allowed Ari to run around him to the far end of the courtyard, doing a victory dance that was mostly knees and elbows.

Merlin shook his head, even as Ari celebrated. “You won, but you failed. You used your brawn, not your brain, Arthur!” She looked stung, and he corrected. “Ari. Your muscles will only get you so far. Your brain can get you everywhere. It can get you anything, if you use it.”

“I do use my brain.”

“Oh?” Merlin feigned. “Remind me, did you convince your brother to come save your friend, or did you beat him into submission?”

“I just needed him out of the way,” Ari said with a bluntly honest shrug.

In that moment, Merlin discovered the weakness of his new Arthur. Ari wasn’t a mindless brute or bully. But she was boldly impatient, and when she wanted to fix something she did it the fastest way possible.

“What will you do when your impulses aren’t enough?” Merlin asked. “Not all problems are best solved alone.”