Once & Future (Once & Future #1)(27)

Ari put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. He was her friend now, wasn’t he? She hoped so; she’d need him to face Gwen’s machinations, the corrupt government on Troy, and the gods damn Mercer Company.

Not to mention the voice inside that whispered—You are one with King Arthur, and your destiny awaits.





Merlin hummed a bit of Handel’s wedding march, flicked his fingers, and tried to scatter the tight knot of his headache. Alas, hungover magic was groaningly impossible.

He’d already spent a full day of the flight to Troy recovering from the royal wedding, and the wedding night celebrations that spilled over onto the ship. He wasn’t the only one in rough shape. He remembered seeing Lam and Kay singing garbled versions of Old Earth songs before he passed out, but Merlin had more to get over than they did. It had been hard to tell what caused worse nausea: his eight… teenth cup of mead, or the sight of Ari and Gweneviere sealing their vows under the light of strange stars.

Not only had he failed to keep them from meeting, they had gotten engaged and married by nightfall on the same day he’d made his useless vow. And now the scene that greeted Merlin out the window was a fleet of six white Mercer vessels accompanying the newlyweds to Troy, where they would file their claim with the government and—hopefully—make it official.

The scope of this failure was staggering. Epic.

And as someone who’d lived through several volcanic eruptions and a Rolling Stones reunion tour, he didn’t throw those words around lightly. He picked himself up from where he’d been resting, which turned out to be under the round table in the main cabin. Lam was down there, too, curled like a delicate leaf despite their size. Kay slept sitting up in a chair, boots stuck to the floor and mouth permanently open.

Ari—where was Ari?

Merlin staggered on magboots that pinched his toes, thinking thoughts that stung his brain. He was letting it all happen again. Not just the inevitable parts. He was going down his own worst paths. Heavy drinking? He hadn’t imbibed this much in twenty cycles. He had lost entire Arthurs this way.

Merlin tramped through the tiny rooms of the spaceship but didn’t find Ari anywhere. What he did find was Jordan, camped outside Kay’s room in full regalia. The only thing she’d removed was her black-plumed helmet, revealing ruddy cheeks that shone in high contrast to her pale white complexion.

“Good day, mage,” she said, her voice both strident and smooth. She appeared too delighted with this title, as if she had rampaging doubts about his abilities. Merlin was still annoyed that Jordan had somehow gotten on board Error, despite his drunken pleas to leave her behind. Gweneviere had insisted on having her champion by her side, and Ari hadn’t been able to resist her new spouse’s request.

Which was exactly what made Merlin’s left eye twitch.

“Tell me they’re not both in there,” he said.

“My lady the queen and her consort have, indeed, claimed this tiny room. The queen is preparing Ari for their marriage examination on Troy.”

Excalibur lay discarded in the hall, and he thought about carving his way through the shiny silver door and stopping whatever was going on in there. Instead, he caught sight of himself in the door’s surface. He looked, if possible, even younger than he had when he’d woken in the Crystal Cave. It was hard to pinpoint what made the difference. Were his cheeks slightly rounder? He checked his stubble. Still formidably scratchy. Good.

Val came around the corner, stripped of his period costume, wearing an I NEW NEW NEW YORK T-shirt. He looked alarmingly awake and full of functions that Merlin lacked.

“Are the newlyweds sleeping in?” Val asked, nodding at the door Jordan guarded. “Or skipping the sleep bit altogether?”

Merlin made a sound somewhere between a dying cat and a choking dog.

Val frowned at him. He grabbed Merlin’s arm and led him away, whispering, “You’ve been acting like we lived through an apocalypse instead of a fairly tame royal wedding. You should have seen Lionel’s last planet-wide ceremony. The debauchery after Gwen’s coronation went on for weeks. Gwen and I both lost our virginity. To the same boy, actually. Not at the same time.”

Merlin blushed, changing color like a chameleon who had forgotten he was supposed to be blending in. This was probably how chameleons wound up dead.

Val settled into one of Error’s many nooks, this one looking like the skeleton of a kitchen. It had a few small cupboards, a tiny table and chairs, and a water filtration system that hummed like an old friend. Merlin dove for it, putting his face shamelessly under the stream, but most of it ended up on his toes.

“So, Merlin, why is this marriage a cause for mourning?” Val asked sharply.

“It’s my fault,” Merlin blurted, tongue still dry. “If I’d been able to defend Ari against Mercer, or even better, taught her how to defend herself, she wouldn’t need this marriage.” That was step two. Train Ari. And all he’d managed to do was get her to tackle Kay in a courtyard.

“This might be the best possible thing for Ari,” Val said. “And before you object, I’m speaking less as a royal adviser and more as someone who’s known her since she was seven. She likes people who know their own minds. And Gwen’s mind is one of the most well-mapped on any planet. That girl does not leave things unfathomed.”

“Of course she’s smart and beautiful and wondrous,” Merlin said. None of those traits had ever stopped Gweneviere from breaking Arthur’s heart. In fact, her sheer amazingness only multiplied the pain when things came to an inevitable, crashing end. “You don’t understand,” Merlin said. “It’s not your fault that you don’t.”