Once & Future (Once & Future #1)(77)

“How do we do that quickly?” Merlin corrected.

Morgana’s smile spread like a dark stain, and Merlin’s heart chilled. The fear that he’d so often felt in her presence was back. Apparently, it would never leave him alone for too long. “I’ll need your blood,” she said.

Merlin touched his nose and found that, while it was still tender, the nosebleed Jordan had so generously given him had dried up. He tried to dab a bit of dried blood and hold it out for Morgana, but she was already rummaging in the folds of her dress. She brought out a shining silver dagger, twisted and glittering.

“Have you had that on you this whole time?” Merlin cried.

“A priestess of Avalon is always prepared.”

She stabbed Merlin in the thigh with a little too much glee. The pain was sudden, and it doubled when she pulled the blade out, his blood flowing in a gushing river. He yelped and hopped away on the other foot.

“What’s going on over there?” Ari called warily, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Morgana, is that you?”

“It’s all right!” Merlin said. “We’re, umm, collaborating.”

The wound in his thigh screamed that maybe he’d made a mistake.

Morgana reached down and touched her hand to the blood, kneeling to bring her red palm down to the ground, and then holding it up to the sky. She walked, painting the trees in the grove with bloody handprints as she went.

Val ran to Merlin’s side and held him up as Merlin hopped. “She stabbed you?!”

“It’s for a good cause,” Merlin said in a strained whisper. “I think.”

“I’m so glad she’s on our side now,” Val deadpanned.

“How real is she?” Lam asked, eyeing her with a sly, interested smile, which Morgana returned over her shoulder.

“Real,” Merlin confirmed while Val huffed.

“Seriously, Lam? Sinister enchantress cannot be your type.”

“Sexy in a slip dress certainly is,” Lam said.

Merlin watched Morgana’s strange magic bloom around them. Everywhere she brushed his blood, the ripped ground healed itself, the bark of the trees knitted and the branches grew, springing open buds and then uncurling healthy green leaves. Flowers sprang up in the wake of her bare feet. Merlin’s blood was watering a garden of new growth. Morgana had used the magic that had given her a body to give Earth back its life.

And the knights were watching, gasping.

Kay climbed down from Error. Gwen emerged from her hiding spot. Val looked up, taking in a deep breath of air that no longer tasted so tangy or metallic.

“This is what it could have been…” Ari said, looking around her.

“This is what it can be again,” Merlin said, hopping toward her with Val’s help. “If we stop Mercer. Together.”

Morgana looked back from the distance she’d just traveled, filled with grass that rose and fell like gentle breath. A lake glittered and beckoned them. After a year of drought on Lionel, it was the most beautiful thing Merlin could imagine. He looked around at the freshly changed landscape and was surprised to find it familiar. This was a park that, in its day on Earth, had been rather famous.

Lamarack ran through it with joyful abandon, a sort of wild hope to replace the grim waiting. Ari let herself turn in circles, taking it in. Merlin could see, in her rediscovered smile, the girl he’d met on the moon. The one who had come back from Ketch, hopeful for Gwen’s love. The orphan who had lost as many homes as Merlin had—and kept fighting.

She nodded appreciation. “Nicely done, old man.”

Val tugged him deeper into the magical landscape—not too quickly, because his leg hurt like the dickens. Still, the moment was almost perfect.

But at the very edges, Merlin could still sense the ruin. And in the skies, Heritage loomed as a reminder. Mercer had been kicked, but they were not down.





At last, Ari had a real battlefield.

Merlin had called it a park, but the rolling acres of green, dotted by the strong profiles of old trees, looked perfect for a last stand. Even the sky was the kind of blue that jeweled the heavens. Ari reassured herself that she had the upper hand—and that Excalibur was sealed in it.

The second step in her plan, to show the universe what had befallen Old Earth, had gone perfectly. The universe had received her messages. Several planets had even kicked Mercer out like Dodge colony had, a fact she’d rubbed in during her open message to the Administrator. And yet, she was also absolutely positive that something costly would happen when he showed his face. She glanced at the sky. He hadn’t sent a snarky return message, which Ari took as a sign that he was scrambling to meet her demands.

Any moment, the tide of right would beat down the mountain of wrong. She only wished Kay was with her. Dragon Kay, that is. Her brother could fuck right off this planet, for all she cared.

“Liar,” Ari muttered. She was failing to assemble a kingly outfit from the pile of cast-off armor Jordan had dumped in the green grass. A rubbery piece caught Ari’s eye, and she lifted Kay’s old knight training suit from the mound, the one he’d threatened her into so they could pick up supplies on Heritage a lifetime ago. She sniffed it, wincing, and yet overwhelmed by how her brother’s fear had always proved he loved her. Ari was going to be okay about Gwen and Kay. She was going to stitch her heart back together until she could manage okay.