Once & Future (Once & Future #1)(90)

Merlin waved a dismissive hand and kept on kissing Val.

The breastplate fell away, and Ari stood taller. She was ready to finish this. She had to be.

“Where’s Jordan?” Ari asked, whipping around. “Where’s Gwen?”

Lam pointed up at the stone dais. “They grabbed Gwen. Jordan went full knight rage. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Ari’s heart stormed as she squinted up to where the Administrator stood, holding Gwen, just waiting for Ari to notice. “Bastard,” she breathed. “He’s using her as bait. That’s still not bad-guy original,” she cursed, remembering their first meeting.

Ari turned back to Merlin, shaking him out of the deepest kiss she’d ever witnessed. “Merlin, where’s Morgana?”

“I accidentally killed that body I gave her. She’s… around.”

“She’d better be.”

Ari’s brain hummed as she tried to imagine a way to get close to the Administrator. She could get close to him, but not armed. He’d make sure of that. “How much magic do you have left, old man?”

Merlin chewed his lip, and Val tugged it free as if he couldn’t resist. “My fireworks were not easy, because I had this run-in with an old friend who zapped all my—”

“He’s got nothing,” Val said. “He’s staying with me. What do you want us to do?”

Ari picked up two ornate Mercer swords and shoved one in Val’s hand and one in Merlin’s. They both looked at them like they were odd hairbrushes. “You two stay with Lam. Help them get those doors open, if it’s possible. Find a way out of here, if you can.”

“Error should be in the docking garage,” Lam said. “When you were unconscious, they were retrofitting her with a bunch of Mercer gadgets. Turning her into a sort of chariot to parade their fake king in. It’s what made Kay lose his cool before.…”

Ari swallowed hard, trying not to picture that scene. “Find her, and get my parents, too—”

Morgana appeared, wispy and miserable. “They are sealing us in from every angle. Escape is improbable.”

Ari apologized to Merlin and slid Excalibur along his arm. Val shouted and Merlin cried out, turning pale. A line of blood shone along the blade, and Ari looked at Morgana, hard. “Optimism, Morgana.”

“Ara Azar,” the Administrator said, voice booming from the surround sound speakers in the stadium. The entire place went dead silent. All of the associates stopped fighting at once, and even Big Mama quietly feasted in the corner.

“King Ara, please return to the dais to collect your queen,” he tittered.

Some people in the crowd actually laughed.

The still-armed associates cleared back as Ari began the long, slow walk toward the dais. When she neared the stairs, she found Jordan, down on her side, bleeding into the red sand. Her helmet was thrown off and her face was full of righteous aggression. “No quarter, no mercy,” she whispered, wincing.

Ari nodded and approached the steps.

“Unarmed, thank you,” the Administrator called out.

Ari dropped Excalibur in the sand and climbed the steps to face the Administrator. She tore away pieces of the clunky, punishing armor as she went until she was just Ari, standing in a shirt she’d stolen from her mother’s room on Ketch. He sent his associates away like a fool, but then, he really didn’t fear Ari. He never had. That was the first thing she needed to change.

The Administrator held Gwen’s dagger to the inside of Gwen’s hip in a way that proved to Ari exactly how much he knew—and that he was threatening two lives at once.

“You’re going to knife a pregnant woman?” Ari asked, voice carrying to the cameras, the projection above their heads still trailing the best of the action. “That’s evil, Administrator. I thought Mercer wasn’t evil, or good. They just are.”

The crowd stilled, all eyes on them.

He released Gwen slowly, a strangely savage look on his face that left Ari spinning with fear. The dagger moved away from Gwen, and he held it up as if he were relenting.

And then he pushed Gwen off the dais.

She fell with a small scream, landing hard on the sandy ground in a crumpled heap.

Ari surged forward and caught the Administrator by those terrible ceremonial robes, pinning him to the altar that only minutes ago he’d tried to use as evidence of his ordained right.

The Administrator’s slick expression didn’t waver. “You forget that they don’t care if I’m evil. No one stands against us, because they need us.” He turned his look to the stands. “Without Mercer you’d die, hungry, thirsty, squawking at each other. You all need us too much, don’t you?”

The silence was answer enough.

Mercer owned the universe, but it was more than that. Mercer made truth irrelevant. As long as they were in control, atrocity would always be excused in the name of convenience and greed.

Ari’s fingers latched on to his throat. She wanted to recoil from his bleached skin. His hollow eyes. The Administrator had nothing inside of him. No hate. No caring. There was only the cold balance of cost and trade. A bank account of sterilized numbers. A mass grave of figures.

Ari pulled away.

And he laughed. “We did not think you would choke us to death for the entertainment of the masses. Didn’t your brother already tell you? You’re no killer.”