Once & Future (Once & Future #1)(94)

Next, Ari and her friends took Big Mama back to her sandy nest. Big Mama dug up three large eggs, mooning loudly over their uncracked, cold forms. For a twisting moment, it seemed impossible that the unhatched taneens had survived so long without their mother’s heat, but Morgana appeared, reaching ephemerally through the shells to confirm that two of the three still bore beating hearts and growing bodies.

Gwen surprised all of them, pushing toward Morgana to ask her to check her baby. The knights, Merlin, and Ari held their breaths while Morgana laid a bluish-clear hand on Gwen’s stomach and pulled it away sharply.

“Alive,” she said. “Loud, and healthy.”

Ari was alight with joy. She could not stop herself from embracing Gwen while Jordan muttered a thankful chant and Lamarack lifted Val into the air, shaking him with happiness. Gwen shivered in Ari’s arms, her fear releasing in trembles and significant exhalations. Ari felt the constant heat between them fade to warmth. Less like a flash burn, and more of a hearth.

“This baby will be Lionelian, but born on Ketch. An important piece of both of us.” Ari found herself whispering in Gwen’s ear before she remembered Kay’s last parting wisdom while they were on that imaginary green field of Old Earth. “Even if you’re from Troy, originally,” Ari said. “We create our families. We choose our homes, don’t we?” There was no challenge in her voice—only curiosity and a need to understand why Gwen had held back from her.

Gwen sighed, melting into Ari a little more with each breath. “My parents lived on Troy, and I was born there, but I don’t remember it. My first memories are of Lionel. We moved there when I was small, but my parents…” She moved back and stretched, holding out her arms in the bluish-gold sunlight of this vivid planet. “It was too hard to play Middle Ages. They went back to Troy.”

“They left you… alone on Lionel?” Ari asked, slight anger leaking through her words.

“Never came back. Never even sent a message.” Gwen’s words slid into place—her worries about being left behind by Ari taking on the weight of her past. “The only good thing they ever did was gift me to the training school. I fell in love with Lionel. I found my first loyal friend.” Gwen smiled at Jordan. “She’s also a left-behind, and we made a vow to each other that someday one of us would be queen.”

“I could have so easily been given to Mercer,” Gwen added. “They would have owned me.”

Ari felt angry for not understanding sooner. She felt like pacing, like raging out. “Our baby won’t have those terrible realities poised over their head. I will not rest until—”

Gwen took her arm. “It’s okay, Ari. Everything we’ve done this past year… losing each other and then Kay… well, she will not grow up under Mercer’s control.”

“She?” Ari asked.

Gwen nodded. “Mother’s intuition.”

Ari didn’t say anything, but she hoped Gwen was right. According to Morgana and Merlin, King Arthur’s progeny, especially the boys, tended to cause far more trouble than they were worth. Of course, this child wasn’t Ari’s on a strictly genetic level. Was that enough to avoid the retelling of Arthur’s death at the hand of his son?

Mordred.

What a frigid name.

“You said ours,” Gwen murmured, pulling Ari close by the arm, interrupting her doomed thoughts. “You said our baby.”

“That’s presumptuous, I know—”

Gwen stopped her lips with a kiss that was so soft and sweet, Ari couldn’t help but glow with joy—as if that door had been thrown open and now the sunlight was just pouring in.

Her moms made their way over, asking with all the subtle patience of a hungry taneen if they were going to be grandparents. When Gwen said yes, Mom roared with Big Mama levels of excitement, while Captain Mom wept.

Lastly, Ari took her friends to Ras Almal in the capital city of Omaira. She brought them to the huge amphitheater where the seven founding families of Ketch once met to discuss Mercer, their planet, their galaxy.

“I made this,” Ari said, slightly bashful as she pointed to the center of the large room. “Well, I had a lot of time on my hands the last time I was here.”

Merlin’s eyes nearly popped. “It’s a…”

“Round table,” Ari said, brushing sand off the stones she’d cut and hauled into place with her own hands, one brick at a time. “When I first heard about King Arthur, I thought this bit was the shining jewel of hypocrisy. How could there be one true king who then gave everyone an equal voice? Then, when I was here with so much time on my hands to think things through, I realized that humanity will never give people an equal voice. It’s not in our nature. That’s why King Arthur had to decree it.”

Merlin’s eyes stung with unbottled tears.

“Are you all right, old man?” Ari asked, smiling and slapping his back.

Merlin started up a low chant of sorts. “Find Ari. Train Ari. Nudge her onto the nearest throne. Defeat the greatest evil in the universe. Unite all of humankind. I’ve never been this close to completing it.”

“Will you stop aging backward if we sort this out?”

He opened his mouth, but then shut it. “I have absolutely no idea,” Merlin said. Ari wondered if he was waiting for some kind of great clicking, a way of knowing that this was over. “I’ve always believed that when this was through, I would stop aging backward. Recently I’ve learned that there might be… other factors at play.”