Ever My Merlin

chapter 15 – OF KINGS AND MEN

Crap. I yanked off the mask and stared at myself in the mirror in the girl’s bathroom. Thanks to black kohl, my eyes looked raccoon wide. Smeared gloss plumped my lips, leaving it a vulnerable pink. My hands shook as I rested them on white marble and took heaving breaths. I left the ballroom for a hidden restroom, closer to the lobby. The rush of music vibrated the old walls of the historic hotel, making it come alive. Too alive.

I left him in the middle of the dance floor.

I’d fallen in love with him. There, I admitted it. The one thing I’d been denying for months. I was only seventeen—no, eighteen. I wasn’t supposed to be in love. Real love. The kind that changes you type of love.

Lust, definitely. Like, it’s what I thought we had.

But this… not him. Not Vane. He was the wrong one.

I didn’t want to be broken.

Matt. I hadn’t believed him when he’d said the words. I hadn’t dared. I hadn’t been ready, and now, I was in the same place. God, it was awful. In the mirror, my reflection grimaced and replied with a silent mocking, ‘You’re screwed.’

“I love Vane,” I said, hoping it would sound less painful out loud.

“You what?”

My head jerked to the opening and wanted to sink into the floor. Matt slipped inside. I cursed the lack of a door. Only a curved wall barred the view from outside. He wore a tux identical to Vane’s, except for the color of his vest and tie. Buttercup yellow matched sober amber-brown eyes. I didn’t need the color change to tell who he was. The lion burned in his eyes, and while I loved him too, I wasn’t in love. He didn’t have the same power over me. I didn’t feel as if every breath I took was for him. He couldn’t break me.

“Matt,” I started and stopped. I didn’t know what to say.

He looked ready to explode. “Is it true?”

I winced at the bite in his tone and mumbled, “Yes.”

“Have you told him?”

I’d rather eat nails.

“Have. You. Told. Him?” he ground out when I didn’t answer.

“Of course not!” I snapped. With a sigh, I faced him. “Listen, Matt, I’m sorry—”

“You should tell him.”

He’s lost his mind. I said, “What?”

“This was inevitable,” he muttered to himself.

Inevitable. I stared at him. I didn’t understand. Unless… “You had a vision.”

It wasn’t possible. Vane had taken his magic, but I knew Matt. His shoulders drooped with the secret, the weight of the world pressing down on him once again.

Matt muttered, “You won’t understand.”

Meaning there is something to tell. “How?”

He confirmed it by closing his eyes. After a long second, he opened them. “I had the vision a long time ago… shortly before Vane returned from Carthage. I had just freed Perceval. But I never thought it would come true. I never thought I could actually lose my magic.”

“Losing your powers was the trigger.” All this time, was this the real reason why he got so upset with me? Because I triggered a chain of events. It took me three steps to reach him. I put my hands on his shoulders. “What have you seen about Vane?”

Matt stiffened. “What makes you think this is about him?”

I gave him a slanted look. “With you, everything goes back to him.”

Matt straightened away from me. “Not true—”

I grabbed his arm. “For once in your life, forget about strategizing. This is about your brother. Just tell me.”

“It’s not just about Vane. It’s about us all.” Matt’s eyes became unfocused as he stared off to a point somewhere in the past. “It happened after he came from Carthage. The first time I saw him. He’d changed so much. By sight, I didn’t even realize it was Vane when Arthur spotted his small camp.”

Vane’s memories replayed in my mind. “And?”

Amber eyes refocused on me. “It’s why I wanted desperately to find the Healing Cup.”

A cup that doesn’t exist. I pushed. “Why?”

“I saw myself take my magic back. I didn’t understand that bit of the vision until Chennai.”

“But that’s not all.”

He took a strand of my hair and wound it around his finger. A yearning look softened burdened amber eyes. He said quietly, “I saw myself kill my own brother, Ryan.”

I took a step back. Hair slipped through his fingers. I said emphatically, “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t I? What if it’s the only way to save everyone?”

I had no good answer. He was capable of it. Instinctively, I reached for the Dragon’s Eye.

“Is he here?” Matt asked sharply.

“I told you I could shut him out.” I think. Knowing I was playing a dangerous game, I let go of the gemstone. “Describe the vision exactly.”

“We were standing in the middle of a circle. Everything around us was hazy. The skies above seemed to be dotted with fire. They shimmered with all kinds of different colors. Vane lay on the ground. I knelt beside him. His eyes glowed green, but he was sick. I saw the blackness tearing through his insides. He was dying. I had Excalibur. I put my hand on his chest, but instead of healing him, I stabbed him. Magic flowed into me more powerful than I’ve ever felt and I sent it back out. To this.”

Matt pulled out a phone from his suit pocket and clicked on the touchscreen. It showed a circle of stones with standing trilithons.

“Stonehenge?” I said.

He nodded. “Kronos’s Circle. It’s torn apart, but we’re taking steps to rebuild it as we speak. From your horseman vision, I figured out that the Lady was leading us to quarries that hold the metal used to construct the trilithons. The government is mining them. The mermaid song, the aria you heard in Elysium, is what constructs the gates.”

“Vane controls the mermaids.”

“I can replicate their magic using the Fisher King’s trident.”

I gave him a skeptical look. “How will rebuilding Stonehenge save us?”

“I don’t know yet. The Lady has a plan. We have to figure it out. But that’s not the bit involving Vane. Constructing the trilithons isn’t enough. We need energy to power them—”

“The apple?”

Matt shook his head. Lips tightening, his expression became bleak. “I would have thought so, if not for the horseman in the Kronos Eye and my vision.”

“What is more powerful, then?” I knew the answer. I couldn’t say it.

“Vane.”

“You’re going to rebuild the trilithons in Stonehenge and then you’re going to take his powers to open them? For what?”

“I’m going to take back my powers.”

I whispered, “You’re going to kill him.”

Matt’s gaze didn’t waver. “Yes.”

“You’ll let yourself flameout.”

And I would lose both of them. His placid expression made me want to hit him.

He continued. “Poseidon’s power must be released back into Kronos’s Circle. That’s why it was left for us to find. The Kronos Eye confirmed as much when the white horseman opened the gates. This is why the Lady meant the power for me. When the time comes, Vane won’t be able to do what is needed.”

“To be the sacrificial goat?” I said, almost shouting. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t want another way. Why haven’t you looked for another way?”

“The Lady has been training me since I was a toddler to be the greatest wizard in the world. For this. So I could do this.”

“Maybe the Lady is wrong, Merlin. You chose not to take Poseidon’s power in the maze. Can you for once not follow the path you think is laid out for you and make your own?”

He shook his head. “Don’t you think I want to? But I can’t take that risk. I won’t. Not with so much hanging in the balance.”

I wanted to throw something. “Vane has Poseidon’s power and your magic and he’s not going to give either one up easily. Meanwhile, you have none, Merlin, and since you gave away Excalibur, neither do I.” I stated with certainty, “You couldn’t kill him even if you wanted to.”

The vial of poison was gone.

“I wouldn’t be too sure. You gave me the answer, remember?”

An ominous wave of acid rose in my stomach. “The Kronos Eye.”

“You can get close to him. The poison won’t kill him, but it will weaken him.” Matt took out the Kronos Eye from his pocket and held the poison out for me to take. “If you want to save everyone, all your friends here tonight… if you want to save your family, the billions of this world, you’re going to have to do this.”

I shrank away from him. “How can you even think of doing this?”

“It was meant to be me!” Matt slammed a fist into the marble countertop. I winced as the long sink wobbled. The sound reverberated inside the small bathroom. “Just me! Whoever took Poseidon’s power was meant to die. I was meant to die! Only me.” He closed the distance between us. His hand wrapped in my hair. “You should have only been mine.”

Then, he kissed me. With desperation. With finality.

It was the finality that left me nonplussed for a second. I didn’t like the feeling of giving up. My mind ran. There had to be another way. I had to find another way. I pushed away from him, but not quickly enough.

“I seem to have lost my date,” Doppelganger-Matt said from the opening.

Marilynn, doubling as me, gaped at the real Matt and me. She wore a buttercup-yellow gown that matched his vest. Purple looked better, I thought. She gave Doppelganger-Matt a glowering look. “Which one of those wizards put you up to this? Who are you?”

Doppelganger-Matt said dryly, “Much like you, I’m the extra.”

Glowering at him, she turned her attention at me. “What are you doing here?”

I ignored her. I couldn’t take my eyes off those green-tinged eyes. “Vane—”

“Vane!” Marilynn screeched and practically leaped halfway across the room to hide behind Matt.

“You knew,” Doppelganger-Matt said with a small smile.

My heart in my throat, I walked toward him.

The smile tightened. He said, “I don’t think you want to come near me right now.”

“I always knew it was you,” I whispered.

Light flared in his eyes. “Quite frankly, that makes it worse.”

As I struggled to come up with a reply, his cellphone vibrated loudly in the pin-drop silence of the room. He took it out and stared at the screen for a second.

“It seems our time is up.” Without sparing me another glance, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the suddenly claustrophobic bathroom, but not before I saw the monster coming alive within those stormy eyes.

Shit. I took a step to go after him.

Matt caught my arm. He thrust the Kronos Eye in my hand. “Remember what’s at stake, Ryan. This is not the right time—”

With a quick twist, I broke away from him. I slapped the offending crystal back at him, refusing it absolutely. “If you keep waiting for the right time, it may never happen. Sometimes you have to make the most of the time you have.”

I plunged back into the party after a pissed-off animal—Vane. The hallway pounded with the music’s loud bass. He disappeared into the ballroom. I ran into the crowd and stopped at the edge of the room, my heartbeat pumping along with the frantic music. I scanned the crowd for a trace of him.

I touched the Dragon’s Eye on my neck. A purple vest on the stairs flashed under the swirling lights. I cut through the middle of the dance floor. Weaving and twisting through shimmering silk and satin that invited you to gyrate wildly in the night. Around me, the song urged everyone to take off their clothes along with their inhibitions. I’d lost mine on the first dance.

I made it through the dancers to the curved staircase. The pads of my fingers slid up cold marble of an elegant balustrade. I went up past lingering bodies, laughing and drinking and teetering precariously on the flat steps. Upstairs, curved balconies like numerous theater boxes gave a voyeur a full view of the glittering celebration below. With the Dragon’s Eye to guide me, I stalked the monster down the long mezzanine as I’d stalked him once through the maze.

I stopped near the center of the row of balconies on an abandoned one. In the shadows, past a circular table with wilted flowers and crumpled linen, I sensed the lurking animal. I walked deeper into the dark. The balcony gave an expansive view of the ballroom below, but I saw no one in the shrouded space.

It gave an expansive view of the ballroom below, but I saw no one in the shadows. Cursing, I turned and ran straight into the wall of Doppelganger-Matt’s chest. I caught his arms to keep from stumbling. His hands went around my waist. A lone ray of light shone down on his face, a closed off face. The scent of a stormy ocean-blue surrounded me and I was caught in its waves. The thumping music from below muted and sank into the background.

“Looking for someone?” He leaned down. His voice rumbled against my ear.

My body flushed hot and cold. My fingers tightened on him. “Only you.”

Green rose in his eyes and the monster snarled. “The wrong only.”

The same words I said to myself. It sounded more devastating when he said them, and it was then I knew I’d been wrong. I put my hands on his face. “Only you. Vane.”

The monster watched. It reached for me.

I resisted. “Drop the glamour, Vane.”

He did. Doppelganger-Matt disappeared and the hard lines of Vane’s body took its place. My mouth watered at the sight of him—the hard lines of a warrior’s body. The fighter versus the scientist. His lips crashed down on mine. Teeth parted and his tongue slipped inside. His taste, a sweet, clean spring, overwhelmed me. He pulled me into the shadows. My back met the smooth column that separated the balconies. A hand tangled in my hair and another down my side. The heat of his hand penetrated the thin silk of the dress. His tongue plunged deeper into my mouth and he arched my back, pulling me closer against him.

His phone vibrated loudly.

I slipped off the offending jacket that contained it. It fell to the floor in a heedless mess, the phone along with it. My fingers tightened in his hair as he continued the kiss. I don’t know how much time passed. All I heard was the music. All I tasted was his breath as I swam in the tides of moments for as long as the song would allow me. He pushed me deeper against the cold stone of the column. His leg slipped between mine.

A loud harrumph finally brought us back to land.

“Sire.” A voice came from somewhere beside us.

Vane tore his mouth from mine with a groan.

“You have the worst timing, Leonidas.” He moved off me and turned to face Leonidas, who stood on the outskirts of the small circular balcony.

“You did say to notify you immediately.” Leonidas’s stoic eyes locked on me. I could imagine what he saw—a rumpled gown and bruised lips and more…

We stared at each other for a second. Sizing each other with mutual distrust. Neither one of us would forget the gladiator pit. Vane picked up his jacket and I moved back into the light. I leaned on the balcony’s railing and tried to catch my breath.

Looking past the heat of the dancers, my gaze swept over the windows to the cool serenity of the pond outside. I stilled when I spotted a face that shouldn’t have been there. Under dim lamplight, I spotted a face I’d hoped to never see again. Oliver. Once a candidate for Excalibur, now he was only a son who’d murdered his father.

Oliver stood near the pond. A group of mermaids with swords in their hands surrounded him. I swiveled back to Vane. “What is Oliver doing here?”

A flash went through his eyes. His head jerked to the windows and he spotted the mermaids outside. He crossed to me in two steps. His hand slipped around my waist, gripping the curve of my hip.

“I’m sorry, Ryan,” he murmured before turning me to face the ballroom. Green magic sent a loud boom across the domed hall. There was a moment of stunned silence as the music cut out.

“Grey Ragnar.” Vane’s voice exploded across the suddenly quiet hall. He put his hand around the back of my neck and brought me close to him in a mark of clear possession. “You’re needed outside.”

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“Coach Vane?” a girl from the lacrosse team cried in recognition.

In the crowd below us, a young wizard pointed up. “Vane!”

“Get Merlin,” someone hissed.

Vane waved his hand. Music filled the space again and drowned out the charged chatter. It couldn’t diminish the sudden tension prickling in the room. The regular students murmured amongst themselves in confusion.

Vane turned to me. “Come with me.”

I shook his hand, a manacle, off my neck. “I don’t think so.”

He lifted his hand and turned it palm up. A small green fireball spun with hungry eagerness. “This is a very crowded ballroom, Ryan.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you threatening me? Because I don’t believe it.”

A hand clamped on my bare shoulder. “Actually, everyone but you.” He looked out over the ballroom. Ice green filled his eyes. “I suggest you believe that.”

I did. The answer showed, because he grabbed my elbow and led me downstairs. It didn’t take long to cross the dance floor. The crowd parted for us without even noticing, and we left the imperial room to the dark green lawn outside.

Vane marched me to the group of mermaids. Dressed in black cargos and T-shirts, they could have passed for a SWAT team. Except their skin was tinged with green, two men sported pointed ears, and angry red slashes—their gills—poked out from under their collars. Vane barked at their leader, “Does he have it?”

Leonidas, the hulking mermaid prince, said slowly, “Of course. It’s as you thought, sire. He was lurking around the hotel. Waiting for a moment to get her alone.”

Leonidas held up Excalibur. I gasped. My arm instinctively reached out for the blade. It swung toward me, also seeking my hold. Vane stepped in between and took the blade. He turned to me with an impassive expression. I dropped my arm.

“How did Oliver get my sword? Why is he loose?”

Vane’s brow arched. “Your sword was stolen.”

I scowled at him. “You let him steal Excalibur? You let him escape?”

“I didn’t let him. He did. And I was… otherwise occupied.” Impersonal eyes traveled over my bare shoulders down to the plunging neckline. My body tightened even under the cold perusal.

Two other mermaids held Oliver at swordpoint. On the ground lay several dead gargoyles. Vane stared at them. “The dissension among them is intensifying. Rourke should have declared his heir.”

“You know he couldn’t,” I said. Since Grey hadn’t transformed, only Oliver was eligible to take the throne. Rourke wasn’t about to name the son who’d poisoned him as his successor.

“More’s the pity,” Vane murmured.

“I am the king!” Oliver snarled. He lunged past the mermaids at me. They quickly subdued him. One pressed the tip of a sword into his chest, breaking skin.

“Stop,” Vane said. “He is still useful.”

I didn’t like the sound of that statement. “Useful how?”

Oliver laughed. “To replace you, sword-bearer. Why else? If I kill you, I can claim Excalibur.”

“Is that right?” Leonidas’s mermaid green eyes flickered over me. I could see his mind turn as he glanced at Excalibur. He’d beaten me several times in the pit, if only I hadn’t survived. A flash of green magic zapped the prince. He fell to his knees with a pained grunt. Leonidas’s sword flew into Vane’s hand. He put it above Leonidas’s bent head. Blood formed at the edge of the blade.

Still holding Excalibur in one hand, Vane pressed the second sword into the back of the prince’s neck. “Remember your place, mermaid.”

Leonidas took a heavy breath. “I beg your pardon, my king.”

Vane dropped the sword at Leonidas’s feet. Leonidas quickly grabbed it and stood up.

I faced Vane. “This is why you took me to prom. To use me as bait.”

He shrugged. “I knew he was lurking close. A trap is better when you’re the one who’s laid it.”

He’d laid it, and I’d fallen right in. My hands fisted at my sides. Anger coursed through me. “And coming to school? What was that about?”

His lips curved into a wistful smile. “A small ruse—”

“Ryan.”

Grey strode up the slight slope from the ballroom. Colin and a huge gang of gargoyles took up his left. On his right, Gia, in a flowing white dress, a group of younger gargoyles, and a surprising number of wizards dressed in formal suits flanked him.

Vane glanced at me. The thin strand of a weeping willow swung between us like a pendulum. Light flickered across eyes dotted with more hateful green. He stated, “There can be only one king.”

One gargoyle king. I went cold. “What are you doing, Vane?”

My heart sank when the green in his eyes intensified. He said softly, “What I have to.”

With sharp fingernails, I gouged my own palms. “There’s nothing you have to do. It’s always been your choice.”

He inclined his head. “I’ve never seen it that way.”

"Vicarati,” he said. A green breeze covered me briefly. I tried to move, but found my body locked in place. I grimaced. At least I could move my face. The Dragon’s Eye heated my neck as I began to fight against the spell.

Vane chuckled at my persistence. Drawing my hand up, he kissed it.

“Leonidas, keep an eye on her.” Even though I couldn’t move, Leonidas grabbed my shoulder and thrust a sword in front of my stomach. It dug into the bandage under purple silk, sending shooting pain up my abdomen. I hissed, the only thing I could do. Leonidas grunted in satisfaction at the sound of my pain.

Vane faced Grey with Excalibur in his hand. “I need the gargoyles, Ragnar. You’re standing in my way. The problem is if I kill you, I’m not sure the gargoyles will wholly fall into line. You’ve made some powerful allies.” His eyes settled on Colin. Then shifted to the dead gargoyles beside Oliver. “Unfortunately, his claim to the throne is stronger. He is Rourke’s direct descendant. Which leaves me one way to solve this.”

Vane crooked a finger at Oliver. With a snarl, Oliver shook off the mermaids holding him. He stalked forward, transforming into his gargoyle face—protruding forehead and elongated teeth.

“A duel,” Vane told Grey.

“No,” Gia and I cried at the same time on opposite sides of the field.

Vane faced the gargoyles. “He hasn’t changed. I thought he would after Rourke died. We all thought so. So did you.”

Colin and the gargoyles behind Grey shifted.

Gia protested, “There’s time—”

“No, there isn’t.” Vane pointed up at the sky. “The gargoyles must have a leader. I don’t know how we’re going to live through what’s coming, but I do know the gargoyles must stay united. Now is not the time for us to splinter. If you fall into a civil war, none of you will survive.”

“He’s right,” Grey said. He walked up the slope. Gia and Colin walked up with him.

Colin drew out a knife. Uttering a small command, he changed it into a sword. He handed it to Grey. “We follow him.”

“Not if I win. Then you will bow to me. You will have no choice.” Oliver laughed from beside Vane. The hierarchical nature of the gargoyles demanded it. It physically hurt them to refuse a direct command from their king or even their clan leader. It was the downside to being part of a super-strong, nearly indestructible beast.

Gia gnashed her teeth. “I’ll happily kill you. That will take care of the problem.”

“You’re nothing but a coward, Oliver,” Grey sneered.

Vane held up Excalibur. The shining metal blade sword gleamed in the darkness, catching the light of the moon. It glowed with banked energy.

The most powerful sword in the world, and Vane handed it to Oliver.

Oliver took it with a gleeful smile.

For a second, I simply couldn’t believe it. He’d betrayed us. Truly betrayed me.

My stomach turned. In protest and in denial.

Grey, too, stilled at the unexpected development.

I begged, “Vane, no.”

Vane ignored me. I fought against the freeze spell. Desperate for freedom. Desperate to help Grey. Furious at the prison forced on me. It was all a lie. The hope I carried was based on one belief—that he’d never deliberately hurt us. That belief lay shattered with one single act. Mentally, I pulled hard on the Dragon’s Eye. One arm broke free of Vane’s magical stronghold. It wasn’t nearly enough.

I shouted into his head, “If he dies, I’ll never forgive you.”

The answer that came back was succinct and edged with sadness. “I know.”

The sadness made it that much more chilling. Tears prickled at my eyes and spilled. A mournful symphony traveled from the ballroom to wrap around us as the dance hurried to a close. Under the soulful cry of the moon, knowing there was nothing I could do to help him, I watched my brother go to his death.