Morgana made an exasperated sound and chucked Ari like a stone.
Ari landed hard on the frozen ground, face first, still gripping Excalibur. By a miracle, she hadn’t impaled herself on her own sword. She gasped, sore all over. And opened her eyes.
Ari wasn’t on Urite.
She was on a crystal-clear shell. Some kind of thick glass. And below her—a solid death drop below—lay an intricate, crenellated city made of red stone with wide-arching windows.
“Omaira!” Ari sat up, reeling around to take in her surroundings. Beyond the capital city, a red desert spread out below her, highlighted with magnificent oranges and yellows. Large animals crawled in the distance, bragging of life. Tears stung Ari’s eyes and at the back of her throat where she could taste how much she’d missed Ketch—a sensation swiftly soured by a logo stamped into the glass barrier. The Mercer M.
Morgana hunkered beside Ari. “Interesting. My magic cannot get you through this.”
“Great.” Ari dusted her hands off and stood. “I didn’t actually ask you to bring me here.”
“But you did. And Arthur did as well.” Her dark eyes gleamed, and Ari hated that she was right. The fact that she hadn’t spoken her desire out loud was true, but also a technicality. “He is close to speaking with me, I can tell. I’ve waited several millennia for this.”
“Morgana, my friends are back on Urite. They—”
“Left that planet as planned, without you. I saw them escape the molten cannons myself.”
“Cannons?” Ari almost yelled. “Did Mercer go after them?”
Morgana leaned closer, a little too close, squinting at Ari’s face. “You are home, you insignificant string bean. That is what you asked for. Home. Focus on that.”
Ari was dizzy from the height and also maybe from the thin atmosphere. She looked down at Ketch. “Right, home. Down there. How am I supposed to get through the barrier?”
“My power is internal. So is time travel, although the physical aspects of space travel do require a little blood from a certain scrawny, self-aggrandizing—”
“Morgana.”
“Yes, well, we probably needed Merlin for this. An oversight on both of our parts, come to think of it. I don’t have any physical magic. Technically, I cannot even touch you.” Ari felt a chill that might have been Morgana’s fingers. “All of you waste your bodies. You have no idea of their power, of what you’d be without them. If I hear Merlin complain about his frail, backward body once more, I’ll lock him in the cell of his worst memory and be done with it.”
Ari couldn’t help herself. “I’ve seen his worst memory. It isn’t a prison. He’s going to face his fears. Even if that means facing down Nin herself.”
“How could you be na?ve about the Lady of the Lake?” Morgana asked, stunned. Ari didn’t like that she’d shocked her; it felt like sipping spoiled milk. “You say her name like she’s one of your friends or enemies. She is neither, and you would do well to remember it.”
Ari sheathed Excalibur at her back. “Fine, but you’re jealous of Merlin’s frail body. Admit it.”
Morgana cocked her head. “Imagine going through existence as a ghost. An unwelcome whisper. A living curse.” She huffed. “You would be jealous, too. Even of that gangly—”
“I bet he could make you a body. You could work together to solve the cycle. You could join us instead of being a huge damn intangible thorn in everyone’s side.”
“He could make me a body. This I have recently proved to be true.” She smiled evilly.
“You did something on Urite, didn’t you? I saw how you looked at Merlin’s blood.”
That evil smile grew.
“What did you do?”
“I bought us some time to be together. To get you to Ketch and find a way to talk with my brother. If you wish this chat to be over, give me access to Arthur. If he’s not in your head, perhaps he’s in your heart. Trickier. Such a fickle organ. So fragile and easily… stilled.”
Morgana pressed closer, and Ari stepped backward on the glass, her magboot sliding on the surface.
“Wait,” she tried, holding one arm across her chest as if that might keep the woman from reaching inside her blood and muscle, clawing through her very pulse. A hundred feet beneath her, she saw the crenellated top floor of the city’s largest tower. A central meeting place called Ras Almal—where her parents had worked. Memories poured in, and she couldn’t help smiling.
Home was so close… and yet still impossible to reach. Unless she could send out a signal.
Ari grasped at her bare wrist, swearing. She’d given Gwen her watch, her only way to communicate with Error, or anyone else. I’ll be right back, Ari’d said when she stepped off Error on Urite. Gwen had known something would go wrong; Ari hadn’t listened.
“I’m going to die up here. Alone. Or with you, but that’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
Morgana’s face showed the first sign of humanity. “Perhaps. You can’t break this barrier with your hands, can you? Wouldn’t it be a kindness then, to let me inside to see my brother with your last breaths. You do seem kind, albeit brash, silly, and boastfully truthful. All of Arthur’s best—and worst—traits.”
Morgana reached toward Ari’s chest, and Ari drew Excalibur, pointing the blade at this wisp of a human. “I am not your long-dead king.”
Morgana laughed, choking the air with a sudden sadness. “I knew no such being. Arthur is a pawn in a magical, self-fulfilling torture, devised by Merlin in either his powerful ineptness or his purposeful corruptness. I cannot tell which.”
“Merlin isn’t evil. He’s overenthusiastic and shortsighted, I’ll give you that,” Ari said. “But he loves his Arthurs. They give him purpose.”
“Merlin’s purpose is calamity. His love is hollow. Fake. A plastic plant. A garbage mountain. A lazy lover.” Morgana’s anger lifted her voice. “All these countless years, my Arthur is undead, unrested. His soul flits in and out of reality like a bird with a broken wing, landing on small creatures that might have the fortitude to help. Those beings get distracted by quests. By Merlin. By a love story that confuses tragedy with triteness. I loathe the very—”
“What is it about this doomed love story?” Ari interrupted, her hand straying to the ring on her index finger. “Merlin seemed terrified of it.”
“I could show you things that Merlin keeps secret. I could change your understanding of what it means to be Arthur. Merlin has fed you the morality and grandeur. I could show you the tragedies that fall in the wake of such foolhardiness.” Morgana’s whisper dwindled. “These endless years Merlin has played hero games while my little brother’s soul lingers, suffers, fractures.”
“I get it,” Ari tried. “I have a brother, too. I’d do anything for him.”
Morgana paused. “You do not seem surprised to hear that King Arthur is my brother. Merlin told you, did he? Perhaps he is maturing as he… immatures.” She tittered at her own joke. “Still, I’m surprised. My brother’s creation is Merlin’s greatest shame. The living proof that his heart is corrupt, that in the end, Earth’s great magician is no more than a demon.”
Ari wanted to thumb off Morgana’s anger, but her curiosity edged forward. “What?”
“He created the rape of my mother.”
Ari narrowed her eyes, confused.
Morgana sneered. “You are trying to imagine young, prancing, what is the phrase?—gay as a maypole—Merlin committing such an act. I would have you picture him as he was in the beginning. Ancient, gnarled, miserable.” Ari knew Morgana spoke truly. She had seen Old Merlin firsthand in that memory, his dark hunger, his insatiable need for power. “On the night my father was murdered by Uther Pendragon, Merlin used his magic to make Uther identical to my father. And in that guise, Uther entered my castle, my home, and violated my mother.”