“Nothing good has happened to me in so long,” she whispered, the words slick with pain.
“Think of Ari!” Merlin cried. And, as much as it hurt him to admit it, he added, “I know you two must have developed some feeling for each other on Ketch. She’s your Ketch buddy!”
Morgana shook her head, her dark hair hanging in tatters around her face. “Ari hates me for deceiving her. For killing her in the eyes of her friends.”
“You can fix that,” Merlin said, still surprised that he was comforting Morgana. Still worried that she was about to spring up and stab him through the heart. He patted her back gingerly.
“There is no taking back what is done,” Morgana said, staring up at Merlin with the kind of accusation that never wavered. “You, of all people, should know that.”
Merlin took a deep breath. If Ari was out in the grove taking on the future, perhaps it was time for him to finally face the horrors of the past. “There are times when I think I should not have taken your brother,” he admitted. “But your stepfather was treating him as a dangerous bastard, and I…”
Merlin dug up the truth by its roots, one word at a time. “I believed I could create a kind of justice for Uther’s actions. I never should have given that man the magic to appear in your father’s form. Uther was violent, as so many were then, but I never… I never imagined he would do such a vile thing.” His voice broke into a thousand pieces. “I was a fool. I left his service at once and raised your brother to change the ways of men. To prove that might does not equal right. To show the world that alliance is more powerful than violence.”
Morgana keened, and Merlin could not tell if it was from his words, or from the memories seething through her mind.
There was one more truth, and the story would never be finished without it. “None of that changes your mother’s hurt. Or your own loss.”
And in that moment, Merlin understood. He wasn’t going to make Morgana pay. She had been paying, for centuries, the toll the cycle took on her soul as great as the one it took on his. They had both done awful things in their time. They had both suffered. But no single human could hold the pain of all the terrible things in the universe.
Merlin touched Morgana’s temple, and memories flowed between them, a river running back to its source.
Arthur, magically changing into a squirrel, scampering through the trees as the green leaves danced.
Arthur, his scruffy hair and bright-blue eyes, the freckles that hadn’t yet faded peeking above the top of a tome Merlin had given him.
Arthur, crowned king when he was still a nervous young man, while a young woman watched from the crowd, a pilgrim from Avalon, wearing priestess robes and sharing Arthur’s faded freckles.
“What are you doing?” Morgana asked, gasping as if she were surfacing from a deep lake.
“I’m giving you what you missed, Morgana,” he said.
It was what she had done so many times, when Merlin woke up, except she’d only shown him the worst of humanity.
He put his arm around her, helping her up. She felt solid in his grip. Terrifying and true. “There are more memories, and you can have them,” he promised, “but first I need your help.”
Merlin brought Morgana back to the grove where Ari had just finished her message to the universe. She stood in the center of a ring of sickly trees, hacking at the ruins of a stump with Excalibur.
“This place is desecrated,” Morgana said, as she struggled to breathe Earth’s chemical-strewn air. “What has become of our home?”
“Humans did not take care of it, but Mercer delivered the killing blow,” Merlin said. “That’s one of the reasons Ari… and your brother… have chosen to stand against them.”
“My brother needs peace,” Morgana sniffed.
“Then why did he choose Ari?” Merlin asked. “Why did he save her from the attack on her parents’ ship? Why did he wish for her to see Ketch? Could it be that he needs both?”
Morgana glared at him, but at least this time she didn’t try to take out his eyes with her long, eternally untrimmed nails.
Ari’s knights were watching the skies, nervous, and distant from one another. Merlin longed for the banter they’d once filled Error with and the playful way they’d tackled each other on Lionel.
“Did Mercer respond?” Lam called out.
“They picked it up, but no response,” Kay shouted from Error, where he was transmitting Ari’s message in the hopes that their allies would pick up. “Now we’ll see if that bastard shows his face.”
“He’ll come,” Ari and Gwen said together, before exchanging glances and looking away.
“Can you make another one of those nets to be certain only the Administrator’s ship comes through? The last thing we need is to be bombarded by a fleet.”
“Certainly,” Merlin said. He hummed an old tune he’d learned from a Roman centurion. It had a stiff yet drumming beat. Perfect for oncoming battle. When he was done, and the skies were neatly webbed in gold, he grinned at his band. Not a single one of them were looking at him. Not a single one impressed. Not even Val. They eyed the ruined planet, wincing with each chemical-laden breath.
“They’re a mess,” Merlin muttered. “We can’t win anything in this state.”
“That one is rather pretty,” Morgana pointed at Val, whose hard-set face was, indeed, lovely even when most worried. “Is he the reason you so desperately wish to stop aging backward?”
“Ari told you that, too?” Merlin croaked.
“She’s honest, as you’ve observed,” Morgana said.
Merlin fiddled with the hem of his T-shirt. “Well, there are lots of reasons to wish for the cycle’s end. That’s only one small—”
“Have you kissed him yet?” Morgana stroked her own lips with a gentle finger. “I remember kissing…”
Merlin’s stomach tugged. It was one thing to lose his Arthur to Morgana, but Val was entirely off-limits. “Stay away from him,” Merlin barked. “And before you go on a kissing spree, we need to pull Ari’s knights back together. No one needs a martyr right now. Your field trip to Ketch turned Ari into something of a heroic loner.”
But Merlin knew it was more than that. When they first met, Ari had believed, on some deep level, that she was alone in the universe. That was why she’d tried to solve all her problems by herself. It had been getting better, but her time on Ketch with Morgana had made her backslide. He watched Ari from a distance, noting how alone she looked even surrounded by those who loved her most. She’d shut herself off again. Withdrawn.
“You’re writhing with jealousy,” Morgana said. “I’ve trained Ari better than you ever would have.”
Ari did look quite impressive after her stay on Ketch, her muscles long and curved, her deepened brown skin shining. Ever her hair had a new sheen to it. Merlin suspected that she’d discovered the secrets of Ketchan hair care. But there was also a hardness to her features, an impassable distance in her eyes. She’d returned to a home that had been violated, long-lost family and friends murdered. She’d gone home to find connection and found herself more alone than ever. And she’d been made to bear the weight of a planet-wide massacre by herself. No one should have to face that—no matter how strong.
“She needs her friends,” Merlin said. “And her friends need to work their problems out before those problems trip them up and get them murdered. You must admit that Arthurs do tend to have trouble with their nearest and dearest, and it never ends well.”
“Agreed,” Morgana said, grudgingly.
“What if we lock them all together on Error and let them fight it out?” Merlin asked. Morgana looked at him like he had been huffing paint, or perhaps drinking it straight from the can. “Well, what’s your brilliant idea, then?” he asked, more than a touch defensive.
“People aren’t brought together by fear, Merlin,” Morgana said quietly. “They’re torn asunder by it. If you want to unite this small and scraggly band, you must give them something to love together. A moment of shared hope and beauty.”