Sword in the Stars (Once & Future #2) - Cori McCarthy Page 0,58

the past and the future,” Ari said, surprised by the tears in her eyes.

“Help me to my feet.”

She did, steadying him with an arm around his ribs. Ari found that his hands were shaking, and she placed them on Excalibur’s handle. They stilled at once.

“Arthur?” Gwen asked softly. He shook his head in her direction, wincing, and motioned for everyone to leave. But not Ari. He held on to her. Ari expected a barrage of questions. Demands for explanations. Instead he set his gaze on her.

“We have much to do.”

Merlin couldn’t breathe. It was too beautiful.

He wanted to run his hand along the grain of the dark wood, and quite possibly kiss the smooth surface. The round table here at last, and sitting around it?

Ari, Arthur, Val, Lam, Gwen—his people.

Merlin’s friends had helped spark one of the most hopeful moments of human history. In fact, it looked better in person than it did in the legends, since nobody had gotten their grubby whitewashing hands on it yet. Several of these nobles besides Lam, Val, and Ari were knights of color. Take that, racist revisionists!

Even Gwen had a seat at the table, which of course would be edited out later. The absence of more women rankled, especially when Merlin thought of Jordan. And then there was the matter of letting nonbinary people serve openly as knights and giving more seats to common-born folk and… There was still work to do. But for the first time since they’d arrived in Camelot, he felt it could be done. This was why Arthur’s story needed to survive intact. This moment would give birth to so many other moments. And Merlin was right here in the middle of it, even if he’d only gotten into the room by volunteering to serve the mead.

He made a circle around the table, humming in a non-magical way, clanking down cups. He deposited a drink in front of Ari and leaned down when she accepted it with a knightly nod.

“Tell me again that this is real,” he whispered.

“Arthur and I are BFFs now,” she assured him. “Kind of literally on that last F, if you think about it.”

Arthur drinking from the chalice had changed everything. Not just the shape of a table or the composition of the knights sitting around it, but Arthur himself. Ari had told Merlin that he’d seen his future. Not just the glory of Camelot, or even his death at the hands of Mordred, but all of it.

The cycles. Forty-one dead heroes. And then number forty-two, a girl from the future with a mostly broken spaceship, a smelly but lovable brother, and a mega-corporation to slay.

It was a boon to their quest to have Arthur understand his own story—although it was also a burden for the young king. His expression was covered in worried creases that hadn’t been there at his birthday celebration weeks ago. His hair was still rumpled and blonde, but somehow it looked less like spun gold and more like old straw. And his eyes? They held all the ghosts of the future in two soft blue spheres. It was too much for any person to contain, let alone such a young and tender-hearted one. Arthur looked as if he’d aged as many years overnight as Merlin had, well, de-aged.

But this, too, made a kind of sense. Something had finally happened to change the boy-king into the solemn, tragic figure of Camelot. The legends often pinned the guilt on Gweneviere—because the legends were written by misogynistic tosspots. Arthur’s overnight transformation didn’t come from a broken heart, but an unmoored soul.

Merlin set a cup in front of the king, who rummaged up a small smile for him. “Many thanks, carbuncle.” Merlin felt his face contort at the epithet. Arthur added, “Believe me, I understand. I’m the Wart.”

Merlin broke into a giddy smile. “We have something in common!” he whisper-shouted.

“Indeed we do,” King Arthur whispered back. “Merlin speaks highly of you. Do you think he’ll figure out that you’re one and the same, and he is in fact giving himself a grudging compliment?”

Merlin’s heart nearly stopped in its tracks.

Of course the chalice had showed Arthur what became of his mage, too. Merlin was a sizeable part of his future. The only sidekick that would never leave the king’s spirit behind—mortality be damned.

“May I ask you something?” For a moment, Arthur’s blue eyes had their youthful glow back. The Wart had always been terribly curious. It was one of his best qualities and led to