Sword in the Stars (Once & Future #2) - Cori McCarthy Page 0,64

was to save him. That was an act of mercy. Merlin had been telling himself for centuries that he’d done a good thing on that day he found a squalling infant in the fields.

This was different. Dark and unrepentant. “You can’t just grab a baby and toss it wherever you please.”

Old Merlin huffed dryly, dismissing the whole argument. “I’ll kill the child if I must. Whatever must be done to protect Arthur.”

Merlin closed his eyes against the words, but they were still true in the dark. His old self didn’t believe in any goodness but Arthur’s. Still, if Merlin needed a sign that he was no longer this horrible wretch, he had it. He would never, ever think of killing a child, even if he believed it would save Ari someday.

“We’re not the same person,” Merlin whispered, a revelation that hit him with all the subtlety of a power cord. “We’re not.”

He raised his hands, and the element of surprise gave him a slight edge. Old Merlin had never seen his apprentice work magic; Merlin had been trying to keep his identity secret. But now keeping Gwen and the baby safe from this monster was all that mattered. Merlin didn’t need to make peace with his past. He needed to stop the person he used to be from harming his future. He released a pent-up burst of magic at the exact moment that Old Merlin flicked his fingers.

Merlin felt every muscle in his body go stiff. His mouth was dry, propped open; his eyes couldn’t force a blink. Across from him, Old Merlin had frozen as well, down to the wispiest hairs on his beard.

They were in a stand-off, and whoever managed to break it first would have a head start in the battle over Gwen’s baby.

Ari tore across the landscape, swearing and steering her horse around the worst of the overgrown wood. The sunset dropped an ominous orange light on almost everything, suiting Ari’s fraught imagination a little too nicely.

Gwen kidnapped.

By who? And for what purpose except to hurt the young king? Would they realize that Gwen was pregnant? What if the baby was harmed? Ari cursed the needs of the Arthurian canon. No wonder Jordan hadn’t let Gwen out of her sight.

“You wouldn’t be happy with me now, black knight,” Ari muttered. She almost smiled, thinking of Jordan pushing her out of the way, beating Lancelot to the place where Gwen was being held captive. Ari tried to focus on the other part of the story she’d read in the Arthurian notes—that Lancelot saved Gweneviere, and that they returned newly inseparable—but the sweetness didn’t match the reality. And some of those legends bore whispers of terrible things done to Gweneviere by her captors.

Ari broke out of the edge of the wood, eyeing a thoroughly deforested landscape. It was somewhat reminiscent of Mercer’s leveling of Old Earth, down to the bedrock. Here the trees had been stolen, used for timber or fire, and the ground had turned to slipping soil. In the far distance, upon a worn mound, a tower stood. Dismal and crooked—that had to be the bald spot Arthur had pointed to on the roughly drawn map.

She kicked her horse into a gallop, racing up the landscape, leaning forward to push the stallion when the terrain became muddy and steep. Finally, at the base of the forgotten tower, she jumped down and lashed her horse to a stone marker.

She took a moment to note the absence of wind.

Of sound.

Racing around the narrow, circular structure, she found a door unguarded.

It opened at her touch.

Unlocked.

Ari started to shake. She drew her sword as the last of the sunset left the sky a bruised color. Pressing into the dark of stone, she found broken chairs and tables. Abandoned items. And wooden stairs that spiraled upward.

She took them quietly, softly.

In truth, Ari was ready to murder whoever had taken Gwen. She understood that feeling now, that push to stop cruelty. Finish it before it could cause more harm. It was not a good feeling. It was not stable or true, and she knew that this was not what she was supposed to glean from coming back here. And yet, she wasn’t going to hesitate.

No matter who had taken Gwen.

The stairs spiraled upward, upward. Ari found three abandoned floors filled with old furniture, and when she took the last turn of the stairs and spied a shut door, her fist tightened around her sword. At the top, she took a deep breath,