finally being able to fight back against Nin grew, his sparks went mad. People clapped for his homemade light show, until the scent of smoke reached Merlin’s nostrils. He’d accidentally set the tent on fire. Oh, dear. He’d have to make this other Merlin forget that bit, too.
“You’re going to love it here, Kai,” Merlin said.
They’d left the wilds of Coachella behind for the calm of Merlin’s crystal cave.
Morgause had said the time child must be kept safe at all costs. There was only one place that Merlin could keep Kairos truly safe—where he could promise that, no matter what happened, he would survive it.
What he’d said outside the tent was true. Every Merlin was really the same person at different points in a long, wild story.
And it had to start somewhere.
He found the slab of crystal he’d always used as a bed and set Kairos down. The baby writhed and wailed, as if he could see the ages of pain and heartbreak that Merlin was about to cast him into. Would Gwen and Ari ever forgive him for doing this to their baby? Would he get a chance to tell them who he really was… or was he making one more hapless sacrifice for the slimmest chance at a broken cycle, a brighter hope? A better future?
Feelings fought their way up his throat, and soon he and Kairos were both crying. Kairos didn’t know what was coming next. And truthfully, neither did Merlin. What if he gave up Kairos and still failed to stop Nin?
“This is not an easy thing to do, little me.” He’d always wondered who had given him up, left him to face so much alone.
Now he knew he’d done it himself.
“You’ll wake up here in a little while. And you’ll go through this doorway to Camelot, and you’ll befriend a small boy who needs you. His name is Arthur. And it won’t be all bad. No, not all bad at all.” Merlin tucked the falcon into Kai’s fisted hand and stepped back behind a crystal column, hidden from sight. He hummed a lullaby and hit the baby with soft blue sparks. Kai’s body spread larger and larger, filling up the slab. His baby wrinkles stretched into the wrinkles of an old man. A beard shot out from his chin and grew until it reached nearly his knees.
As the figure started to snore, Merlin’s song faltered. In front of him was the oldest version of himself—weathered as a crabapple, abandoned before the first hope of Camelot with nothing but a little wooden falcon clutched in his gnarled hand.
All of the disgust he’d felt for his old self melted away when he saw his true beginnings. He’d started out on a path that was as lonely as any he could imagine. Yes, there had been dark patches. True, he’d made as many mistakes as there were stars in the cosmos. But he’d fought to the other side of it—hadn’t he? Merlin had never stopped fighting the misery of Nin’s cycle. And now he had so many people who cared for him.
Who believed in him.
Who needed him to play the hero, this time.
The future where his parents were putting up one last, epic fight beckoned from the end of the portal.
Merlin had never traveled this far through spacetime by himself. But he’d revisited the pain of his past and unlocked his powers. He’d stopped his backward aging, so he wouldn’t slide out of existence. Now the only thing holding him back was his own fear—which was no small dragon.
Merlin kept his mind firmly on Ari and Gwen and Val as he was sucked along through the dark. Maybe it had been the influence of Nin’s magic, but the portal to Camelot had felt like a ferocious, nauseating carnival ride. This was more like the little portals Merlin had created, softly dark as a night without stars.
Just as Merlin was getting used to the feeling, a clammy hand pulled him out of the darkness. When he blinked his eyes open, he was in Nin’s cave.
“No!” he cried, stamping his feet. “No, no, no.”
“I see you’re in a hurry,” Nin told him as she wisped into existence. She looked the way she always had to him—long, flowing hair to match her gown, a pleasant softness to her smile. “I won’t keep you long.”
She pointed to a bier that arose from the center of the lake, streaming water from the rock, a ghostly figure atop it.
“Oh, you want me to see