My Merlin Awakening (34 page)

Matt shuddered. Much smaller, human teeth sank further into my flesh. I hissed, tears stinging my eyes. The black veins moved further up to touch my right shoulder while the blue light expanded over Matt’s stomach.

Vane rose and came around to sit beside me. “Alright, he’s had enough.” He moved to take my arm out of Matt’s mouth.

“Wait,” I said. “What if we lose him again?”

“I don’t care. He’s healing himself by
feeding
on you. What did you do in there?”

“You said do what it takes,” I muttered.

Vane stared at me. “He asked so you gave yourself to him?”

He didn’t ask.
I didn’t say it out loud, but Vane read the reply in my face. His face took on a resigned expression I didn’t like. I tried to explain, “It’s not what you think. There was this lion—”

Vane jerked my arm out of Matt’s mouth.

“Vane!” I looked anxiously at Matt. The blue light shimmering across the top of his body remained steady.

“He’s fine.” Vane didn’t look at me as he took a hold of my mutilated arm. Red magic flowed from his fingers. I winced when he started healing my arm. He wasn’t gentle. It felt like a thousand needles pricking me at once. I had sword gashes deadlier than this wound and their healing I now compared to a soothing tongue-licking. Finally, the red light faded. Vane dropped my arm. “You’ll have scars.”

I looked down. The skin had healed. The bite had healed. I flexed my fingers. Feeling had also returned. The smaller black veins had disappeared. However, the thick ones, radiating out from the bite spot, remained. Vane watched me inspect myself with half-hooded eyes.

“You’re upset,” I said.

“Did I ever have a real chance?”

With you?
He meant. The wealth of hurt in the simple question twisted at my heartstrings. I put my uninjured hand on his cheek.

He flinched.

I kept my hand on his face. “I did what I had to do to save him. That’s it.”

“Is it?” He recaptured my newly healed flesh in a tight grip.

I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

Movement sounded at the door.

Vane picked up his sword and jumped up.

Blake stuck his head inside. He was still wearing a tattered wetsuit. “Need assistance?”

Gia ran in past him. She wore a tunic dress like mine. She threw her arms around me. “I’m so glad to see you.”

I couldn’t get a word past the huge lump in my throat. I nodded into her hair.

Grey sauntered in. He held up Excalibur. “Who wants this?”

A visceral thrill went through me at the sight of the sword. I had missed it. A lot.

Vane lowered his sword. “Emerson, bring the other wizards. We need to finish healing Merlin.”

The others streamed in. Some wore mermaid clothing. Several of them still wore their wetsuits. After fifteen days, though, most of the rubber material stretched awkwardly. Many were torn. The wizards, themselves, didn’t look much better. Clarence, the oldest wizard among them, seemed the most unaffected and he walked with a slight limp. The gargoyles hurried in with more energy.

After several minutes and the combined healing efforts of seven wizards, Matt sat up. He finally let go of my arm. He stared at us, but didn’t speak. I looked at Vane questioningly.

Vane shrugged. “Give him time.”

“What do we do now?” Grey asked.

“We find what they don’t want us to find,” Matt said.

All heads turned to look at him. His voice sounded about a hundred years old.

I asked, “What is that?”

“The passageway to the Lady. It’s here,” Matt replied. “I saw it in Lelex’s mind. It’s the source of the mermaids’ magic.”

“But where is it?” Grey asked.

Matt rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know—”

“Don’t strain yourself.” Vane stood up and secured a sword into the golden belt that tied the leather skirt of his uniform. “I know where.”

***

We climbed up a wide staircase to the top level of the palace. Grey tugged at the toga the mermaids had fitted on him for the sacrifice. “Think I can get my wetsuit back?”

I grinned. “You don’t like wearing a skirt?”

“I think it’s cute,” Gia added. She sniffed at Blake. “Better than being smelly for a month.”

“You got a cell to yourself and regular baths,
maiden
,” Blake said. “The rest of us were packed into one.”

Gia blushed and stuck out her tongue at him.

“I’m so ready to get out of this hellhole,” Grey said.

I agreed. The palace wound this way and that. Vane led us without faltering. We snuck down abandoned corridors. Many were flooded with water. Vane continued to lead us with unerring certainty through the maze of corridors. Finally, we reached the last staircase. We’d gotten from the dungeons to the top floor. The strange echo of music, an aria, floated up from the middle of the palace.

“What is that?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s keeping them busy,” Vane replied. “Hurry.”

Still too weak to walk, Matt rode on top of the bull. The bull picked its way up the staircase with surprising agility.

“Where are we going?” Matt asked.

“The palace is built into the side of a hill,” Vane explained. “There are two frescoes of the red doors we came through. One is in the throne room. That room is too central to have a hidden passageway attached. I happened on the other fresco in a bedchamber—”

“You would,” Matt said.

“The bull will throw you if I ask him,” Vane said mildly.

Matt grimaced. We reached the top floor landing. Rich red tapestries lined the walls. Windowed walls showed off stunning vistas of Aegae. The setting sun sparkled in bright orange, purple, and pink across an endless sky. The wizards took out the few guards that lined the walls soundlessly. We hurried down the slick marble hallway to a central bedchamber.

The outer wall of the palace was partially open to the outside. From my vantage point, I saw what Vane meant about the bedchamber being ideally situated. It was built into the hill, with nothing below it or above it. It looked more like a covered bridge than a bedchamber.

I touched Excalibur, hooked to my side. I still wore my champion uniform, but had stolen a belt off a fallen guard in the dungeons. The gargoyles gripped their swords in front of them, afraid to let them out of their sights.

Vane flung open the gold doors. On the far wall, the wall that abutted the hill, there stood a massive bed with a golden canopy, the grand centerpiece in the room. The crest of the mermaids, the winding snake that Lelex was wearing as an armband, decorated a central beam across the top of the canopy.

“Lelex’s room,” Vane confirmed.

“I don’t see red doors.” Matt slid off the bull. He wobbled, but steadied himself.

I resisted an urge to run over and offer support. I noticed Vane was studying him too.

“The bed is up against the hill. Look closer. I have to find another thing.” Vane crossed to a big armoire and flung it open. An array of weapons hung inside. Vane cursed. “It’s not here.”

“The trident?” Matt asked.

Vane nodded.

“That is because I have it,” Leonidas declared from the door.

We all turned to look behind us. Leonidas stood in the hallway, backed by Theras and a large group of soldiers. I spotted Leonora hiding behind the soldiers. I pulled out Excalibur. The gargoyles raised their swords. The wizards outstretched their hands. Eighteen of us against a hundred of them—our chances were good.

Leonidas looked at Vane with a furious expression. “You have betrayed us most grievously, Vane. For this I shall make your death slow.”

“Get in line,” Matt muttered behind me.

Vane walked over to stand on the frontline of the standoff. He crooked a brow at Leonidas. “Would you like to see what your father has been hiding?” He took the crown out of his pocket and placed it on his head.

“That is not yours,” Theras spat.

Vane commanded, “
Kavas
.”

The emerald gemstone glowed. The massive bed creaked and started shifting to the right. Several of the wizards who were standing by the bed moved in front of it. Under the bed appeared a set of red doors that were perfectly matched to the size of the bed. Just like the doors we came through, these also had a golden bull carved on top. Vane focused Lelex’s crown at the golden bull. A soft beam of green light shimmered across the bull’s face. The red doors opened up.

A huge whirlpool began to swirl below us.

“What is that?” Leonidas asked.

 “A passageway.” Vane took the crown off his head.

Vane glanced at me, then at Matt. It was a signal. Vane twirled the crown around on his fingers, carelessly dangling it over the whirlpool. Surreptitiously, I stepped up to the whirlpool. Matt did the same; then Clarence and the others followed.

Leonidas shouted. “Give me my crown!”

Theras noticed and stood on alert. “Leonidas—”

“If you insist.” Vane tossed the crown at Leonidas and shouted to us, “Now!”

Startled, Leonidas reached out to catch the crown. He dropped the trident. Vane waved a hand and the trident flew to him. Matt jumped into the whirlpool. So did the others.

“Follow them!” Leonidas shouted.

Vane beckoned the white bull. Red magic flowed over the animal. The mermaids advanced. Vane blasted them with a fireball.

“Go!” he shouted to me as he climbed on top of the bull.

I jumped.

Vane blasted the mermaids again before he urged the bull into the water. It was the last thing I saw before my head submerged. Going down the whirlpool reminded me of going down a slide, albeit an underwater one. Luckily, I still had gills. The whirlpool dropped me into a pond. The wizards had lit a few fireballs allowing dim light to flare through the empty cavern. The pond sat on one edge. Black rock like the one we’d seen at the first set of red doors made up the interior.

Matt fished me out of the pond and pulled me up onto the cavern floor. His eyes lingered on my newly healed arm for a second before going to my neck.

“Your gills are gone too,” he said.

I looked at the ring I was wearing and saw it had turned black.

“The whirlpool did something to the charms,” Matt said. “But our natural magic seems to be intact.”

Instinctively, I touched the
Dragon’s Eye
. The amulet warmed under my touch. I stared into Matt’s eyes.
Knock. Knock.

Dark eyes flickered and I knew he heard me.

“The charm is closely tied to me,” he said. He opened his mouth to say something else when a rumble sounded behind us.

Vane and the bull free-fell through the funnel of the whirlpool. The bull emitted a pained groan. Vane floated them up in the air before they landed in the pond below. They glided smoothly onto the cavern floor, slightly more elegant than my dunk into the pond. The gargoyles wandered out into the darkness.

“There is a cavern here, Sire,” one called out to Grey. Grey made a face in response.

Gia came up beside me. “They drew straws to be the sacrifices, but Grey tried to cheat every time so he would draw the short straw—”

“He what?” I exploded.

“He’s becoming their leader, Ryan. And they adore him.”

Grey. A gargoyle leader. Their future king. I absorbed that. Gia watched me with sympathy. It seemed we’d all changed in a mere fifteen days. I wanted to ask Gia how she was, but couldn’t find the words. I put my arm around her shoulder. We leaned together, our heads touching.

“Let’s get going. They will soon be behind us.” Vane jumped down from the bull.

He led it toward the tunnel. Gia and I followed. One of the wizards lit a fireball and threw it out into the tunnel. The dark passageway extended past the mouth of the cavern.

I stopped cold. “I’ve seen this before.”

A splash came from behind us in the pond. Leonidas’s head popped up from the water.

“Move!” Vane dragged me into the tunnel. Everyone else hurried inside. Vane, Matt, and the other wizards lined up behind us. They blasted the tunnel’s entrance. The tunnel shook as rocks collapsed to block the opening.

“
Vicarati
,” Matt commanded.

A rainbow of magic fluttered across the rocks before it sank into them and disappeared.

“It won’t hold them,” Vane said. “Leonidas has his father’s crown. They’ll be able to break through.”

“It will delay them,” Matt said.

“Matt, I’ve been in this tunnel before.” I looked around at the jagged rocks. “It’s the one from the snake vision. The one with the Minotaur.”

“Good,” Vane said as he came up beside me.

I demanded, “How could being trapped in the dark with a man-eating beast be good?”

“At least we know we’re in the right place.” Vane took a hold of the bull’s bridle. His eyes met mine.

I thought I saw his eyes flash with green. A shiver of unease went up my spine. I looked at his neck. His gills remained. I touched them. “How?”