Harley Merlin 14: Finch Merlin and the Forgotten Kingdom

  Harley Merlin 14: Finch Merlin and the Forgotten Kingdom

  Bella Forrest

  Contents

  Problems reading?

  1. Finch

  2. Finch

  3. Melody

  4. Finch

  5. Finch

  6. Melody

  7. Finch

  8. Finch

  9. Finch

  10. Melody

  11. Finch

  12. Finch

  13. Finch

  14. Melody

  15. Finch

  16. Finch

  17. Finch

  18. Finch

  19. Melody

  20. Finch

  21. Finch

  22. Finch

  23. Finch

  24. Finch

  25. Finch

  26. Melody

  27. Finch

  28. Melody

  29. Finch

  HARLEY MERLIN 15: Finch Merlin and the Everlasting Vow

  Read more by Bella Forrest

  Copyright © 2019

  Nightlight Press

  All rights reserved.

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  One

  Finch

  I stared at the domed bubble that protected Atlantis, watching the unsettling glow of deep-sea creatures while Atlantean guards marched us toward some unknown destination.

  Maybe they’ll eject us into the ocean and let the anglerfish eat us…

  Other guards had surrounded my trusty gargoyles. With Esprits at the ready, they’d whipped out blue glass containers shaped more like elegant vases than the Mason jars adored by hipsters worldwide. But the effect would probably be the same. Murray’s tongue slopped around everywhere, his fangs glinting as he lunged at anyone who approached.

  I hope you get in a bite or two before they stuff you in that jar, buddy.

  “This is bad, isn’t it?” Melody whispered as she walked beside me.

  I snorted. “No, I’d say the fanfare is coming any minute. We might even get a parade.” Seeing her frightened face, I softened the sarcasm. “Yeah, this isn’t great.”

  “The Chaos here is intense. I’ve never felt anything like it.” Melody jittered, lifting her hands to try to loosen the grip of the Atomic Cuff clasped around her neck. All of our necks.

  I cast a look around our miserable group and lingered a moment longer on Ryann. She looked unnervingly calm, even with the Cuff the guards had clamped on her neck, just in case. Lux must’ve had the reins. And if she wasn’t stressed out about this, that begged the question… why? At least, to some degree, Ryann had the protection of her hijacker. But that didn’t give me much comfort, since I wanted to protect her from the very thing that was protecting her.

  Nearby, Huntress pawed at her Cuff, trying to get it off as if it were one of those cones of shame. But she had about as much chance of removing it as the rest of us. She stuck to Nash’s side, continuing to paw, while Luke remained as near to Melody as he could. Everyone in their pairs. Only Ryann-slash-Lux walked alone, a little ahead of me, straying closer to Erebus than to me. A definite sign of who was in charge of that body.

  “It makes sense that they’d hide this place, since it’s full of crazy-powerful fishy folk.” I wanted to put Melody at ease, but it didn’t seem to help.

  “We are not fishy folk.” Princess Kaya’s voice drifted back, sharp and disdainful. “Do you see fins or tails? Or gills, for that matter?”

  I shrugged. “Who knows what you’ve got under those robes.”

  “I would urge you not to be insulting, considering your life is in our hands,” she warned.

  “Who says that’s an insult? I’d love a set of gills. And it seems dangerous to live under all this water if you don’t have some kind of backup. You know, in case this place comes tumbling down.” I mustered a smile as she turned over her shoulder to glare at me. It withered beneath her obvious lack of humor.

  “Finch! Not the time!” Nash hissed. Luke slammed me with a warning look, too.

  “I hope that was not a threat.” Kaya’s gaze flitted toward Erebus for a moment, a gesture that piqued my curiosity.

  I shook my head so hard I almost detached a few tendons. “Not at all! Hell, until about five seconds ago, I had no clue why we were even coming here.”

  “You should not have come.” Kaya fixed her gaze on me, but I got the feeling her words weren’t directed at me. A strange tension bristled between her and Erebus, with him showing her his best puppy-dog eyes. I wouldn’t have guessed Erebus had puppy-dog eyes. But there they were, all wide and full of longing. These two had history, that much was obvious, but I didn’t know how far back it went.

  I did know that this old dog wanted to marry Kaya. This old, already-married dog… whose actual wife was using Ryann’s body as a front-row seat to his philandering. I didn’t know how cosmic unions worked, but marriage was marriage. And Lux and Erebus had always referred to one another as husband and wife. Were Children of Chaos allowed to be bigamists? I had no clue. But Lux definitely didn’t want to share.

  “You should show respect to our honored host, the most radiant Princess Kaya,” Davin piped up, giving it every ounce of schmooze he had.

  “No offense, but I don’t really feel like we’re being hosted. Hostaged, yes—if that’s even a word. But not hosted.” I shot him a dark look. He’d also made a play for Princess Kaya, but knowing Davin, it likely had something to do with gaining power. That, and thumbing his nose at Erebus. Their brotherly, frenemy relationship disturbed me on many levels.

  “Perhaps you should stay silent if you cannot say anything that does not sound like an insult.” Kaya hit me with another exemplary scowl. She really had that down pat. “You are not hostages. We do not take hostages. We take prisoners.”

  “I am only a prisoner to your love, Kaya,” Erebus purred. I wanted to hurl. Cheesy Erebus was a new headache I couldn’t handle right now.

  “Then be silent,” Kaya shot back, evidently unimpressed by his pick-up line roulette.

  “Agreed,” Davin piped up at his love rival. There was a phrase I never thought I’d say, at least in regard to those two. Davin and Erebus—enemies in the pursuit of Kaya’s hand in marriage. They could join forces again at any moment, but, at least for now, it seemed they were content to stay in their own lanes in their race to the finish line in Kaya’s heart.

  “That goes for you, also, whoever you are.” Kaya took no prisoners when it came to sassy clapback. “And frankly, I am not interested in either of your proposals.”

  What are you waiting for, Lux? I’d have thought discovering her husband wanted to marry someone else would’ve been enough to displease her. But as of yet, there’d been no hurling Erebus into the center of the earth. Maybe she didn’t want to reveal herself while Kaya was around, so she could have the satisfaction of punishing Erebus in private. Who knew what went on in that Child of Chaos’s noggin?

  “You should be careful,” Melody chided me softly. “I know you’re only saying funny things because you’re nervous. Who wouldn’t be, marching toward an Atlantean prison? But these people… they’
re… how do I put it? They feel magically… superior. Even if we didn’t have these Cuffs, it’d be a very bad idea to fight back.”

  “And they’ve just stuffed your gargoyles into jars.” Luke nodded back at the glass bubble we’d left. Sure enough, the gargoyles were nowhere to be seen. Just a bunch of swirling wisps inside those jars.

  Oh, joy… We were totally defenseless. And if we wanted to survive, we clearly needed to play along like good little boys and girls.

  We pressed on along the seemingly endless tunnel, drawing closer to the city. From here, I got my first true glimpse of its beauty. I may have been afraid for my life, and for the lives of my friends, but holy crapballs this place was incredible. The silver and mother-of-pearl and opulence and impeccable architecture, made to resemble natural entities of the ocean, should’ve been overkill. But instead, it left me in awe. This might’ve been the most beautiful city I’d ever seen, and I’d seen a fair few on my missions for Erebus. You couldn’t find anything like it above the waves. If Kaya had told me we were on a different planet, I’d have believed her.

  Nash dropped back to walk with the rest of us while Ryann-Lux stayed a short distance ahead, keeping closer to Erebus and Davin. Meanwhile, only a couple of guards walked along the glass walls to our left and right, while the rest brought up the rear, and a pair strutted on either side of Kaya. It gave us enough distance from them, so we could have some room to breathe.

  “What’s our play?” Nash whispered.

  I shrugged. “We don’t have one.”

  “Do you think you should give Erebus away?”

  “What, at his and Kaya’s wedding?” I smirked at the thought.

  He rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  I lowered my voice even further. “You think I should tell her that he’s weaker in a human body?” I decided to be serious, even if wisecracking was the only thing stopping me from losing my mind right now. Erebus had screwed us all by bringing us down here. We were cut off from everyone and everything, entirely dependent on the Atlanteans’ scant goodwill. No signal, no communications, no open lines to the outside world whatsoever.

  Nash nodded. “It might be a way out.”

  “Or a quicker way to get us all killed,” I replied.

  “Why are you treating me this way, Kaya?” Erebus’s voice distracted my attention. It brought Kaya to a sudden halt, and the rest of us, too. “Don’t keep me at arm’s length, my love. I have gone through a great deal to reach you. There is no need for all this security. I have no intention of harming you; you must know that. I only want to be near you. Let us talk privately and put aside this unpleasantness.”

  Kaya rounded on him. “You are not serious, Erebus. You stand here and talk about what you’ve endured, when you were the one who left me in the first place! If you expect to garner my sympathy, or inspire some sort of softness in me, you can forget it. You lost that a long time ago.”

  Ooh, the plot doth thicken…

  “My sweet, you know why I had to leave you. It was not my choice!” Erebus protested.

  Kaya waggled her hand at him. “Don’t you give me that, Erebus. Do not pretend to be the victim in this.” She sighed in exasperation. “Why did you even bother to return? Truly, I wish you had not. More to the point, how did you get past the spell that expels Children of Chaos, which was created specifically to stop you from ever returning?! Did you not understand the hint, Erebus, that you are not welcome here anymore?”

  Erebus turned into the picture of sadness. “You wound me, Kaya. Can’t you see how sincere I am? If I sought to defy that spell and succeeded, surely that is a sign I am serious? I will not leave you again. I didn’t want to leave you the first time.”

  The cogs whirred in my mind. If the Atlanteans had custom built a spell to boot out Children of Chaos just for him, something massive must’ve gone down the last time he was here.

  Kaya ignored him and stormed on ahead, leaving the rest of us to follow. I focused my gaze forward, gaining my first glimpse of the Atlantean population milling about at the end of this tunnel. Most of them had the same silvery locks. Some were closer to snowy white, some had a bluish tint, and others were gunmetal gray, but all the shades came from a very similar color palette. Not much in the way of diversity, that was for sure. That made sense, considering they’d all been trapped down here together for thousands of years with no new blood coming in.

  “Hey, Nash—is this why you’ve got silver hair?” The realization came to me. I mean, he was in his late thirties at most, yet he had a full head of totally silver hair.

  He frowned. “I guess so.”

  “You never bothered to wonder why you’ve got the hair of a sixty-year-old?” I chuckled halfheartedly.

  “I thought it was just a genetic thing with my immediate family.” Nash gazed out across the magnificent city. “How could I have known it was an Atlantean thing?”

  “Fair enough. Still, you’d think these folks might’ve had a word to say about it. Then again, if your descendants were ‘deserters’ or something, maybe it’s beneath the princess to remark on it.”

  Nash shrugged. “Or they don’t care enough to say anything.”

  Maybe that was true. Kaya certainly had her hands full with other things. She and Erebus were still bickering up ahead, while Davin looked on with smug amusement. He was being uncharacteristically quiet. But there had to be something going on behind that silent façade. Observation, most likely, to get a better handle on his would-be prey. I hoped Kaya gave him hell.

  A plan began to form in my mind. Erebus and Lux had found a loophole in the protection spell by inhabiting human bodies. If those bodies were destroyed, the Children of Chaos got a one-way ticket out of here. That meant I needed to come up with a way to destroy Erebus’s body. Obviously, that was a no-go for Lux, considering she was piggybacking on Ryann. But if I could figure out a way to force Lux out of Ryann’s body, then the protection spell would hoof her out of Atlantis without hesitation.

  And then I’d have to face their wrath back on the surface. Or rather, if I got back to the surface. The Children wouldn’t forgive me if I managed to get them kicked out of Atlantis. Besides, as much as I hated to admit it, Lux was my biggest hope of freedom right now. If she could actually lock Erebus in the center of the earth, I might be freed of my contract by circumstance. After all, if Erebus couldn’t reach me, he couldn’t kill me or throw any more deadly missions at me.

  If he was in there for a couple of centuries, that’d give me enough time to live my life, get all gray and old, and die in the usual way, huffing out my last breath surrounded by the people I loved. Maybe a kid or two. Maybe even grandkids.

  I looked at Ryann, and I felt my heart aching. We’d been so close to kissing and taking a decisive step in our… relationship? Was that the right word? Were we in a relationship? I wasn’t sure we’d reached that point before Lux took over and ruined everything. But the potential still lingered in my mind, with the hope that we could pick up where we’d left off once Lux got the hell out of there.

  I can’t say anything about Erebus, not until Lux has decided what to do with him. It pained me to wait, but I hoped it’d be worth it.

  Besides, I sensed we were only being allowed to live because we were part of Erebus’s entourage. Or maybe I was making assumptions about these people. They seemed civilized, so maybe there’d be a trial, or a chance to explain, before execution got put on the table.

  Whatever kind of people these were, the Atlanteans clearly feared Erebus, even in his human form, which offered some protection. Sure, they’d dared to arrest him, but he was the one holding the cards. He was playing along, making them think he was only behaving because he chose to. If we gave his weakness away, it could screw us all. We didn’t have enough power between us to fight our way out of Atlantis. Not with friggin’ Primus Anglicus wandering around.

  “Why not be honest?” Kaya snapped, bringing my attention back to the sniping between her and
Erebus. “Why must you always lie and deceive? Do you think that improves your case?”

  “Kaya, I have not lied and deceived. I told you the truth and was punished for it,” Erebus replied.

  Kaya scoffed. “You did not tell me the truth. You were found out. And if you do not tell me how you managed to gain entry, then I will find you out again.”

  Erebus sighed. “Your father’s protective spell could only work for so long, Kaya. Nothing can stand in the way of true love.”

  Ryann-Lux stiffened. I saw her in profile, with a face that would’ve stopped traffic. Had Lux not been a spiteful cow who stole my almost-girlfriend’s body for her own benefit, I might’ve felt sorry for her. It couldn’t have been easy to hear directly from the horse’s mouth that you weren’t your husband’s true love. Chaos, and the universe, had bound Erebus and Lux together in cosmic matrimony. And his wandering eye had found love elsewhere.

  “Besides, he eats spells like that for breakfast,” I chimed in, wanting to bolster the whole “he’s still super powerful, I swear” thing. “As his long-suffering servant, I can testify to the fact that Erebus always gets what he wants. Right now, he has the entire contents of the Fountain of Youth brimming inside him.”

  It irked me to sing his praises, especially as he seemed to be lapping it up. But if it saved our asses and bought us time to plead our case, I would crouch down and lick all the boots I had to.

  “You… drained the Fountain of Youth? For me?” Kaya stared at Erebus, giving me a fleeting sense of relief. She looked awestruck and scared, as if he might combust with Chaos mightiness at any second. The Atlantean guards, naturally, followed their leader’s lead. Fear glimmered in their unusual eyes.