Harley Merlin 15: Finch Merlin and the Everlasting Vow Read online

  My father’s excitement evaporated. “But it is a myth, Kaya. What if you are wrong? What if Davin is the Luminary, come to grant us elongated life so our population does not need to expand?”

  I pushed away from the desk with a staccato jolt. “Because that is not a viable solution. That is almost as ill-advised as shrinking the interdimensional bubble in the dead of night and drowning everything unfortunate enough to be outside its new perimeter.” I propelled a cold look in his direction. He knew what I was referring to. One of his less noble moments, which had been almost as difficult to forgive as the travesty Erebus had enacted. Though, he had sworn to me that he had not done it again since I had discovered the sordid secret. I’d confronted him most aggressively, with an insistence that he cease immediately. I had no cause to disbelieve him, since I had not seen more destruction when peering through the city’s bubble.

  “But he is of exceptional power.” My father persisted regardless. “It could be him, instead of Finch. Prophecies sometimes unfold in unpredictable ways.”

  A spark of anger ignited in my chest, lighting a fuse that could not be dowsed. “It is going to be Finch, Father. However, if you like Davin so very much, then you have my blessing to marry him yourself.”

  I did not give him a chance to respond. With a rustle of silk and satin, I breezed out of the room and left him to contemplate my words. After all, as my mother always told me, a lady never stormed out of anywhere.

  Six

  Kaya

  What is love, anyway, but a chemical reaction intended to ensure the survival of our species? I hoped that by contemplating my heart’s persistent confusion in a logical fashion, I could convince myself to dismiss my yearnings for a truly loving marriage.

  But love is so much more than that… To love was to be invincible. To love was to look upon another and see a galaxy belonging only to two people. To love was to stand at someone’s side and envision a future from the faint brush of their hand against yours. Love, by its very essence, was illogical. Poets and playwrights and authors and the everyman struggled in vain to describe it, to fully encompass what it meant to love, and yet I had never read a single sentence or verse that came close to explaining what love really was, or how it took hold of a person. An effervescent sickness, a joyous disease, a willing insanity… yet why did my own thoughts come with such negative connotations?

  Was that the true essence of love—that it could not exist without a secretive darkness? Or, perchance, was it simply that I had never felt love at all? If I found a pure love—the kind all humans yearned for—would it come without that facet of shadow?

  I took pause beside a window and gazed upon the glow of the city below. The torchlight of home, the silvered moonlight of Atlantis’s orbs making the spires and rooftops shine with ethereal vigor. An affectionate smile came to my lips unbidden. Perhaps love did not subsist in one person alone, but in an entire population. Perhaps that was the duty of a monarch—to love their nation more than anyone or anything. A notion I was slowly coming to accept.

  I closed my eyes and pictured a bygone afternoon, syrupy with summer’s warmth. I walked in the gardens, embraced by the aroma of sweet blooms, richer and more complex than any perfume could emulate. A man wandered at my side, making the scent of flowers and the balmy touch of the afternoon seem almost intoxicating. I had been happy then, in a way that I rarely was. Children take joy in the smallest of things—in the wriggle of an earthworm or the shine of a ripe opal peach, in the babble of a clear stream or the thrill of clambering to the thickest branch and perching there, legs swinging as though one had staked their claim upon lands unknown. For adults, joy is harder to find—we are always too preoccupied to notice that which once made us gleeful. So it must make a far greater impact to draw our attention.

  “I have never seen you look more at peace.” I remembered the ring of those words as if they had been spoken hours before. Erebus had said them to me on that garden walk. Of course, I had thought him to be Bellerophon then, and my heart had soared with the prospect of our marriage.

  “That is because I am at peace. Here with you, I do not have to pretend to be anyone other than I am,” I had replied. Oh, how bitter irony soured my memory. I had not been pretending… but Erebus had.

  “You never have to pretend with me. I adore you. You have stolen this heart of mine, and I have no desire to see it restored to me.” He had pulled me to a halt and lifted his hand to my face. A bold gesture that might have seen him facing the violent end of a sharpened spear, had I insisted on guards accompanying us. I had not, and so his actions had not been disturbed. If I focused all my energies on that remembrance, I could almost feel his soft caress upon my cheek.

  I had blushed with wonder. “I must confess… I adore you, also. Truly, it is unfathomable to me that I should cherish you so dearly now, when you have always been here. How could I have been so blind, not to see you before? I used to think these pursuits foul and archaic, and woefully insulting… until they led me to you.”

  “I am glad we found one another,” he had murmured, gazing into my soul. “I am glad I can bring you some comfort, to a tradition that has given you such unrest.”

  My eyes opened, and I cast away the memory, like a stone skimmed in a pond. The ripples would find their way back, as they always did, but at least I could have a moment’s peace to put my thoughts in order before they reached me once more. That memory was no more than fantasy, an illusion crafted for my benefit by the skilled hands of deceit that Erebus possessed. Atlantis had never betrayed me so cruelly. And in turn, I would never betray her. Which was why it had to be Finch, before peril seized this city… even if my heart ached for another.

  After all, the heart is weaker than the mind. A heart could break; a heart could stop; a heart could corrupt the workings of every other vital organ. But the mind… it could go on whirring, even minutes after death. Even through the haze of forgetfulness we called dementia, it could recall music and poetry and stories from decades earlier. And long after eyesight, hearing, and speech had failed, neurons would continue to spark, ensuring that everything continued to function. I knew which I had to trust, first and foremost.

  However, if I went ahead with this engagement to Finch, then I had to ensure that both of us survived to be bound in matrimony. Apollo might have been arrested for my attempted assassination, but I could not suppress the sliver of doubt which Finch, once again, had instilled in my thoughts: that Apollo was not responsible. To make that doubt into a certainty, one way or another, would require a visit to my old friend.

  Absorbing one last view of the city I loved with my whole heart, I turned from it and headed for the prison.

  * * *

  The dark hallways echoed with the footsteps of forgotten criminals, while my own created a tremulous percussion upon the black marble. This building had been forged long before my birth and would stand long after I was gone. The halls of justice. The architects had designed it to align with the city’s aesthetic, while ensuring it stood out in shadowed grimness—a warning to our people against wrongdoing.

  Of all the places within Atlantis, this was the only building I actively avoided. Even now, the faint hairs upon the back of my neck stood to attention. Though I had no guilt to concern myself with, something about this prison fashioned a weighted dread in the pit of my stomach, as though I had accidentally murdered someone or stolen an item. Foolish, but nonetheless true.

  “Your Highness.” One of the prison guards gave a low bow, elegant and fluid. “To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?”

  I had brought two of my own personal guards with me, as my father had forbidden me to wander alone at my leisure, for safety’s sake. Ordinarily, I had few qualms about walking the city streets incognito, but I had set that freedom aside for now, after my waltz with a dagger that would have pierced my heart had Finch not intervened.

  “Nestor, is it not?” I took pride in knowing the names of those employed by the state.

&n
bsp; He beamed with obvious pleasure. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “Well then, Nestor, I should like to speak with Apollo.”

  “Certainly, Your Highness.” Nestor bowed again, far less fluidly this time in his haste to obey. He gestured for me to follow as he strode away through the prison halls with admirable purposefulness.

  We passed the more palatable corners of this grim underworld—a black mark upon an otherwise perfect nation—where Finch and his companions had been placed upon their arrival to my dominion. These were the large and spacious cells, where sunlight and moonlight could still be seen through the windows, allowing the incarcerated a glimpse of the outside world. However, there were sections of this prison that allowed no such privileges; those were the higher security cells, where the worst of the worst were buried deep.

  I suppose it was necessary to put my friend in such a cell. I lamented the fact but understood the need.

  We entered a glass atrium at the far end of one of the cavernous hallways, decorated with the remains of captured whales and long-extinct sea creatures. The guards took care not to crowd me, while Nestor waved his hand across the panel that would let us plummet beneath the prison’s primary façade.

  “Has he caused any trouble?” I leaned against the cool glass and felt it soothe the heat at the nape of my neck.

  “None, Your Highness, though he has asked for you frequently,” Nestor replied.

  We uttered no further words as the circular platform within the glass tube descended beneath the prison, revealing an upturned dome of cells surrounded by nothing but black ocean. With Atlantis’s bubble being suspended deep below the water yet nowhere near the sea floor, darkness stretched every which way. From here, there could be no escape. This tube was the only way in and out. And if one of the inmates happened to be sentenced to death, which hadn’t occurred in many centuries, a door opened on the outside of the dome to let that oppressive ocean wash into their cell.

  “This way, Your Highness.” Nestor led us out of the glass atrium and across a network of suspended walkways. Below, I saw criminals resting, curled up on the stark beds that provided their sole comfort. More cells curved around the contours of the dome, their inhabitants oblivious to my presence. The hour had grown so late that not even the arrival of their soon-to-be monarch could rouse them.

  One figure had remained alert, however.

  After reaching the end of a walkway, we halted in front of a glass cell. Apollo stood within. He immediately came to the door and pressed his palms to the pane.

  “Your Highness,” he breathed, relieved. “I have asked for you time and again but received no answer from the guards here. But you have come, and I am forever grateful. I wish only to explain my innocence. I did not do this terrible thing, Your Highness! I would never think of hurting you, let alone arrange for someone to drive a knife into your heart.” His tone smacked of desperation, but that was of little surprise. The ocean had a way of encouraging desperation in the criminals here. They stared into the abyss, faced with their fate, and either turned to redemption or insanity.

  “And I have come to hear what you have to say,” I replied, dismissing the guards to a safe distance so Apollo and I could talk in private.

  His eyes shimmered with torment. “You and I have known one another since we were children, Kaya.” With the guards gone, he obviously felt inclined to speak less formally. I let it pass, this once. “I have loved you since I was a child, though I am not arrogant enough to think you ever returned my affections. My heart was yours from the first moment we played together, beneath the peach trees in the orchard. I would not strike at you under any circumstances. To do so would be to hurt myself. And though you may not love me as I love you, I know there is fondness between us. Friendship and trust, which I have never betrayed.”

  I sighed until my lungs strained. “You understand how this appears, don’t you?”

  “I have been framed, Kaya. You know me. You know I would not do this,” he insisted, his palms leaving marks upon the glass. “I tended your cuts when our games grew too boisterous. I sat with you after Erebus betrayed you, and my shirt grew damp with your tears. I have fought when I heard your name spoken rudely. My only purpose in life has been to defend, protect, and serve you, not to harm you.”

  He was right. He had never given me cause to doubt him, and of all the officials in the palace, he was the one I had always trusted without hesitation. Our friendship had always been dear to me, and he was correct in his assumption that we shared a fondness. Years of history lay between us which could not be erased, just as the currents would always flow in the same direction.

  “It did seem baffling that you would be the one to try and kill me. But perhaps that is the subterfuge you wished to use to your advantage. Why would I ever suspect you, considering our lifetime friendship? It would be the perfect ruse.” I maintained an aloof timbre befitting a future queen. I could not show my true feelings; that was not how things were done.

  “It would, and I do understand how this must appear, but I did not do this!” Apollo curled his hands into exasperated fists. “The dagger belonged to my father, I do not deny that, but I have not seen that dagger in many moons. My father owned a pair of them, engraved with his sigil and my mother’s, but he sold the daggers at my mother’s insistence. She thought them a grotesque homage to their marriage. I had forgotten that, but it is the truth! I have no idea how the dagger could have resurfaced, but I do know that it has not been in my father’s possession for years, and I would rather be sucked out into this ocean than see it used against you!”

  I battled to keep emotion from edging onto my features. “Will your father corroborate that?”

  “Yes!” Apollo cried. “I tried to explain that, but all I got in reply were baseless accusations that my father was also involved. For myself, I can deal with incarceration and accusations, because I know I am innocent, but it pains me to think of my family being dragged into this unholy mess. They are not responsible, and neither am I. I love you, Kaya. I have always loved you. And that has not changed to hate, and will not, for any reason.”

  I continued to maintain a blank façade, as I had been trained to do. There was every possibility that Apollo did, indeed, want me dead for some reason, but… I knew my friend. And my doubts about his part in this grew, like roots slithering beneath the peach trees we used to play beneath. I could not look upon him and believe he was capable of such traitorous actions.

  “I will take your comments into account and consider them thoroughly,” I said, my voice as blank as my expression. I could not show weakness by voicing those doubts to Apollo, even if my intuition whispered that he was innocent.

  He hung his head for a moment. “Do not go, Kaya.”

  “I have spoken with you, as I intended, and now I have much to contemplate. I cannot stay.”

  “Then heed a warning from an old friend, before you leave.” He lifted his head and struck me with an intense gaze. “Do not allow Erebus to manipulate you into making a grave mistake. He is not worthy of your precious heart; he will only break it again. He is duplicitous and dangerous, and I would not have you ruined because of him.”

  I pressed my palm to the glass, and Apollo matched it with his. “You have nothing to fear, Apollo. Erebus is no longer anyone’s concern, least of all mine.”

  “What do you mean?” He straightened slightly.

  “I have someone more suitable, in every way, in mind for marriage. Someone with a good and pure heart, who would not know how to break mine even if he wanted to. Someone who has been approved by Chaos itself.” I thought of the man in my bedchamber and sensed my resolve strengthening anew.

  Apollo squinted in confusion. “Who? I do not know such a man.”

  “You may be an old friend, Apollo, but this is not something you should, or will be, privy to. Not until the announcement has been made.” If he was, in fact, the assassin, and had managed to hoodwink me with past history, then he would almost certainly
have someone else attempt to kill Finch. Yes, I had installed countless powerful protections upon my chambers, but there seemed little use in taking unnecessary risks when I could just as easily say nothing.

  “Kaya, who is it? I must know,” he pleaded.

  “You will find out in due time.” I gestured to the guards to let them know I had finished here. “Now I must depart, but not without offering a word of my own. If you truly are innocent, you will soon be granted your freedom. But if you are found guilty, know there will be no leniency. I only hope you are entirely the man I always thought you to be.”

  I walked away without further ado, in case my voice or my expression gave away the turmoil of my thoughts. For if he had done this awful deed, then I had not a single friend within the city.

  * * *

  I could almost taste the cool refreshment of the evening air upon my tongue as we approached the entrance of the prison. This place could only be endured in the tiniest doses before all the darkness and misery began to permeate, and I longed to wash away the invisible grime before it could cling.

  “You think jabbing a spear in my face will make me vamoose? How about you bring Her Highness down here so I can explain to her why I’m here? Maybe then we’ll get somewhere, eh, instead of running in circles like a pup chasing its tail!” A voice up ahead seized my attention, though I saw that remarkable white hound before its human companion.

  “Nash?” I called in surprise.

  “Your Highness?” Nash looked equally surprised. “Well, looks like you really can get what you wish for.”

  The guard on duty spun around, his demeanor harried. “Your Highness, I was just trying to explain to this ingrate that he has no purpose here, but he will not listen!”

  “What are you doing here?” I ignored the guard and addressed Nash.