Page 119 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
Still, these last few months Embry and I have shared…I don’t know that we could have shared them at any other time. Even after Chicago, when we were both still technically unattached, I don’t know that we could have built something lasting and real, because we would both have ached for the man we really wanted, possibly to the detriment of loving each other. It’s only been in the shadow of his death, in the real chasing of his ghost, that we’ve been able to offer ourselves naked and unconditionally to each other. Because we are all that we have left—and all that we have left of Ash. Our love finally has finally grown from a sapling in the shade of Ash’s mighty heart into something powerful and eternal in its own right.
So I can’t wish things the same, but I also can’t wish them differently. I will always be half a heart without Ash, but sharing the remains with Embry has been beautiful too—all the more beautiful for his own pain.
Thankfully, Merlin seems to know what I’m struggling to convey. He nods as he takes my hand to guide me over the rocky rise that leads to the shore path, and again I notice how strong he is, how still young he is. He’s barely touching fifty, and his hair and eyes are as dark and fairytale-like as ever. I get the sudden sense, just from the warmth of his hand holding mine, that behind all that urbane sophistication, behind all that mystery, is a surfeit of carnal and deep power. Nimue is a lucky woman.
“I have a wedding gift for you,” he says, “but first I wanted to tell you a story. And I’ve been waiting to tell it to you for a very long time.”
“Is that right?”
“But I think you know the first part. You’re about to publish a book about it.”
I look up at him with some surprise. “The book about kingship in the Dark Ages?”
“The very same.”
He helps me over a log—help I wouldn’t have needed just a month ago, but the baby nestled in my belly has grown enough to shift my center of balance now, plus I’m still in my wedding dress—and then we are at the shore itself. The water laps clear and quiet at the multi-colored stones, and the music and merriment of the reception fade behind us. It’s almost like we’re in a different world now, a world apart from time, from the usual grinding on of events and history.
“I suppose you’ve never noticed, in all of your research, how many parallels there are between the stories about King Arthur and your own life?”
I laugh a little. “It’s hard not to notice, talking to someone named Merlin.” I say it mockingly, teasingly, but he doesn’t respond in kind.
“Greer, think. Not about my name, but about everything else. Your affair with Maxen’s best friend, his son with his sister—all of it. Has it never struck you as odd?”
I pull back and stop, looking at Merlin to see if he’s truly serious. “It’s never struck me as odd because King Arthur as we know him isn’t real. There’s a historical figure we can point to as the source of the legend, but everything else—the incestuous son, an unfaithful queen—they’re all just stories. They didn’t really happen.”
“They did happen,” Merlin says quietly. “I know because I was there.”
I stare.
He stares back, eyes like obsidian mirrors reflecting my own face, my own uncertainty, and revealing nothing of his own.
“Some things happened differently,” he continues softly. “And the legends have confused a lot. People have changed names, changed roles, but the heart of it is the same: once upon a time, there were two warriors who loved the same woman as much as they loved each other. And everything that happened afterwards led inevitably to tragedy.”
“You can’t expect me to believe that,” I protest, but my protest sounds hollow, even to my own ears. It’s something about the lake right now, something about his eyes. Something about the fog creeping in from the edges of the forest, like a memory from another world. I struggle and search for all the reasons why this is impossible. “You scared me with a story like this when I was a girl too. Remember? Keep your kisses to yourself.”
At that he touches my chin, making sure our eyes are met. “Greer, I told you everything that you needed to hear to make things happen the way they needed to.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“And not just you. I told Embry what he needed to hear, and Maxen as well.”
“No.”
Merlin continues gazing at me in that way of his that reveals nothing—well, almost nothing. There’s something in those depths that reassure me, and I’m not sure what it is. Benevolence? Sincerity?
“When I told Embry all those years ago that he had to sacrifice his relationship with Maxen in order for Maxen to do great things…when I told Maxen that there was no way he could accomplish everything he wanted to do in a single term—I didn’t say those things because I believed them, Greer. I said them because they were what they needed to hear, just as I said the things you needed to hear. Everything I told you, every warning or request or piece of advice, was all designed to bring us here. To this.”
“To what?”
Merlin looks up at the sky for a minute, the sunset painting vivid color in his onyx eyes. “Peace.”
“I—” I don’t have a response to this. I’m confused and stunned and a little angry and still disbelieving. And as I’m cycling through all of these feelings, Merlin leads me to a nearby log and bids me to sit.
“It had to happen this way,” he says ge
ntly, peering down at me. “Every part of it. The way he loved Embry during the war, the way he loved you, the heartbreak over both of you. Jenny. Your wedding and then your abduction. Every single thing drove Ash to become more than a leader. He became a king, a legend, and the work he did is going to stand for the next century. His sacrifice ensured that—the memory of his heroic death is going to protect all that he’s built. But none of it—not the peace or the prosperity or the progress—could have happened without the three of you loving and hurting for each other as you did.”
I still can’t find any words—thoughts, feelings—anything. It’s as if someone has come to tell me that the sun is dark and the sky is below my feet.
