The Witch's Hunger (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 3) (7 page)

"Lila, leave this place now, if you can," I barked.

She shrugged, gave me a half smile, and walked closer. What spell lay on the plate? Had Merlin sent her on some kind of suicide mission? I doubted he would use such a tactic, but if this was a true war between us, he had long ago proved ruthless at war. "Throw the plate as far as you can," I ordered and threw one of my earrings at her.

“
Rhyddhau.
” My spell should dissolve any spells upon her person.

The spell hit her, but Lila kept walking steadily toward me, closer and closer.

Merlin had brought her here. Merlin would pay. He would suffer, and the Grail would remain mine.

I yelled into the sea wind as she neared, assuming every word I said, Merlin would hear as well. "This is not your fight. It is unfair of him to use you, Lila. Perhaps you don't know yet that he is using you. Perhaps you think Merlin and I are still friends." Lila did not sway from her course, or look confused or concerned by any of my words. Perhaps he had put a noise dampening spell around her ears? But that should have been broken by my spell.

I spoke louder, vowing that any harm Merlin did to her would be repaid ten-fold.

Five feet away from me, she stopped and held out her plate. On it sat a dozen… cookies? Snickerdoodles, my favorite.

"What spell lies within them?" I barked.

She stood still and chewed on her lip. She swayed from side to side. "Um, nothing but cinnamon and sugary goodness, I baked them myself this morning in the camp kitchen because I thought they might help." Fear streaked across her face, and she took a step closer. Within arm's reach. She held up the plate. "Remember that I love you, and that you love me, and that we would never do anything to hurt each other, right?"

"What has he done to you?"

"Merlin? Nothing. I mean he brought some extra blankets and stuff, and told us all what the hell was going on, and got us to figure out a plan that would… wow, I think whoever said ‘if looks could kill’ was talking about you, Morgan. You really do have the world's most intense glare and I'm trying not to just run the other direction right now, and I won't. Because I love you. And you love me, right? Could you maybe turn it down, just a little?"

What did she mean about what was going on? What was she getting at? My heart pulsed hard, but I ignored it. This was a well-done distraction, nothing more. "What is his plan? Who is on this island?"

"All the missing immortals are here. And me, of course. I’m so young compared to everyone else. We’re all fine. I mean, people are pissed off, beaten up, and ready to go home and have a hot shower, but Merlin convinced them that revenge was not the way to go, which was really nice of him, and I totally see what you see in him, he does this whole ancient wisdom Zen thing that makes me wish he was my dad. Not that my dad’s not great.”

“You are babbling,” I said. “Where is the man who attacked you and brought you here?”

"Yeah. So. About that." She chewed on her lip, shifted her weight from side to side, and looked past me. "You were the one who attacked me. Who attacked everyone.” She rubbed the bruise on her face and wouldn’t look at me.

13

Disappearing

I was just about to explain to Lila the ways in which she must have been spelled and befuddled to think that when my mind throbbed. My legs wobbled, and memory, inconvenient and raw, rushed back to me.

Centuries upon centuries past, I stood in a place made of ash and heat. Merlin stood far from me, whirling about with his staff and muttering spells. "Vile beast," he cried, "reveal yourself at last."

His spell cut through my top layer of subterfuge, and my form turned from a mass of shadows into that of a green-skinned man. I laughed. "You will never know who destroyed you. You will never understand why I must hunt you. And you will perish."

"Win at what? Pray tell, nasty demon."

The Grail. He wanted it above all, I knew this, whether he would ever admit it or not. While I sometimes doubted my conviction during the day, by night I knew it was true. The water singing through my veins told me it was so. He wanted it, needed it, just as I did. It would be his first thought on waking and his last wish of the day, always. Even if he'd last drank it seventy years hence, when we had tasted it together, even so I'd watched him for decades as he pretended he did not care, as he pretended to forget about the water.

But my cup knew better. It knew that any who had drank from it would never give up the search for it and this knowing grew stronger in me, just as Merlin’s Grail-thirst must have grown and yes he was my lover, my best friend, but all that must end. All that was a pale shadow in the cast of the Grail. I would end him, and then all the others who had tasted the Grail water until there were no others who knew. None who would long for and plot for and hunt me down.

"Die," I screamed, and threw fire and fist-sized rocks at him.

Merlin growled, raised his staff, and batted the rocks aside.

My memories hurtled forward, past the knowledge that he and I dueled, night after night, every time I drank the water and the sweet ecstasy filled me along with a rage to end him. We spent our days together, while all the while I raged red beneath the surface and plotted, time and again, to kill him.

I stood in on warped wood flecked with bits of dried saltwater. The boat listed from side to side as storm clouds bloomed overhead, heeding my call.

Merlin stood on the other side of the boat, wearing his sleeping clothes and looking befuddled. "Again, demon?" he said with all the weariness in the world. "It seems we are well matched, much too well matched and that makes me wonder. There has only been one other who has ever been a match for my magic." He squinted toward me.

This was the closest he had come to admitting he thought his nightly attacker was me. My blood ran cold as the listing sea swells surrounded us.

A voice spoke within me. A voice of reason that had grown silent over the past decades.

What was I doing? Did I really wish to kill Merlin? Did I want to kill the one person who could be my love, and deeper than that, did I really think he deserved to die?

I loved him.

And for once, I was able to feel that love even as the Grail water boiled my veins.

Merlin raised his staff toward me.

I disappeared.

Back to our room, our house, in the city we had made our home in Barcelona, a ransacked city rebuilt among its own rubble. I watched the golem I had made in our bed: she was a perfect copy of myself, sleeping, so that Merlin would not know that I was gone. Because I cared that he did not know. Because I cared. I said the words to undo her false body and she dissipated like a cloud, wafting up toward the ceiling. I paced through the small number of rooms in our house and looked out the window at our neighborhood. Our neighborhood was full of dissidents and scholars. Merlin and I fit in here, and with each other. We had a place in this world and I loved Merlin, yet how many years had I spent plotting against him and letting our love turn from ember to ash?

Kill him. The Grail water surged within me, strong and lovely. Kill him. Kill them all.

I drank day-old tea and focused on the small light within me that was my love for Merlin, nearly drowned. I needed to think. I needed to think without this hunger, ever-present and ever-strong, that commanded obedience. And so I began to make a white room inside of my own head, even though I fought myself at every step. A dozen reasons pulsed through me every second, reasons why I should not do this thing. Why even a moment away from my Grail would be a terrible and miserable end. I was only able to keep the course due to my natural stubbornness that when someone told me I shouldn’t do a thing I always did it, even if that someone was myself. When it was done, I put the Grail inside the magically guarded room. It was a room without doors or entrance, so when I left, the Grail could not affect me. Not until I bent to the hunger’s will and opened the room. I did not kid myself that I would be able to stay away from it for long. But it gave me respite to breathe. To think. I was safe.

That was the word I thought of: safe. Not lost. Not a pitiful and small being without my Grail, but safe. It shook me to my core and even as I relished the ability to think however my mind wished, I wanted my cup back. I needed the water in a physical way that made my pores sweat and my teeth ache.

I paced around the kitchen, thinking and thinking about Merlin and myself, about my secret battles against him, and all the ways I had unraveled our love because of the Grail. It’s worth it, I thought every time I thought of my Grail. It’s worth it, my mind repeated, like some parrot stuck in my head that only knew one phrase.

I went and stood over Merlin for a time. The poor man grunted and rolled around in his sleep. I had attacked him spectrally, and even though I had left that dream plane, he would be stuck in that spot of ocean and storms until morning. Which was coming soon. Too soon. I stood over him and could have killed him then and there, and I thought about that—how I had been battling him, but never with any cleverness. Never with any true intent. I had a hundred chances every day to end him.

I ran a finger over his stubbled cheek and lay down next to him, curling my legs around his body and feeling his heat. Because he wouldn’t be near me for long. He wouldn’t be mine to hold. The thought felt like a truth, like I’d already made my decision, and so I thought about it more, and all the ways this thing could go, and which would be the least destructive.

For everyone except me. There was no way around that.

As the world warmed with the sunrise, Merlin returned to himself. His body jerked and he snapped awake.

"Again?" I asked lightly as he turned to face me. I didn’t grab him. I didn’t hold him to myself, hard.

“Again. The persistent demon. At least I seem to never come away the worst from it, but the battles between us grow more frequent as the years pass." He shrugged. "It is ever the way of the wizardly to have enemies, I suppose, yet I wish I at least knew the why of our battles." He stared at me hard. He suspected me. How could he not? My Merlin was a clever sort.

“Perhaps you will never know,” I said, knowing what I must do. Knowing what was to come.

He shrugged and smiled. “Enough of these dreams that vanish like smoke when I come back to you,” he said, and I could almost see him willing himself to believe that all of that had nothing to do with me. “Here I am blathering on when you've got the saddest look on your face, lass. What's wrong? What can I do to hear the fairest sound in the realm: your laughter."

He held me, with a watchful gaze beneath his caring eyes. When had that crept in? And how could it ever go away? It couldn’t. It wouldn’t. No matter: that would be of no concern soon.

I made myself pull away from him and got out of bed. I stood, facing away from him. "What is wrong with me, Merlin Ambrosius?" I didn’t say: The homicidal rage within me grows stronger and you are lucky that I haven’t murdered you yet. I am lucky I haven’t murdered you yet.

I glanced at him: my Merlin, whole and healthy. I would murder my own heart, if the Grail asked it of me. And it did ask. Every day.

It had to all change. Even if this path was lined with rot and winter, so be it. I was not a child who imagined the world was made of pleasant moments. Of getting what one desired.

So be it.

I swallowed over the lump in my throat and stated flatly, "What is wrong is that I don't love you any more. I have grown tired of this life of domesticity and monogamy. We are immortals. Of course we were never meant to stay together over the breath of our life." I stared out the window. I must not look at him and lose the slim hold I had on my resolve.

Silence stretched between us. “I know you, Morgan. You can lie to the world, and even yourself, but never to me. I can give you years, whatever you need. But don’t lie." A pleading edge crept into his voice.

I shook my head and put my hands on my hips. My stomach roiled with acid and knives as I made myself turn and face him. "I have tried to keep it going between us because I do love you in my own way, Merlin. You are my favorite person, and how could I not be terribly fond of you with all the history we have shared together? I have a fickle nature, and it’s time for me to move on. I need my freedom.”

“Morgan. This is madness.” Steel and silver covered his face as he stared at me intently, trying to figure out my true why. “Is there some compulsion spell upon you? Have you been bewitched and bewildered in some unkind way? I will help you get free of it.”

“Free,” I whispered. “I need that. And no spells. It’s only, we’ve had a good run at it, haven’t we, Merlin? But all things end.” I spoke softly, fighting to not fall toward the hard pull of his gravity. “It is over. I want nothing from you except your absence.”

“No,” he said, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear him. “Just… I need a true reason why.”

“The heart is a strange land,” I said. A truth amongst lies.

Merlin’s head hung forward. His shoulders slumped. “What is going on, Morgan? Whatever bedevils you, the two of us, together, can set it right. I have loved you most of my life, and I am no idiot. I know you’ve been hiding something, and I’ve been waiting, patiently, for decades for you to tell me. I have been patient and trusting you to tell me when you could. And now? Now you sit here and lie to my face. Whatever bedevils you, whatever you are running from, I can hear it. I can hold it. I can help you and we can figure this out together—” He shook his head back and forth. “But you are already gone, aren’t you? I will do anything to keep you in my life. Anything.”