“We’re not really different Merlins!” he shouted. “We’re all the same Merlin at different points along the time line!”
“Can you prove it?”
Merlin opened his mouth and then closed it. He held up one small hand, all five fingertips glowing. Then he danced Kai’s falcon into the baby’s mouth, causing the little one to also glow.
“Believe me now?”
“Yes, but… Neither of you should be here,” the somber, unamused mage said, crossing his arms. “It’s against the laws of—”
“Time and space?” Merlin cut in. “We’ve never really obeyed those, have we?”
“Time and space can suck it!” someone cried out as they passed, holding up a cup filled with an anonymous brew.
“I only need one thing, and I need it fast,” Merlin shouted. “If you spark me at full strength, I believe it can set me aging in the right direction.”
“Then… we’ve found a way to stop it!” Thirties Merlin blinked away his shock. He looked so hopeful that Merlin didn’t have the heart to add that he would also take away all memory of this. It was such a quick, isolated moment that magically removing it shouldn’t cause any harm, and Merlin couldn’t risk derailing the future—even if it meant that this version of him would have to go through several more centuries of pain to get there.
It was worth it. Every time he thought of Ari and Gwen fighting the future, he knew how much this would all be worth it.
“Hit me,” he said.
And just as the song reached an epic chorus, Thirties Merlin joined in at full volume, his hands rife with so much white fire that he nearly set his own beard aflame.
Merlin set down Kairos. Gently. And held his arms out just as sparks flew at him, so many that his chest sizzled and his vision whited out.
When he came to, he was lying on the ground. He popped up to sitting. Kairos stared at him, looking wise and impassive in the way that only babies could manage. Strangers were watching, but Thirties Merlin didn’t look worried. Everyone crowded around as if this was part of the show.
“How do you feel?” Thirties Merlin asked. “Did… did it work?”
Merlin added his voice to the song. Sparks leaped out of his hands, bright and lively, but he didn’t feel the years draining with them. “I’m not getting younger!”
As the notion of finally being able to fight back against Nin grew, his sparks went mad. People clapped for his homemade light show, until the scent of smoke reached Merlin’s nostrils. He’d accidentally set the tent on fire. Oh, dear. He’d have to make this other Merlin forget that bit, too.
“You’re going to love it here, Kai,” Merlin said.
They’d left the wilds of Coachella behind for the calm of Merlin’s crystal cave.
Morgause had said the time child must be kept safe at all costs. There was only one place that Merlin could keep Kairos truly safe—where he could promise that, no matter what happened, he would survive it.
What he’d said outside the tent was true. Every Merlin was really the same person at different points in a long, wild story.
And it had to start somewhere.
He found the slab of crystal he’d always used as a bed and set Kairos down. The baby writhed and wailed, as if he could see the ages of pain and heartbreak that Merlin was about to cast him into. Would Gwen and Ari ever forgive him for doing this to their baby? Would he get a chance to tell them who he really was… or was he making one more hapless sacrifice for the slimmest chance at a broken cycle, a brighter hope? A better future?
Feelings fought their way up his throat, and soon he and Kairos were both crying. Kairos didn’t know what was coming next. And truthfully, neither did Merlin. What if he gave up Kairos and still failed to stop Nin?
“This is not an easy thing to do, little me.” He’d always wondered who had given him up, left him to face so much alone.
Now he knew he’d done it himself.
“You’ll wake up here in a little while. And you’ll go through this doorway to Camelot, and you’ll befriend a small boy who needs you. His name is Arthur. And it won’t be all bad. No, not all bad at all.” Merlin tucked the falcon into Kai’s fisted hand and stepped back behind a crystal column, hidden from sight. He hummed a lullaby and hit the baby with soft blue sparks. Kai’s body spread larger and larger, filling up the slab. His baby wrinkles stretched into the wrinkles of an old man. A beard shot out from his chin and grew until it reached nearly his knees.
As the figure started to snore, Merlin’s song faltered. In front of him was the oldest version of himself—weathered as a crabapple, abandoned before the first hope of Camelot with nothing but a little wooden falcon clutched in his gnarled hand.
All of the disgust he’d felt for his old self melted away when he saw his true beginnings. He’d started out on a path that was as lonely as any he could imagine. Yes, there had been dark patches. True, he’d made as many mistakes as there were stars in the cosmos. But he’d fought to the other side of it—hadn’t he? Merlin had never stopped fighting the misery of Nin’s cycle. And now he had so many people who cared for him.
Who believed in him.
Who needed him to play the hero, this time.
The future where his parents were putting up one last, epic fight beckoned from the end of the portal.
Merlin had never traveled this far through spacetime by himself. But he’d revisited the pain of his past and unlocked his powers. He’d stopped his backward aging, so he wouldn’t slide out of existence. Now the only thing holding him back was his own fear—which
