“It is! You told Marsum there were lions left in this world! He thought they were all dead! You basically sent Maks right into this and now look at all of us! I thought you’d changed, but you’re just the meddling bastard of the Emperor you’ve always been, hidden in better fitting clothes!” She drew a breath and Marsum waved a hand at her. Her mouth clamped shut; Marsum’s magic doing the trick.
If she’d been angry before, it was nothing to the fury that lit up her face when she realized she’d been forced to shut her mouth. The sky above them rolled with an unseen storm. If Marsum pushed her much further, she would break her bonds and then they’d all be in for a shock.
Literally.
Marsum rubbed his fingers over his brow. “Gods, that could give even me a headache if I let her go on. You don’t mind, do you, Merle?” He tipped his head and smiled at Merlin. Merlin did not smile back.
“You are testing my patience, Marsum. I am only here to make sure the Emperor is dealt with. You are his pawns and he is drawing power again through the stones and the blood vines—” Again, he was cut off.
Marsum growled, his features twisting into something less than human. “I am not his pawn.”
Merlin snorted. “Your Jinn are going missing, are they not? The standing stones are calling them, drawing their lives to feed his. I believe that makes you pawns.”
The other Jinn around the room shifted on their feet, a soft shuffling that had Marsum’s head whipping around to glare at them. “We are not his pawns. He sleeps, and he will remain sleeping. The cat will bring me the last jewels and I will make sure she is kept very safe.” He grinned. “She will not bring down the remainder of the wall.”
Merlin wanted to bang his head on the wall. “That is not how this works, Marsum. You are simplifying things far too much. I know you struggle with complex ideas that are above your pay grade. But let me spell it out to you. The Emperor is waking. With or without the wall coming down, he will rise again.”
“Then why does it matter if I let her live?” Marsum tipped his head again. “You told me my best bet was to keep the cat alive. To keep her safe from the Emperor.”
Merlin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gods save me from fools. Yes, because she is the only one able to kill him should the need arise.” That, and of course, he, Merlin, was playing all sides of the field, working his own manipulations as fast and as cleanly as he dared.
Marsum was right up in his face in a flash, so close that Merlin could smell the grains the Jinn had eaten for breakfast.
“I don’t think I like your tone.” Marsum breathed the words across him. The Jinn around the edges of the room slid closer. Merlin shot a look to Flora. Her eyes gave him nothing but the anger of a woman he adored.
Damn his life and all it brought. It was time to leave, no matter that he wanted to stay with Flora. That he wanted to be her hero.
He held up a finger. “Pull my finger, would you?”
Marsum looked down at the finger and then back at Merlin. “Have you lost your mind?”
Merlin grinned, grabbed at his own finger, deep red sparks flying from his skin as he snapped his fingers. He closed his eyes, knowing Flora would hate him for this, but he had to go. Zamira needed him, and the world needed her.
Except that as his body dissolved, something took hold of him. He fought the sensation as he writhed and worked to flee to Zam.
He blinked and found himself in a small glass box. An infinity box, just like the one he’d placed his father in. Un-escapable unless someone who knew what they were doing freed you.
He was good and royally screwed and it was his own fault. But the sorrow he felt was not for his own dilemma, but for those who’d followed him into this. For Flora, Zamira, Maks, and even Lila. They would pay the price for his efforts.
On his hands and knees, he stared out at Marsum as he grinned down at Flora.
“What do you think? Should we kill him now?”
She turned her face away from Marsum to look at him. Merlin put his hands on the glass and lowered his head.
Their voices were muffled, and it didn’t matter anyway. Marsum was an idiot when it came to other magics—Merlin was, for all intents and purposes, trapped for eternity. What that meant was he couldn’t be killed. There was no threat to his body. Just his mind as he slowly went mad.
What a way to go.
“You see,” Marsum strolled in front of him, “the blood vines are not working for the Emperor. I’ve attached them to my own strength.” He grinned. “I am the recipient of all that power as it is absorbed from supernaturals too stupid to live. I am the one who controls them now. I almost had Zamira a few days ago. But . . .she slipped my grasp.”
Merlin didn’t dare move and give away the horror that rocketed through him. “That will not go well for you when the Emperor rises.”
“Which is why he won’t.” Marsum grinned. “You see? I keep the kitty cat safe. I keep all the jewels, and the Emperor’s power, and he will never rise.”
Merlin knew it was not so simple. But for now, he wasn’t arguing.
He closed his eyes and let his mind take him outside the box. Not an easy trick, but he could follow the ether to somewhere else. Wherever he was needed.
The light flashed around him and as suddenly as he’d been on his knees in Marsum’s throne room, he was sitting next to a tall, slim man with golden hair and eyes.
“Shem?” He stared at the lion shifter he’d thought long dead. Or maybe he was, and Merlin was just seeing a ghost. That was possible.
Shem turned to him. “Well, damn, Merlin. Thought you’d be fucked up shit creek by now.”
“I am. Infinity box.” He shrugged as if it were nothing. It wasn’t and they both knew it.
Shem sighed and then grinned. “Good thing I still had the girl’s notes.”
Merlin’s eyes popped wide. “What? You have my half-sister’s papers? Wait, you said had.”
“I told you I’d look out for her.” He frowned. “I loved her, you know. Would have done anything she asked and then some even though I knew what it meant.”
Merlin couldn’t stop staring at the shifter in front of him. “I don’t know what you did with those papers, but you need to get them to Ishtar. She is the only one strong enough to free me now.”
Shem shook his head. “No way. I promised I’d give them to Zamira when she was old enough. She has the bloodline to read the glyphs. Not many do, you know.”
Merlin’s jaw dropped. “You . . . gave them to Zam? What is she going to do with sheets and sheets of spells? She’s a shifter, Shem. Not a damn mage!” He could not believe Shem. Then again, part of him said he shouldn’t be surprised. Shem’s time with the Emperor had given him cause to be not right in the head.
Shem grinned at him and leaned back in his seat. “Well, that’s a matter of opinion. You don’t do genealogy much, do you? Because our little kitten has a whopping powerful bloodline that even you haven’t noticed yet. So . . . I’m not so sure Ishtar is the only one who can free you.”
Merlin lost his hold on the real world. His mind whirled at such a rate, he slammed back into the infinity box as if he’d really been gone and not just his mind.
Shem’s words swirled until they settled softly on his shoulders, and he let himself really look at Zam . . . through the eyes of a mage. Not the eyes of a manipulator. The dark hair, the green eyes . . . a powerful bloodline . . . “No way,” he whispered as the answer came to him. But even as he denied it, he knew exactly what Shem was talking about.
Zamira was far more than she looked to be.
Chapter Ten
The sounds of the early night I would consider normal in the desert were cut off by the howls of the hyenas drawing close.
“We can’t outrun them,” Maks said, reaching for his bow. I moved so Lila was behind me. Maks rolled his eyes. “My job is to protect you and take you to Marsum.”
“Yeah, well, that didn’t go so well for Lila earlier, did it?” I snarled.
He gave me his back as he pulled his weapons clear of his gear. Shotgun in one hand, small crossbow in the other.
“Lila, stay on Balder. Do not use your wings at all,” I said as I reached for the flail on my back. I paused, grabbed my bag and pulled the sapphire out of its hiding place under the one flap. I handed it up to her. “If they get close, freeze their scrawny asses.”