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She lifted her head. It was a bad idea. “Where—” She groaned again and put her head back down. Rubbing at her eyes, she tried to blink back into focus. It was dark, wherever they were. It took her a hot minute to realize that they weren’t outside. They were in a small, one-room home that looked as though it had been made out of whatever the owners could find and slap up. Timbers, barely hewn down from trees, made up the framing. The walls were plaster, clay, bits of rough-cut lumber, whatever else it seemed they could find. A fire was burning in a shoddy hearth, the mantle tilted to one side at an odd angle.
The whole place looked like it would come down with a good sneeze. But it was shelter, she supposed. The wood shutters that covered the holes in the walls that served as windows were all closed.
Wait. “Are we…?” She rubbed her eyes again.
“Seemed a shame to waste it.” Merlin was sitting by the fire, glaring at it like he was somehow mad at the flames. “Luckily, it was a hunting arrow. The damage was minimal,” he explained.
He had wrapped cloth around her stomach. A deep red splotch covered where the arrow had protruded. She couldn’t see her back, but she assumed she had another matching blotch where the arrow had gone in.
“Thanks for taking it out and dressing the wound.” She laid her head back down. She felt gross when she tried to keep it upright. Her stomach lurched and she hoped she wasn’t going to be sick. “Do I remember you turning into a giant freaky cat-demon?”
Merlin was silent for a long time.
“Merlin?”
“That isn’t my name.”
“Then tell me your real one.”
He continued to glower at the fire. “You can figure it out on your own now.”
She furrowed her brow, trying to put it together. And then it hit her, all at once. Demon. Merlin was ademon.“Mordred told me a story about…”
“About the demon who wanted to destroy the world? You mean you actuallylistenedto something someone said to you? I’m impressed.” The demon rolled his eyes. “Yes, girl.”
Merlin was Grinn.
The Ash King.
The one who started a war to burn all of Avalon.
And she was responsible for setting him free.
“Oh, no…”I fucked up,was the first thought she had.I fucked up big time, was the second. “Oh, fuck. No, no, no—this can’t be right.”
Merlin—Grinn—huffed a laugh. “Oh, trust me, it is. I am he, the one and only. I am Grinn, the dread Ash King. And you have my power.”
“I’m really not going to give it back to you now.”
“Do you think you have a choice?” He sneered. “I told you. I will drag you there kicking and screaming. And now that you’re injured, it’ll be even easier.”
Her only hope was that the mage wasn’t an idiot and wouldn’t split them up. It wasn’t worth arguing about. They wouldn’t get anywhere. She groaned and put her hands over her face. Eod, thinking she was in pain—well, she was, but that wasn’t why—began to lick her cheek.
“Hey buddy, it’s all right, I’m okay.” She petted the animal reassuringly. “I’m just trying to grapple with the fact that our traveling companion who just patched me together, who I’m sharing a life force with, is a madman out to destroy the world, is all.”
“I didn’t do it for you.” Grinn huffed. “Remember that what hurts you, hurts me. I wanted that thing out of you as fast as I could. Besides, I didn’t need you going into a panic attack while I tried to deal with everything. And as for destroying the world? I can’t do anything right now. A problem for another day.”
She sighed. And here she thought he was actually trying to be a friend.“You could just pretend you were doing something nice for me.”
“Nobody ever does anything nice for anyone. Not without having a self-serving inspiration behind it.” He jabbed at the fire again. “Not humans, not demons, nobody.”
“That’s not true. There are plenty of examples of random acts of kindness.”
“Which they do to get that little happy glow in their hearts,” he said, laying his contempt on thick.“It’s just to make yourselves feel better about being generally shit.”
Shutting her eyes, Gwen kept gently scratching Eod’s head. She was glad for the hound’s presence. Deciding she didn’t want to get into an argument with a literal demon about the value of humanity, she changed the subject. “What happened?”
“The bitch’s husband came out of the hut and shot you with an arrow. Your mutt charged the dumb bastard and ripped his throat out before I could get to him.” Grinn laughed once. “He isn’t as useless as I had thought.”
