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Chapter One
“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”
—Aldous Huxley
Three weeks ago, on board British Airways from NYC to London.
“Have you ever considered shortening your name to Lance?” Annie leaned over the aisle to ask of Arthur’s constant companion.
The man in question simply slid his silvery eyes her way and executed a slow blink. Annie couldn’t interpret it.
Lancelot was an enigma to her.
Wolfe said that they had always been close, what with Lancelot being the King’s First Knight. And ever since they broke out of the Celestial Realm months ago, the two men seemed inseparable.
They were always together. Stayed in the same sprawling house—Ben’s parents’ and grandparents’ house. Ate together. Trained together. Went everywhere together.
Annie wondered whether it had to do with the life force they shared. They were now inextricably tied to one another.
She and Merlin sat next to each other in the middle of the wide business-class cabin on the Boeing 787 currently crossing over the Atlantic Ocean. Wolfe and Rui sat on the right side of the plane across the aisle, and Arthur and Lancelot sat on the left.
Gabriel and Inanna, Ben’s adopted parents, had insisted on paying for their roundtrip tickets, no expiration date on the return. They could have splurged for First Class too, but there were no seats next to each other in First, and Annie wanted to be close to Merlin for the entire seven-hour flight. Roughing it in Business it was. They even gave her a platinum credit card to use for their lodgings, food and incidentals.
Annie was in charge of managing their money and communications, since she was the only one with credit cards and a smart phone. At Gabriel’s insistence, they all wore decorative wrist-coms as well that looked like braided bracelets, but it was more of a tracking device in case anything went awry and they got separated.
“You take as long as you need to explore your homeland,” Ben’s doting parents encouraged the group.
“Get to know each other. Put the past in the past and cross the bridge to the future. And be sure to have fun!”
With Annie’s fledgling graphic design LLC, it was nice to have rich, generous friends. Especially when she decided to go on a cross-continent trip willy nilly with new-found extended family members.
Three dragons, a fire witch, one legendary King and his valiant knight, immortalized in countless works of drama and fiction, traveling together for some family bonding—what could go wrong?
It had been Annie’s idea to create this opportunity of forced proximity. According to her spies in the Yukon where the Pendragons now lived, Merlin, Arthur and Wolfe had been making progress forming new bonds in her absence while she worked in NYC, giving Merlin some space and time to settle in and establish himself.
But it was slow going. It was clear when she came to visit that while her Big Red was ready for commitment toher, he still struggled with forging father-son relationships with Arthur and Wolfe. In particular, Wolfe.
Annie talked things over with Rui, and the women decided that as emotionally handicapped as these men were, traumatized and stunted by everything they’d experienced, a strategic intervention might be called for.
This coming from the cool as ice treasure dragon was saying something.
After all, they’d all existed without theirheartsfor far too long, and only recently recovered them. Arthur’s heart was, in fact, the Stone Heart that the Jade Emperor had sent Ben back in time to find. The evil dragon-sorceress queen, Guinevere, had somehow carved out Arthur and Lancelot’s hearts, turning them into zombie slaves at her disposal. Because of her, Merlin had sacrificed many parts—bodily parts—so that he could take on an illusion to be with Arthur and Wolfe’s mother. It had been a false love, he realized much later on. He’d descended into madness and blind rage because of it.
Now, they were all more or less recovered. At least physically, even though Arthur and Lancelot depended unnaturally on each other for their vitality.
Their emotional and spiritual wellbeing…well, that was still touch and go.
Wolfe had Rui and took strength and heart from her love. But the anger and bitterness toward the sire who abandonedhim, whom he felt drove his mother to madness, and ultimately to her death, still festered within him.
Merlin was physically stronger than ever now, healed of the terrible wounds Guinevere had dealt him over decades of torture. He trusted more and more in Annie’s unconditional love with each passing day. But he still had a long way to go in terms of loving himself. And showing the love she knew he felt so deeply for his sons.
Arthur and Lancelot were adjusting relatively well, for all appearances, to modern life. They’d taken the secret immortal world in stride as well. After all, in their time, dragons, monsters, and magic were real.
But Annie noticed how Arthur seemed to vibrate with a restless energy, and Lancelot seemed the exact opposite, as if he was forcibly containing all feeling. He always seemed to wear an impenetrable mask.
One day, that mask would crack, Annie was certain. One day, the energy would combust and explode. There was something brewing between the two men, but she didn’t know what. Was it the magic that bound them together in order to save Arthur’s life, or was it something else?
If so,what?
