Carrie Vaughn - Discord's Apple

“I don’t know what Hera will do to Dad. I don’t know how else to help him.”

At last she cleared enough of her way to reach the threshold. She put her hands on either side of the doorway and waited. The apple seemed heavier than even a sphere of gold ought to be—so heavy, she couldn’t drag it another step.

She took a deep breath. She hated this. She’d escaped, she’d gotten away from this town, and now the house itself wanted to lock its hold on her. That was the destiny she’d fought against: she hadn’t wanted to grow up to manage the Safeway or be a cop in town, or at best go to Pueblo to work in a bank or in real estate. That wasn’t her destiny, she was better than that.

Better than her dad, who’d stayed to take care of the Storeroom?

He’d had a family, worked like a dog his whole life to support them, to send her to college. He’d taken care of his parents, all of it with strength and patience. She’d abandoned all that. She couldn’t wait to leave her parents, and soon they’d both be dead.

That was why he had to live, why she had to save him. She couldn’t watch over the Storeroom, because she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in Hopes Fort. She didn’t have the courage.

“Isn’t the whole Storeroom more important than one thing in it?”

No answer came.

“If I have to use this to bring him back, so he can be caretaker again, isn’t that okay?”

It was a rationalization. She didn’t need the phantom voice of instinct to tell her that.

“If I don’t bring this to her, she’ll come and take it. She might destroy everything to get it.”

Something in that rang true, because the instinct wavered, the sanctity of the Storeroom thinned.

You’ll return. You’ll stay to take your Father’s place.

“Yes,” she said with a sigh. Sacrifice this one thing to save the whole. Tracker would have understood.

She stepped through the doorway. Discord’s apple lay heavy in her pocket.

Upstairs, Evie knelt on the floor of the kitchen and held Mab’s head in her hands. “Guard the Storeroom, all right? Good girl. Good Mab.” Evie rubbed Mab’s shoulders hard, as if that made up for abandoning her, and Mab looked up with eyes so shining and beseeching, she might have been crying.

Alex had been waiting for her in the kitchen. Silently, he followed her to the car.

They hadn’t driven far when he said, “You’re planning on just giving it to her? Did you actually bring it with you?”

She had to stop at the turn onto the highway. Ahead, great fissures zigzagged across the pavement, slabs of asphalt thrust up against one another, making the road impassable. The earthquake.

Evie pulled over and climbed out of the car. She hadn’t thought the quake was that strong. Not enough to turn a highway into confetti. Hopes Fort must have been right over the epicenter.

“I guess we walk,” she said.

“This is the work of the gods.” Alex murmured. “Poseidon, the Earth-shaker, could use his power to level entire cities, yet he’d leave neighboring settlements untouched. You lived in Los Angeles. Do you think a quake that did this to a road would have left your house standing?”

The Walker house was over eighty years old and not in the least bit retrofitted for quakes.

She started walking, cutting down the sloped bank off the shoulder and onto the naked field along the highway. Alex followed.

“So it was Hera,” she said, tromping over the old furrows cutting the earth.

“Or someone working for her.”

“How many people does she have?”

“At least four, including Robin. He’s the one from the parking lot the other day. I’m not sure how many others there are.”

You, Evie thought. He was the only one who knew anything about her. What did that say about him?

They walked for half an hour, Evie trying not to be self-conscious of Alex at her heels. He was watching, she realized, like a bodyguard: scanning in all directions, glancing over his shoulders in a regular circuit. Looking for danger. She almost felt safer. Except that he made her nervous, and she didn’t know what to say to him.

“Do you have a plan?” he said as they reached the first buildings of town, a gas station and a trailer park.

She ignored him, kept walking. Probably another ten minutes to reach the cemetery.

He persisted. “Do you think she’ll really just let him go?”

She hadn’t thought about it. The main solution burned in her mind, as the apple swung heavily in her pocket. What other choice did she have but to give it to Hera?

“Evie.”

She kept walking, hoping he might grow frustrated and leave.

“Evie!” He grabbed her arm.

Instead of stopping, she spun and jerked away, batting at his arm like he was a bug. “Leave me alone!”

She wanted to run, but he kept hold of her sleeve. She could only back away, while he followed like a fisherman playing his line.

“I want to help, but you can’t just walk up to her without a plan. You can’t trust her—you can’t trust any of them.”

“What do you suggest?” Her voice was cold.

If he let go, she would have run, and he must have known that because he didn’t let go.

“Find out if Frank’s guarded. Create a distraction to lure away Hera’s people. Then we can get him away from her. Without giving her the apple.”

“That sounds like something out of Homer.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? It’s a classic.”

“Please let me go.”

“But—”

Evie couldn’t have said where they came from, or where they’d been hiding. Maybe around the last of the mobile homes on the row, or behind a truck parked on the street. They moved so quickly, Evie blinked and they appeared. Merlin took her arm and hurried her back, while Arthur faced Alex.

The warrior closed his left hand around Alex’s neck and held his sword low, with the point aimed at his captive’s belly.

“Who are you?” Arthur demanded, his voice clear and firm.

A vague smile grew on Alex’s face, a kind of mystic realization. “It’s you,” he said, his voice a breath.

“Who are you?”

Alex glanced back and forth between Evie and Arthur for a moment, as if trying to decide something. Then Evie saw where Arthur’s sword was aimed and remembered what Alex wanted more than anything.

“No!” She lunged toward him, but Merlin held her back.

Alex dropped forward and slid onto the point of Excalibur.

Arthur let go of him and tried to pull back, but that only hastened Alex’s intent. Without Arthur holding him upright, Alex fell on the sword, impaling himself before Arthur could draw it away.

Evie screamed and Arthur cursed, catching Alex by the shoulders before he could crash to the ground. The warrior eased him, cradling him on his lap. It was a scene out of Tennyson, if only they’d both been wearing medieval plate armor instead of jeans.

Arthur said roughly, “Idiot! Why did you do that?”

Blood covered Alex’s shirt and coat and pooled on the ground beside him. Wincing, he clutched at the blade. Blood smeared his hands.

Shaking, he propped himself on his elbow and lifted himself from Arthur. He hooked his hand on the sword’s guard. His voice tight, he said, “Could you help me get this thing out?”

Merlin’s grip went slack. Her scream still raw in her throat, Evie crouched beside Alex. Excalibur protruded from under his ribs, looking vaguely ridiculous.

“Please?” Alex said again. “Before it starts to heal like this?”

Arthur gripped the sword with one hand and placed the other on Alex’s chest. Holding the other man’s wrist, Alex helped by leaning away, while Arthur yanked out the sword in a clean movement. Alex’s breath hissed, but a moment later, the creases of pain on his face eased, the tension dissipated, and his hand—which he’d been holding flat over the wound, fell away. He’d stopped bleeding.