Merlin's Nightmare (The Merlin Spiral) by Robert Treskillard Page A

Hidden from almost everyone, especially from you, Arthur.”
    Merlin reached out and placed a hand gently on Artorius’s shoulder. “Though I and your . . . and Natalenya love you as our own, you are not our true son. Your father was High King Uther, and your mother, his wife, Igerna. We’ve been protecting you from Vortigern, who slew your parents for the throne.”
    Artorius laughed. This was a joke, payback for his prank in thearena. His smile died, however, as he looked around at his companions. Peredur looked relieved, Culann and Dwin seemed shocked, but there wasn’t a hint of a smile among them. He placed his hand on his tunic and felt the scar underneath. Suddenly he could hardly breathe. His name was Arthur? Merlin wasn’t his father?
    “You’re the High King!” Culann said, his shock changing into a bit of a smirk.
    “No, no, that can’t be,” Artorius said.
    Merlin squeezed his hand. “You know me, and that I speak truth. This is why you can’t go south. The man you’d be serving killed your parents.”
    “But Vortigern was Igerna’s brother . . . you’re saying he had his sister killed as well?”
    “That’s my understanding. I don’t know why, except that there was a generations-old feud between the families. Igerna married Uther, her family’s enemy. Everyone thought that the wounds had been healed, but apparently that wasn’t true. News reached us shortly after we settled in Dinas Crag that Vortigern even killed your two sisters, Myrgwen and Eilyne.”
    Artorius repeated the names to himself. He’d heard them before, when his parents would speak in hushed tones late at night, but he never knew who they were. His mind began to swirl with strange sensations as his entire life spun before him — all the pieces painfully ripping apart and rearranging themselves in a bent, unnatural shape.
    When he finally spoke, his words came out slowly.
    “So that’s why you have two names — Ambrosius and Merlin. Which means Colvarth . . . the chief bard . . . he served my father, then.” He could see the logic, now, in a way that hurt.
    “Yes. Now you begin to understand — ”
    “That you lied to me. You’ve been lying to me my whole life.”
    “No . . . we were vague.”
    “Yes. You did lie.” Both Merlin and Natalenya, the people who had been his parents, had deceived him all these years. The thoughtwas almost unbearable. He wanted to grab on to something and break it with his bare hands, but what was falling apart was inside of him, and try as he might, he couldn’t hold it together.
    “Not to hurt you. To protect you. Vortigern’s already tried to kill you twice. Word could’ve gotten out, and if he learned of your presence, then he’d have stopped at nothing — ”
    “You lied !”
    “Artorius . . . Arthur, I — ”
    Artorius got up and strode off into the darkness. He climbed a hill, tripping on a fallen tree, slipping on loose stones, and yet kept going. No one followed, and he was glad. He needed to think. Everything he had ever known about his life had fallen away like leaves from a winter tree, and he felt cold and alone. He was an orphan, bereft of parents, and now twice bereft. His mother, Natalenya, wasn’t his real mother. His tas wasn’t his real father.
    And on top of this, he’d been stupid enough to try to help Vortigern, a stone-hearted man who’d killed Artorius’s family.
    Coming to a small open space at the foot of a smooth boulder that towered over him, he paused and leaned his forehead against the cool stone. As he stood there, a new thought occurred to him. Vortigern had stolen the throne. By all rights, it belonged to . . . him. But that was ridiculous. He, Arthur, was the true High King? How stupid. How perfectly preposterous.
    But then he remembered the words of his chieftain, Great-Uncle Ector, when he’d given instructions about how to lead men in battle:
    “Artorius, one day you will lead great armies across Britain, and you must learn what I am