My Merlin Awakening by Priya Ardis

Ironic. After tonight, I’d had enough of water.
    All of the Candidates identified to pull the sword from the stone had been living with the idea of certain death for months. Before the Council had pulled us in to train, the trial itself had killed every Candidate who tried to pull the sword. The thing was that none of us ever expected to survive. Well, we had survived. I had pulled the sword from the stone and now I had to deal with what that meant—my life hanging at the edge of the blade.
    I’d spent the last few months hiding from that truth. No matter how much I wanted it, nothing was going to be normal again.
    Suddenly, I needed to see Vane. I needed an anchor in the chaos. Without another thought, I opened the bathroom door. I crossed three steps to the bedroom. The door was closed. I flung it open. I stopped.
    Lamps around the room showcased a… simple twin mattress. The long length of the wall made it seem even smaller. A low, barely-there, wooden stand held up the mattress. The whole setup seemed more pallet than bed. However, that wasn’t what arrested me to the spot.
    Wall-to-wall pictures of me surrounded the space.
    To the right, one wall had about a hundred pictures of me on the lacrosse field. On the wall with the door, pictures showed me training at the gym in Ragnar Manor. To the left, above a massive desk with a lone computer, hung pictures of me at school, talking with friends. In the middle, past the opening of the en-suite bathroom, eight-by-tens of me in the same pose at various places—Texas, Concord, Avalon Prep, and London. In all of them, I seemed to be staring off at some unseen object.
    The sound of running water from Vane’s bathroom penetrated my haze. I moved quickly. Going to his desk, I flipped open the computer. The screen prompted me for the password. I typed in one word. It rejected it.
    I typed in its variation. Vivane . The screen dinged with happy acceptance.
    “Nice password,” I muttered under my breath.
    On the desktop, a ton of folders popped up. They were all labeled neatly. Every single Candidate I knew had a folder. I saw one with Grey’s name. I flipped it open. Video files went back to when we’d started training at Avalon Prep, but continued as late as yesterday. I opened a note file at the bottom. It was log of his assessments of our training. At the bottom, a chart stated eighty-five percent readiness. By the chart, a highlighted note stated “twenty percent substitution likeness.”
    I went back to the desktop. I opened my folder next. The same thing. I opened his notes. Seventy-five percent readiness. The highlighted note stated “substitution possible.” A folder on Oliver was red-flagged. I moved the cursor to click on it.
    “You just couldn’t resist, could you?”
    Vane’s voice made me jump. He stood at the entrance of the bathroom, wearing just a towel.
    I shut the lid of the laptop with a click.
    “Had enough?” He leaned against the wall in a casual stance, but I wasn’t fooled. A glitter deep in his pupils told me he was poised to strike.
    I raised my chin. “Why the stalk-a-razi?”
    “Why do you think?”
    I ground my teeth. “I have a good idea.”
    Vane straightened from the door. He stalked toward me. “Tell me.”
    “You’re studying me. You’re figuring out who can replace me. Substitute me,” I spat.
    “I’m looking at the likely possibilities, yes.”
    His easy admittance took the heat out of my words, leaving me with the awful remainder. My eyes closed as if to shut out the hurt. I forced them open. “Why?”
    “Because it is still entirely possible to defeat you. And I want to know who would be the most likely candidate.”
    “Candidate is the correct word,” I muttered. “I pulled out Excalibur. They didn’t.”
    “Yet, there is still the possibility.” Vane flipped open the laptop and punched a key. He pointed at Oliver’s folder. “Ninety percent readiness. Ninety percent likeness. Do you know what that means?