Arthur reached for his sword—
He saw Merlin glaring.
The king drew back.
“Let us finish our business, then,” the wizard resumed, stepping towards the knight. “Come, Japeth. Strike your blow.”
Agatha gripped Tedros so hard she almost broke his hand. Tedros choked on his spit—
Japeth? Agatha screamed in her head.
JAPETH?
The Green Knight hadn’t moved, his sad, dark eyes on the wizard. “How could you choose him over me, Merlin? How could you put your lot in with that?” He stabbed a meaty finger at Arthur. “This coward. This cuckold. When you could have had me. When the Woods could have had me.”
Arthur looked between them. “What is he talking about, Merlin?”
The wizard’s gaze stayed with the knight. “I didn’t choose Arthur over you, Japeth. Arthur was destined to be king.”
“Don’t. Lie. No lies,” the Green Knight spat, his voice sounding younger, uncontrolled. “You favored him over me from the beginning. Even though I was Ector’s real son. Even though Father brought you to be my tutor. I was always stronger and better than that . . . wart. That’s what everyone called him, remember? Wart. A blemish on our house. A foster brother no one wanted. And still, you shined your light on him. Only him. That’s why he could pull the sword out of the stone. Because you helped him—”
“Not true, Japeth.”
“I should have been king,” the knight said, his eyes welling. “I should be him!”
Agatha’s hand went cold in her prince’s.
“Your wart of a son . . .”
The pieces slammed together in Agatha’s head: the knight’s taunts to the king, that wrong file in the Library, the one the mouse said was Japeth’s—
The Green Knight wasn’t a stranger at all. The Green Knight was . . .
“Kay?” Arthur gasped, big-eyed.
“Don’t call me that, Wart,” the knight snarled. “I’m not Kay anymore. I’m Japeth, the name my mother gave me, not the puffed-up name Dad thought would be better for a knight. ‘Sir Kay,’ the bold and strong, fated for glory. Until you stole my destiny. Until the Storian made you legend and me the footnote. Sir Kay, the buffoon brother. But you know that wasn’t the truth. So you offered me a place as your first knight to make amends—only to mock me by giving Lance all your attention and love, the same way Merlin chose you over me. Not just Sir Kay, the idiot now. Now Sir Kay, the joke. Sir Kay, the Runt of the Round Table. That’s why I left Camelot. That’s why I waited to take my revenge until the time was right. Until the Woods could see the failure that was their king. I bet that’s why your wife left you? Because she knew the Wart I knew? Lancelot, too. He didn’t just steal your wife, he abandoned you, your choice to love him as wrong as Merlin’s choice to love you. You must wonder why everyone leaves you . . . Guinevere, Lancelot, soon Merlin, no doubt. Even Sir Kay has gone. A relic of your fairy tale. It’s Japeth, now. Mother named me right. A name fit for a Snake.”
He turned on Merlin. “As for you, old man, I only want what you promised me as a boy. You swore when Arthur pulled the sword that I would go on to a destiny even bigger. That I would have a life I’d be proud of. That I wouldn’t resent that wart becoming king.” His cheeks burned a darker green. “And if I didn’t have a good life, a great life, if you were proven to have lied to me, then I could claim your Wizard Wish. The one wish every wizard keeps hidden away where only he can find it. A wish that can grant any desire said out loud, but one you save to choose when to leave this world, like all wizards do. Only it’s not your wish anymore, Merlin. Because you said if I didn’t find my destiny like you promised, then I could take your wish for myself. I could wish for anything I wanted to make up for what you deprived me of. Well, Merlin . . .”
He prowled towards the wizard, gripping his axe.
“I wish for a death.”
Merlin showed no fear, no remorse. “I said you would live a great life if you allowed yourself to have it, Japeth. But you held on to your bitterness towards Arthur. Envy is a green snake that swallows the heart whole. Look at what it’s done to you. It’s swelled inside you, this green poison, devouring your soul, consuming your humanity, until it’s become bigger than you. Jealousy has no bounds. It cannot be quenched, even by death. You will live forever this way. Invincible, immortal . . . but eaten alive by the green snake of your heart. Unless you learn to let it go. Unless you learn to forgive. Not just me and Arthur, but yourself too. Only then can you begin again. Only then can you have the life you were meant to, the life I said you could have if you chose it.”
“More lies! More excuses!” the Green Knight cried, his lips trembling. His towering form loomed over the wizard’s. He smeared at his eyes, forcing composure. “Kneel, you dog. My turn for a blow.”
“As you wish,” said Merlin.
He slipped off his hat and bent to the ground, laying his head against a fallen tree, tilting his long beard to the side and bearing his white, scrawny neck.
Chills raced up Agatha’s spine, seeing Merlin so vulnerable, remembering the wizard was as mortal as she—
“Wait,” Arthur choked out, rushing forward, sword in hand. “Don’t do this, Kay!”
Merlin shot a spell, pinning Arthur against a tree, the king’s chest invisibly bound, his fist with Excalibur flailing in vain.
“Take your blow, Japeth,” the wizard spoke, his cheek to the log. “Do what you’ve come to do.”
Agatha could see the Green Knight quaking harder as he stared down at Merlin’s neck, the axe unsteady in his palms.
“Why, Merlin?” he whimpered. “Why didn’t you love me?”
The wizard lifted his eyes. “I love you as much as I love Arthur. As much as I love any of my wards. But love has to be received as much as it is given.”
Tears spilled across the Green Knight’s face. “Tell me I would have made a better king . . . Tell me you made a mistake . . . That I should have been the Lion. Instead of the Snake.”
Merlin gave him a warm, loving smile. “I hope you find peace, Japeth.”
The knight let out a sob. “Curse you, Merlin.”
He raised the axe.
“No!” Arthur screamed, thrashing against the spell.
The Green Knight swung the blade down, cutting through Merlin.
With a cry, Arthur flung his sword across the forest—
Excalibur impaled hard in the knight’s chest.
The green-skin hulk glanced down as blood gushed out of him . . . only to flow back in neatly, the wound closing around Arthur’s sword, the knight’s immortal skin healing once more.
But Arthur wasn’t looking at the Green Knight anymore.
He was gaping past him . . . at the wizard over the log . . .
“Agatha . . . ,” Tedros said.
Tedros was pointing at Merlin . . . Merlin, who Agatha couldn’t bear to look at because he’d have no head . . .
Only he did have a head.
Because the axe hadn’t cut through it.
The knight hadn’t aimed for Merlin’s neck at all.
He’d aimed for Merlin’s beard, shearing the long, raggedy patch of hair from the wizard’s chin.