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Merry

The blade cuts through the distance. Its flight happens in slow motion, a lapse of time in which Merry tilts her head, watching the pointed tip cut toward her.

The weapon is forged from a saturated green moonstone. It’s a stunning attack, so beautifully lethal that Merry’s fingers lift, eager to trace the arrow’s shape as it lances her way.

A growl erupts from nearby. A wall of muscle pounds into her side.

Merry crashes to the ground. Chunks of dirt and grass break her fall, and her vision capsizes as she tumbles with a masculine weight pinned against her.

Three revolutions, then a bump causes them to stop. Merry lands on her back and gawks at the shock of stars in the firmament. Then she darts her gaze to Anger, who’s sprawled on top of her, his pectorals crushing her breasts. Dark eyes probe hers, checking for signs of injury, relief dominating his features as he concludes she’s unharmed.

An instant later, the god’s expression hardens. Merry recovers her senses, the truth reflecting in his glare. Someone just tried to shoot her. And that someone is powering toward them.

A pair of boots speed across the hill with the magnitude of a rupturing fault line, plates beneath the earth’s surface shifting. It’s a quake the likes of which no common deity can produce.

The twang of a bowstring rings out. Anger vaults to his feet, snatches her hand, and the world tips. Merry staggers as though balancing on a high wire, then Anger flings her behind him. Unleashing a feral noise, the rage god blocks her from the assailant, his body forming a barricade. His archery is nocked and firing before she can blink. Projectiles collide and splinter like embers, his muscled arm inflating as he reels the bowstring backward and lets loose.

Twin arrows crack against a set of incoming ones. Merry swerves, searching for a makeshift weapon, but Anger’s palm shoves her farther backward. She stumbles just as he hunches inward, avoiding the handheld arrow that slices his way, nearly hewing open his torso. In a series of whipcord twists and turns, Anger thwarts more projectiles with his forearms, catching several, ramming his knuckles into others and breaking them in half, and jabbing punches at the figure.

A second silhouette materializes from the sidelines. This one is female.

Snatching an iron arrow from his quiver, Merry wields it like a javelin and hurls the object toward the next opponent. Crimson spritzes the air. Merry’s strike shears across the attacker’s shoulder, stopping the female from aiming her own archery at Anger’s skull.

Her shriek of outrage alerts Anger, who swings toward the disturbance once his adversary is momentarily incapacitated. Registering this new foe and the wound inflicted by Merry, Anger hisses and spins Merry’s way.

They stare. Then they run.

Ideally, evanescing would be the smart option. But alongside individual limitations regarding travel, a deity can’t vanish while in the presence or custody of a monarch.

Racing across the hill, they duck another arrow that spears overhead. The music that’s been playing through the carnival turns off like a mechanism, although the rides still flicker around them.

Another arrow releases. Merry yelps, bounding sideways and dodging the weapon as it tears by. Her speed alongside Anger’s reaches critical mass, yet neither of them outpaces the strangers’ momentum. Deities are fast, but not to this almighty degree. There is but one exception to that canon.

She has learned plenty from allied outcasts. In addition to velocity, the arrows’ construction tips her off. Only one set of deities brandishes archery wrought of moonstones. Green from the god, blue from the goddess.

Stars almighty. Members of The Fate Court.

They’ve come for her. Maybe they’ve discovered Merry’s plan, the reason she’s been rounding up allies in her territory, as well as sneaking into Malice’s turf. Maybe they also presume Anger has sided with her. If that’s true, she has placed his life in peril.

Remorse curdles in her stomach. Merry yanks on the rage god’s bicep, vaulting him off course.

A gruff noise shreds from his lungs. “Merry, what the fuck—”

“This way!” she shouts.

They reach the motorcycle, its shadow bleeding across the grass. As an arrow slashes her way, Merry jumps on the bike, switches on the ignition, and revs the engine. The vehicle snarls to life. She jets forward and lifts the front wheel off the ground to block the arrowhead, which hits the fender and then vanishes.

Making a sharp turn, Merry rams the wheel into the stranger’s face, taking him off guard because, really, it’s a motorcycle. Since when does anybody use such a conveyance as a battle weapon?

The colossal figure stumbles. Merry has never seen him before, with that hawkish nose and the long braids roping from his head. This only confirms her suspicions about his identity.

Tamping down the flare of panic, she circles and catches the nemesis across the ribs with her fist. Swerving in the opposite direction, she evades his answering blow, then kicks out one leg and thrusts her boot sole into his jugular, clipping his voice like a string.

As the male crashes to the ground, Anger skids to a halt beside Merry. Taking in the intruder, his visage contorts. “Everlasting shit!”

“Oh Stars, did I kill him?” Merry cries, stalling the vehicle. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

Evidently, Anger doesn’t know what to do with that information since he just gapes at her. Truly, she can’t blame him. This always happens when she’s threatened. She defends herself when she must, then gets emotional.

However, there’s no time to fret while the backup has just released an arrow from a different vantage point. Merry rotates the bike, one of the mirrors blocking the incoming weapon, glass shattering. The second attacker sprints forth, her hourglass silhouette wrapped in an iridescent gown, the material fluttering from a pair of dark-skinned shoulders.

Anger goes ashen, the olive complexion leaking from his countenance. His features slacken until the archeress nocks an arrow, the move graceful, as sleek as the wind itself.

Well. She may have dexterity, but she doesn’t have wheels.

Nor does she possess wings. But while Anger can fly out of range, he keeps the panels hidden for whatever reason.

Merry catches Anger’s gaze and juts her head toward the passenger seat. The rage god wavers, his immortal ego manifesting at the most inconvenient moment. Regardless, his frown draws the inevitable conclusion. Yes, he must resign himself to being rescued.

With a grunt, he leaps onto the passenger seat. Merry yanks on his forearms, hooking them over her waist, then grabs the handlebars. They barrel down the hill, a funnel of air whipping her hair into a frenzy. Glancing backward, she and Anger discern the pair of archers vaulting their way, the one she’d knocked down having recovered.

In a simpler world, Merry would have prostrated herself. In a luckier world, she would have taken the opportunity to greet them. In a safer world, she wouldn’t have been targeted without mercy. In a better world, she would have already met them when she was born. And in an equal world, Merry wouldn’t have been renounced by them.

At this juncture, negotiation is out of the question. These rulers have their minds made up about tonight’s agenda. She’s not going to mollify The Court by stalling her bike and giving them a proper curtsy.

Merry pitches the motorcycle down Stargazer Hill, the air lashing at her clothes. Anger grips beneath her ribcage, his fingers digging in hard. Leveling off, she tears ahead, wheels grinding across the lanes, the scent of burning rubber stinging her nostrils.

The bike twists, shooting them east toward the Enneagram Maze. The jungle of hedges forms a series of nine-pointed stars, each one connected. They missile through, with Merry’s vehicle navigating rough turns.

These monarchs can’t know how to solve the maze. Not in mere seconds.

With a yank of her wrist, Merry throttles, rotating the right handlebar and barreling into an alternate route. Around each corner, her heart drums out a staccato rhythm. She glances from side to side, glimpsing the narrow channels pruned in greenery.

Where are they?

Merry and Anger bolt from the labyrinth. The advantage of having a conveyance blessed by The Stars is the malleable sum of its parts. It’s a marriage between speed and stunts, despite the variety of smooth and uneven foundations. The problem is, Merry has never attempted to outpace death, much less in the dark and with another god adding weight to the bike. Anger’s bulk forces Merry to adjust her balance and compensate.

Before they reach a stone stairway leading down—shit!—she has a millisecond to make a choice. Actually, it’s no choice at all since the path lacks a fork. For such a basic trick, she’s got a hulking archer strapped to her ass, which will throw off her position, hinder the ability to keep her weight centered, and… oh, forget it.

“Anger,” she prompts.

Understanding, he tightens his grip as they fly down the stairs. Jerking on the handles, she weaves to and fro, evading a shower of arrows.

And fine, the final pivot is unnecessary. She might be showing off a bit.

When they hit even ground, Anger swings his legs and turns in the seat, his spine aligning with hers. The god’s quiver bumps against her vertebrae until Merry hunches forward and propels them into the Globe Garden, where overhead lanterns depict planets. Ahead, the female deity steps into their path and waits beneath a floating replica of Mercury, her gown swirling in delicately cut layers.

Quirking an impressed smile, the goddess raises her longbow.

Merry peels the vehicle sideways, tilting at an angle inches from the ground, evading an arrow that spears through Mars. Lurching the bike upright, she forces herself to concentrate, to keep going. This is no time to admire such vicious splendor, not when she and Anger are the prey.

The male ruler emerges, his eyebrows stapled together as he pulls his bowstring taut. Anger seethes, nocks, and shoots. He looses an arrow, then another, and another.

As they blast from the garden, Merry jets into the Serendipity Tunnel and shouts a warning. With lightning speed, Anger stays his weapons and whips around to ensnare her waist once more. Building momentum, they catapult up the crystalline wall, rolling along its curve. Landing, they sweep to the opposite facade, and blast upward. Merry does this repeatedly, zigzagging down the tunnel and eluding the court members’ arrows.

Charging from the tunnel, she drives across the lane, launches into the air, grabs a lamppost and orbits. Mid-rotation, her front wheel slams into the male ruler, and he goes down at his comrade’s feet.

The tires hit the ground. Her bike torpedoes up an incline and through an entrance to the cable cars, where a stocky lever distends from a wall. Soaring past it, Merry wrenches on the handle, jumpstarting the cars. Along a wire, the compartments move, attached to a conveyer belt that extends multiple stories above the carnival.

Anger senses her intentions before she has a chance to signal him. “Fuck,” he mutters, then launches to his feet atop the seat and clamps onto her waist, about to haul Merry off the bike.

“Shit, shit, shiiiiiit!” she shrieks.

Now would be a great time for him to use those wings. Yet he still refuses to set the panels free, his shoulders tensing with the effort.

At this point, Merry has no choice but to trust his reasons. Though if they fall to their deaths, she will kick his ass for it later, once they reach the afterlife.

Throttling at top speed, she clenches her eyes shut—which is unwise—and lifts off.