Prologue

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and Merlin was late.

Again.

Maybe Arthur will still be asleep…he usually doesn't get up until I wake him. Lazy prat.

Distracted by this cheering thought, he crashed into the person rounding the corner. Not wanting to crush the unfortunate person, not that he really could... he was entirely too skinny according to Gauis, he attempted to maneuver himself to land under them. Attempted.

What actually happened was this: Merlin tried to turn himself so that he would bear the full force of the fall, but then so did the other person. The result was that each of them went sprawling out over the floor. Merlin slowly raised his head and turned to see who he had run into, a familiar mop of brown hair and charming grin met him.

"Late again, mate?" the renegade-turned- knight asked.

"Why does everyone always assume that I'm late? No, a better question is this: why can't Arthur get himself out of bed?" Merlin's normally happy face was drawn into a scowl.

Gwaine smirked. "That is a question that has yet to be answered."

It was dark and eerily cold, yet she knew that a cloak would be sign of weakness. And that was something she could not afford to show. Not at any cost.

"You are late." A clipped greeting, as was expected. She squinted in meager fire to see how many people were gathered there, to her relief she only saw one person. She did not know why she had been summoned to appear in the middle of the night. But to not comply would be even worse, so she dragged herself off her bed and crept to the forest using the cryptic instructions. She got lost too many times to count, just when she was considering turning back and facing the consequences of giving up, a faint glow indicated a campsite. Taking care to step as silently as she could, she had peered over the bushes. A tall, imposing man beckoned her to come forward with a wave of a hand. That is how she found herself trying not to shiver in the frigid wind and figure out how she would talk her way out.

"My apologies, I had some difficulty getting away." Even to her own ears, the excuse sounded weak.

The man gave a mocking scoff. "I do not accept justifications. If you cannot follow simple directions, than perhaps I made a mistake in recruiting you." That immediately had her imagining what they would do to make sure word never got out of the "society's" private undertakings. All of the scenarios that raced through her brain ended in what the higher levels called "permanent termination".

"In the future, I expect prompt responses to my orders, is that understood?" His voice cut her like a whip. He went on without waiting for a reply. He would tell her only what she needed to know, that was how it always was. It made sense she supposed. If she were caught and tortured, she wouldn't give much away.

"Your mission is on the very top of the priority list. You should feel honored." The man paused as if she should say something. The only response he got was a stony stare and silence. He sighed as if she were an annoying child he had to watch to make sure she didn't fall into the river. She wouldn't be surprised if he wished that something like that did happen to her.

She sighed knowing that to him this was a game of wills, of who would break first.

"Who do you want me to kill?" She asked bluntly, not bothering to use fancy terms like eliminate or cancel.

He made a tsking sound. "You make it sound so distasteful. What we're doing, what you have the privilege to be part of is so much bigger than that."

"You can spare me the sale pitch. I'm already roped into doing whatever you want me to do. So why don't you just tell me who it is I'm supposed to take out and we can all go back to sleep". Her voice didn't crack, even though she was trembling ever so slightly, and not just from the cold.

"Fine, you ungrateful girl, your task is one that will take time. You will need to infiltrate, deceive and gain many people's trust. Only once you're sure have obtained that, can your mission truly begin."

A silence stole over them for a minute as he waited for her to digest his words. Her mind formatted numerous plans all dependent on the one thing he had yet to tell her. Whose trust would she have to gain and then shatter? A thought, what part of her humanity would that break? Then another thought, even more terrifying, did she even have any left?

"Your final objective is this: find the person closest to Uthur Pendragon's heart and kill them; in doing this you will destroy Uthur. Only when Camelot is at its weakest, can we be at our strongest. Find it and we will win. Fail in any way…" He let the stillness of the early morning air speak for itself.

She knew the end of that sentence.

She had heard it multiple times.

Kill them or die.