The cells were cold.

He had never really realized it before.

It was the kind of cold where, if focused on, would grow, slowly consume any life in its way and sap away a person's will so gradually they didn't even realize it was happening.

It was the kind of cold, Merlin dimly realized, that seemed so very unnecessary because all that had already gone

He couldn't really put together what had happened. Things were making no sense, memories were floating around in his head that weren't real, sensations like his mother stroking his cheek and a heavy, unrelenting weight around his neck when there was nothing there were making him question reality.

Arthur was dead.

No. No, wait, Arthur wasn't dead. Just the Arthur that Merlin knew, the one that laughed and smiled at him and trusted him to be a friend, his best friend.

That Arthur was dead.

Merlin felt, inexplicably, suddenly as if he had just been thrown from his horse. He could feel flying through the air, the utter shock at something so solid and reassuring simply being not there anymore, the reins and control slipping away as he thudded to the earth and feeling pain, pain beyond comprehension-

No. He wasn't on a horse on patrol or a hunt, he was in the dungeons, he was in the dungeons and he could feel his sanity slipping, slipping away like the reins-

Because he knew what today was.

Footsteps in the hallway. They came closer, and Merlin had the desire of a mouse, one who has been cornered by a cat and who loses all presence of mind at the thought of death and just wants to hide, be small and inconsequential enough to be looked over, pressing up against the wall until it feels a flash of pain and then no more.

How had it gone so wrong?

So utterly, terrifyingly wrong.

Merlin realized that it didn't really matter, did it? He could hardly recall it anyway, the pounding headache and not knowing the difference between real and false.

There was something in his hands. He looked down and saw a rope. Where did he get a rope? Prisoners weren't allowed a rope, in case they tried to cheat justi-

Merlin nearly dropped the rope as the idea occurred to him.

Did he have a friend in the provider of the rope? No, that couldn't be. He had no friends anymore. It must be an enemy, or someone who was careless with where they put the ropes.

Whatever the provider had intended, or not, they had done him a service. He could end this, he could end everything and maybe next time he could start all over again and not mess up.

Merlin turned around to tie the rope to the bars of his window-

That wasn't there.

There was no window, nowhere he could tie the rope to and he had known, yes he was sure there had been a window there because he could remember the sunlight coming in and laying there in order to feel the it, the sun that had gone behind a cloud and then he had nearly cried because that had taken away the warmth and the cell was so cold again...

He remembered it, so why was there no window?

False. There was no window and just stone so it had to be false and that meant there had been no sun and no cloud and nothing to tie the rope to.

He looked back at the rope, feeling tears pricking at his eyelids. The rope was grey, grey and white, and Merlin realized it looked like the cloud, the thief cloud that had stolen the sun that never existed, and he was suddenly being dragged down a corridor.

The corridor was near the courtyard. Merlin knew this. He had walked down it before, when he was still a servant and still sane and still a friend.

Why was he in the corridor? He had been in his cell, the cell with no window. The cloud-rope was gone, it was nowhere to be seen. Had it even existed in the first place?

Gwaine was there. Gwaine was there, and he was holding Merlin's right arm so tightly it was numb. His face was rigid and hard, and Merlin remembered that Gwaine had died too.

How was he in the hallway? He had been in the dungeons, in his cell, and it had been silent. There had been nothing and nobody there. He would have heard footsteps.

Oh.

He remembered.

It was today.

Of course it was today. He had been counting the days ever since the proclamation, his steps growing more and more frantic as he paced his cell, the knowledge and cold growing until it had begun eating away at his sanity, and he knew this, knew that this was what Arthur had intended because he had not been able to forgive him.

Gaius was dead.

Merlin almost tripped, and only the iron hard grip of Gwaine kept him from falling. Gaius was dead? How did he know that?

Everything was hazy, blurred, moving when he tried to see what it was.

Was it something to do with Gaius's death that had made everybody hate him? Had he...done something?

He wouldn't hurt Gaius. There was a feeling in the pit of Merlin's stomach, an icy hard ball that had managed to congeal from the neverending cold of the dungeons. He was absolutely certain he would never hurt Gaius.

He had been certain there was a window, too.

A lance of fear ripped into Merlin's spine, as real as any weapon, and Merlin was choking, choking on the blood and fear and Gaius was dead...

They had made it to the doors the doors leading into the courtyard. Gwaine held out his hand and pushed them open, paying no attention to Merlin and he couldn't breathe and Gwaine jerked him out into the crowd.

There was blood, so much blood in his mouth and throat and he was coughing, gasping but there was the copper taste it everywhere and he was drowning in it, in his own blood. There was a jerk on his other arm, his left arm and Merlin was yanked upright when he hadn't even realized he had fallen to his knees. The jerk let loose some of the blood in his mouth, and he coughed it out, spattering it all over the face of Percival.

Merlin gulped in air, as it flowed in and out of his lungs, but there was still the blood, still running down his throat and it was so real.

All the knights were there, his former friends and brothers. They weren't anymore, they were rigid and cold and angry.

They led him to the pyre.

And he was suddenly on the pyre, while a bloody Percival held his arms behind him and Elyan tied the rope, the one Merlin recognized as the cloud-rope around his hands. Leon had stepped back and was just looking at him and Merlin felt he was looking straight through him, that he didn't see him anymore and didn't care.

Then they were done, and they didn't even give him a glance as they filed off the pyre, so neat and orderly an exit from a thing of such destruction.

Merlin could still taste the blood in his mouth even as he saw that Percival's face was entirely clean. What did that mean? He knew it meant something, but his mind was skewed, twisting everything around so that even if he had the sanity to realize it he wouldn't trust anything his mind told him.

He looked up to the balcony and saw Gwen.

She stood regally on the balcony, as if she had been born and raised a princess instead of a blacksmith's daughter. However, she had none of the happiness, the friendliness Merlin had enjoyed about her so much. Like everyone else, she hated him now with a passion.

It was still there, that oppressive weight around his neck, and it wouldn't go away.

Gwen stood motionless above the crowd, the faceless crowd that had come to see him burned. He remembered that it had been her, rather than Arthur, to read aloud the proclamation sentencing him to death. Or was that false and not real?

There was a silence in the courtyard, a silence that was even more pronounced than in the dungeons. At least in there it was expected, the place of suffering and cold. Out here was supposed to be bustling and noisy and hectic, not still and quiet.

Arthur stepped out of the crowd.

Merlin did not move. He so very much wanted this to be real and it was but he had to be certain. Arthur was here and he needed to talk to him, to explain and know where it had gone wrong so he could fix it.

Then he saw the torch in Arthur's hand.

No.

Oh please no.

Not this.

Merlin finally registered Arthur's face. It was tight with fury and hatred, and Merlin felt fear because he could not bear to see Arthur looking that way at him.

Like he would never forgive him.

But it was real.

Merlin could feel salt replacing the copper tang in his mouth.

Arthur lifted the torch.

He looked straight into Merlin's eyes.

And spoke.

"Burn."

So very, utterly real.