My dear Gaius, I turn to you for I feel lost and alone and don't know who to trust. It is every mother's fate to think her child is special, and yet I would give my life that Merlin were not so. Ours is a small village and he is so clearly at odds with people here that, if he were to remain, I fear what would become of him. He needs a hand to hold, a voice to guide, someone that might help him find a purpose for his gifts. I beg you, if you understand a mother's love for her son, keep him safe, and may the gods save you both.

There was more I wanted to say, so much I wanted to explain. I knew the physician would dismiss my words as a mother's ramblings, a parent's natural conceit, but my hand had begun to shake and one tear had nearly spoiled the wet ink of the words I had already written. If Gaius was the man I believed, he would soon see for himself what Merlin was, and better yet what he could be.

My son believed I was angry that his friend Will discovered the magic, but Merlin doesn't truly understand the desperate fear that consumes me to this day. I've never told him about his father, or about the night that two score soldiers descended on our village, shouting and brandishing weapons. The noise was terrifying. I heard crashes and bangs that could only be the meagre furnishings of huts being thrown around mingled with children's screams and a woman crying. A dog growled and then whimpered in pain.

Then the crashes and bangs were inside my own hut and a strange man with a helmet that covered his head and nose was yelling at me. I couldn't comprehend what he said so he grabbed my arm and dragged me from my blankets. My arm was sore the next day with a great purple mark the size of his large hand. Many of my fellow villagers sported bruises the next day. Thank the gods no one was killed.

It was pure chance that Balinor was away with the village men when the soldiers came, the soldiers the mad king had sent to search for my man. The men had gone hunting and a furious rainstorm had forced them to seek shelter an extra day. My heart shrivels in fear when I think what would have happened had Balinor been taken by the soldiers that night. They would have dragged him back to Camelot and he would have been dead within a day. That sweet, gentle, loving man would have died for a mad king's revenge.

It was infuriating. And it was heart-wrenching. Balinor commanded a power I could barely imagine, power to make that gigantic, alien creature I had glimpsed bow before him. In that moment I understood how special a person had to be to be gifted with that power. To have the man who looked dragons in the eye and bent them to his will look at me with tenderness and love, I can hardly comprehend it now. I'm no beautiful lady to turn men's heads, yet I know he looked at me in a way he never looked at another woman. I treasure the little time we had in each other's arms. How could anyone wish to harm this tender, caring man who never abused the awesome power he had?

He had been so open, so trusting, so willing to risk his life to make peace with the mad king. It had nearly cost his life and I have Gaius to thank that it did not. When Balinor returned to me safe, well in body though tortured in mind, I gave thanks to the gods for putting that brave physician in a place where he could aid in the escape and for giving him the courage to do so. It is no small thing to go against the mad king and Gaius had nowhere to run had he been caught. He took the chance, and my man came back to me so I could hold him in my arms again. The dragons were dead or gone, he was broken, he was powerless, but he was alive. I thought we could live the rest of our lives as ordinary lovers but the soldiers came and Balinor had to run again.

The knowledge that those men might one day come looking for my son was a terror I lived with every day. I knew we were not beyond the reach of the mad king, not in our isolated village, not in another kingdom. We could not hide.

But now, the knowledge of my son's special gifts terrifies me more than the chance of discovery. Even as a boy he could do things I know Balinor was incapable of. What might he do when he grows to manhood? It is beyond my ability to nurture or even understand, let alone the simple understanding of my fellow villagers. They can see it in Merlin, though they do not know what they see, but I think I have glimpsed the truth: an aura of power surrounds the boy, and it has grown with him.

Gaius is the only one I trust to see that potential for greatness and the only one I believe can foster it. He will know what to do. He will smooth the path for my son to a destiny that I hope will not consume him in the end.

Thanks to DaleJ for beta.