Merlin turned to look at Arthur. It seemed amazing how much the man had changed, from the arrogant, selfish prince to a proud young man, a king in waiting. He looked more like a king than a prince, to Merlin, riding his horse, beside his hunting party.
"What?" Arthur asked, looking at Merlin from the corner of his eye.
"Nothing," Merlin smiled to himself, returning his gaze to the path.
"What?" Arthur repeated, turning his head slightly, frowning in confused suspicion.
"I was just thinking about when we first met," Merlin admitted.
"Oh yes," Arthur also began to smile, remembering the many occasions where Merlin had ended up in the stocks. "Amazing to think that I've only known you for nineteen months. It feels a lot longer," he mused.
The friends exchanged glances and smiled to each other. However, when Arthur looked away, Merlin's smiled dropped.
It had been a year since Arthur had almost been killed by the Questing Beast, since Merlin had made the bargain to save his friend's life. It had been a year since he had last spoken to the Great Dragon, with the promise to never see the creature again, or let it leave the cavern that Uther had imprisoned it in. It had been a year since he had killed Nimueh.
Even though he knew that he had ended her life so that he could save Gaius, even though he knew that she was evil and had set out to control the world... her death still didn't sit right in the young warlock. Maybe it wasn't her death that was so unsettling; maybe it was the ease in which he had had brought her existence to an end. The ease of deciding life and death, now that was something that definitely didn't sit well in Merlin's stomach.
Arthur quickly noticed the change in his friend. He turned to look at Merlin again, not bothering to hide his concern.
He'd become a lot more open since Merlin had entered his life, more true to himself. With Merlin, he'd managed to overcome the problems that he hadn't even realised existed. He'd learnt how to make friends, not just gain the attention and praise of everyone in the room. He learnt how to listen to those he had once thought worthless, below his level. Because of Merlin, he'd learnt to open his eyes to what Camelot really was.
"Merlin? What's wrong?" he asked, his forehead creasing in worry.
Merlin shook his head at his friend, trying to smile easily, but found that he couldn't pull it off. But, even though he knew that, he wasn't going to put his own problems onto Arthur's shoulders. Besides, how could he explain to Arthur, in front of half a battalion of knights, that he used magic and had used it to kill someone? Granted, that someone had tried to kill Arthur, Hunith, Merlin's mother, and Gaius, but… he'd still killed someone.
And it hadn't even been the first time, either. Mary Collins had been the first person he'd killed, although he hadn't meant to kill her. Edwin had been the second, as he'd saved Gaius and his own neck in the process. Sophia and her father, Aulfric had been next, as they had tried to kill Arthur so the woman could return to Avalon. And then there was Nimueh.
So in total, he'd already killed five people. They had all been sorcerers or sorceresses, though. They had all been like Merlin, creatures that stemmed from the Old Religion; they were magic from the Earth itself. Just like the dragon.
Although it was mid-summer, Merlin shivered as he realised this. He killed everything like him. Either that or he would abandon them. Thinking about it, it shocked Merlin that Gaius and Morgana were still alive. Gaius had once used magic, and Morgana was a seer. It seemed amazing that he hadn't killed them yet. Amazing and sickening.
"Merlin?" Arthur repeated, his concern was threatening to become full blown panic as his friend's unresponsiveness.
Arthur had noticed Merlin retreating into his head plenty of times over the past year. To begin with, he had asked Merlin about, but the young man had assured him that nothing was wrong, and so he'd let it drop. As time went on, it just became part of who Merlin was, and Arthur accepted it as a quirk in his friend. But, every so often, like right now, Merlin would retreat so far that he was deaf to Arthur's near frantic calls.
"Merlin!" Arthur restrained himself from shouting, but shook his friend roughly by the shoulder.
Merlin instantly looked at Arthur, as if surprised to find him so close. He could see the unadulterated concern in his friend's eyes, but knew that he had no words to placate his friend. So, he went for the usual response of looking shamefully down at the ground. He was aware of Arthur releasing his shoulder, and then heard the prince sigh.
"Why do you do that, Merlin?" Arthur asked rhetorically. "Do you know how much that scares me? And it's not just me you scare."
Merlin could feel his face heating up. He knew Arthur was right. He scared Morgana, he scared Gwen, and he'd even scared Gaius sometimes, even though the physician was aware of the problem.
But Gaius couldn't help him. No one could help him.
"I'm sorry," Merlin muttered.
"Merlin, I don't want you to be sorry," Arthur argued, noticing Merlin's attempt to escape the conversation. "I want to know what's wrong."
"I can't tell you," Merlin whispered, to the point where Arthur thought he'd misheard.
"What? Why not?" Arthur frowned, wondering what could be so terrible. "Whatever it is, Merlin, you can tell me."
"Not this," Merlin stated.
Arthur was about to ask, when a sound caught his attention. His head snapped towards the sound, and he noticed Merlin following his gaze. But neither of them could see or hear anything.
"Someone's following us," Arthur murmured.
All the knights dismounted their bearers and were scanning the forest for any sign of disturbance. Every sword had been drawn, and they all waited, watching.
Then, a group of men jumped out from the foliage, all screaming war cries. They were instantly met by the knights, and the fight began.
Merlin watched dazed as the knights relentlessly tore apart the bandits who had dared to attack them. It was obvious to Merlin that they were only doing so out of show, in the hopes that the bandits would turn tail and flee. But none had shown any inclination to fall back, and the attackers were intent on leaving a mark on the group.
It was then that Merlin noticed a particularly burly individual was making his way to Arthur. Merlin's blood chilled as he saw the man raise a mace with both hands. It was going to strike Arthur, and it would kill him.
Without even thinking, Merlin drove straight at his friend and bowled him over, the pair of them narrowly missing the thunderous swing. Merlin quickly regained his feet, but Arthur was slower, trying to register what had just happened.
Their attacker released one of the hands holding his weapon, and swiped backhandedly at Merlin. The sorcerer tried to dodge, but was too late. The massive hand whacked Merlin around his forehead, sending him spinning until he hit the floor with a definitive thud.
Arthur, seizing the opportunity, thrust his sword into the man's abdomen. There was a grunt of pain from the man as Arthur pulled his weapon out of the man. With death's mortal sigh, the man fell lifeless to the ground.
Arthur turned around to look at the unconscious form of his friend, relieved to see the man still breathing. There was a hideous gash across the young man's head, and blood was flowing freely from it. Thankfully, the head wound seemed to be the only injury Merlin had suffered.
Arthur fell to his knees before Merlin, laying his hands on the man's shoulders. He turned his head to his men as he heard them cheer in victory, and then returned his anxious sight to his friend. As he saw Merlin's eyes twitch, he sighed in relief, hanging his head as a sudden exhaustion took hold of him. Hearing his name, Arthur raised his head.
Merlin was gazing blearily at him. His blood had covered one eyelid, which was now covering the actual eye. Merlin's face was twitching as he tried to blink the blood out of his eye, fruitlessly.
As he saw Arthur was looking at him, he smiled half-heartedly.
"You okay?" he asked hoarsely.
Arthur couldn't help but smile. Merlin had always shown himself to be caring more of others than himself; it was one of qualities that Arthur most liked about him. Even with his head cleaved opened and bleeding profusely, Merlin was still more concerned for the prince, who was smiling sadly at him.
"I'm okay, Merlin, thanks to you," Arthur replied, making sure that Merlin could hear the gratitude in his voice. "Are you alright?" he asked in return, although he knew the answer was definitely a negative.
"Yeah, I'm all right," Merlin smiled dazedly, his eyes not focusing.
Arthur raised an eyebrow at him, unbelieving. He slowly helped Merlin to a sitting position. Taking on the momentum, Merlin grabbed Arthur's arm and, with a small amount of help on the prince's behalf, the warlock stood up. Arthur proceeded to examine him further.
Merlin suddenly caught sight of a swirling, grey orb of light behind Arthur. With only moments to react, Merlin pushed his friend out the orb's path, and watched it come closer.
"NOOO!" Morgana screamed, jerking upright in her bed.
Gwen instantly joined her mistress' side, having entered the room earlier because she had heard Morgana's distressful sleep. She stroked the side of Morgana's face and her hair, trying to calm the young woman. She produced a cloth hankie and proceeded to dab the tears from Morgana's eyes.
"Milady, it's okay. It was just a dream," she soothed.
She almost recoiled from Morgana, as the king's ward had a fixed, wild glare in her eyes. Then, in a flurry of movement that sent Gwen's head spinning in confusion, Morgana got out of bed and raced out of her room. After regaining her bearings Gwen followed, anxious to know the cause of her mistress' distress.
Gwen found herself racing after Morgana down the corridors. Every so often Morgana would turn suddenly and disappear down a different corridor, always confusing and startling the young handmaiden.
Eventually, Gwen had to admit defeat. She had no idea which way Morgana had gone. And with the state her mistress was in, Gwen didn't like to imagine what Morgana was going to do.
A cough sent Gwen spinning round. There were two knights on duty tonight, and they were staring at her. When they saw that they had attention, one pointed down to the courtyard. Following the direction, Gwen saw Morgana running across the courtyard. Looking back at the knights, the other pointed to a flight of stairs near them. Obviously they had seen Morgana running and she had taken those flights of stairs, or they simply knew that was the quickest way down.
Gwen thanked them quickly as she descended down the stairs and ran across the courtyard, trying desperately to catch up to her mistress. Not that she really needed to catch up; from the direction Morgana was running, it was obvious that she was running to Gaius' study. Although, Gwen had no idea why.
Gaius woke to frantic pounding on his door. The pounding was light, obviously from a woman. It would have been louder had it been a man, and it probably would have made the doors shake. Despite knowing this, he was expecting a terrified Morgana standing at his door. Rapid footsteps made him look into the corridor to see Gwen running to join to them.
Not even bothering to ask, Morgana entered Gaius' study. She searched frantically, stopping when she saw a particular door wide open: the room to Merlin's room. She spun round to face the bemused Gaius and Gwen.
"Where's Merlin?" she asked.
"He's out hunting with Arthur, I expect," Gaius explained. "He's often come back at ungodly hours of the morning."
"Gaius..." Morgana murmured, fear creeping into her voice. "Something's happened."
Gwen opened her mouth to ask, when the sound of horse hooves echoed from the courtyard. In spite of herself, Gwen left the others and made her way down to the courtyard. There was something about the little that Morgana had said which terrified the handmaiden.
Knights entered the courtyard, and they all looked like they had just come from a fight. They got off their horses and handed the reins to a nearby stable hand before hanging about quietly, as if waiting for an order.
It was then that Gwen noticed that something was missing. It was one of those things that is so obvious and yet, couldn't be described. She noticed a knight take off his red cloak, and the missing piece clicked.
Gwen looked around, but could only see a rabble of dispirited knights. A flash of blond hair caught her attention, and Gwen wove through the men to reach Arthur. When she stood in front of the prince, she stopped.
There was a dead look in Arthur's eyes as he stared at her. There were grimy lines down his face, indicating the one thing that would have shamed the prince two years ago; Arthur had been crying. Noticing that Gwen was staring at him with a look of confusion and horror, he stepped forward.
He held his hand out, to which Gwen did similar. He placed something lightly into her palm before moving off, heading in the general direction of the Great Hall. Gwen looked down to the object in her hand. She felt her heart stop and she felt the air move about her as she fell, crashing, to the floor.
She was holding Merlin's scarf. It was covered in blood.