AN: Sorry, not much Merlin is this and the next chapter, it's all about Arthur, but I promise he'll return. This fic is mostly about emotions and thoughts, hopes and fears, not a very action packed one, but I hope you'll enjoy. And you would really make my day (my day? my whole week!:) if you'd write a few words about how you liked it. Thanks.

Chapter 2 - Belief

With Merlin, nothing was easy. Arthur didn't know what it was about his servant that could bring the most unexpected emotions out of him.

There was this feeling of… disappointment. It had started about a year ago. At first he had been disappointed in Merlin for not telling him. For not putting enough faith and trust in him, that he would have understood and stood by him through thick and thin. They had so much history together, he had to know Arthur's heart by now.

As Uther's son, he had been raised to despise everything to do with magic, but he also knew that his father could be very unreasonable. Perhaps his intentions had been good at the start, perhaps he really had believed he was doing the right thing, or he had been just trying to place the blame of her mother's death on someone else, but there was a collateral damage. The price had been too high. Arthur always thought that the Great Purge had been something to be ashamed of. A stain on the family name not even his own time of just ruling could have washed away. The death of children can never be acceptable, no matter the circumstances, nothing could have justified such a thing. But that hadn't been the end of it. Over the course of years, so many people had been executed, too many to count and definitely more than Arthur could remember. He couldn't recall all those frightened faces or vengeful glares those people had sent his and his father's way in their last moments of life. But their eyes were hard to forget.

Morgana had always been open about her contempt towards Uther because of it, but she was a girl, and girls are more or less allowed to be emotional. Arthur had never been able to allow himself that luxury. No one knew how those eyes haunted him at night.

He refused to believe that all of them were evil, or even that all of them was actually guilty of using sorcery. A lot of them were just probably at the wrong place at the wrong time when somebody had to take the blame.

And there had been those awful times, when simply nothing had happened for a while. The good, peaceful times, when Uther had been convinced that it had been just the calm before the storm.

"They are planning something, I'm sure of it. They always do." he had sometimes used to say over dinner, worry wrinkling his brow.

And the blond boy, barely fifteen but already burdened with a vast amount of obligations hadn't been able to wrap his head around it.

"I'm certain it's not like that, father. You probably already eliminated all of them, and not one of them remained to cause a ruckus." he had answered lightly, but his face had significantly lost color. He had known exactly where this conversation had been going, he had had his fair share of them. "Just try to enjoy it, everyone else does."

But he hadn't. The King hadn't been in a cheerful mood, not in the least. At times like that he had sent out his proud and joy, the future hope of the magicless kingdom to look for traces of sorcery everywhere, and be sure to find something. He had wanted to steel the youth's heart, and had told his knights to not let Arthur's doubts and misplaced pity get in the way of the sublime task.

So while he, because of his age could not be associated with the Great Purge, he hadn't been less guilty in seeking out magic users and bringing them to Uther's so called justice. He could have said he was reluctant, that his hand was moved by his father's will, but it was he who did it. He had no choice of course, but that fact did nothing to ease his guilt, and for the public – especially those, who had magic –, he was just another Pendragon. It was a name that provoked respect and fear in every beating heart throughout the realm, even in those it shouldn't have.

But Merlin was something else. He wasn't born in Camelot and the name Pendragon probably didn't mean much to him. Perhaps he wasn't even aware of a foreign kingdom's hatred of magic, but he had been dumb enough to stay, when he learned how difficult and dangerous life can be there for the likes of him. But still, he had stayed and had become manservant of the King's son himself. It was a position that had put him alarmingly close to Uther, and the irony of it wasn't lost on Arthur.

All those times, when the kingdom had been attacked with magic helped the prince to understand that magic was essential to fight back, or his father's visions of Camelot's fall would come true. The witch-hunt Uther conducted only fueled these attacks, because it brought about hatred in those who had a gift and refused to give up using it.

But what sorcerer would help them? Who would be stupid enough to risk losing everything and betray his own kind for a king who would execute him on the spot if he knew the truth? Certainly no one. For years Arthur was sure of that answer he gave to his own question.

And sometimes he simply lost faith. In the world of magic nothing made sense to him, it was easier to trust his father's methods, than to just stand by and watch the destruction this or that sorcerer had thrown their way. After all the evil he had seen, it was easier to believe magic was evil, when no proof of the opposite presented itself. The good and supporting magic Arthur wanted to believe in as a youth remained unseen like the God he had been raised to worship.

He had started to have his suspicions of him after about a year of Merlin serving him loyally. There were just too many coincidences to write them off as pure luck. When they were attacked and then out of the blue they were safe again, the source of evil disappearing. No one asked the awkward questions about where they had gone. The king was proud that once again he had shown the world that they were stronger than magic, they would not be conquered, that those who stand firm in their belief of God get some divine intervention and will always win against the pagans who still serve the Old Religion. And that's it. End of story. But Arthur knew better.