A/N: Hello! This chapter is longer than the last, so, hurrah! And (also hurrah) real plot is fast approaching! So, enjoy, and again, thank you so much to all you reviewers for reviewing! I would say you have no idea how happy it makes me, but then, I bet you do!

Merlin brought Arthur's supper to the king's chambers with a growing feeling of trepidation. So great was his nervousness that he knocked before entering, but received no response. Naturally, Arthur would be elsewhere on the one occasion that Merlin decided to be polite.

He pushed the door open slowly. The room was in a state of wild disarray, as it had been missing a certain manservant for nearly twenty four hours. Merlin had found no time (not that he had tried particularly hard) to tidy Arthur's chambers that day, occupied as he was in assisting Gaius.

The warlock sighed, stepping fully into the room and setting Arthur's meal on the table, then turned to assess the situation.

The bed was unmade. The floor was strewn with clothes and boots and a belt, and the desk by the window was completely covered in parchment. Merlin decided to tend to that first. (Though, after a quick look towards the door, he directed a briefly golden glance at the bedclothes, which wiggled and neatly pulled themselves flat over the bed.)

Arthur had apparently been very deep in paperwork before all this dragon business began; the smooth, brown surface of the desk was hardly visible, and several sheaves of parchment littered the floor all around. Merlin stooped and picked them up, shuffling them together in his hands before turning to the desk to replace them and organize their fellows, then stopped in his tracks. He held his breath, though he didn't know why.

There on the desk, laid across the parchment and slightly covered by it in some areas, was the sword. The smooth, black hilt and gleaming gold intricacies were impossible to mistake, as was the cold whisper of magic that had settled around it.

The blade was still marred by Kilgharrah's blood.

"Recognize it?"

Merlin jumped, and spun round. Arthur was leaning against the doorframe, grinning a little at the servant's reaction. Merlin nodded belatedly.

"We found it next to the dragon," the king continued, pushing away from the door and into the room.

"I had Elyan take it back with him; thought it might be useful."

Arthur had reached the desk, and Merlin backed away several steps as he took up the sword and examined it in the light, and continued.

"Apparently, during the Great Purge, the knights used swords like this to destroy the dragons. My father had them made specifically for that purpose, hence their unusual length; they had to be long enough to reach a dragon's heart. They worked better than spears; didn't break as easily."

Arthur swung the sword through the air experimentally, and Merlin shuddered. He could scarcely believe that Arthur could be so entirely oblivious to the sword's cold tingle of magic. He wished he would stop waving the wretched thing around.

"Whoever was trying to kill that dragon last night obviously had the right idea." He looked thoughtful.

"Which brings us to the point, actually."

Merlin winced. He had known there would be a point eventually.

Arthur carefully laid the awful sword upon the desk, then half-leaned, half-sat, against the wooden edge, crossing his arms pensively. He looked up at Merlin, who was frozen and stiff and felt as if he couldn't breathe.

"You said," began Arthur slowly, watching his servant's face, "That the dragon was dead. You said I killed it, a year ago. Obviously, I didn't."

Arthur looked Merlin up and down, and said, "And judging by the way you're standing there like a stunned rabbit, I assume you knew that I didn't."

Merlin swallowed, and nodded.

"So, you lied."

Merlin realized at that moment that this conversation was utterly unsalvageable. He was going to have to tell Arthur the truth; well, the half-truth that was more true than the one he had told a year ago. He wondered sadly, as he steeled himself and prepared to speak, if Arthur would ever know the real truth.

"All right, I lied. I told you it was dead when it wasn't, and I'm sorry, but—"

"Why?" demanded Arthur. He looked baffled and frustrated.

"Why- You do realize that what you've done could be considered treason! By letting that—creature escape, you put all of Camelot in danger!"

"I know that—"

"What could possibly be more important to you than the safety of an entire kingdom?"

"I felt sorry for it!" Merlin burst out, and he was surprised at his own ferocity. What he was saying wasn't even entirely true. He took a breath.

"You'd hurt it; it was injured. It was leaving. I didn't want it to die and I knew it would if you went after it, so I said you'd killed it. I thought… I thought it had learned its lesson. I thought it would never come back."

"Well, you were wrong, weren't you, Merlin?"

"We don't know that!" said Merlin, but Arthur had turned away from him, was looking out the window. The warlock scrabbled frantically for something to say.

"What if it's just… I don't know, just passing through? Will you kill it for that? Just for existing? Just for being a dragon? Because it can't help that, you know; that's the way it was born! Just like you were born a prince and I was born-…" He swallowed. "..Me."

Arthur continued to face the window. Merlin was frustrated.

"What if it has no ill intent?"

At last, Arthur moved, turning slowly from the window to his servant, and his eyes were hard, and when he spoke he sounded old.

"It's a creature of magic, Merlin," he said flatly. "Its intentions will never be anything but ill. You cannot trust magic, or anyone or anything that possesses it."

He signed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"It corrupts and it destroys, and it does nothing else. You need to learn that, Merlin. Trusting magic will only get you into trouble. You should know that by now."

There was a long silence. Arthur looked as if he was waiting for Merlin to speak, but when he did not, the king sighed through his nose, and, turning, took up the sword again.

"I need you to take this down to the armory," he said, handing it to Merlin.

"Get it cleaned up and polished, then put it with my other equipment. It needs to be ready for use by morning; we may need it."

Merlin nodded, and with a, "Yes, Sire," headed quickly for the door, the sword laid awkwardly across his palms.

"Oh, and Merlin."

Merlin stopped in the doorway, and looked questioningly over his shoulder.

"What about last night?" asked Arthur.

"What d'you mean?"

Arthur's expression suggested that he was sure Merlin knew very well what he meant.

"I mean, how much of what you said this morning was true? Would you really have come and told me that the dragon was back if you'd had the chance?"

Merlin stood very still for a moment, steadfastly holding Arthur's gaze.

"I don't know," he said, and left.

Merlin prodded absently at his late supper, scooping up spoonfuls of soup in his spoon and letting them fall back into the bowl. Drip, drip, drip.

The sword had been tended to and put away where it belonged. Other miscellaneous chores that he had neglected that day had been completed, along with his and Gaius's pointless dragon-preparations. He felt like he ought to be hungry, having accomplished all that, but he wasn't.

A sigh.

"What is it, Merlin?"

The warlock grinned a little and set down his spoon, looking up and across the table. Gaius always knew when there was something on his mind.

"It's Arthur," he said. "He's so determined to kill Kilgharrah. I can't talk him out of it."

"You know he can't," said Gaius with a raised eyebrow. "The Great Dragon is safe as long as he does not return to Camelot, which he won't."

His mentor grinned a bit.

"And even if he did come back and give Arthur reason to kill him, I think he would have quite a hard time of it."

Merlin snorted and picked up his spoon again, staring thoughtfully into his soup.

"I know," he replied. He pushed a chunk of something that might have been a potato to the edge of his bowl.

"It's not… It's not that I'm worried about him. I know he'll be fine no matter what Arthur does. It's just… Arthur wants to kill him so badly, Gaius; you can see it in his eyes. It's so—frustrating to know that he still thinks of magic that way; that he still hates it so much. And I always wonder… if he knew who I was, would he hate me like that? Would he want to kill me as— as desperately as he wants to kill the Dragon?"

"The Great Dragon attacked Camelot and killed dozens of people, Merlin. He does have some faults other than simply being a creature of magic," Gaius reminded him gently.

"So do I!" said Merlin. "How many people have died because of me? Will, Freya, Uther—"

"What happened to them was not your fault!"

"Whose was it, then? I had the opportunity to help them—"

"And you did!"

"But it wasn't enough!"

Merlin realized that his voice had risen, took a quick breath, and licked his lips. He didn't want to become angry with Gaius.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, slopping some soup over a bit of possible-potato.

"It's just… it seems like sometimes I only make things worse. I'm supposed to be… 'great' and 'powerful,' and," –he laughed dryly—"'The Mighty Emrys', but what use is it? What good is it to anyone if I keep messing up?"

Gaius smiled a fond, sympathetic smile, and moved round the table to sit beside his ward. He put a hand on Merlin's shoulder.

"You," he said quietly, looking the boy in the eye, "Have an enormous responsibility on your shoulders. You keep Arthur alive day-in day-out, and when you're not doing that, or helping me, you're protecting the rest of the kingdom. Everyone makes mistakes, Merlin, and the more you do, the more will go wrong. But I think—in fact, I'm fairly certain—that the good things you've done these last few years far outweigh the mistakes you've made."

Gaius smiled again, and Merlin couldn't help but return it with a little grin of his own.

"And if he knew, I'm sure Arthur would agree. Now finish your soup; you really will be no good to anyone if you starve to death."

Merlin chuckled, and put a spoonful of potato-thing into his mouth.

It was very dark, and very cold, and very late when Merlin slipped out of bed that night and crept quickly down the long, stone corridors. He had summoned Kilgharrah to meet him, though in a place much farther from the castle than their usual glade, as it was now more important than ever that neither of them be seen (particularly with each other). The increased security within the castle and without would make his escape a difficult one, but the matter which needed to be discussed was much too important to set aside until the king's paranoia subsided; there was a sorcerer out there, somewhere, who could kill (or very nearly kill) a dragon. If that wasn't a threat to Camelot, Merlin didn't know what was.