CAMELOT
Now Merlin knew where to look, it wasn't hard to find Leif. Many windows in the castle were illuminated by candles and fire, but only one was lit by magic. The light was bright red, and burned like a crucible over the sleeping city. It wasn't Gaius's chamber, it was his own. Merlin rose over Camelot, digging the hawk's wings into the air, climbing higher and higher until he felt that their heart might explode with the effort.
He had absolutely no plan. He was helpless. Even now there might be assassins hovering over Arthur and Gwen. He landed on the small ledge in front of his windows, gripping the small shelf with all the strength in his talons.
Inside he could see his own silhouette, his hands moving fluidly, and he could hear his own voice muttering spells. Spells to keep he men and women in the castle sleeping, spells to open doors, and to lock them. Magic spilled out of him, causing the red ball of light in the middle of the room to flicker in time with his words.
The air was supercharged with magic, the sparrow-hawk's feathers shivered with the energy around them. Merlin dug their small beak between the glass and the wooden pane, searching for a weakness to exploit.
He didn't expect the window to be abruptly thrown open, almost pushing him off the ledge. The force nearly broke his beak, and caused an explosion of pain behind the hawk's eyes. It was agony unlike anything Merlin could have experienced as a human, and he shrieked out his surprise and anger at the face that appeared in the window.
Leif smiled with Merlin's mouth. "I wondered when you were going to get here!" he shouted over the rush of wind around them. "I thought you'd fluttered off to squawk at Murdoch!"
Merlin had never been on the receiving end of him magic before. It felt like a giant hand had closed around his body, trapping his wings against his chest and constricting the breath out of his already starved lungs.
The force dragged him into the room of red light. Leif grinned madly. "It is about the time we should talk, isn't it?"
Unlike Trevellar, who had politely asked for entrance into his mind, Leif burned through Merlin's mind to steal the thoughts out of his head.
Fortunately, most of those thoughts were centered around how much Merlin was going to enjoy ripping Leif into bloody, bite-sized pieces.
"More hawk than human left in there," he said with a laugh, tapping the side of the hawk's already bruised beak. "You should have taken a wolf, or a crow. You'd have kept your intelligence a little longer."
The sparrow-hawk snapped at his finger. Too slowly. Leif retracted his fingers but left Merlin hovering in the air, paralyzed by his inviable bonds.
What are you doing to the castle? Merlin snarled in his mind, the image of assassins in the night quickly stolen from his mind by Leif.
"Well, of course, I'm going to enjoy killing Arthur," the sorcerer said. "But these things are better done in public, where my new subjects can see true power. My servants are rounding up the knights as well—the heroes of Camelot will be put in the cells for now. After Arthur's head is rolling over the courtyard, they'll burned in an encore. It's all very… civilized. No battles, no armies, no squabbling dignitaries."
Camelot will fight you, Merlin snarled.
Leif shrugged and spread his fingers wide, feeding more and more magic into his spell. Merlin could see the tremor in his hands, and the sweat gathering on his face. His face, gaunt from hard travel and illness, was drawn tight with pain.
Merlin knew that pain. It was familiar. It was an ache that went deeper than a knife wound. He was losing his mind to the instincts of a hawk, but Leif… Leif was doing something much more dangerous.
"This is my power now," Leif said. "I was going to kill you, and return to Camelot with my own body, my own power. It wasn't much, but it was enough to control a kingdom without magic. But this…" he gestured to the threads weaving around the room, the blood-red light that illuminated them both. "Now I am a god. I will find a way to bend this body to my will and I will keep it. There is a way. There is always a way. You don't deserve this power, you couldn't even summon a twig when Trevellar met you."
We're dying, Leif.Merlin said softly. Can't you feel it?
"Is that what Jack Trevellar told you? He was a fool. Feeble. He groveled to Murdoch like you did to Arthur- Slave to a master he could crush with a snap of his fingers. The court sorcerer of Aquitane begged on his knees like a child when I killed him.I am supreme."
You didn't kill him.
The power around the room wavered. "What?"
He's alive. He's looking for your body right now.
"Impossible," the sorcerer said, but his eyes darted around the room with sudden alarm, as if his old master could jump from any shadow. "He was… I killed him."
You certainly tried your hardest, Merlin wished that he could smile as a hawk. And he didn't appreciate it very much.
###
AQUITANE
It took far too long to find him. Trevellar enlisted everyone he could trust, and still he couldn't be sure that Leif hadn't been overlooked until he had gone over every inch of the moldings himself.
And indeed, one of the stable-boys had indeed passed over Leif's frozen features without recognizing him. The traitorous sorcerer had taken the place of a soldier on horseback, carrying a pennant and shouting a call to the battlefield ahead of him.
The storm raged on outside and the rain drummed around his ears as he raised his arms and tugged his apprentice out of his hiding place with no regard for the frieze that surrounded him. In all honestly, Trevellar had been aching to destroy every inch of the marble frieze for hours.
Leif's body descended slowly to the hall floor, regaining its color. The marble finish faded from his skin and Jack was left looking at that man he had really wanted to see.
###
CAMELOT
Even without being able to see magic, Merlin knew the moment Trevellar began his work. Leif froze, and the smile dropped from his borrowed face. "No," he whispered. "No."
Merlin and the hawk crowed their triumph. The magic holding them in the air faltered. They barely had time to soften their landing before they were dropped onto the threadbare carpet. The red light flickered out, and in its wake moonlight flooded into the chambers, cool and natural. The threads of power around them shifted. Flickered.
Send Jack my best, Merlin said, righting himself and fluffing out his chest.
A distant scream echoed from outside. Leif's co-conspirators were probably now guiding a very angry herd of well-trained knights. Merlin readied himself to leave the hawk, it crooned a little as it realized it was losing him.
Leif's dagger flashed blindingly white in the darkness—a sliver of moonlight in Merlin's empty chambers. What are you doing? Merlin asked, fluttering his wings in agitation.
"Then no one should have this power," Leif muttered. "No one."
A split second before it happened, Merlin saw what Leif was about to do. He screeched out his horror and fear as the blade dug into his human arm. Dark, arterial blood followed the progress of the blade from forearm to wrist, pumping dark waves against his skin.
No! Merlin dove at Leif, too late. He fluttered helplessly, his mind suddenly blank.
Leif tried to pass the knife to that same hand, but the blood was clearly too slippery and his fingers wouldn't close around the handle. The metal clattered to the floor and there were tears of pain and shock in Leif's eyes, but he was boasting his victory still. "You'll die here," he said. "A pathetic slave to the end. No one will even remember your name, much less the deeds of Emrys."
He stumbled to the wall and slid down to the base. There was blood everywhere, over everything, pooling on the chamber floor.
Merlin screamed his fury and fear through the throat of the poor, confused sparrow-hawk. Leif smiled. "It's…" he said. "I can…"
His voice faded away. He was losing too much blood, but he held on for as long as he could, staving off the tendrils of Jacks spell pulling him like a rotten tooth until he couldn't resist. He lost his grip, and vanished. Merlin felt the boy's spirit scramble out of his body and fly out the window. Nobody was coming, he was dying. Again.
He could feel the phantom emptiness, the same fade that had driven him out of his body in the first place. Panicking, with no plan. Merlin launched himself out of the open window, but could only climb up, up, to Arthurs window. It was open to the cool night breeze and he pushed inside, his wings tangling on the curtains, screeching as loudly as possible.
"Avis?" Gwen's voice was ragged with sleep. "Avis! What are you doing?"
"Stupid bird," Arthur's voice muttered, but his hands were gentle helping him escape from the folds of the curtain. In his panic, Merlin's talons gouged at the skin of the king's palms, and the blood only made his mission clearer.
He screamed his panic, wrenching his wings trying to fly from Arthur's hands. He had to get them to move. In his surprise at the bird's desperation, Arthur lost his grip on Merlin's legs and Merlin took the opportunity to fly at the door, hitting it beak-first.
"Avis!" Arthur barked out a command, as if he were calling his hound to attention. Merlin landed on the ground, still crying out and fluttering his wings. He pecked at the door as hard as he could in the breaks between his screeches.
"What does he want?" Gwen asked, a laugh ready at the back of her throat.
"Something's wrong," Arthur said, padding to the door in his bare feet. He nudged Merlin away from the door with his foot so he could open it and Merlin immediately took into flight again, out into the hallway.
Leon was already outside, his sword already wet with blood. Elyan close behind him and the two guards that had been at Arthurs door were slumped against the wall, just starting to wake from their magically induced dreams.
Leon stopped in the middle of the hall, reaching up with a clumsy hand to catch Merlin as he swooped past. Merlin looked back to see Arthur pulling his sword his sheath. "What's going on?" Arthur asked.
"We're under attack," Elyan called. "Sorcerers have breached the castle."
Merlin screamed out his impatience. There was no time, He bobbed his head and launched off Leon, down the hall. Arthur was following him at a wild dash, not waiting for his knights to follow. Merlin could feel the tenuous thread on his own body starting to collapse. He was suddenly unbearably tired, even as adrenaline raced through his body, he was dying. He was going to die.
He flew past the throne room, Where Gwaine appeared in his nightclothes, a dagger gleaming red at his side and a wild gleam in his eyes. His face lit up as his gaze fell on Avis. "You're back-!"
But Avis's wings brushed past him. To Gaius's rooms where Percival was helping Gaius onto onfe of the cots. "Merlin—" he tried to say, but Arthur was already racing past him, up the short stairs, and to the door to his old chambers.
Without hesitating, Arthur slammed his shoulder into the door. The wood splintered under his weight and he staggered into the room. He must have felt the blood on his feet first. He was barefoot.
The king looked down, at the pools of blood, the largest of which had stopped growing around Merlin's human body. "Merlin?" the king whispered. "Merlin? What-"
The rest of them stopped, even Gwaine, as they took in the scene in front of them. "He—" Percival started to say, but seemed to suddenly run out of words.
The knife still glittered in the moonlight, but Merlin's chest wasn't moving. There was no spirit there to animate his chest. It was what had bought him time to fetch Arthur—his body hadn't had a pulse to push any more blood out.
But that would mean that they would think he was dead. With no pulse, no breath, they wouldn't even try to save him.
Arthur was kneeling over his body, slapping his cheeks. "Merlin you idiot! Merlin!"
Without a second's more hesitation Merlin threw himself out of the bird's body and back into himself. It was like returning to his own bed after a long hunting trip. His spirit stretched out luxuriously into the right shape. Everything felt… right. The hawk at his side crooned and rubbed its head against his wrist. All he wanted to do was fall asleep, comfortable for the first time in over a week. His well of magic was depleted after Leif's use, but it too thrummed to his weakening touch.
But he couldn't fall asleep, not yet, he had to give the king a sign, he had to move. It was damn hard. His whole being wanted to pull back down into unconsciousness, but he had to—
He opened his eyes for the first time, to see Arthur's haggard face in glorious detail and color. "Arthur?" he groaned.
Immediately there was a sharp sting in his arm, and uncomfortable pressure as Arthur tied tourniquet around his bicep. The king was muttering unintelligible threats and pleas under his breath, all of them addressed at Merlin.
But the young wizard just grinned up at the low ceiling of his own room, tipsy with relief at being in his own body. There were people all around him. He couldn't tell if they were shouting or whispering. Everything else was fast slipping away, he was dying. Leif was going to win. Was he already back in his body, facing the wrath of Jack Trevellar?
"Thank you," Merlin said to Arthur, his voice cracked and hoarse, but his was his voice. It felt so good to finally use it.
"Oh, god. Merlin." Arthur said, and Merlin was surprised to hear the emotion in Arthur's voice. The tremble of fear and anger. "Damn you and your secrets. I knew there was something wrong."
"I didn't want to," Merlin muttered weakly.
"I asked you to talk to me," Arthur said. "I would have listened. Why didn't you tell me, Merlin? You're my friend. I thought we were friends."
Arthur was shaking him, trying to keep him awake, but the world was spinning, and he felt so sick.
I don't want to die, he thought he said, but he couldn't be sure that the words had even left his lips. He was drowning in blackness. He felt the familiar urge to flee his body as the pain and panic began to overwhelm him, but he fought against it.
He was finally home, and no matter what happened, he was going to stay.
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