The hallway in front of the throne room is long and filled with a golden light, the kind you only see in the middle of the morning on a very clear day when there's not very long until summer begins. Merlin looks anxious but hopeful as he lends Morgana his arm down the hall, all the way to the large double doors that will soon be opened for her. Merlin's found Morgana a skirt and has sewn the sleeves of one of his own shirts until they fit better, so that she looks presentable if not exactly royal. Her long hair is loose, waved about her pale, frightened face.
"It will be okay," Merlin promises her, giving Morgana a smile and a gentle nudge.
Morgana takes a deep breath. "Yes," she says, returning his smile and taking a step towards the doors. He lets go of her, but right before she enters the room Morgana turns back to him. "Merlin," she says quickly, urgently. As though it's her very last chance to say it, thinks Merlin.
"Merlin, everything I said to you, about being sorry for what I'd done. Everything I said, I meant it. Whatever happens now, remember that I meant all of it. Even if...even if I say something different, it was true, what I said to you. Remember? Please?" she begs.
Merlin looks at her. It hadn't occurred to him to doubt her sincerity, but the earnestness of her face and the desperation in her voice makes him realise that the words are important to her.
He nods. "Of course. Of course I'll remember."
She gives an uncertain nod. "Thank you," she whispers. And then Morgana Pendragon walks into the throne room to meet with the king.
Afterwards, people wondered how it happened. Whether she'd done it as soon as she stepped inside, or if she'd embraced him first. If she'd done it as his back was turned. They wondered what she said before, if she said anything at all.
But all anyone will ever know for certain is that when, after an anxious two hours of pacing the hallway and waiting for some sound from the silent chamber, Merlin finally pushes open the doors to the throne room, he finds the king lying on the floor. A long shadow stretches away from the body, like a ghost still lingering. Or like death, come to find, after all these years, Uther's son. Because the golden haired man's glassy eyed visage tells Merlin that Arthur is, undeniably, dead. Merlin looks in shock to the regal woman who has arranged herself on the throne, waiting for him.
From the shadows behind the balustrade there emerges, as though summoned, a small army of men, eyes straight ahead and dressed in long black tunics. They look surreal, like a fairy tale army, but the swords by their sides are real enough. Heading them, standing by the throne, hand on the dark haired woman's shoulder, stands a tall witch. Her blond hair sparkles like dew damp spiderweb, and her bright red lips are twisted into a malicious smile.
"He's finally here. It took him long enough to realise something was wrong," remarks Morgause.
Morgana doesn't look at her. Although still pale, her face is resolute. Her bright green eyes drill into Merlin's blue ones and lock him down as she proclaims, desperate and angry and pleading and resigned and violent all at once, "The King is dead. Long live the Queen."
Morgana Pendragon has killed the king. She's pretending to have already forgotten the love she held in her heart only a few hours ago. She's learnt to be hard. It pays, to kill without remorse.
Merlin steps towards her, a sob cracking his body in half as he looks again from his dead friend on the ground to the woman on the throne. "Arthur - no-" he manages brokenly. "No!" He lifts his hands, cast golden and majestic in the light from the high windows, preparing to aim a spell at Morgana. But she's too fast for him.
"Apyffan fleoge!" cries the Queen and from between her fingers fly hundreds of white speckled moths, furry and quick. Their loud buzzing fills Merlin's ears as they hover about him, then land on him, blinding his face with their wings, filling his head with noise. He can't see. Merlin drops to his knees under the force of the hundreds of small, winged creatures which once were so perfect and now seem so dangerous.
If he'd looked up, just then, before he lost consciousness from some new magic of the queen's, he might have seen the tears standing in Morgana's eyes.