A/N: It's really, really late, and I'm really, really tired, so I'm gonna make this quick.

Title: Beyond the Vale
Author: BeyondTheStorm
Rating: T for violence and some bloodshed and maybe some language.
Characters/pairings: Only friendship here, though you can read it however you want :) Lots of Merlin and Arthur as well as Gwaine, Lancelot, and Elyan.
Spoilers: Season 3, including the finale. This is a post S3 fic.
Warnings: Nothing, as far as I know. Feel free to let me know if you see something.

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin

I'm sorry I didn't get around to responding to all the reviews this time. The last half of my week was really busy, but I'll definitely do it this week. Life should slow down for a bit :)

I didn't proof read the last half of this chapter, so please let me know if you find anything wrong. I'll probably go through it tomorrow after my appointment.

Onward!

CHAPTER 11

Unaware of their friend's inner turmoil, the knights all continued to watch the girl in front of them with barely concealed suspicion (and in Arthur's case, not concealed at all). After introducing herself, she hadn't said another word, perfectly content to stand there and watch them. She had positioned herself in front of the monument, between the two closest pillars, and even though her expression and posture were unreadable, she almost looked to be guarding it. Under normal circumstances, such a thing would have been ridiculous, but the situation they were in was anything but normal. Her odd presence alone was enough of a deterrent.

None of them would be getting past her without a fight, or at least that's how Elyan viewed it.

The whole situation was just unnerving. The girl—Eiwyn, she had called herself—looked as delicate and defenseless as a pampered, sheltered lady of noble birth. She was young and relatively small, shorter than all of them, and despite the robes she covered herself with, he was certain they only hid a lithe physique. She didn't look like the type of woman who could wield any sort of weapon or had any strength to her whatsoever.

However…there was clearly something there to be wary of. She had an almost otherworldly presence to her, and even though he didn't actually believe her to be a spirit or anything like that, he was starting to think that she might not be entirely human either.

It became pretty clear after a while that if they were going to make any progress at all in this place, they were going to have to be the ones to initiate the conversations since Eiwyn didn't seem to have anything she needed to ask or say to them. She had been at least slightly cooperative thus far, and so asking her a few questions certainly couldn't hurt any. He began to try and figure out what he should ask when Arthur beat him to it.

Personally, he would have started with a different question, and he definitely would have been a lot more polite about it. Apparently the prince wasn't very good at playing the part of a guest. They were the ones trespassing here, not her.

"Well, since you seem to know so much about this place," Arthur began, "then I demand you tell us what happened here. That warning mentioned a curse. What was it talking about?"

Those expressionless eyes drifted over to the prince, and even though nothing in them seemed to change, he imagined that she was at least a little insulted if her answer was anything to go by.

"Even if I told you, knowing would serve no purpose," she told him. "It's not a story that's meant for you, and you've not the ability nor the right to demand it of me. Knowing the truth would not change the fact that you can not remove the staff."

"But that inscription states that—"

"I'm well aware of what it says, but you're wrong in assuming that being pure of heart is the same as having an open one."

She moved a bit closer, and the four of them grouped together a bit more closely, their hands twitched towards the pommels of their swords. However, she only came a few feet closer before stopping, her gaze locked on Arthur. Her eyes took on an inquisitive stare but one that was sure and knowing, boring into the prince and allowing him nowhere to hide.

Even though they weren't the ones under scrutiny, the knights could all tell that she wasn't just attempting to read him. What she was doing went far beyond that, far beyond analyzing or even using magic to read a person's mind. It was as if she were taking him apart piece by piece, one layer at a time until everything lay before her, stripped of every lie and every secret with no place left to hide.

He wondered if Arthur could feel it too as he met her gaze.

"…I thought as much," Eiwyn whispered, her eyes losing some of their intensity as she shook her head a bit in what appeared to be dismay. "Even if you managed to reach the staff, you wouldn't be able to touch it."

"What do you mean?" the prince asked, and Elyan had to respect the fact that his voice didn't waver at all even after being subject to such a disconcerting stare. He knew he wouldn't have been so bold.

"It's true that you have a pure heart, Arthur Pendragon," she began, and before the prince could open his mouth to ask how she knew his full name (because none of them had said it), she continued, "but you're dishonest."

That left the man gaping for a moment. The only response he seemed to be able to come up with was a quiet but indignant "what?"

"You lie to others and to yourself in order to avoid humility and protect your pride. You're afraid of being seen as soft or weak, and so you hide away the truth with harsh words and barbed insults. You're quick to anger and you refuse to listen, and yet you allow the opinions of others to guide your judgment and decisions. You don't know how to see the truth, not for yourself."

Those faded eyes strayed from the prince and swept over the rest of the knights, all of them tensing under such a scrutinizing gaze. Would she do to them the same as she had done to Arthur?

Would she delve into their hearts and lay their faults bare?

"All of you are honorable men, noble—just as a knight should be…but you all lack something important. You hold on for the wrong reasons, and you're not even aware. You have good hearts, but you lack understanding."

For a moment, all was silent as they took in what had been said, trying to figure out what she was talking about while all the while being unsettled by her words. Elyan could see that all of them were struggling, trying to figure it out. Had she simply been spouting nonsense in an attempt to rattle them, or were her words the truth?

Judging by the looks on all their faces, he was certain it was the latter…but how? How could she know about them? Had he been right before in assuming that she could read them? However, this went far beyond simply reading a person. It was one thing to interpret facial expressions or body language to gauge how a person was feeling or whether they were lying, but what she had done was something else entirely. Being able to read someone usually involved knowing the person to begin with. While he was certain she had been watching them ever since they had entered the vale, he knew it had nothing to do with that. Those weren't the kinds of things you could learn through such a short observation.

No, she hadn't been reading their actions. It was as if she had been reading their very souls, everything that made them who they were.

But how?

Before any of them could gather their thoughts enough to speak, Eiwyn shifted. She had been standing so unnaturally still that even the slightest motion looked like a startled jerk. Her head turned, her attention drifting to a point behind them…and then just like that, she vanished.

In the blink of an eye, she was just gone.

Behind them came the sudden rustling of grass, and they all turned to see what had caused it only to freeze in place, unsure of how to react.

Eiwyn had always kept her distance from them, never coming too close, but there she stood before the youngest member of their group, only a foot away and peering up at him with that intense gaze of hers.

Elyan found himself wanting to pull his friend away from her, but his instincts were telling him to stay where he was. He got the feeling that it was the same for the rest of them.

As for Merlin, all he was feeling was sick and maybe a bit scared, although the nausea and the headache were doing a pretty good job of dominating all his other feelings. If nothing else, he was at least startled, because he hadn't been expecting to be watching Eiwyn from across the small courtyard one moment and then having her only a foot away the next. She hadn't even moved—it was like she disappeared from one place and then reappeared in another. The shock had been enough to make him take a step back, but he had found himself unable to move after that. Instead all he could do was stare into those faded eyes that had once been the very color of power and magic.

He wanted to look away. He knew that if he stayed there, locked in that gaze for too long that he would eventually fall in, but he couldn't pull away. He felt ill and tired and too sick to do anything other than maybe pass out, and all the while there were voices screaming around him, emotions pushing and shoving every which way, and he just didn't know what to do or how to make it all stop. They all begged for his attention, to let them in, but he couldn't do that, not without losing himself in the process, and he couldn't let that happen, no matter what the cost.

Despite the chaos raging inside of him, when Eiwyn spoke, her voice was crystal clear and able to cut through even the loudest screams. She was peering at him in a way that almost made her look curious even though he could tell that there was nothing he'd be able to hide from her.

Somehow, someway…she just seemed to know.

"…Except for you," she said, and he was confused for only a moment until he remembered what she'd told the knights. "You're…different from most of the people who come here."

He wanted to tell her that he didn't know what she was talking about, but he couldn't get his mouth or voice to cooperate. It turned out that he needn't bother worrying about it. She had already found the answer to her unasked question, and for the first time her expression shifted. The change was miniscule at best, but he knew that look.

It was sympathy.

"So that's it. You can feel it, can't you," she said, all the while holding his eyes with her own. "You're aware. It's a very rare thing—I've not met many with 'awareness.'"

Merlin took a brief moment to heave a mental sigh of relief, because for a moment there he had been afraid that she would mention something about his magic. He knew that the reason he was so sensitive to things of a supernatural or even otherworldly nature was because most of them were rooted in magic to some extent, and being as powerful as he was meant that he was affected by them in ways that most weren't, even other sorcerers. It was nothing new to him, although the severity of it certainly was. Nothing he had ever felt before had left him feeling like this.

Eiwyn had called it "awareness," and honestly, that was just fine with him. It was a much better interpretation and one that was far less likely to get him into trouble. He just hoped that she would continue to refer to it as such and wouldn't choose to out him in front of Arthur. If she really could look into a person and read them like an open book, then she would easily be able to see what he was. After all, his magic was a living, breathing part of his life. It would be impossible for her not to figure out what he was.

"It's a very unfortunate gift," Eiwyn continued, her expression giving no signs of whether she had seen any of his internal musings or not. He was desperately hoping for the latter. "I don't know what causes it—I haven't met enough people who have it to find out—but if you're aware, then why did you come here? Surely you must have felt something long before now. Most who have it are wise enough to stay away…although…"

She turned her head, glancing over her shoulder at the knights all standing warily behind her. They hadn't moved an inch, but it was clear that they were all listening.

"…I suppose you didn't come here purely by choice."

If they heard the reprimand in her words, they didn't show it, but her assumption was obvious. She clearly believed that they had dragged him along, but in this case that wasn't entirely true. He had been told that he could stay behind, several times, actually, but as much as he may have wanted to, he couldn't. It went against everything he was to let his friends walk into certain danger without doing anything to help. He especially couldn't let Arthur walk into something magical without being there to protect him.

However, it was true that he had tried countless times to get them to turn back, to stay away, and not once had the prince listened to him. So yes, in a way he had been dragged along, because destiny dictated that he be there to look after Arthur, and that meant doing a lot of things that he really didn't want to. Entering the vale was no different. Had it been his choice, they never would have come here, but that wasn't how things worked. Arthur had been insistent on coming, and he was duty bound to follow.

Eiwyn eventually turned her attention back to him, her eyes seeking out his own, and when they met once more, something changed. He wasn't sure what it was, but it worried him. The voices were getting louder and louder, and he couldn't seem to focus beyond the nausea sweeping through him. He honestly hadn't thought he could feel any worse, but apparently he'd been wrong. As undignified as it would be, he was wishing he could just be sick already and get it over with, because the churning in his stomach wasn't getting any better. He wanted to just fall to the ground and curl up into a little ball or perhaps even find a way to render himself unconscious.

Unconscious people didn't have to worry about nausea.

When a particularly violent wave of illness shot through him, making him close his eyes against the pain in his head, he felt something brush against the side of his face, startling him. The touch was cold but gentle, and it only took him a moment to recognize what it was.

Such a simple gesture, but it was one he was very familiar with even though he hadn't felt it in such a long time.

So, his weary mind mused, definitely not a ghost then.

With his eyes still closed and having no intentions of opening them any time soon, Merlin missed the way the knights had all tensed when Eiwyn had lifted one of her pale, thin hands and reached up towards the servant. All of them had immediately reached for their swords, ready to draw them at a moment's notice should the strange woman in front of them suddenly prove herself to be a threat. They'd all been on edge when she had first appeared in front of Merlin, not knowing what to expect or what her intentions were, but they had calmed a bit when all she had done was talk to him even if what she had said didn't really make a lot of sense.

Just what had she meant by "awareness," and what did it have to do with Merlin?

Even though she didn't look like much of a threat, there was clearly something not quite right about her, and it was unwise to underestimate a person when you knew nothing about them. This girl was the only living thing that they had encountered so far in the vale, and that made her an anomaly. She wasn't to be taken lightly.

And having her near Merlin, the only one in their group who wasn't armed, unnerved them all. He clearly wasn't well either, which meant he was even more vulnerable.

It was taking a lot of self restraint for Arthur not to run over and pull her away from his servant. He didn't like her being that close and in a position where she could easily hurt him before they could get to him.

For now though, she wasn't doing any harm. Her small hand was splayed against the side of his face, cupping it almost tenderly like a mother would. Even though Merlin didn't look well, it didn't appear to be because of her, so for now they would just wait and see what happened. Hopefully they weren't making a mistake.

From where they were, they couldn't see Eiwyn's expression—they were facing her back—but they could see Merlin's. His face was pinched in what almost looked like pain, and when he slowly opened his eyes, he appeared even worse off than before. He was pale and tired looking, worn out.

He looked ill.

So focused were they on their friend that when Eiwyn began to speak again, they almost didn't hear her. Her words, though soft spoken and sympathetic, filled them all with a cold sense of dread.

"…You can hear them, can't you…all those voices," she said, and although they were all standing just a few yards away, she was only speaking to Merlin. "You can feel it. You know what the mist is."

What…?

Surprised was an understatement. Confused was too, for that matter, but Merlin's quiet and almost pained response was what tipped Arthur over the edge.

"…Yes."

"What?"

Had the knights not glanced at him, he wouldn't have even known that he'd spoken his question aloud this time. Eiwyn wasn't paying him any mind at the moment, and Merlin had closed his eyes again. He was leaning forward, hunched over just enough for it to be noticeable. It almost looked like he was having trouble staying upright, fighting the urge to just fall forward.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong, and he was starting to grow irritated with the whole situation. He wanted answers and he wanted them now.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded, and to his surprise, Eiwyn deigned to answer him.

"You call it 'mist,' but that's not what it is. The mist you see here is the manifestation of an enchantment that was cast long ago by a powerful sorcerer…and of every soul that has ever tread upon these lands."

"Wha…"

For a moment, it felt like his heart had stopped before it began to beat almost frantically. That couldn't be right. Surely he had just misheard her, because that was impossible. It had to be.

"…What did you say?"

It had to be.

Judging by the expressions on his knight's faces, they were probably thinking along the same lines he was. Elyan looked horrified, and Gwaine was somewhere between shocked and disgusted. He wasn't entirely sure about Lancelot though. Unsettled seemed to be the best way to describe his expression, but unlike Elyan and Gwaine who were looking up at the mist that hung in the air above them as if they expected to see something, Lancelot's undivided attention was on the girl and Merlin.

It was strange, but for some reason Eiwyn seemed entirely focused on Merlin. She didn't seem concerned with the rest of them in the slightest. She just kept staring up at him, her hand gently stroking the side of his face. It would have been a comforting gesture from most, but for some reason it just wasn't. It made him want to pull her away from his servant even more, and if Lancelot's expression was anything to go by, he was feeling much the same way.

It was true that Eiwyn had done nothing to warrant hostility. She hadn't attacked them or tried to harm them in any way. All she had done so far was talk, and she hadn't even said anything that harbored ill intent. There was no reason for them to feel threatened by her, but his instincts said otherwise. Her presence was starting to become unsettling.

Even if she wasn't technically a threat, that didn't exactly make her safe either. He figured that was probably why Lancelot was acting the way he was, clearly bothered by the situation but choosing not to do anything about it. Instead he just kept his hand wrapped around the hilt of his blade, ready to act if need be. Though he did a good job of masking it, he was obviously worried.

As it turned out, he had every right to be.

The sound of Eiwyn's soft voice drew him back in once more as she shattered the silence with nothing more than her words.

"…You poor boy," she said, once again talking only to Merlin. Her tone should have been laced in sympathy and compassion, and although there was some of the first, the latter was entirely absent. If Arthur didn't know better, he would have said that it was amusement that tainted her voice. "It's hard for someone like you to be here for too long. I imagine you must be feeling quite ill by now. That's what happens to everyone who can feel the air here. It's unsettling, isn't it. The very land itself is steeped in the deepest despair, and if you aren't careful, it could very well become your own."

Her hand suddenly stilled its gentle stroking, and had they been facing her, they would have seen her eyes narrow in curiosity and the corners of her lips twitch upwards into what could almost be called a grin.

"…Of course, you're no stranger to grief, are you?"

At those words, Merlin's eyes snapped open, widening in shock as he stared at the girl standing before him. The face looking back at him wasn't the same one he'd seen before. Her eyes were brighter, no longer kind or sympathetic, and the soft expression she'd been wearing earlier was gone. In its place was something he couldn't read, something a lot like curiosity but different—colder, distant. Her gaze was piercing and focused, and as he stood before her, he found himself unable to look away. She was doing to him exactly what she had done to the knights. She was looking not through but into him. Despite all his secrets and everything he kept hidden, he had never been good at guarding his heart.

The hand cupping his face almost began to burn, but he couldn't do anything to remove it. He was completely caught in that gaze…and he was terrified.

"You carry a great burden. There's so much weight on your heart, so much loss… How can you still stand with a heart that heavy? Sorrow, pain, betrayal… you bare such deep scars."

Merlin wanted to say something, wanted to pull away, but he couldn't. It was almost as if she were holding him in place somehow. He could practically feel her digging through his mind, his memories, breaking through every wall and barrier that he had placed around them. She was seeing everything that he had never shared before, things he had buried away, grief that he hadn't been able to face yet and pain he hadn't dealt with. It was like having a wound repeatedly torn open, and it was all he could do to keep from falling to his knees in despair.

"Please stop," he pleaded, his voice coming out as nothing more than a whisper.

Whether she had heard him or not, his plea fell on deaf ears.

"You give so much of yourself away. Why do you continue to trust when it only brings you pain? Your heart has been trampled upon, crushed so many times, over and over, and no one has ever noticed. So selfless, hiding your pain and your fear, bearing so much weight on such weary shoulders. Stronger people have fallen in the face of such despair."

"Please…please, just stop."

Will, Freya, his father, every life he couldn't save and all the one's he had taken, all his failures and mistakes, Morgana, her betrayal, all the innocent lives she had destroyed, so many lives…

He had caused so much pain, suffered so much loss.

Make it stop.

"Why…?"

It was all too much too fast, and he could feel the tears threatening to fall in both pain and despair. He choked back a sob as the hand cradling his face pressed down harder. It was burning him, scorching not his flesh but his very soul.

"Please…"

Just stop!

"...Why are you even still alive?"

"That's enough!"

All of it—the fire, the connection, everything vanished when a sword suddenly swiped through the empty air right where Eiwyn had been standing. Somewhere in his scattered mind, he recognized that it was Arthur who stood before him, angrier than he could remember seeing him in a long time. He was shouting something, but the warlock couldn't tell what it was, couldn't hear beyond the rushing of blood in his ears and the frantic thrumming of his heart.

Eiwyn was nowhere to be seen. She had vanished once again, and whatever had been holding Merlin up had apparently vanished along with her. He fell to his knees, breathing harsh and deep, trying to push everything back down after she had so cruelly dragged it to the surface. She had tread upon the parts of his life that he had buried away, all his regrets and fears. He couldn't think straight, couldn't sort out his thoughts or figure out which of the voices screaming in his head was his own.

Everything just felt so raw, torn open, painful. She hadn't just read his heart like she had with the knights. She had cut it open and bared his deepest sorrows for all to see.

"…Merlin?"

Very slowly he opened his eyes—he didn't even remember closing them—and tried to raise his head. There was a hand resting on his shoulder, something he hadn't noticed before, and when he traced it up to its owner, her found himself face to face with Lancelot. Upon further inspection, he could see that Arthur was still there, standing in front of him, and Gwaine and Elyan were there too, guarding him on all sides.

"Merlin, are you alright?" Lancelot asked, his voice soft and careful, and Merlin greatly appreciated it because his head sort of felt like it might explode. He tried to ignore it, to reign everything in, and slowly but surely he was succeeding. His breathing evened out and his pulse slowed, but he found that all the emotions roiling through him were harder to tame. He was still shaken, and he could even feel himself trembling under the force of it.

Despite all the despair she had dredged up, he found himself feeling more angry than anything else.

"…She had no right," he whispered, clenching his fists around the grass beneath him. "She had no right."

"Merlin…"

"…I must say, I wasn't expecting that."

Whatever Lancelot had intended to say was cut off as Eiwyn's voice filled the courtyard.

"You certainly are an interesting group of people."

"Where are you?" Arthur yelled, all of them looking around for any sign of her, but there wasn't a single trace. Wherever she was, she wasn't there. "Show yourself!"

"You have no right to demand anything of me. You are nothing more than trespassers."

"Damn it, just who the hell are you?"

"…Even if I told you, I doubt you would understand."

There was a beat of silence, a moment where the air itself sighed before stilling once more, and when her voice returned, it was tainted with sympathy once more.

"…You never should have come here. Once you enter this place, there is no going back. You'll all share the same fate as the others who came before you. There is not a one of you here that can lift the curse.

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we won't see each other again."

As the last word faded away, something in the air lifted, leaving what could only be described as emptiness in its wake.

Eiwyn was gone.

They were on their own once more.

A/N: Well, there you have it. What do you think? I may flesh it out a little more tomorrow when I go back through it, but nothing big should change. Lots of dialogue this time, which is why it took me so long to finish, but I think I included everything I wanted to go over. I found a way to work around the one problem I was having, although I may have created a new one now. Anyway, things are far from over. Lots more to come :)

Thank you for all the reviews! You guys really make my week :) Hope to hear from everyone about this chapter, 'cause lots of dialogue isn't my thing, and I was a bit worried how it turned out.

Anyway, that's all for now. See you all next week!