CHAPTER 11

Arthur woke feeling cold and bruised all over. With a groan, he looked around to see what had happened to him. Embers smoked from a small fire pit. Merlin lay a few feet away with his back to him.

Sleeping. As always.

Where were they? He didn't recognize anything.

The events of last night flooded back to him and he leapt to his feet in terror, ignoring his body's protests.

Morgana! Where was Morgana?

"MERLIN!"

The boy bolted upright.

"Gah! Wh-what? I'm awake!"

"WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE IS SHE?"

"I – wha?" he rubbed his eyes blearily, looking around. "I dunno, she was just here."

Arthur grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hauled him to his feet.

"Do you see her here?" he hissed angrily.

Gulping, Merlin, looked around worriedly, now having grown more awake.

"She was here when I fell asleep. I think- I think she might have left."

"LEFT?" He was completely at wits end. "LEFT TO GO WHERE? WHERE ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH DOES THAT WOMAN THINK SHE'S GOING?"

"There's something you need to know about-"

But he didn't ever hear him. Arthur had already picked up his sword and was scouring the ground around them for some sign of her. Strange debris lay everywhere, all over. He couldn't make sense of it. What was it from? What on earth had happened? He felt like he was going mad.

"Arthur, please listen, last night-"

He whirled around him.

"How did you get here? You're supposed to be in the dungeons! And what happened to Morgause?"

Merlin held his hands up, trying to get him to slow down, but Arthur was beyond that.

"If you would stop long enough to let me explain-"

"I CAN'T!" he yelled and then caught himself.

Being out of control was not going to help anyone. He had to get a grip, think, otherwise he would be useless.

"Merlin…" he tried again more evenly, "we have to find her. Okay? Let's… let's just find her and then you can explain everything."

That seemed to make sense to him because Merlin immediately shut his mouth and started to search with him for any clue that showed which way she went.

But everywhere he looked, Arthur only saw her eyes of fire.

Morgana.


Merlin had almost forgotten about the enchantment on Arthur until he saw that wild gaze. A man possessed (quite literally). Morgana hadn't the chance to remove the spell yet, and he wondered for a fleeting moment if she intended to do it all, then instantly felt guilty for thinking it. She wouldn't have gone through all of this, standing up to Morgause to save Arthur's life, only to keep it from him by way of falsity.

Instead, the best he could do is help Arthur find her. The man would not rest until he found her, found his answers. It was about damn time.

Honestly, he hadn't been altogether surprised that Morgana was gone when Arthur so rudely woke him. He half expected it, but the amount of magic he had exerted rendered him unable to do anything else but sleep and hope she would still be there in the daylight.

She had looked so lost, absolutely broken by what had happened. Merlin was at a loss for how to comfort her. She helped him kill her sister. What do you say after that? Sorry? It was for the best? She was evil and deserved it? None of that changed the fact that it was her sister and she had loved her. Why wouldn't she want to run as far away as possible?

Only now that left him with the burden of having to spin a story for Arthur to understand if they didn't find her. Would Merlin be forced to reveal that Morgana had magic? Would Arthur believe him? Would he believe anything he said if he dared to suggest Morgana's betrayal? He could explain away the worst of it by Morgause's cursed bracelet, but Morgana had been falling long before Morgause ever arrived.

Arthur was a few paces away, scouring the ground, when Merlin heard it.

To the east…

That was strange. Arthur had not spoken. It sounded and felt like nothing like he had ever experienced before.

To the east…

The voice was inside his head, but it was not at all like what he experienced with the Druid boy. That had been a singular voice, this was many. They were all speaking as one, clear and yet discombobulating. Mordred talking to him through this way had always felt like an invasion he could not shut out, but this voice, these voices, it rather felt like they were coming from a place inside of him, a place purely of magic.

Without another moment's hesitation, he started running in the direction they said. For some reason, he knew he was going to be led to Morgana.

Arthur called after him, but Merlin didn't bother to try and answer, he just followed the directions as they were given. Arthur had no choice but to go after him.


Morgana had spent the last ten minutes trying to coax the horse into letting her approach. The events earlier still had him spooked and he refused to let her near. The saddle had turned itself over, and the bit was astray, but he was otherwise unharmed. For a moment she wondered who had brought him, it wasn't the one she took. Was he Merlin's or was he Arthur's?

Finally, he calmed enough that he allowed her to touch him. She stroked him soothingly, trying to right the askew bridle and worked on the saddle. When she was certain the horse had tempered enough to allow her to ride, she started to pull herself up when his voice came from behind her.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Morgana nearly lost all semblance of control and rested her forehead against the horse's smooth neck just to keep the tears at bay. Why? Why did he have to find her?

She didn't dare turn around, staying precisely where she was.

"Leaving."

Just one foot in the stirrup, that's all it would take, and she would be in the wind. Riding hard and fast away from anything ever having to do with the accursed Camelot and Arthur Pendragon.

"And you're going to go… where exactly?"

"It does not matter."

"Don't even think about getting on that horse," he said warningly.

He must have seen her preparing to make a run for it. Now he was ready to counteract. Her chances of a smooth escape were much less now.

"You saved my life using magic. I saw it. You're not going anywhere."

So he knew. After all this time. It didn't faze her as much as she thought it would. In fact, she hardly felt anything at all. He knew she had magic. What of it? On the grand scale of all that had happened these past years, the mere ability to do magic registered hardly a tremor.

"Why?" she threw back dully. "So you can arrest me? Drag me back to Camelot? Throw me in the dungeons? Have me burned for my crimes as a witch on the square? Never."

"How long have you…" he swallowed and tried again roughly. "How long?"

"I have always had magic, Arthur. I was born this way."

"All these years… you've stood by my- our side, knowing all along…?"

"Would that were my worst crime."

Damn, her voice was betraying her.

She needed to stop it here, before he managed to talk her into something that could not happen. He had to know everything, that way he wouldn't act this way anymore. He would stop acting as though he… cared… and then she would either be dead or free.

"What does that mean?"

When she didn't reply, she could tell that made him angrier, the initial shock was fading.

"How could you not have… all this time! You should have told me!"

"Told you what? That I was one of the people your father hunted like vermin? Let you hand me over to him? I cannot imagine why I didn't think to inform you."

Turning around at long last, her eyes fell on Arthur first. He looked fairly disheveled and worn, but his eyes said another story. She knew exactly what it meant, having seen it firsthand nearly every day of her life. He was ready for a battle.

A movement from behind caught her eye and Morgana saw Merlin standing off to the right, shuffling anxiously, as his gaze darted between the two of them.

She dug her nails painfully into her palm and did what she had to do.

Yes, she had magic. Morgause was her sister by Gorlois. She hadn't been taken from Camelot against her will, she was rescued. (Arthur was confused, Merlin looked alarmed, and she amended it, saying that she went willingly).

So it went on.

How she wanted Uther dead. What she had done to make it so. The more she told him, the more unraveled he became. Trying not to look at him, she pressed onward. The worst of it was barely even touched upon when Arthur was telling her to stop. But she couldn't. There was so much more he needed to know. She told him that he had been enchanted to love her, so that she could seduce him and take the crown.

The look on his face was like none she had ever seen before nor could describe. Such that she would walk on fire and swim the seas just to make it so that he would never again look that way again.

It made her feel like she wanted to die.

"When?" he asked quietly.

"A few weeks ago."

"Is it on me still?"

"No, it died with…" She couldn't bring herself to say the name. "She cast it, it ended with her. You are free."

Morgana knew she had to go on, but Arthur didn't look like he was listening anymore. It was like something had broken in him. He seemed so far away, his eyes glossed over in a fog. It had appeared the moment she admitted her betrayal and only worsened since.

Oh, Arthur. He had many faults, of that she would readily admit, but his moral code he valued above all else. It was one of things she loved most about him. Most admired. Truly he was a unique sort of man for she knew there were so very few of those like him. It was how she knew so certainly he was destined for something far greater of that of the ordinary man or even the ordinary King.

He believed in, if nothing else in this world, the value of honesty, of loyalty, of honor. It was the very heart of which he based his entire person upon and she had just crushed it to pieces. A person he cared for, a person he had grown up with and shared his life with, a person who was so close to him, had betrayed him in every way possible. Everything he stood for, she had thrown back in his face.

Morgana did not regret everything she had done. Some choices she would always believe right. Uther was an evil presence in the world, he deserved to die, and he should have died by her hand. Camelot would have been better for it. But this… to have hurt the man she loved so cruelly… she would never forgive herself for this.

Suddenly, Arthur changed. The fog snapped away and he broke forth in a terrible state.

"You're lying." His voice was so cold, so foreign.

"I'm not-"

"STOP! Just stop! I've had enough."

"Shout all you want, Arthur Pendragon. It won't make it any less true."

The ring of his blade pierced her ear almost painfully. Her heart leapt into her throat. Arthur lunged toward her like a mad man. She wasn't quite sure what happened until she smacked hard against the rough bark of a tree. Cool steel was digging into the flesh at her throat. She was scared to even swallow for fear it would nudge the blade too far.

"Arthur!" Merlin cried in horror. "Don't do this!"

He was too far gone to hear.

"YOU'RE LYING! ADMIT IT! YOU'RE LYING!"

Tears she didn't know she had left rolled down her cheeks. She couldn't speak. Arthur was completely out of control, inches away from her nose, his face red and his eyes beyond madness. He was so hurt, so enraged. Morgana knew she deserved whatever it was he was going to do and so she did nothing.

"JUST SAY IT!" he roared. "YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO - GODDAMN YOU! IT'S JUST A LIE. SAY IT!"

"Arthur…" She said in barely a whisper, shaking her head. "It is not."

The explosion with which he had come at her was fading now. She could see him returning again, returning through the fog.

"JUST SAY IT! PLEASE!"

Tears streaked down his face. The sword was trembling in his grasp, he looked like he was using all his strength to hold it steady. Anger had dissipated. Now… he was just begging.

"Please, Morgana," he said wildly, "just say you were lying. Don't you see? That's all you have to say. That's all."

There were no words left in her, they had all been said. Closing her eyes, she waited, but the blow never came. It took her a few moments to realize that the steel was gone from her throat.

She watched as Arthur stumbled back a few paces, listlessly dropping his sword to the ground where it bounced with a dull clang.

"Go," he said flatly. "You are banished from Camelot. If you ever step foot inside the city walls again, I will have you executed. Leave at once."

"Wait!" Merlin cried and she was startled to hear his voice, she had forgotten he was there.

"Shut-"

"You need to listen to me," he cut Arthur off unapologetically. "Both of you."

Morgana was back over by the horse once more, but turned to him sorrowfully at his words. What could he possibly try to say now?

"Arthur, she was enchanted too."

Terror swept through her like wildfire. No, Merlin! Not this way!

"Don't you dare!" she said frantically. "I won't have you lying on my part, just let it be, Merlin!"

She would not have gone through all of this just to let him create more lies, no matter how well meaning. The truth was out now. Arthur was letting her go. Please, Merlin.

"It's not a lie," he replied imploringly. "Morgause admitted it just before... Your bracelet, the one she gave to you years ago, it was spelled. She's been using it to influence you all this time. Give it a chance, truly think about it, Morgana. If you look inside yourself, you will know what I say is true."

She stared at him hard for a long moment, her mind an absolute blank, and then her hand went to touch her bare wrist of its own volition. The first thing Morgause had ever done when they met was to offer her that bracelet. Tonight, its absence was the first thing she pointed out. Morgana recalled the look of hurt she had when she saw it was missing.

It had been her savior these past years, giving her respite from the seemingly never-ending terrors in her dreams. But was that all it had done? If asked even just this morning, she would have answered a resounding no, but the woman she saw last night… that woman was not the sister she had known. Had everything been a lie? All this time?

Oh, God…

A look of tentative hope sprung to Arthur's face. He was teetering on a precipice, desperate for anything to hold onto.

"Why did you take it off?" Merlin asked her carefully.

She shrugged helplessly. This couldn't be. It just couldn't.

"I-I don't know. It wasn't helping me sleep anymore, it just… didn't feel right. I wasn't even thinking about it."

"Merlin," Arthur said in a strained voice, "you're telling me she is not at fault for what happened?"

"Not for what she has done with Morgause," he said confidently. "It was a spell that caused her to act that way."

"This isn't right!"

"Morgana," Arthur said. He was clinging on to it now, nearly delirious with this newfound hope. "If what he says is true, it wasn't you that did this."

"No," she said forlornly. "I-I don't know what she did to the bracelet, but… all this? It was me. At least, some part of it. I know it every bit as surely as I know we are standing here now."

She looked to Merlin imploringly, hoping he could see what Arthur didn't want to.

"Whatever she did," he said quietly, meeting her eyes, "it took away your choice. That changes everything. Even if you still…feel a certain way…who is to say what would have happened differently? Would you have still made the decisions you made? I know you stopped yourself once. We will never know what you would have done if she hadn't given you that thing."

"Stopped myself once?"

He nodded. "I saw you. I saw what you did on the hill that day – at your father's burial site."

Her eyes widened.

"What are you talking about?" Arthur said impatiently, looking between the two of them, but they ignored him.

"I thought the Morgana I knew had left a long time ago, but… I was so wrong."

"You weren't wrong," she said thickly. "She did leave. I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. That she should be gone. It is only now that I have started to feel again… what I thought was dead."

"But it's not dead, is it?"

She closed her eyes. "I cannot go back."

Truly, she did not want to believe all that had been said and done these past years was a lie. What was she then? Just a puppet? Arthur and Merlin were looking at her like puppy dogs, desperate to absolve her of any guilt and let life continue on as if nothing had ever happened. The very thought made her skin crawl. They didn't understand. Even if she had been cursed by the bracelet, it did not change what she felt and did before it.

So she told Arthur that it didn't matter. Explained how she felt about Uther and would always feel. This is why it could never be the same. They had to see her side of this! She would make them see!

"How can you say that? After all that he has given you, sheltered you, your whole life!"

"Given me? It is because of him that I have had to fear for my life these past years, just because of how I was born. It is because of him that hundreds of innocent people have been hunted and slaughtered like vermin. It is because of HIM that Camelot knows so much suffering. HE IS A MONSTER!"

"HE'S MY FATHER!"

"It makes it no less true. I believe Uther Pendragon should have been removed from the throne long ago, and you've no idea how I wish it would have been my doing, but now that is lost."

"Stop talking like this! You know what-"

"Arthur, if you do not run me through with your sword at this very moment, I am going to leave, but so help me God, I am not returning to Camelot."

"You will come with me if I have to knock you out and sling you over the damn horse!"

"You arrogant bastard, how dare you-"

"EXCUSE ME!" Merlin shouted and they both turned to him furiously.

"Right… well, all this shouting is wonderful, but are we really getting anywhere?"

"Stay out of it," Arthur snapped.

Merlin ignored him, turning to Morgana who was still watching him.

"Please, come back with us," he said gently. "It's over. You don't need to run anymore, we can find a way to work through… Just come back."

"I will use force if necessary!" Arthur growled.

Merlin threw his hands up and looked at him as if to say 'really?'.

"How can you still act this way?" she shot at him incredulously. "I have magic! I betrayed you! What part of 'I tried to kill you' did you not comprehend?"

"The part where you saved my life!"

That threw her. She did not expect him to bring it up again. Arthur generally did everything he could to avoid admitting that she (or anyone) helped him.

"That… that means nothing," she replied lamely.

"How does that mean nothing?"

She didn't really know the answer.

"Do you still want to kill me?"

Morgana rolled her eyes. "I should think I would have done it hours ago if I did - while you were unconscious!"

"It was an enchantment! Don't you see? I have known you nearly my whole life, I know the kind of person you are, and you could not do this of your own volition. Morgause was using you to take control of Camelot. It was just the spell!"

She shook her head furiously. "It was of my own doing."

"You don't know that!"

"Arthur…" she said sadly, "I wanted Uther dead before I ever set eyes on Morgause." Her sister's name sounded thick and unpleasant in her mouth. "No matter what happened, that still holds true. I know you don't want to believe me, but I'll not lie to you any longer. I have done enough of it for a lifetime yet. Please, just let me go."

He swallowed unsurely, still determined to make some sense of it. This was not something he was going to let be.

"Morgana…" he said gruffly, and hesitantly raised his hand to her cheek.

Almost at once, she turned in to his touch and covered his hand with her own. She wished she hadn't, but it had been purely instinctual on her part. He felt warm and reassuring against her skin, the callused palm a comfort of familiarity.

"I don't pretend to understand all that has happened and I can't tell you that I forgive you. But the one thing I do know is that I cannot be without you. You're not… you're not this person. Come back. Please. If for nothing else, do it for me."

"And what I said of Uther?" she stared at him piercingly and removed his hand.

He looked away harshly, clenching his jaw.

"My feelings about him won't change. I cannot subject myself to his cruelty any longer."

"What if I promised to try and change things?" he said suddenly, causing both Merlin and Morgana to look at him in confusion. "I have more authority than I did before, I can… I can stop the same things from happening."

"Arthur…" she protested, but he stepped even closer to her in a fit of pleading.

"I can do it! Just give me a chance. I know what he's done, Morgana, and he is my father, but I'll find a way. I'll protect you, and I'll do everything I can to help… others." He swallowed painfully, seeming to summon the courage, and then said firmly, "Whether or not they have magic. I give you my word."

There was such a raw desperation in his manner that it broke her heart. He was so determined, he believed so whole-heartedly that he could make a difference, but it was not his time yet. No matter how much he wanted it, she knew it wasn't possible. He knew so little of what had passed, but it was for the first time now that she questioned whether or not he would turn from her when he knew everything.

"Please."

She could not deny him.