A/N: This chapter was being very stubborn for me. But I think I like the way it turned out. One part in particular I am very satisfied with, although that happened to be the part that gave me the most trouble. So yay!

Here we go, next chapter!

Chapter Fourteen

Gwaine stubbornly gripped the amulet with a hiss, refusing to open his increasingly pained hand. But he could only hold on so long, and at last, the amulet tumbled from his trembling fingers and he clutched his burned hand to his chest.

"Gwaine?" Percival asked, concerned.

Instead, Gwaine put his thickly booted foot on top of the amulet and dropped into a defensive stance. Daneir was not getting it back.

He needn't have bothered, however. The knights all looked at the man in question.

Daneir was standing completely still. His eyes were every bit as blank as Merlin's had been throughout this entire nightmare. There was no longer any air of power about him, but simple emptiness.

Gwaine hesitated, but when Daneir continued to stand there like a statue, Gwaine abandoned his protective stance and instead hurried to stand next to the other unmoving statue, injured hand held protectively in front of him.

"What just happened?" Arthur asked, stepping forward as well until he could look at both Merlin and Daneir evenly for a moment before also giving his attention fully to Merlin. "Shouldn't he have woken up?"

"So…that really is Merlin then, isn't it?" Leon asked slowly.

Arthur, Gwaine, and Percival all winced. The latter two both looked to the king, wondering exactly what he would do.

"Yes," Arthur said at last. "He's really Merlin."

Leon let out a long, heavy sigh. "Well," he said at last. "I always knew there was something a bit…off about him. I guess now we know what."

"He's not really working with Daneir," Gwaine put in hurriedly, and rather defensively. "Daneir was controlling him with that amulet," he pointed to the innocent piece of metal sitting on the ground with his uninjured hand.

"Of course he's not working for Daneir," Leon waved that aside. "That boy doesn't have a traitorous bone in his body."

Arthur started slightly, and looked between Merlin and Leon. "You trust him?" he asked bluntly. "Just like that? After knowing everything he's capable of?"

Then it was Leon's turn to start. "You don't?" he asked, "Sire," he gave as a hasty afterthought.

Arthur raised his hand to his head and rubbed his aching brow. How did he explain everything that had passed through his head this last day and a half? He certainly had not trusted Merlin at the beginning of this mess. But now…

A sharp breath of pain changed the topic and everyone glanced at Elyan, who knelt over the offending amulet, having carefully brushed it with a fingertip. "No wonder you couldn't hold it," he commented casually to Gwaine. He sighed and stood up. "Well," he said matter-of-factly, "it doesn't really matter, does it?"

"Of course it matters!" Gwaine fumed. This was Merlin! It was very, very important!

"No," Elyan said calmly, "it really doesn't. The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter what any of us think about Merlin." He turned to Arthur. "It only matters what you think, Your Majesty."

Arthur's stomach only sank further, because he knew there was a great deal of truth to that statement. Regardless of his knights, he was the one who would ultimately have to make the decision.

Gwaine was furious. "To hell with that! I don't care if you are the king, princess. Merlin is the best friend either of us have ever had, and I'm certainly not going to let you do anything to him."

And Arthur couldn't ignore him. He was right, too, after all. Wasn't he? How many times had Merlin saved his life? How many times had he proven his dedication and his loyalty to Camelot?

You think you're the one running this kingdom? You've had the bloody Emrys at your ear the entire time.

How skillfully had Morgana manipulated them? Uther bowed to her nearly every whim, and Arthur certainly hadn't seen through her guise. And Agravaine. How blindly had Arthur been sure of his uncle's support? Who was to say he hadn't been fooled again? Who was to say that Arthur wasn't falling into the same trap he had fallen into so many times before?

But Daneir was wrong. Morgana would not have drunk poison to save his life. Agravaine would not have jumped off a castle rather than kill him. Maybe a cunning manipulator would have saved his life in order to keep their pawn on the throne, but no traitor would sacrifice themselves so easily as Merlin had done again and again.

But Elyan wasn't entirely right. It wasn't just what he thought that mattered. To accept someone with magic, even one as loyal as Merlin, would surely turn the kingdom to civil war.

Even if Arthur might be ready to accept Merlin, what of the kingdom? Arthur was king. His responsibility was to the kingdom as a whole, not to one person.

Arthur looked up, and saw four pairs of eyes glued to him, studying him with various degrees of worry, accusation, and curiosity. These four men were the knights Arthur trusted above even his own official advisors. They all knew Merlin, and they all knew what was at stake.

He turned first to Gwaine.

"You know Merlin better than perhaps all of us," he said, and it cost him some pain to admit that. "You knew about his magic before all of us. What say you?"

Gwaine's eyes narrowed in determination. "Exonerate him fully and completely," he said firmly. "And accept him. To do anything else would be a complete betrayal of everything Merlin has done for us."

"Even if that would mean civil war?"

To Gwaine's credit, he did hesitate, so the consequences, both political and otherwise, of this decision were not lost on him. He knew what was at stake. But his hesitance was brief, though his answer was slower and more deliberate, with a definite note of sorrow.

"Without Merlin, this kingdom would not be standing," he answered. "If civil war comes over the life of the man responsible for all our prosperity, then perhaps Camelot does not deserve to stand. I would not sacrifice Merlin for ten such kingdoms."

Next, Arthur turned to Percival—the other man who seemed to have been more involved in this incident than the others. "Percival?" he asked.

"What is a kingdom that would kill its savior but doomed despite our opinions?" He hesitated, "and what is a king who would let that happen, Sire?"

Arthur nodded, showing respect for that answer, despite its accusation.

"Elyan?"

Elyan hesitated longer than either of the other two had. His gaze turned towards Merlin, sorrow filling his dark gaze. "I know the evil that sorcery can become," he said at last. "My father died for it. But I also know how many times Merlin has saved my sister, and what he means to her." He paused and took a breath to prepare himself. "Gwaine and Percival are right, but they forget something rather important. If Merlin truly has saved us, as frequently and thoroughly as you say, who are we to destroy what he has strived for, even to the point of sacrificing his own life, by allowing the kingdom to tear itself apart?"

"If it means saving his life I think we can safely overrule Merlin's self-sacrificing tendencies!" Gwaine spat in answer.

Arthur held up a hand to silence him as he processed Elyan's answer, and remarkably, Gwaine fell quiet.

Would accepting Merlin effectively destroy everything Merlin had worked for? Which would be the greater betrayal?

He turned at last to his most trusted knight and waited.

Leon met his gaze, but did not offer an answer.

"Leon?" Arthur prompted.

Leon shook his head. "It is not for me to say, Sire," he answered automatically. "Regardless, I will follow your decision with my life."

Arthur shook his head. "Leon, you have been my second-in-command since I first took charge of the knights. I trust you. And now, I need your wisdom. Answer me: what say you?"

It was an order. And the loyal knight could not disobey an order. Still, it was a long silence before he spoke.

"My lord," he began slowly, "Camelot is a much better place since you have become king. Rest His Majesty's soul, but Uther ruled by nothing but a motivation for Camelot to be strong and infallible. In every instance since you have become king, and even before then, you have strived to make Camelot a better place for people. You see individuals where Uther saw numbers and expendable sheep. This is what makes you a great king and what makes Camelot so much stronger than Uther could have ever hoped for."

Arthur waited, but it did not see that Leon intended to continue. "So Merlin?" he prompted again.

"To betray Merlin would be to go against everything you have ever stood for," Leon said simply.

Arthur took a deep, shuddering breath. "Thank you," he said, turning to look at each of them. Then he turned back to Merlin. "I will think on your answers. In the meantime, we need to find a way to bring Merlin back to us. I need to speak with him before I make any decision."

As if on cue, the five of them all came to stand in front of Merlin, Daneir standing quite forgotten. The heaviness in the air from the circumstances and the decision yet to be made by no means diminished by looking into those lifeless eyes.

"Merlin, mate," Gwaine said softly. "Why won't you wake up?"

.~.

Merlin knew something was different when his entire world suddenly blazed into white. He shut his eyes tightly against the brightness. Or, at least he felt like he did. But he was pretty sure he could still feel his physical eyes remain open—outside this inner awareness—in a dizzying contrast.

It was a strange sensation. As the brightness faded, Merlin blinked his eyes open and saw nothing but white stretching in all directions. The other world—the real world—seemed to have faded from existence. He could no longer see or hear anything that was happening around his body, like he could before. There were no snippets of conversation, no blurred images. Nothing but white.

And a single other person who stood several feet away, standing stock-still.

Daneir had his arms raised in front of his eyes. Very slowly, he lowered his arms the few inches to see over them and realized the blinding light had faded. Then his arms fell to his sides as he locked eyes with Merlin.

Merlin stared at him. Why was Daneir here? What did that mean?

Before he could voice his question, the whispered voices reared again, far louder than they had been before. They were still whispers, with no actual voice behind them, just air forming blurry words, but those whispers were near deafening. Merlin couldn't entirely tell if they were inside or outside his head.

Daneir took a startled step backwards, then reached his hands up and covered his ears.

"Emrys!" He demanded. "Stop this!"

But Merlin simply stared at him, baffled. He resisted the urge to cover his own ears, trying instead to listen.

"Stop it, I say!" Daneir continued. "I order you!"

Merlin tore his focus from the whispers again, blinking slowly. Yes, he realized, Daneir had ordered him. Granted, he'd ordered him to do something that Merlin couldn't actually accomplish, but there was absolutely no sense of compulsion that accompanied the command.

Slowly, Merlin took a step forward.

Daneir noticed, and his face went white. "Stop!" he ordered again. Merlin took another step. "I said stop!"

A small bubble of a laugh escaped Merlin's lips. Daneir's eyes widened in fear, which only made Merlin's laugh increase.

He was free. He was free!

Except…

The white stretching around them seemed to disagree. He wasn't free. Not yet.

But Daneir had at least lost control of him. But why was Daneir here? Had someone else gotten the amulet? Was someone else controlling the both of them?

No. He would know. Just as he knew Daneir had commanded him, he would know if someone else was commanding him now. This was just…empty.

Except the whispers.

Merlin turned slightly, straining his ears this way and that, trying to make sense of the words.

As Merlin stopped his advance, Daneir seemed to think he may have regained a semblance of his control. "Get us out of here, Emrys," he said slowly, in a voice feigning confidence. Merlin ignored him.

Instead, he stopped listening to the voices so intently and let them wash over them. And in a strange way that he would not be able to explain had he been using his actual, physical body, he instead listened to the way they felt.

And suddenly, something in this strange empty world seemed to click. He nearly collapsed from the weight of it all.

Despair. Guilt. Desperation. Anger. It washed over him like a tidal wave. Merlin's eyes flew open, and he snapped his senses back. The voices soon returned to simple, loud whispers.

But that small moment of pain was all it had taken. Without the distractions of the outside world, without straining so hard for control, he had finally heard what those whispers had been trying to tell him from the beginning.

"I said—"

"Oh shut up already," Merlin snapped, interrupting his former puppet-master. His heart continued to race from his new discovery. Daneir took a sharp intake of breath. "You're not the one in charge."

"And what exactly does that mean?"

"It means neither of us are," he responded immediately. It made sense. It made so much sense.

No wonder there was so little record of the amulet throughout history. Even its wielders had been destroyed by it.

"The amulet is alive," he said finally. It wasn't for Daneir's benefit, but it helped for him to say his thoughts out loud. "The amulet is alive."

A/N: I am very eager to hear what you have to say about this chapter. Particularly, I'd love to hear what you think about the responses of the four knights. I would also love your theories about the amulet. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

~Syd