A/N: Trust me, dear readers.

They came for him at dawn. Merlin had been waiting, staring up into the nothing above him, thinking. He had always hated waiting- the fluttering nerves in his stomach, the startled reflex whenever he thought he heard someone at the door. Arthur had always teased him about being jumpy. It had served him well once, but now he was just jumping at himself- the rasp of his own breathing, the rattle of his chains.

He wondered . . . would they have a funeral for him at Camelot? It was still against the law to raise a grave marker for a sorcerer. He had made one for his father; not one that anyone would recognize as such. To most, a tree was a tree in a forest, but Merlin had planted and blessed an oak while Arthur wasn't looking. He had marked the spot in his memory, too, and remembered just where it was. He would like to be buried next to his father, but that wouldn't happen. There would be no body to bury. Just a collection of oily ashes. He wondered if Arthur would tell his mother what had happened to him. Would he tell her the truth? Or would he tell her something else, something that didn't involve Merlin dying by agonizing inches?

The clang of the door was an expected surprise. He shivered. The footsteps approached and hands grabbed his arms. "Right, then, Pet," Gaunt's voice was hot against his ear, "Time to go." They hauled him to his feet, though he only had the strength to keep his balance, not put one foot in front of the other. They did that for him, dragging him up the stairs and through the castle hallways. It was so, so bright. After the endless hours of night, even these darkened passages were too bright. What would it be like outside? He let his chin fall to his chest, content to let them do the work. He was too far gone to care what they did, where they took him, or anything else. Even the pain was distant. Their voices, when they spoke, were as echoes rising from a deep well.

Cold air hit him like mule's kick to the chest, sending deeper shivers through him and setting his injuries aflame again, dull little fires that left him gasping as they drove him to his knees. His breath was loud in his own ears, drowning out the roar of the crowd. The hands yanked him upright again; one grabbed his hair and pulled his head up. "Do you see that, Pet? The end of your road there?" He saw it. A tall pillar of wood circled by piles and piles of branches, themselves ringed with burning torches. Oak and elder wood, he somehow knew. "Burning elder wood invites disaster," his mother had told him once. He almost laughed. Inviting disaster, indeed.

Gaunt was unimpressed by his reaction. He cuffed Merlin upside the head and dragged the warlock up again. The jeering crowd grew louder. He felt something hit him on his back, his head. Harder than snowflakes and softer than stones. Moldering bits of bread, if his eyes weren't lying. Not the first time rotting food had been thrown on him. They had done the same in Camelot, hadn't they, when they put him in the stocks? Those little crimes hadn't really been his fault, though. Except for fighting in the market. With Arthur, and cheating by using magic. In front of a crowd of people- the first time he'd gotten away with magic in Camelot. Lucky his punishment hadn't been worse than a night in the dungeon and time in the stocks. He never would have met Arthur otherwise, and Arthur would have died soon after, and all that he was meant to be would never have happened . . . But it would now. He had gotten his King to his throne, and that would have to be enough. "I'm sorry I couldn't have served you better, Arthur . . . "

'Arthur will abandon you,' Morgana's words whispered through his memory again.

No . . .

His heart wanted to deny it. Hadn't Arthur turned his back on his father's laws for Merlin's sake? Hadn't he ridden into the heart of faerie-haunted Broceliande for Merlin's sake? But . . . The Sarrum had told him . . . told him that Arthur had refused the ransom. Was that truth, or just another lie to get him to talk? He fervently hoped for the latter. The other was more than his wearied heart could take. He would never find out now, though . . . His legs gave out again. He cried out when his knees cracked against the paving stones.

He knelt there for a time, having slipped out of his captors' hands. Just breathing. A dark, gentle hand closed around his unbroken arm. He lifted his head, found a pair of familiar eyes staring back at him. Eyes full of sorrow. Regret. Guinevere? No. . . Elyan. So. Not abandoned after all. A rescue had been sent. Too late, but sent all the same. Well. That was forgivable. He had done far worse things than simply be late in his own life. He could forgive Arthur for being late. Arthur was easy to forgive.

A rictus of a smile pulled at the bruises on his face. Elyan's brow furrowed, but Merlin just kept smiling. "I never broke," he whispered, "I never broke." The hands dragged him away from Elyan, tight around his arms as though they could hurt him any more. He looked back to find Elyan again, but the knight had vanished into the crowd. Perhaps he had never been there at all. Merlin was willing to believe that he had been. Even a failed rescue attempt lightened his heart. As distant as he felt from his own body, it was almost like he could just float away. . .

The stake against his back was real enough, the wood cold and dead to him. Rope pulled at his throat and waist, lashing him to the stake. Gaunt yanked his manacled hands upward, throwing the links of chain over a hook high above Merlin's head. It should have hurt, but he was too numb to notice the pain.

The crowd went silent, the jeers and laughter dying away in favor of a single voice. He couldn't focus on the voice, but something within told him it wasn't important. His head lolled back against the stake, his gaze rising up and up, over the castle walls and keep, and up to the sky. The cloud-filled sky showing the first, wan gray light of dawn. Snow was in the air; flakes of it brushed his face and caught in his eyelashes, melting and running down his face like tears.

Then, miraculously, the clouds parted. The night sky opened to him- just a small patch, but enough to show him the stars. The bright stars, the beautiful stars. And he heard their music, from far away. Like something out of a dream. Their crystal thrumming. And beyond, playing counterpoint, the hot notes of a dragon's song. He smiled again as the crowd's murmurings rose to a roar. Still. The stars shone for him, singing, reminding him that there was beauty beyond all endings. . .

A fire's small crackle turned to a howl. Its brilliance stole the stars from him. He screamed.

Once . . .

Twice . . .

A voice not his own echoed in his mind.

There was nothing else.