Disclaimer: Merlin is not mine.

He had no idea what was going on.

It wasn't the greatest feeling. He was little more than a spectator at a tourney in which the participants were playing a game with which he was completely unfamiliar and in which there were no weapons or horses and in which the participants seemed bound and determined to speak as vaguely as was physically possible to one another-when they weren't doing so in an entirely different language. Normally, he would have been annoyed and bored by such a proceeding. Today, however, he was in the unique position of being a spectator whose very life hung in the balance of whatever was happening.

Not that there was a whole lot of spectating for him to have done thus far. The epic magical battle that he'd been imagining from Merlin's grim predictions and his memories of Morgana's volatile hatred was so far little more than each of the three sorcerers taunting each other with the information that the others didn't have. He assumed that the pinching and name-calling portion was shortly to follow.

He shook his head. This was no time for him to get snippy. He had to remember who he was dealing with. While the trio did not look particularly imposing—a woman in a tattered dress and what looked very much like twigs in her hair, a skinny man covered in dirt, and a boy who looked a few months shy of completed puberty—they could probably tear down the castle brick by brick if they were so inclined. With a gesture like that of a man batting away a fly—a gesture so halfhearted that Arthur was fairly certain that the fly would have been the victor in the encounter—Morgana had toppled right over, as though her feet were hinges and she'd been given an almighty push backward. No, he imagined that their version of pinching and name-calling was a bit more dangerous than it was for normal people.

Although, he thought, there had been some name calling, depending on how you looked at it. A great deal was being made of the whole Merlin-is-Emrys scenario. When it had become obvious thatMorgana was finally going to take Merlin on his word, she had looked about ready to fall over again. Previously, Arthur had assumed that Morgana had just been obsessed with figuring out the identity of the sorcerer about whom she'd heard stories. After all, she lived in exile, friendless and alone. She had to have something to occupy her time. But the look on her face as she realized…he wondered if there was more to Merlin being "Emrys" than he'd been led to believe.

Not that any of them were likely to tell him. It seemed sometimes like the more powerful the sorcerer, the more likely he or she would be to be infuriatingly unhelpful when it came to the sharing of essential knowledge. No wonder Uther had managed to stamp them all out.

Arthur closed his eyes, horrified at himself. Sympathizing with the rationale behind the Purge, even if only casually and for a moment…he couldn't let himself go down that route. He had to remember that for every Morgana, there was a Gaius. For every Mordred, there was a Merlin. As long as he let matters run their course, there could be balance again.

It would help if the sorcerers would just stop trying to kill him.

When he opened his eyes, he caught Mordred looking at him and shivered. Arthur didn't really have much of a clue of who Mordred was. He had a dim memory of a frightened little boy who he had helped to escape from Camelot and who he had then returned to the Druids. What on earth did Mordred have to do with any of this? After Morgana had emerged and as soon as he'd felt Merlin's chest rising, he'd taken a moment to breathe and think and find that he figured that it had been Morgana who had masterminded this whole plot and that Mordred was her underling of sorts. He was younger than she…

But now, watching the interactions of the three sorcerers, he was beginning to have doubts. Morgana kept glancing over at Mordred as though she was looking for his approval and even Merlin seemed warier of the boy than he was of Morgana. Merlin certainly seemed keener to keep himself between Mordred and Arthur than between Morgana and Arthur. Plus, he thought, when Merlin had declared that he would happily take on both of his opponents at the same time, Arthur had seen Merlin deliberately rearrange his posture so that he could keep Mordred at his right hand. Mordred must have been the greater threat. Arthur just didn't understand.

It wasn't as though not understanding something magical was a new sensation for him. The feeling of being absolutely out of his element was almost comforting in its familiarity by this point in the quest. He was accustomed to not understanding magic. He could just almost always understand the universal aspects of a conflict, the human variables, the motivations. He could understand why a person hated him. Usually it was because someone craved his power or envied his position or hated Uther so much that revenge on his son would have to do or he had killed someone who he maybe should not have killed. He could even understand why Morgana could have come to hate him so much. But Mordred…what had he ever done to Mordred?

Okay, yes, he conceded, he had on many separate occasions slaughtered large groups of his people, and yes, he had been known to steal priceless artifacts from the Druids. Still, he'd never wronged Mordred personally. Besides, he'd always thought that Druids didn't believe in seeking revenge. Hell, they didn't even fight back when he and his men would raid their camps in years past. Mordred was undeniably a druid. Why was he so different? Why would he have wanted to bring Arthur out here like this?

Arthur could stand to be hated. It came with the job. Plenty of people wanted to kill him. He was fine with that. He just wished that, this time, he could understand why.

He shook himself. This was not the time for him to start sulking about his lack of universal popularity. It didn't matter why Mordred wanted him dead. All that mattered was that Mordred seemed bound and determined to achieve his goal. Just because he had no idea what was going on didn't mean that he shouldn't keep his eyes open and see what he could figure out.

There didn't seem to be a whole lot to figure out just then. No one was speaking. Mordred was throwing an exceptionally evil version of an evil eye in Merlin's direction, Morgana was staring at the ground, and Merlin kept looking from one to the other. Arthur had the impression that he too was waiting for something to happen.

Almost without realizing that he was doing it, he unsheathed Excalibur. The sword felt good in his hand. It was something solid and sharp and dangerous and real, calling to mind battles and conflicts that required weaponry. He liked weaponry. He always felt more useful with a sword in his hand, and watching three sorcerers arguing like this felt far too intangible for his taste. Arthur could only observe and guess, and it was all very irritating. All of this thinking about all of these things that he knew nothing about was beginning to give him a headache.

He was glad that he had not spoken aloud and given Merlin the satisfaction of hearing that Arthur was finally managing to give himself a headache by thinking too hard. But honestly, he thought crossly, how could he not? Mordred did this, Morgana did that, Mordred and Morgana did this together, Merlin did that alone, Merlin did that to Morgana, Merlin did this to Mordred, Mordred did that to Morgana, Morgana said this to Mordred…it was all beginning to jumble together. He just didn't see what was happening. Besides, all of the magical alliteration was getting annoying. Mordred and Morgana and…he supposed that he ought to just be glad that Merlin wasn't called Morlin.

"Good thing Morgause isn't here," he muttered to himself.

Although it would have made sense for Morgause to be present, were she not dead. She was Morgana's sister-although in the light of the news of Morgana's paternity, he wasn't entirely sure that their sisterhood hadn't become more of a state of being than a biological fact-and they always seemed to have an unusually fond relationship. Plus, Morgause was evil. She would have fit right in. Merlin, Mordred, Morgana, Morgause...they all made sense. They were sorcerers, and they understood each other. Arthur's name didn't even start with M.

"Why am I here?" he asked suddenly, and all three heads swiveled to look at him. Bizarrely, he felt himself beginning to blush. It was ridiculous. Why should he feel awkward? This whole scheme had been centered on him. The least that they could do is to include him in the conversation. Or have a conversation rather than just glaring at one another. He wasn't a child.

Morgana was the one to answer. "You know why you're here, Arthur."

"I don't. I really, really don't," he answered honestly, for the first time in many years grateful to his half sister.

"You have something that belongs to me," she said. "I've asked nicely—"

"You have not," interrupted Merlin, coming to life as well now that conversation was beginning. Morgana ignored him.

"I've asked nicely," she continued doggedly. "But you've refused to give it up. So if you have to die for me to get what I'm owed, so be it."

Arthur clenched his fist around Excalibur. "You're owed nothing."

"Is that so, brother? Remind me again, how old are you?" she asked, condescension in every syllable.

His fingers fit perfectly into the minute grooves in the hilt. "That has nothing to do with it."

"That has everything to do with it," she spat.

The metal was cool to his touch.

"Go on then, Morgana," he retorted. "Go on. Kill me. Do whatever you like to me. You won't have my throne."

"Oh, I'll have it."

"You will not," said Arthur quietly. "Have you honestly never put any thought into this? Merlin had it right when he said that you were a…that you don't have a legitimate claim to my throne. Even if you were my true blood sister, you still wouldn't have been first in line. You know that, Morgana."

"This is your fault."

"You cannot begrudge me my gender," said Arthur firmly. If one of them was going to die, he would have liked to at least have resolved this matter. "Neither of us had any say in that matter."

Morgana shook her head. "It makes no difference. With you dead, Camelot will need a queen. Surname aside, I have royal blood. Blood matters."

"Camelot has a queen."

"Come on, Arthur!" she scoffed, smiling. "Camelot has a peasant woman playing dress-up in my leftover jewels. Do you think that the people will accept as their rightful ruler a woman with no noble heritage and no proper breeding and no right? They may take her as queen consort right now, Arthur, but they'll never accept her as their ruler. You know that."

"Maybe not," he said. "But they will accept her as queen regent."

"What does that mean?" she asked, sounding annoyed.

"What do you think it means?" countered Arthur, looking her straight in the eye.

Morgana looked stricken, and Arthur was vindictively pleased. Good, he thought. Let her see her plans falling apart. Let her see it all crumble to pieces. Let her see that it never would have worked. Let her see that life goes on. And please, he thought desperately, please let Merlin keep his mouth shut.

Daring to glance at him, he saw that Merlin's face was impassive, and he remained silent as he watched what little blood remained drain from Morgana's face. Arthur breathed. Merlin understood. The less that either of them said, the better.

Mordred was less cooperative.

"He lies, Morgana," said the boy, not bothering to look at her. Arthur fought to keep his expression blank. "He lies."

"I do not," said Arthur firmly. His palm was hot against the coolness of Excalibur.

"How do you know?" asked Morgana, turning to Mordred.

"It is written thusly."

Arthur felt himself growing angry. He was so sick of this. "Really? Is it written? This is written? It is specifically written somewhere, wherever the hell these things are written, that on this day, in this place, I will be lying? About this? No, I don't think so. You may have Morgana scared and you may have Merlin listening, but I sure as hell am not going to stand here and buy into everything that you say just because you follow it up with 'it is written.'"

He was breathing heavily as he finished speaking, feeling spent and strangely satisfied. Now he just had to wait.

He didn't know what exactly he expected the boy to say. A denial? An explanation? An admission? A spell that would explode his head?

But it wasn't Mordred who spoke.

"Arthur," said Merlin quietly, turning and stepping closer to him. "Arthur, leave it be."

"Leave what be?" asked Arthur suspiciously, wishing that Merlin would keep his eyes on the two enemy sorcerers. Although they did seem strangely willing to allow them a private conversation in the middle of everything. Sorcerers, he thought. They may have been good and getting things done without actually having to do them, but their skills in strategizing left a great deal to be desired. It would have been like trying to call for a pause while in the middle of a melee, except instead of chopping each other's heads off at the very idea of taking a break, they were all accommodating each other.

He would not have made a very good sorcerer, Arthur mused. For all that Mordred and Morgana knew, they were discussing how they were going to be killing them!

Merlin sighed. "Nothing good will come of this."

Arthur shook his head, bringing himself back to the scene. "So, I can't call him a liar, but he can call me a liar?"

"Well, you are lying," Merlin pointed out.

"Merlin!"hissed Arthur, appalled.

"It was a good try, Arthur, but you weren't fooling anyone," said Merlin. "If you were telling the truth, there's no way that you would have left her behind. You probably wouldn't have wanted to let her out of your sight. No, you weren't fooling anyone. Well, maybe Morgana, but that's really anything to boast of."

"He didn't know," Arthur insisted desperately. "Neither do you, for that matter. I don't tell you everything."

Merlin just rolled his eyes. "Sometimes, it's the things that you don't tell me that I know best."

He really wished that the damn battle would commence already. He was about ready to attack Merlin himself.

"For heaven's sake, I hate sorcerers," Arthur muttered. "That doesn't even make sense, Merlin."

"Listen, Arthur," said Merlin, suddenly sounding curt. "You need to start being careful of what you say to him."

Arthur crossed his arms over his chest. He glanced toward Mordred and Morgana. They showed no indication that they were planning on attacking while he and Merlin were distracted. Which was just ridiculous.

"Because you're being so cautious and polite?" he asked, turning back to Merlin.

"I'm different."

"Well, I know that," said Arthur, and Merlin scowled.

"We can hear you, you know," called out Morgana in an annoyingly sing-song voice.

Arthur swore, but Merlin just rolled his eyes.

"Morgana's a freak of nature who will never become queen and needs to brush her hair before birds begin to land in it," he said, his voice just as loud as it had been. Morgana didn't respond.

"See?" said Merlin, shrugging. "Don't worry about it. She was bluffing."

Arthur almost smiled. "That wasn't a very nice thing to say."

Merlin had his fingers through his hair. "If Morgana's a freak of nature, Arthur, then I'm an even bigger one. I was just trying to get a rise out of her, see if she really could hear us. Although I meant it about the hair."

He looked over Merlin's shoulder at his half-sister. She was scowling, but she seemed to spend a lot of her time scowling whenever she was in their presence. Scowling or smirking. Merlin was right. Morgana was bluffing.

"But that doesn't matter right now. What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm different to him. Mordred is much more skilled with the gift of prophecy than I am. He's had training and teachers and presumably doesn't have a nervous breakdown every time that he has to handle a crystal. And no, that one in the forest doesn't count. He's…he's good with prophecy, Arthur, and he believes."

Something about that didn't sound right.

"And you don't believe?"

Merlin shook his head. "That's not the point. The point is that there are prophecies about you that he knows and believes and he won't stop until he fulfills them. His grudge is against me, but he's been course-correcting everything else. I think that he's turned killing you into his revenge on me. He…okay, listen. He hates me because of something that happened. He hates you because it was written that he must."

"I don't understand," said Arthur, for what seemed like the thousandth time. He felt that if things kept on the way that they were, his lack of understanding just ought to be implied as a given whenever they had a conversation about magic.

"I know, and I'm sorry," said Merlin, sounding genuinely regretful. "Just know that I'm going to try to change things."

"Can you do that?" Arthur asked, his voice low. "The things that 'are written…' Can you change them?"

He saw Merlin swallow hard. "I can try."

"Have you tried in the past?" he asked.

Merlin just looked at him. It was enough.

"Did it work?" Arthur knew the answer. It was evident in Merlin's eyes, in how he kept repositioning himself every time that Arthur moved to keep himself between the sorcerers and the king, in how he seemed to have abandoned all restraint in his conversations with Morgana and Mordred, in how Merlin seemed to be operating on the fly, taking everything step by step and not daring to plan ahead. Arthur knew the answer. He just needed to hear it.

"Arthur…"

"Merlin."

Merlin took a deep breath. "Well, there's a first time for everything."

Arthur stared at him. "I'm very glad that they couldn't hear you say that."

"I heard that," called Morgana with impeccable timing.

"What did I just say?" Arthur called back.

There was a pause. "I don't want to dirty my mouth with your words."

"Watch your tongue, Morgana," warned Merlin. "I don't think that you want to hear that words that will come out of my mouth."

"Was that a threat?"

"Do you really need clarification for that?"

"I just find it hard to believe that you would dare threaten me," she responded impressively.

"Really?" asked Arthur incredulously, his fear beginning to ebb away despite the urgency of the situation and the very serious danger that he was in. He re-sheathed Excalibur, feeling suddenly foolish for keeping it in his hand. "Really?"

"You know, Arthur," said Merlin conversationally, keeping his voice loud enough to carry across the courtyard to the other two sorcerers. "I'm starting to think that she planned out her side of the conversation ahead of time."

"Maybe she just thinks that she's scarier that she is," remarked Arthur loudly, catching on to Merlin's plan.

"It's like she doesn't even know us," answered Merlin, acidity barely concealed beneath the faux indignance.

"It has been a while," observed Arthur.

"Still," said Merlin. "We came out here alone on what was pretty much a suicide mission, basically because your honor was tarnished. We clearly haven't changed that much."

"Very true."

"So much for those prophetic dreams of hers."

The slight on her dreams seemed to finally push her to the edge. "You'll pay for that, Arthur Pendragon!" she screamed, raising her right hand toward him.

Arthur had just enough time to tense his stance—whether to fight or flee, he was not sure—and wonder why she was attacking him when Merlin had insulted her prophetic dreams. He supposed that it had something to do with the fact that she probably considered Merlin the more formidable of her two foes. She wanted to do damage. She wanted to make a point.

Instinctual reaction aside, Arthur wasn't too alarmed. Morgana had always been reckless when she was angry, and considering that her attack was prefaced by a shrieked declaration of her intention to attack, he was fairly certain that Merlin would interfere before any serious harm came to either of them.

But it was not Merlin who saved him.

It was Mordred.

Mordred, who had been as still and as silent as the headless statue that stood between each of the duos, shot out a hand more quickly than Arthur could have imagined the boy capable. He took hold of Morgana's arm and forced it downward at the ground, away from Arthur. The force of whatever magical blow that she'd meant to strike cracked the stones beneath her feet, and Arthur realized uneasily that perhaps he should not have been so cavalier with his attitude toward her attack.

"Morgana," said Mordred calmly. "I warned you. You are not to do this."

"Why not?" she asked desperately, shaking her wrist free of his grip. "It must be done. Why should it not be me? I'll leave Merlin to you."

"Do not pretend that you are showing any generosity by granting Emrys' fate into my hands," he answered, his voice deadly smooth. "You have no right to choose how this shall unfold. And you do not intend to leave me Emrys out of any courtesy toward me. You do not believe yourself capable of handling him on your own."

"That's not true," she protested, the wavering of her voice betraying her statement.

"Then you are a fool," Mordred said. "You cannot face Emrys and survive."

"I can handle Arthur just fine," she said petulantly.

"But you will not, Morgana."

"So I'm to just stand here and do nothing!"

"I did not say that," said Mordred, a hint of emotion flickering across his face. "The deaths of Arthur Pendragon and Emrys will not be at your hands. I did not say that you could not help."

At the exact same moment, Mordred and Morgana turned to face Arthur and Merlin. Morgana's eyes were focused on Merlin, but Mordred did not avert his gaze from Arthur. The tension crackled in the air, and Arthur drew his sword before he even realized that he intended to arm himself. After all, if he were to flee, a drawn sword would not be particularly helpful. But he did not intend to flee. If he had to flee, it would be because Merlin was dead, and even if he had it in his heart to abandon Merlin when he had given his life for Arthur, it wasn't as though he would make it very far anyway.

So he supposed that drawing Excalibur couldn't really hurt.

Morgana stretched an arm toward them.

Mordred clasped his hands behind his back.

Their eyes—both pairs so light and so bright that they would have been beautiful were they not so clouded by malice—glowed gold.

"Damn," said Arthur.

In the very last moment before he was positive that the world would go to hell around him, he looked at Merlin. There was no time to ask, no time to be sure. But he wanted to see Merlin.

Merlin stood in front of him at an angle, allowing Arthur clear sight of his profile. His stance was alarmingly casual, and Arthur was suddenly afraid that Merlin had done something colossally stupid like blink at the exact wrong moment. Then, he saw from the side as Merlin's eyes ignited as well.

And then the world stopped.

It was quiet. That was the first thing that he noticed. The entire world around them had…muffled itself. No more threats or spells from Mordred or Morgana. No crunches and crashes as bits of the castle crumbled around them. No wind whistling in and out of the courtyard from the openness of the sky above them. All that he could hear, he realized, was the steady breathing of another person.

In an instant, he found himself stomping forward and grabbing Merlin by the shoulder. He was fairly certain that half of the reason that he was pounding through the silence was out of a desire to make sure that the world was all that had stopped and that he was still able to move of his own volition. He could imagine very little that could be more horrible than to be aware of the world around him but unable to interact with it

The other half of the reason was because he was too unnerved to be anything other than angry. Spinning Merlin around, he found himself shouting.

"Merlin, what the hell did you just do?" he yelled, his voice echoing eerily in the emptiness of their motionless world.

Merlin snorted and shoved Arthur's arm off of his shoulder. "You're learning, Arthur. No more, 'Merlin, what the hell just happened?' Now it's, 'Merlin, what the hell did you just do?'"

"I mean it, Merlin!"

He raised his hands in a gesture of peace. Looking apologetic, he said, "I stopped time."

"What!"

He nodded. "Well, technically I slowed time. But, for all intents and purposes, I stopped it."

"You can do that?" asked Arthur, shaken. He could deal with Merlin blowing things up and throwing them around and lighting them on fire and coming back from the dead. He was fine with those particular demonstrations of magic. But to slow time…that didn't seem right. Time did not feel like something that any man ought to be able to control.

"Yeah. Sorry if I scared you," said Merlin, seeming to pick up on Arthur's discomfort. "I don't do it very often, if that helps."

Arthur scowled. "You didn't scare me. You surprised me."

"Liar."

"Would you mind telling me why you decided to stop time?"

"I needed to talk to you."

"Now?"

"Yes, and I have to be quick about it. They'll figure out what's going on, and this won't last too long against both of them at once. Not after Mordred knocked me around."

"Then talk!"

Merlin took a deep breath, and Arthur prepared himself for what was probably going to be a very disorganized and almost certainly unintelligible speech delivered very quickly. Before he had time to do much more than wonder how much of it he would be able to actually understand, Merlin choked on his inhalation.

"Merlin, what—"

When Merlin looked at him, Arthur saw that his eyes looked positively merry. Merlin had choked on a laugh.

"This is the worst day ever," said Arthur dully. "What now?"

Merlin laughed under his breath, managing not to strangle himself in the process. "I was just remembering something that you told me once."

"When?"

"Oh, years ago. You were training one day and you gave me a shield so that you could pummel me half to death with a clean conscience. I said—between blows—that if this was a real battle and I was really facing an armed knight in full armor, my strategy probably wouldn't be to stand still and hide behind an old wood shield."

Despite himself, Arthur smiled at the memory. "You said that you'd probably just drop the shield and run away."

"And I stand by that," said Merlin. "But do you remember what you told me?"

Arthur bit his lip, trying to recall the specifics. "I said…I said that when you're trying to protect yourself from an enemy that you cannot hope to defeat, the best offense is a good defense, because no knight goes into battle on his own."

"I pointed out that I was not a knight and that my defensively capabilities would only last until my wooden shield cracked and the enemy chopped my head off. What did you say then, Arthur?"

Arthur laughed quietly, suddenly very sad. "I said that I'd come rescue you before it was too late."

"And that I'd better not try to help you because I'd just get in your way, as I recall."

"I stand by that."

"And you have," said Merlin. "Granted, I could have just used magic to help myself, but that's a whole other issue that we probably shouldn't get into just now. The point is that time and time again, you dragged me into your battles, without armor or helmet or even that cracked wooden shield, like a great selfish prat who wanted to get his manservant killed. But you always came and got me out of my messes. You always would, you said."

Arthur snorted. "All that time on the training field and all of those instructions on self-defense, and what you remember is when we had talks about feelings."

"They were rare enough."

"You are such a girl."

"Yeah, that's how they usually ended. I hope that you're kinder to Robert."

"He's so damn eager to please," said Arthur, wondering if he'd ever see his replacement manservant ever again. "If I insulted him, he'd probably giving up living and just die on the spot. You were a rubbish servant most of the time."

"Yeah, well, anyway," said Merlin, his voice growing thick. Arthur groaned inwardly, wondering if he ought to call Merlin a girl again. "Just…remember that, okay?"

"What?"

"Everything that I just said."

"I thought that that was just a preface to the real thing that you wanted to tell me."

"Oh. No, that was it."

"For heaven's sake, I was barely even listening!"

"Liar."

"You're such a girl," grumbled Arthur.

"Hey, Arthur?"

"What?"

"Get ready," said Merlin.

"For what?"

Merlin just shrugged, and his eyes ignited once more.

"Oh, not again—" Arthur began. Would it have killed him to be a little bit more specific? It would have taken all of two seconds. "Get ready for how I'm going to do more magic now, Arthur," he could have said. "For how this is all going to happen, Arthur," maybe. "For having magic and making your life unnecessarily difficult, Arthur," would certainly have done just fine as well.

Then, several things happened all at once.

Time started again.

Morgana shifted her gaze away from Merlin and locked onto Arthur. She began to shriek a stream of words that he didn't understand, her fingertips quivering as she pointed them in his direction.

Merlin bellowed a single word, his arm also pointed at the king.

Arthur swore.

Then, Morgana was blasted off of her feet with so much force that she collided with an alarming crunch against the angle of the steps that led from castle floor down into the courtyard. Her dark hair spread out against the white brick beneath her, and the remarkable paleness of her skin didn't seem so unhealthy when it wasn't contorted by a scowl. Motionless, she looked almost beautiful again. Motionless…

Everything was silent.

Arthur looked, confused, at Merlin. Merlin had been going on and on about how the best offense was a good defense and how Arthur had looked after him and how Arthur always got him out of his stupid non-magical messes in battle. Arthur had assumed that Merlin's first move was not going to be an assault, especially considering what had happened the last time that he'd tried to surprise attack Morgana. And his hand had been pointed at Arthur, not Morgana. Still. However he had done it, it had worked.

Merlin looked shocked and more that a little bit fearful. Arthur didn't understand. Merlin must have known what he was doing. After all of these years and from what he had seen of Merlin's magic that day, Merlin had control over what he did. He must have known what would happen to Morgana when he cast that spell of his. Why did he look so tense all of the sudden?

Then, Arthur saw Merlin tear his eyes away from Morgana and lower the hand that had still been pointed at Arthur. Angry tears brightened his eyes, and he pivoted where he stood to face Mordred. Arthur followed his gaze, and his heart skipped a dozen beats when he saw Mordred staring directly at Merlin.

"What have you done?" asked Merlin hoarsely, almost pleadingly. "What have you done!"

"What was necessary," answered Mordred, still watching Merlin.

"She was on your side."

"Were you so anxious for her blood to be on your hands?"

"She was on your side!"

"She interfered," said Mordred dismissively. "I warned her against what she was trying to do. I warned her. And yet still she interfered."

"With what?" demanded Merlin, sounding angry.

Mordred didn't answer.

Merlin swayed on his feet.

Arthur didn't understand.

"With what?" repeated Arthur. He was so sick of everyone else knowing everything and no one telling him anything and now they weren't even using words. Why did everyone insist on keeping him in the dark? How the hell was he supposed to figure anything out if they were just trading insults via significant looks? He was sick of it. "Damn it, she interfered with what?"

Mordred turned away from Merlin. He fixed his gaze on Arthur and smiled.

"Fate."

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