A/N: Thank you all you lovely people who review this! You make my day! A special thank you to Kate who said she spends money on expensive mobile internet just to read this. Hope you find this worth it!

IYîYîYîYI

"The sky is closing in
the winds are getting cold
and we're not the same people now
as we were before"

- Marit Bergman, Were You Ever Really Mine

IYîYîYîYI

On the third day of King Olaf's visit, the trade treaty was signed with great pomp and circumstance. The great hall was full of people from both the courts: knights, nobles and servants, dressed to the teeth and all looking exceptionally pleased, as if the treaty had been a joint effort from all of them.

Halfway through the ceremony, Merlin had begun to feel uneasy, without really knowing why. A tingling sensation that he couldn't get rid of started at the back of his neck, and it unnerved him. By the time the ceremony was drawing to a close, the feeling had grown stronger and he could only draw one conclusion: somewhere nearby, someone was using very powerful magic.

Merlin let his eyes wander around the hall, searching every face in the room, but he couldn't see anything. Neither had he expected to – it felt further off. He wondered if he could sneak out to have a look around the castle, but he would have to walk through the entire hall so his disappearance would probably not go unnoticed. He couldn't just leave either. Arthur was seated at the centre of the high table next to Olaf, smiling and flipping through the document, shaking hands with Olaf's advisers. If this is it, if this is the attack we have been waiting for, then my place is here, by Arthur's side, isn't it? Not entirely true, of course. He couldn't actually do anything if he was next to Arthur. If he left now, he might be able to stop Morgana, or whoever it was, before they even arrived at the great hall – maybe she's not even in Camelot yet, I could be sensing her far off, especially if it's all of them – and no one would have to know how close it had been. He looked at Arthur again, and firmly ignored the way his face heated when he did. Yes, he should definitely try to leave. But his feet didn't move.

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A while later, the diplomacy had been dealt with and the meeting was to be turned into a banquet. Merlin was told to personally go and lock the treaty away. It was supposed to be put in a special cupboard in the library that only the King had access to – or, rather, only Merlin, since Arthur had "lent him" the keys a year ago and not accepted them back – but Merlin was feeling more restless and worried than ever and didn't feel he had the time to go all the way to the library. Instead he ran off to his own room, put the document in his own cupboard, whispered a concealing spell, and meant to go straight back to the great hall.

He was stopped at his own door. It wouldn't open. Confused, he tried the handle a couple of times. But I just walked through it, he thought. He tried shoving his entire (admittedly not very impressive) weight against it, but it wouldn't budge. Then he shrugged his shoulders and incanted a spell.

Nothing happened.

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The last of the food and drink had just been carried out to the tables in the great hall. Arthur took one last look around for Merlin. He should have returned from the library by now, but the man was nowhere to be found. It shouldn't worry Arthur – the servant body was busy today, moving to and from the hall all the time, and Merlin had always had a habit of disappearing to help someone else – but it did worry him. He had a bad feeling that went through every limb in his body and all the way in to his bones, the way you can feel it when a thunderstorm approaches, or how you feel when the earth trembles, and it felt absolutely integral that Merlin should be there.

Not showing the slightest glimpse of his discomfort to the people around him, the King rose to welcome all his guests to this next part of the celebrations. Everyone went silent. Smiling faces were turned towards him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests, Your Highness ..."

He nodded towards Olaf who raised his glass in response, but before he could continue Arthur was interrupted by a chorus of clanging metallic noises outside. People in the hall began to turn in their seats, looking at each other as if their neighbour might be able to offer an explanation. The guards who had been standing along the walls took a couple of steps forward, looking towards the doors and their hands went to the swords. So did Arthur's, automatically, and he cursed when he remembered that of course he didn't have one at a diplomatic dinner. As the noise grew louder and nearer, the knights who were wearing civilian clothes showed signs of the same mixture of distress and irritation. The knights who were standing among the guards were all attention. Leon, their commander, looked at Arthur, but Arthur could offer little advice right now. Sir William, at the other end of the hall, reached for the doors. Before he had touched them, they flew open.

The next second, every armed man in the room was thrown to the walls. Swords and knives were torn out of hands and hilts as if they had a life of their own and floated up into the air, just out of reach. Morgana stood in the doorway, wearing a red dress and a viciously pleased smile that Arthur remembered from her last months in Camelot; a smile he had never seen in their childhood. By her side stood a young man who, Arthur realised, was Mordred. The once sweet little boy was now almost as tall as Morgana, his face narrower, colder, harder – a face cut in stone. He wasn't smiling. It was hard to even imagine a smile on that face.

"My darling brother!" Morgana exclaimed. It nearly echoed in the now deadly quiet room. "What a party you have here! And I wasn't invited? I'm hurt."

Arthur met her eyes with an unwavering glare.

"Morgana," he said, voice even and composed.

"Arthur," she said in return, with a mockery of a curtsey.

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Magic had blocked the door. It had to be. And yet, magic seemed unable to make it open again. Merlin tried every spell he could think of, while he attempted to fight off the déjà-vu feeling from when the troll had locked him in. The panic, the terror, the hopelessness, and the stench that had felt like some kind of living entity eating away at his sanity. He took a deep breath.

This is my room, not a stinking cellar, and this is my door.

With a shout he launched another bout of magic at the door – no spell this time, no incantation, just pure power. The hinges creaked. And then, like a dying animal, the door fell.

Merlin ran out into the hallway, rounded a corner, and ran straight into Elaine. The maidservant looked terrified. She was shaking, and her face was streaked with tears.

"Oh, please sir, you have to help! Someone has to help! It's, it's ..."

Merlin grabbed her arms and tried to make her look at him.

"Calm down, Elaine. Take a deep breath. What is it?"

He already knew it was bad. After all, he had been having a bad feeling about this the whole evening.

"It's, it's the Lady Morgana, sir. She just ... cracked open the doors, and, and, all the guards just ... I ran as fast as I could, sir ..."

Merlin didn't wait for her to finish before running as fast as he could the way she had come. As he was flying down the stairs two steps at a time he thought of what he knew about Elaine – namely nothing except that she was purposefully spreading destructive rumours about royalty – and wondered for a second if this was a trap. If maybe Elaine was even more dubious than she seemed and Morgana was preparing to tear down Camelot in some entirely different part of the castle.

But the great hall is where Arthur is. If it was a trap, Merlin didn't care.

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Lancelot slowly rose from his chair and moved towards the centre of the room to join Arthur and Gwen. For every step he took, he kept an eye on Morgana and the boy, who were also walking towards the King. Behind them, some of the guests panicked and tried to leave, but the doors had closed and would no longer open. Lancelot could hear stifled sobs coming from that part of the room. Every sound made seemed to echo in the hall, as if there was a great, pressing silence underlining it all.

"What are you doing here?" Arthur asked. Lancelot couldn't help but admire the calm that Arthur seemed to possess in a situation like this. That he could sound as if he was in control when someone had walked into the heart of his castle and disarmed all his men. But Arthur stood as still as a statue in the middle of the room, calm and unyielding.

"My sister still suffers from the wounds she got the day we left Camelot," Morgana replied with a voice like ice. "She was nearly taken from me that day, Arthur, and I haven't forgotten."

Then she smiled again. The smile was more unnerving than all her frowns combined.

"And here I am, brother, to strike at your heart!"

Lancelot swiftly stepped in front of Gwen, pulling her behind him. Morgana laughed.

"Don't worry, Lancelot, Her Highness the Maidservant is not the target this time."

At first, he didn't understand what she could mean by that, but as he looked for the one person he knew could help right now, a fear grew inside him. But why would she be targeting him?

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Merlin's fear that this might be a trap – or at least that it might be a trap for him alone – disappeared when he saw the lifeless bodies of guards forming a trail towards the great hall. He saw the doors up ahead and sprinted, heart in his throat and his mind chanting a prayer:

Please let him live.

Please let him live.

Please let him live.

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"Arthur," Lancelot said, trying to sound calm and disinterested enough not to give anything away. "Where's Merlin?"

Morgana, who had stopped only a couple yards away from them, raised an eyebrow. Arthur didn't even turn to look at him, but Lancelot saw his fists clench.

"Well away from here I hope!" the King muttered.

Morgana shook her head.

"Oh, my poor brother. Your knight is privy to more of your loved ones' secrets than you are!"

Arthur's hands twitched again. Lancelot looked longingly at one of the swords hovering above him.

"Let my guests leave, Morgana."

Morgana acted as if she hadn't heard Arthur's words. Instead she turned towards the boy she had brought with her and put an arm around his shoulders.

"Mordred here tells me the most interesting stories," she said, and looked at Arthur. "Of a great wizard that the druids call Emrys. A man who can make castles crumble and make dragons obey his every word. The most powerful sorcerer in centuries, with the fate of Albion in his hands."

Lancelot grabbed Gwen's hand without thinking. Oh dear gods, no. Merlin.

Arthur looked straight at Morgana, his face a mask of stone.

"And you hope to make this wizard work for you?" he asked.

Morgana laughed. The boy smiled. The sight sent a chill down Lancelot's spine.

"Oh no, Arthur. He works for you!"

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There came a loud screech from the hinges as the doors flew open. Merlin ran into the room, panting. His eyes went straight to the crimson figure of Morgana, standing in the middle of the hall and looking as if she ruled it once more.

"Hello Merlin," she said with a voice sweeter than honey. "We were just talking about you."

The doors slammed shut behind him, and as the noise was added to the pounding in his head it made the world swim before his eyes.

Damn.

Trap.