Never let it be said that Merlin traveled unprepared. Locking the door to his guest room, Merlin furiously began writing letters, trying to coordinate all of his resources. He had a feeling this was an enemy with magic, and that meant he fell into Merlin's expertise. Arthur would take his knights and go charging in as usual, but Merlin would need a plan to actually defeat the enemy.

He sent out messages to Gilli and Alator, asking for reports of anything suspicious happening in the Northern lands. He took the chance and send them by magic, first scrying their general location and then magically throwing the letter across space. He had never used this over such large distances, and he hoped it really worked. He couldn't actually tell where either of them were.

Merlin also made the decision not to tell Arthur what he knew. What would he tell him anyway? The danger that a seer warned him about was here and Camelot was in trouble?

No, that wouldn't do. Arthur deserved to enjoy the last two days here in Carlisle. Queen Annis had been a good mentor in the talks leading up to the signing of the treaty, he was sure she would be even more so now that the negotiations were concluded. He would make sure he knew as much as possible before speaking with Arthur.

Initial letters sent, he sought out Gwaine. Interestingly, he wasn't in a tavern, but he was pacing the outer walls of the city. He spotted Merlin walking and called him up. His face was drawn as he asked if Merlin received his message.

"Yes. Cryptic, but effective. Do you know more?"

Gwaine nodded. "Some. Yesterday night there was an attack on Camelot. The druids say they felt the magic first."

"Oh, no." If the druids felt it, then it was a strong sorcerer.

"There was nothing big, yet. But they said whoever it is was steadily dismantling your wards around the city and they think they felt a powerful summoning charm. There was no visible attack on the city as of that message."

"And you haven't heard anything since?"

Gwaine shook his head.

Merlin leaned against the low wall. "Alright. Well. I sent a message to two others, seeing if they knew anything more of the big picture. At the very least it will let them know that something is about to happen in Camelot. But I can't do anything else without more information." He closed his eyes and weighed his options. He could try to scry into the city, but if he were attacking a city, the first thing he would do would be to place anti-scrying wards. And even if he broke through them, he could only see a very close picture of people he knew well. He might be able to see Gwen in her workshop and see what she was working on, but that wouldn't tell him anything useful.

"Could you jump there?" Gwaine asked.

"I probably could, but what if Arthur needs me? He'll at least expect me at dinner tonight and I don't think I can get there and back before dinner."

"And you wouldn't be able to resist helping if there was trouble." Gwaine smiled slightly. "And I know how you lose track of time when you get deep in a project."

Merlin grimaced. "Exactly. Or if something happened to me. If this sorcerer can dismantle my wards then they have a lot of power. They might even be laying traps for me. If I get captured then we'll really be in trouble."

"Arthur would notice your absence and no one would be able to explain it."

"And he'd think something happened to me and not leave until he found me. He'd search here rather than searching in Camelot where he was needed."

Gwaine shrugged. "He'd have to leave eventually. He's the king. His duty to the land comes first," he said with a hint of bitterness in his voice.

"Still. I'd rather get Arthur to leave early than late." Ideally now, but what would he tell Arthur the rush was for? He still needed to know more. "Gwaine, I'm going to try to contact whatever druids are nearby. Sit with me and let me know if someone's coming?"

Gwaine immediately sat down on the walkway and Merlin joined him. "I'll give you two taps on your arm."

"Thanks." Merlin closed his eyes and reached out with his mind to speak with the druids nearby, allowing them to connect over greater distances through him. He spread his awareness far to the East and felt for open minds. He didn't recognise anyone, but they recognised him.

"Emrys. Gratael delivered her message to you then?" one of them asked. Her voice was strong and Merlin assumed she was a tribe leader.

"If her message was about the magic stirring in Camelot, then yes. There was at least one more link in the chain between her and me. Are there any updates?"

"I've heard nothing further," she replied.

Another strong voice joined in. "I haven't heard anything yet either."

"Nor I," a third voice answered.

Merlin offhandedly wondered just how much land his magic was covering.

"If you lend me some of your power, I may be able to reach Finnae's tribe over the mountains though and ask her." The second voice said.

"I would appreciate that." Merlin narrowed his focus to that person and tried to picture sending some of his strength through the connection to them.

"Owen?" a more distant, quieter voice asked.

"Yes, it's me Finnae."

"How can you…? Emrys. It's an honour."

"A pleasure, Finnae. Do you have any news on Camelot?"

"I know only what message passed through our tribe early yesterday. Donovan travelled west to pass it on. No new messages have come in yet."

"Can you send a query back the other way? And tell them it will be a few days still before I can be there in person."

"I can do that, Emrys. Anything to help."

"Thank you. And thank you Owen. I'll try to keep my mind open in case you hear anything."

"Understood, Emrys."

Merlin pulled back his awareness and opened his eyes. The sun had drifted downward and his bones were stiff as he cracked his neck.

"Learn anything?" Gwaine asked.

Merlin sighed. "Not really. But I'm expecting to hear more soon. I'll be keeping an ear open." Hopefully Annis didn't have magic sensing devices in Carlisle. If so, they would light up for sure. They might already be lit up.

It wasn't until late the next day that Merlin received an update. Camelot had been conquered. He sat down heavily on his bed and lazily flapped a hand to lock the door. It was after the market had closed for the day so most of the druids had already left, but still some of what happened was relayed.

The attack started from inside the citadel. Monsters, beasts of nightmare were seen flooding out of the citadel and spreading into the city. Everyone who could, fled. Some tried to defend their homes but were struck down. They said they heard terrible cries from the air, but by then all the druids had taken shelter in the cave or else were focused on helping the citizens of Camelot flee. Merlin was gladdened to learn that they were looking after the townsfolk and had been telling everyone to gather near the watchtower.

However he also learned that the new, albeit temporary, ruler of Camelot had powerful magic. His banner flew high over the city and the druids were blocked from scrying inside to learn more. They also said there was a barrier around the city that seemed to drain their strength whenever they came near it. This wasn't going to be someone who Merlin could scare off with a couple parlor tricks, nor was it someone Arthur could handle on his own.

He couldn't even ask for Arthur's opinion in a round-about way since he left in a rush the next morning to go on another long ride with Queen Annis, saying he wouldn't be back until late.

So Merlin spent most of the day in a quiet tavern booth contacting everyone he could think of and talking strategies with Gwaine. He'd fought in skirmishes mainly, but Gwaine knew how to think large scale. And this wasn't going to be a battle where he just had to break a staff channeling a spell and everything would be fine again. He was going to need both a plan and help.

When their party finally departed Carlisle on Thursday, everyone except Merlin was in high spirits. He tried to hide it, but his mind felt ready to burst, and not just because he could hear the conversations of others further afield.

"Come on, cheer up Merlin, we're going home," Arthur said. Clearly he wasn't hiding his emotions well enough.

"Sorry sire, I didn't sleep well last night. I'm just tired." He hoped Arthur bought the excuse. Regardless, Queen Annis walked out into the courtyard and Arthur turned his back on Merlin to greet her.

"I have one last parting gift," she told them. She extended a small scroll and explained that she had convinced her cook to record her recipe for cooking lamb so that similar joys could be experienced in Camelot. "Although I have been instructed to remind you that a copy is never as good as the original."

Arthur laughed and declared he would have to return, but not before she came to Camelot to try the steak made by their own cook.

Merlin had never wished more that he wasn't so powerful. He knew that he could jump himself to Camelot and investigate for himself. He might even be able to save the day before Arthur even arrived. Unlikely, but he still felt the urge to try. Was this how Arthur felt before every tournament? Jumping at the bit to fight, even though Merlin warned him that his opponent was an assassin?

Regardless, he was expected to be here, on horseback, riding at a leisurely pace. He'd at least convinced Arthur to send a scout ahead, just to see if there was any news from Leon he should know about before riding into the city.

Perhaps if Merlin wasn't who he was, he would not have a network of friends spread across Albion who would tell him of the danger and keep him abreast of preparations for the inevitable battle. Then maybe he, too, would be sleeping rather than lying anxiously awake, tossing on the hard ground.

They had been travelling for two days, seemingly getting no closer to home. He was just shifting to a new position when he heard someone call his name. "Emrys." He sat up. He recognised the voice.

"Still can't sleep, Merlin?" Lancelot was on watch.

"Not really, but also," he tapped a finger against his temple and then jerked his thumb over his shoulder, just in case someone else was also lying awake.

"Don't be too long. My watch is nearly over."

Merlin nodded in thanks and walked away from the glow of the fire, following the feeling of powerful magic. "Morgan," he greeted. "What brings you here in person?"

"I wish it were good news, but there's very little of that." She was more serious than Merlin was used to seeing. "I'm afraid this person, whoever he is, has been planning this for a while. He is using Beasts' Burden."

Merlin grimaced. "So he is the one who stole it from the vaults. Dare I ask what beasts he has chosen to control?"

"Dragons."

Merlin felt his heart skip a beat.

"You know as well as I do that the dragons are on their own at the reserve. I'm sure they tried to fight, but if he cloaked his magic like he did in Camelot then they would not have had any warning."

Merlin felt like a failure. He knew he couldn't be in more than one place at one time, but the dragons were his responsibility. He hadn't visited the reserve in years. He knew more powerful shield spells now. He should've thought to place some. "He has control of all of them?"

"Not quite. The old one was away teaching Aithusa so they are both free of the gauntlet's power. My sources tell me he was trying to free the others as they slowly flew to Camelot, but he was having no luck."

"Won't it affect him too if the wearer of the gauntlet notices another dragon who is not among the ranks?"

"It will. It's a calculated risk."

"And Aithusa? Where is she?"

"I don't know. No one has seen her."

As if waiting for the perfect moment, a white blur came crashing through the trees and barrelled into Merlin, knocking him over. Merlin lifted his head, and found he had a small, white dragon on his chest.

"Aithusa!" Merlin exclaimed in joy at the same time Morgan sarcastically commented, "Well now we've seen her."

"Hello, Father."

Merlin's smile grew even wider. "You can speak now!" He threw his arms around his little dragon and tried to send all the relief and love he felt into the hug. She nuzzled his cheek with her snout, sending the same feelings back.

Morgan sighed. "Lovely as this is, we need a plan."

Merlin sat up and Aithusa rolled off onto the grass. "I've been telling everyone to gather in the forest around the tower to the west of Camelot. Hopefully it is far enough away that whoever is in charge of Camelot right now won't bother hunting them down. The druids have been helping the people make shelters and reports are good."

"The people within Camelot?" Morgan asked.

"Haven't heard much. The city gates have been closed. It's been quiet but I'm worried. I've sent Gwaine on ahead so maybe in the morning I will know more," Merlin stood, leaving a hand to rest on Aithusa's head. "The druids are excellent scouts, but none of them have the military experience of a knight."

"You know your friend is not a knight."

Merlin scoffed. "You know as well as I do that he will become one. He's too stubborn to let a ban from a dead king get in his way."

Morgan admitted that was true. "If you are gathering citizens near the tower then I will send the representatives of the Court there as well, just warn them to stay hidden."

"Representatives from the Court?" Merlin asked. "Why are they here?"

"They are here to fight with you. You will need help."

"But why? It is not their fight." Merlin protested. "They don't need to risk their lives. There's no need to participate."

Morgan smiled. "Honey, interfering in other's business is practically the motto of the Court."

Arthur was quick to pack up the campsite in the morning, knowing that within two hours they would be able to see the towers of Camelot as they made it home in time for a late lunch. Merlin seemed to be in a daze, going about his duties without thinking. Arthur knew he hadn't been sleeping well the past few nights, but he had hoped the prospect of reaching Camelot would lighten his friend's spirits.

But Merlin's spirits were as low as the fog that seemed to cling to the land, the clouds lingering longer than usual. Arthur did not let that deter him. He was laughing with his knights at the stories Chet was telling of his daughter learning the world around her.

He was just sharing how she was learning to pick up and drop things within her limited reach, she still got a bit surprised by watching them fall and bounce, when Tristan noticed it.

"Those should be the flags of Camelot ahead, right?" he asked hesitantly.

"Of course," Arthur replied, not yet seeing what his knight did.

"Then why do they look triangular?"

That got the king's full attention. Arthur looked ahead, blinked, and looked again. But Sir Tristan was right; those were not the Pendragon flags. They weren't close enough to make out what symbol was flying, but they could all agree that it was not the scarlet field that normally graced the skies above the city.

Arthur growled low and kicked his horse into a gallop, charging down the road toward the city.

"Arthur, wait!" someone called, but he wasn't listening. All he could hear was the blood raging in his ears, furious that this had happened. He hadn't even been king for a year and already he had lost the city. What would they think of him?

Another horse caught up and drew even. "Arthur!" His horse slowed without his direction and he gave it another kick but it refused to sped up. Arthur glanced to the side to see Merlin looking stern.

"Arthur, you can't do this on your own and you certainly can charge in without a plan."

"Someone has taken Camelot!" Arthur shouted, flinging his arm out to point toward the city. "I can't let that stand."

"No, we can't," Merlin continued, much calmer than Arthur was. "You don't know anything about whoever has taken the city. You don't know if they are watching for our return. You don't know how powerful they are. You need a better plan than just drawing your sword and charging in."

"I suppose you have a plan then?"

"Yes." Merlin declared. "We leave the main road and approach Camelot through the woods. There is a watchtower over there. It's far enough from the city that there aren't likely to be guards. It's also possible that people of Camelot escaped and are hiding there."

Merlin looked a lot calmer than Arthur felt. Glancing behind them, he could see that the others had caught up and were looking to him for a decision. He was their king. He could do better than this. He looked back at Merlin and took a deep breath, trying to match the calm of his friend. He nodded. "We will approach through the forest."

He turned his horse off the road and the rest of the company followed, not galloping, but still moving faster than the comfortable pace they had been travelling at for the past three days. It seemed so stupid now. Arthur didn't know when the change happened, but what if it was only yesterday? If they had travelled faster he could have fought them off. They spent more time than strictly needed in Carlisle; maybe if they had left sooner, completed negotiations faster.

He couldn't know, but that didn't stop him from feeling bad about it. What kind of king lost his kingdom in less than two weeks? Not a good one.

Under the shade of the trees in Havenwood, Arthur was surprised to find a wide assortment of shelters. There were proper tents made of cloth and makeshift tents made of cloaks hung from trees. Some people had used fallen branches to make a shelter to spend the night. Everyone looked up from their conversations and cooking when Arthur and the knights rode through. Hope lit up in their eyes when they saw their king. Arthur did not feel like he deserved it.

Now that he was in the forest and his thinking was less hindered by anger, he remembered a clearing near the tower that Leon had shown him when he was younger. If his first knight had escaped the city, that is where he would go.

Arthur pulled his horse to a stop. "Spread out," he said. "Do what you can to help the people. Find your loved ones. Knights, meet at the base of the tower by sundown. We will need a plan, but I need to find out what we know first."

He hoped he sounded confident.

He didn't feel confident. And when he arrived at the clearing to find it empty, he felt even less confident. Arthur turned to say something to Merlin, yet Merlin was not there. He was all alone.

Perhaps that was how it always was. Being the king meant no one around you to depend on. But when his throne was sat on by another, was he really a king?

Five of his knights met him in the shadow of the tower at sundown. They reported that all other knights were unaccounted for. There were a few guards scattered around the various campsites, but in reality, many people were missing. Someone said they had seen Leon heading back to the city to try to get intel, but he hadn't yet returned.

Not only were missing citizens of Camelot a problem, but the more there were missing, the fewer his number to reclaim the city. He dismissed them for the night and told them to get rest. They dispersed and Arthur noticed Chet lingering.

"You don't have to stay," Arthur said. "You can be with your family."

"They didn't make it out of the city," Chet revealed. "Others said it was chaos, they were fleeing before man and beast alike. Some even claim the dragons carried away the slow ones to eat."

"Dragons? I thought the dragons were all dead." Arthur was sure he had killed the last one after it escaped from its prison.

"There are at least five of them," Chet said. "It was hard to find people who had stopped long enough to note the colour of the scales. There's one on top of the castle now, you can see it."

Arthur looked and there, basking in the last rays of the sun, was a large red dragon wrapped around a tower of the citadel. Perhaps his memory wasn't the best source of measurement, but to Arthur's eyes it looked larger than the one he had killed.

"I only hope Daisy stayed inside and hid," Chet continued.

Arthur searched in his mind for words of sympathy. Gwen was better at this. Speaking of, "Did you see Guinevere anywhere?"

Chet shook his head. "I asked but the closest I found was someone who saw her with a sword in her hand, protecting the people who were running away."

"Then we are two men without the women we love. Let's see if this tower has anything to drink. We can wash away our sorrows together."

And that was how Merlin found them later that night. Chet was leaning against the stone base of the tower, snoring gently with a drink laying in the grass next to his hand.

Arthur had not yet fallen asleep. He looked up with red rimmed eyes. "Someone else deserves to be king."

"That's not how this works," Merlin said. "You're just exhausted. Come on, let's get you bedded up for the night."

He grabbed Arthur beneath his armpits and hauled him up. Arthur mostly supported his own weight, but he still leaned heavily on Merlin. "No, someone else would do it better. Someone else wouldn't lose their kingdom."

"You didn't lose it, just temporarily misplaced it." Merlin pushed open the door to the tower. It was considerably cleaner than when he had last been here. He had remembered correctly that there was a large chair in front of a fireplace. He maneuvered Arthur into the chair.

"Why do you stay, Merlin?" Arthur muttered. "I always mess up. I can't protect my people, I can't get my council to see my point of view, I can't leave the city without everything going horribly wrong. I can't even keep Guinevere safe. How can I be a leader if the people can't depend on me to protect them?"

"They do depend on you," Merlin answered, stoking up the fire a little.

"They shouldn't. I don't have a plan to take back the city. I don't have enough men."

"You have enough. Your knights are strong and you are stronger."

Arthur shook his head slowly. "Look at me, Merlin. Who would follow me into battle? Especially a battle against dragons. The last time Camelot battled a dragon it terrorised us for a week. So many people died. And now there are more of them. How do I deal with that? I told the people we had killed the last dragon, but I was wrong. So wrong."

"Don't worry about the dragons. I will take care of them."

He snorted. "You will take care of them. Maybe I should make you my fool. But if I'm not a king... do not-kings have fools?"

"Only kings have fools. But as you are a king, that is your right."

"No. No longer king." Arthur's eyes slipped closed. "The crown passes from one unworthy head to another, is anyone really ruler or do we merely pretend?"

Merlin straightened up. "Oh no, you are trying to write poetry. I don't know what you found in here to drink but you had too much of it. It is time for you to sleep."

Arthur shifted in the chair slightly, but didn't protest and quite quickly was gently snoring.

Merlin looked around, but didn't see any of the brownies. "If you can hear me, please don't disturb him." That said, he walked back outside. He had one last thing to check on, and then the plan that his network came up with could be implemented. And maybe a small adjustment could help break Arthur out of his depression.