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Chapter 2

It was a glum search party that trekked through the woods, the disheartened silence broken every several minutes by someone calling out the name of one of the five missing knights. Merlin trudged behind Arthur, scanning the trees and underbrush for a glimpse of red. The patrol had been missing for three days; it'd taken a whole day after they were overdue for a search party to find their horses wandering the wild. That had narrowed the search area, but retracing the horses' tracks had been tedious, as the animals had apparently done quite a bit of meandering around, until finally a trail had led to the edge of the Darkling Woods.

Now the worried tension was palpable as the group made their way under the darkening eaves.

Arthur pulled up short and raised a hand to call a halt, then crouched down to examine the ground. Merlin came to a stop directly behind him and peered over his shoulder intently. Arthur scanned the dirt for several long moments.

"I count five distinct footprints," he finally announced.

Five. They were all alive. Or at least they had been a few days ago, if that's how old the tracks were. But what had caused them to be separated from their horses? And why hadn't they made their way back to Camelot since then? There didn't seem to be any evidence that they'd been attacked, so what had happened?

"Arthur," one of the knights called, kneeling down a few feet away.

Arthur stood and went over, Merlin right on his heels so he could also see what'd been found.

"Blood," Sir Calivain said.

Merlin frowned at the few drops on a patch of damp leaves. It was such a small amount, certainly nothing indicative of a serious injury. Still, Merlin's stomach twisted with dread for his friends. They were all strong and capable, so where were they?

Arthur found where their trail ventured off further into the woods and led the way after it. But it wasn't long before that completely disappeared. He and the other knights scoured the area in an attempt to pick it up again but came up with nothing.

Arthur paced in clear frustration, turning left and right in indecision. "Split up," he finally ordered. "Merlin and I will go this way."

Their group diverged, and Merlin tried not to let his anxiousness show. The forest was getting progressively darker the deeper they went and he didn't like the minatory feeling in the air, like something was watching them. But everything was still and quiet; there weren't even any sounds of wildlife.

Merlin finally caught a splotch of red among the dark greens and browns. "Arthur!" He hurried over to the scraggly bush and pointed to a swatch of fabric that'd gotten caught and torn off on a crooked branch. It looked like they had come this way.

"Where were they going?" Arthur muttered to himself.

Indeed, they were just heading further into the Darkling Woods and away from Camelot. Why?

Merlin glanced back the direction they'd come. They'd come too far to be able to call the other knights back, and Merlin was hesitant to turn around when they'd only just found the trail again. And it was only a sparse trail. The fact was they could no longer tell whether the five knights were still together or not.

Arthur squared his jaw and strode onward, and Merlin wordlessly followed.

The air became close and cloying, and Merlin wrinkled his nose as it began to smell of rot. The trees were turning decidedly sickly—parched and gnarled, like bones sprouting up out of the ground and draped in frayed burial shrouds. Merlin was getting a very bad feeling about where they were headed.

Arthur stopped and ducked down for a moment, running a hand alongside a boot print in the dirt. Then he was on his feet again and picking up the pace.

A short distance ahead, they came upon some ruins. Merlin swept his gaze around the area urgently, but he still didn't see their friends.

"Lancelot! Gwaine!"

"Leon!"

A dead leaf crinkled, and they whirled toward a darkened corridor of the ruins. Merlin's eyes widened in dismay as none other than Morgana stepped out from the shadows, a simpering moue on her face. He couldn't believe it; after their last battle retaking Camelot from her, he thought she'd been dealt a mortal blow. He should have known better.

Arthur's hand went to the hilt of his sword as he stiffened. "Morgana."

"Hello, Arthur," she greeted with saccharine smugness. "Took you long enough to come."

He frowned, and Merlin's previous bad feeling was now internally screaming at him.

"You know why we're out here?" Arthur asked stiffly.

Morgana smiled. "You seem to have lost five men. Well, they're here." She stretched an arm out toward another section of the ruins, and Merlin and Arthur couldn't help shifting their gazes toward it.

Only one crumbling wall remained, the rest of the space covered in overgrown foliage. But in the center was a round stone table with granite chairs set around it covered in dead ivy—and five of those chairs were occupied.

Merlin's blood ran cold as he recognized his friends. They sat upright but lifeless against the stone, flesh as pale and discolored as the granite behind them. Dull, vacant eyes stared straight ahead, and grisly gray veins stood out over every inch of visible skin.

"No," he choked.

Morgana smirked. "I was inspired by my dear brother's idea of the Round Table and decided to make one of my own. And I thought I'd start with your original five."

She snapped her fingers, and suddenly the knights all started to rise in unison.

Merlin's breath caught in his throat. He'd thought them dead, but now he watched in horror as they responded to her command and made their way over.

"Lancelot?" he called, voice cracking. His friend didn't respond or give any acknowledgement or recognition.

"Stop," Arthur said, raising both hands in a futile gesture to hold them back. But they didn't obey Arthur anymore.

They silently closed in around Merlin and Arthur, cold hands reaching out to seize them.

"Gwaine!" Merlin pleaded as his friend grabbed his bicep in a vise-like grip. "Elyan, don't do this!"

"Snap out of it!" Arthur barked as he struggled against Percival and Leon. But his chance to draw his sword was past. As if he could have wielded Excalibur against any of them. Elyan mutely took the sword from Arthur's belt and passed it to Morgana.

Her lips curved upward as she ran her gaze over the blade, then went to lay it on the stone table.

"What have you done to them?" Arthur seethed.

"They are my loyal servants now," she replied smugly. She stalked back over and paused to trail the back of her hand down Gwaine's face. He didn't react at all.

Merlin struggled against his friends' unyielding hold. "You have to fight this!" he pleaded with them.

Morgana scoffed. "They are beyond fighting it. They are wraiths now, neither living nor dead. And soon the two of you will be mine to command as well."

She drew a black knife from behind her back, and Gwaine tightened his bruising grip on Merlin's biceps while Lancelot grabbed his left forearm and forced it out straight. Leon did the same to Arthur, and Elyan stepped in to grasp Arthur's fingers and wrench them open. Morgana set the edge of the knife against his palm and made a deft slice. Arthur sucked in a sharp breath at the cut.

Morgana then turned to Merlin, who could do nothing as she did the same to him. He hissed at the glacial burn that bit into his hand. Blood welled up and spilled over to drip onto the ground.

"You won't succeed, Morgana," Arthur said defiantly. "We've defeated you every time before."

"Yes, well, that was when I was working against you. This time you will be working with me. Lock them up," she told the knights. "Oh," she added over her shoulder. "Don't expect help from the other men who accompanied you on the search, the ones you split up with in the forest."

Merlin exchanged an alarmed look with Arthur.

Morgana grinned again. "I made sure the trail they found led them to a particularly nasty end."

With that, she flicked her hand, and the knights began dragging them into the ruins, down a corridor of stunted trees and to a crumbling tower. It had an intact cell inside, though, which Merlin and Arthur were unceremoniously thrown into. The door banged shut with a resounding clang, and the knights left, leaving them alone.

Arthur immediately began walking the edges of their prison, searching for weaknesses. But despite the fact this place was in ruins, these particular stone walls were still high and sturdy, and the wrought-iron door seemed secure too.

Arthur finally slumped against one wall and sucked air through his teeth as he lifted his hand to examine the cut. "What do you think this is meant to do?" he asked hollowly.

"Make us like the others," Merlin replied grimly. He looked down at his hand too. He could feel the magic burning along the edges, some kind of cursed poison working to take hold. He wondered how long it would take…how long his friends had been held and subjected to this before becoming what they were now.

Merlin clenched both fists, ignoring the pain in the one. He had to find a way out of this, had to make sure Morgana didn't succeed…had to find a way to break the curse on the others. If it even could be broken. This was the darkest kind of magic, he could feel it.

"Merlin," Arthur's voice interrupted his thoughts, and he jolted as Arthur walked over and reached out to take his injured hand, prying it open. "You'll make it worse," he chided.

Then without a by-your-leave, he reached up to yank Merlin's neckerchief up over his head, mussing his hair. Merlin huffed as Arthur then proceeded to use it to bind Merlin's hand.

"I don't think that's going to help much," he said wryly.

"No, probably not," Arthur agreed. He turned to survey their prison again. "We need to find a way out of here, need to find a way to undo what Morgana did to the others," he said, echoing Merlin's own thoughts. He then trailed off and added more quietly, "If there's even a way to."

Merlin shook his head staunchly in the face of both their doubts. "We can't give up on them. There has to be a way to restore them."

"You heard what Morgana said," Arthur replied dejectedly. "They're not alive anymore."

"They're not yet dead either. There's still a chance."

Arthur smirked softly. "I've always appreciated that about you, your endless optimism, even in the face of the impossible." His expression fell. "But this is magic, Merlin. We can't fight that."

"We've fought it before." Merlin didn't bother to point out that Arthur had a magical ally in his back pocket who was more than capable of going up against Morgana. Merlin just needed to find a way to do it without revealing himself. "You said it," he went on fervently, "Morgana's lost every time. Even when she had that immortal army. We won't let her win this time either."

Arthur turned his downtrodden gaze toward the bars of the cell. "Third time's the charm," he murmured.