A/N: Thank you DESPERATE FAN, GuestM, Guest, Buckhunter, and pallysAramisRios for reviewing! I guess I should warn for character death in this chapter. Morgana had it coming.

Chapter 3

After a few hours in the cell, Merlin was beginning to feel the effects of the poison. So was Arthur, by the looks of it, who'd begun to shiver as though with fever, sweat glistening around his hairline. Merlin shuffled over and reached for his hand to check the wound, stomach churning at the gray veins that'd begun to branch out from the cut.

Arthur swallowed thickly at the sight, then nodded to Merlin. "What about you?"

Merlin unwound his neckerchief from his hand, grimacing as he found the same. His fingers were ice cold, and the chill was worming its way into his marrow and spreading upward.

Arthur sagged against the wall at his back. "I'm not seeing a way out of this one, Merlin."

Merlin pressed his mouth into a thin line. Things were certainly looking bad. The poison was going to continue working its way through their bodies until it transformed them into wraiths enslaved to Morgana. And once they were lost, there'd be no one strong enough to stand against her. They were running out of time. And options.

Arthur took to pacing agitatedly, so Merlin went to the other side of the cell and curled up in the farthest corner. He was going to have to use his magic now to fight this off. But how? Forcing himself to relax and breathe, he focused his senses on the curse in his veins. It was like frozen sludge creeping up his arm, infecting his blood and spreading throughout the rest of his body. A shiver disturbed his concentration. He felt ill and shaky, which gave him a thought. If he looked at the curse like a disease, then a fever would burn the offending agent out. He was probably being a little too literal with the analogy, but it helped him focus when he really just wanted to curl into a ball. It was worth a try, anyway.

He glanced over his shoulder at Arthur, who was turned away and staring out the cell bars in frustration. Merlin took a breath and faced the wall, then held his uninjured hand over the infected one and whispered a spell.

The magic seared through him with burning intensity, and he bit down hard to keep from crying out. Liquid fire coursed up his arm, consuming the poison, and then fizzled out after several long moments, leaving him sweating and panting, bowed over in agony.

"Merlin?" Arthur was suddenly at his side and gripping his shoulders, trying to pull him upright. "Are you all right?"

He gritted his teeth against the lingering burn and forced out a nod. "S-sorry," he rasped.

Arthur rocked back with a sigh, one hand squeezing the back of Merlin's neck. "Hang in there," he said, though the encouragement rang hollow.

Merlin managed to nod again, and Arthur stood up to go back to his pacing. Gasping as he unclenched his fist, Merlin looked down to find the spidery veins were gone from his hand. He figured that meant it had worked, but he felt utterly wrecked and so couldn't be sure quite yet. Tucking his hand against his body, he leaned his head against the stone to rest for a bit.

Gradually, the radiating pain from the clashing magics settled, and Merlin began to feel better. Another inspection of his hand confirmed it didn't look infected anymore. That was a marked improvement.

But now what to do about Arthur. If Merlin burned the curse out of him, not only would he be revealing himself to Arthur, but to Morgana. She was expecting them to succumb to her spell and become her puppets. Not that Merlin wanted to let Arthur get turned into a wraith, but he had to believe there was a way to bring him back from that. Because if there wasn't…then he was going to lose five of his closest friends.

No, Merlin needed to bide his time, at least until he had an opening to strike back against Morgana. So he picked up his neckerchief and rewrapped his hand to hide the fact that his cut had been cured.

The hours wore on, and Arthur grew sicker and weaker, and Merlin could do nothing but watch and play ill himself.

Finally there was a scuffing sound outside the cell as the knights came to retrieve them. Merlin tried to meet their eyes, tried to see some part of his friends still in there somewhere. But they were blank slates as they unlocked the cell and dragged Arthur and Merlin out. Arthur could barely keep his feet, and so Merlin faked stumbling along as well as they were brought before Morgana again and deposited at her feet.

She gazed down at them, eyes alight with gloating triumph. "Oh, Arthur," she crooned. "Soon you will be my little king and I will return to Camelot on your arm."

Arthur was too sick to muster a retort, arms wrapped around his stomach in pain.

"Gwen will of course have to be killed," Morgana went on, which elicited a low keen from him. She merely grinned. "I think I'll have you do it yourself." She bent down and tucked a finger under his chin to lift his head. He grunted as he was forced to meet her eyes. "Give in," she said. "It will go easier on you when you do."

"Never," he ground out.

Morgana smirked and straightened. "Your friends all tried to resist, but they surrendered in the end. So will you."

Merlin kept his eyes on the ground, heart pounding. He had no choice, he realized; he couldn't let Morgana get as far as Camelot, and he had to save Arthur before he too fell under her control. It was now or never.

With a steeling breath, he leaped to his feet.

Morgana's expression slackened in surprise. "What—"

Merlin shot a hand toward her and uttered a spell. Her eyes widened in stupefaction a split second before an invisible force sent her flying backward through the air. Cold hands clamped down on his shoulders, and Merlin twisted as he fired up the spell again, sending the knights across the courtyard and crashing to the ground. He then darted over to where Excalibur lay and snatched up the sword. Morgana was just staggering to her feet when Merlin strode over and stuck the tip of the blade against her throat.

"How do I undo the curse?" he demanded.

She just gazed at him in utter bewilderment and shock and perhaps even an inkling of fear. "It can't be," she breathed. "You're Emrys."

Merlin lifted his chin. "I am."

Morgana let out a delirious sounding laugh. "You? Arthur's buffoon of a servant."

"Not such a buffoon." He pushed the sword more firmly against her throat. "The cure."

Her eyes flashed with vitriol. "There is no way to undo it," she seethed.

Merlin faltered. No, there had to be something. She was lying.

Morgana's lips curved upward deviously. "That's right, Emrys, you'll just have to watch Arthur become like the rest of your little friends: nothing more than empty shades."

Merlin's blood quickened with fury, and he was filled with the incensed urge to strike her down right then and there. Maybe her death would break her hold over them.

But he heard a crinkle of leaves and whirled just as Lancelot and Leon lunged at him, swords drawn. He swung Excalibur up to block their blades, the metallic clang pealing throughout the ruins. Merlin didn't want to hurt his friends, though, so he staggered backward several steps and used his magic to throw them across the yard again. He spun back toward Morgana, but it was too late; she hit him with her own magic that slammed into his chest and sent him flying through the air. He hit one of the crumbling stone walls and dropped to the ground, pain radiating all through his body.

Morgana stormed over and shot a hand out, fingers crooking. An immense pressure closed around his throat, cutting off his airway. Merlin gasped raggedly, fingers clawing at the ground as he fought to escape. But the force of the magic was preventing him from getting up, and all he could do was lie there, writhing as his vision started to go spotty. Morgana's eyes burned with magic and rage.

Then she jerked and let out a startled gasp. The pressure vanished, and Merlin sucked in desperate gulps of air. He blinked rapidly and tilted his head up. The glow in Morgana's eyes died and she fell limply to the ground, revealing Arthur standing behind her, Excalibur coated in crimson. Merlin flicked his stunned gaze to Morgana's body, lying dead, then dropped his head back against the grass in relief.

Arthur was swaying where he stood, face bloodless and marred with those macabre gray veins, but he turned furious eyes on Merlin and angled Excalibur toward him. Merlin went rigid.

But then Arthur doubled over with a groan, the sword falling from lax fingers. Merlin scrambled upright in time to catch him as he fell to his knees.

"Hold on," he urged. "I'll find a way to fix this."

Killing Morgana obviously hadn't broken the curse. Merlin thought about using his magic to burn it out, but the poison was far more progressed in Arthur now than it'd been when Merlin had healed himself, and the intensity of it might just kill him. No, Merlin couldn't risk that route.

He eased Arthur down to lie on the grass and leaped to his feet, quickly roving his gaze around the ruins. The rest of the knights were lying sprawled where they'd fallen, so that was good at the moment. Merlin scanned the crumbling walls and remembered which section Morgana had emerged from when they'd first arrived. With an anxious glance back at Arthur, Merlin then hurried deeper into the ruins.

He found Morgana's lair down a dilapidated corridor in a room no larger than a cellar. She had numerous items accumulated in there, mostly spell ingredients. And there was a dark grimoire, open to a page with a curse to enslave souls as wraiths. Merlin urgently read the instructions, horrified by not only the dark magic involved, but how the poison was meant to progress, slowly infiltrating its victims and transforming them from the inside out, replacing their blood with black magic and thereby stealing their life and making them immortal wraiths.

Merlin read the page three times, desperate for any clue on how to reverse it. He finally spotted a footnote at the bottom in very small, almost faded print, and flipped through the book to the page it referenced. He sucked in a sharp breath. There was an antidote.

He read the list of ingredients, then searched through Morgana's things for them. Thankfully, she had everything needed, and Merlin whipped up a small dose of the stuff as quickly as he could, then rushed back to Arthur.

Arthur lay where Merlin had left him, shivering and hitching on pained breaths. Merlin dropped to the ground and partially pulled Arthur into his lap.

"Here, I've got the cure," he said, placing the rim of the vial to Arthur's lips.

Arthur wrenched his head away. "I won't- take- some potion," he ground out painfully. The unspoken from a sorcerer cut to Merlin's heart.

"Would you rather become a mindless wraith?" he retorted.

Arthur shot him a scathing look, which was hampered by the dark crescents bruising beneath his eyes and sickly pallor. But when Merlin insistently pressed the vial against his mouth again, he grudgingly relented and accepted it.

Merlin made sure he swallowed it all, then stayed sitting on the ground, Arthur cradled in his arms, and waited desperately for it to work.