The Dust of Hope

by fourleggedfish

The prophecy is in motion. It is an undertaking the likes of which Arthur did not expect. (Book 2 of 3, follows The Impersonated Self)

7. Chapter 7

With All My Heart, Post-Ep. (AU)

Arthur pushed open the infirmary door and surveyed the dim room. It had been long enough since he saw Gaius leave, headed toward the lower town on some kind of emergency call, that he felt assured of his privacy at the moment. None of the candles were lit, but the westerly light filtering in through the high windows offered Arthur enough illumination to navigate the cluttered outer room without tripping or knocking anything over. A faint glow illuminated the perimeter of the door to Merlin's little room in the round of the tower. Arthur stepped silently up the stairs and gently pushed at the door just hard enough to peer inside and assess the situation.

Once Arthur determined that Merlin was indeed in there, and that he appeared to be asleep, Arthur slipped inside and shut the door behind him. He felt like a thief or an intruder, though he wasn't; this was his castle, and that was his servant in the bed before him. Arthur ground his teeth and balled his hands into fists as a silent concession to the threat of his composure. He wanted to blame Merlin, and hate him, for the death of his wife – for breaking his word, and failing to save her as he'd promised. What good was magic if it couldn't even do that much? but Arthur already knew that such an injustice wouldn't make him feel better. Arthur had done that already, over the body of his father. The lesson burned like acid in the back of his throat; there was no relief in shifting the blame to a man whose only real crime seemed to be risking his life time and again, unasked for, to give Arthur what he wanted.

And in truth, what truly angered Arthur just then was that he didn't want to be alone with his thoughts, and Merlin was supposed to show up whenever that happened so that Arthur didn't have to seek him out and betray the pathetic reality that he couldn't always bear the weight of his own life alone. What had happened at the cauldron – what he'd seen… He knew that it had changed something in him. Something more than Guinevere's loss alone could affect. Arthur remembered too well the sound of Merlin screaming at Arthur to let him go, clawing at the mail and plate that protected Arthur's arms, howling that he could still save Guinevere. Not all of the shrieking had come from Merlin, either. Those things climbing his skin like vines seeping black acid, wrapped so tightly in places that the welts remained two days later… Half of the racket had come from them – an endless shriek of sundered magic etching the thing that killed his wife onto Merlin's skin as if they needed a reminder. He revealed himself as a sorcerer in that moment. As a traitor, without thought. And all he did afterwards was beg to be allowed to save her. Not a single plea came from his mouth that implied he thought of himself. Of what it meant to do magic in front of the king of Camelot. He hadn't cared that his life was forfeit, only that when he gave it, he should give it to her. That was the legacy with which he intended to leave Arthur: a selfless sorcerer to prove every one of Uther's teachings false. Irrefutable proof that Arthur was wrong, and his kingdom engaged in a slaughter. And it wasn't even on purpose. No, the only thing Merlin actually meant by it all was to save his friend. He might have thought the rest, about Uther and Camelot's treatment of his kind, but he never would have said it, and it wasn't the thing that truly motivated him.

"You could at least hate me for it," Arthur told him, forlorn. Like Arthur hated himself sometimes for the kind of do-nothing king he'd become. Except that if Merlin hated him, it would have been easier to ignore his own hypocrisy. It would have made Camelot right in its cruelty.

Arthur soundlessly picked up a stool and moved it to Merlin's bedside so that he could perch there and frown at his hands folded and hanging loose between his knees. He was numb like frost, and he knew it would break eventually, but right then, nothing could crack through the shell that Arthur donned out of necessity to get them all back home, mostly alive. Everything felt muted – wrapped in thick pelts of wool. Arthur sniffed softly to keep his nostrils unclogged and looked up at the man lying before him. The left side of Merlin's face bore the outermost edges of a ring of faded bruising. The worst of it was hidden beyond his hairline, but the cut itself scabbed right at the edge of his scalp. The shape of him swam in Arthur's field of vision, shiny from the wet of Arthur's own eyes. Helpless to stop himself, Arthur reached forward to feel for the warm wash of air as Merlin exhaled. Proof of life. He counted four of them, and then withdrew again into his own space to examine the soft cream linen wrapping Merlin's arms without touching any of it. A thready welt stood out on the back of one of Merlin's hands, angry and red, twined around one finger from the tip to the palm like an adornment. There were more, exposed on his fingers, disappearing into the wrappings bound tight over the meat of his hands. His skin shone faintly, and Arthur could smell the camphor paste smeared on the worst of the wounds to help them heal.

"What happened, sire?"

Startled, Arthur shot to his feet and put his back to the wall, his sword out without thinking, extended over Merlin to protect him.

Leon held up his empty hands in the doorway and murmured, soft in a sickroom, "Apologies, sire. I did not mean to intrude."

"How long have you been here?" Arthur whispered.

"Only a moment." Leon's face turned puzzled as he took in the pitiful sight that Merlin made, pale and unmoving on the cot, his hair a disaster cast upon the pillow. "I've never seen wounds like those."

Arthur swallowed and recollected himself. He ignored his own shaking and set his sword on the cot near Merlin's arm so that he wouldn't betray himself by fumbling to get it back in its scabbard.

"Sire?" Leon lowered his hands and stepped into the room. "The council is worried. The queen is dead, and you've not spoken to anyone since you came back. We do not even know if we need to prepare for attack." He stood at the foot of Merlin's cot as Arthur sank back down onto the stool with his head in his hands, and then ventured, "Arthur?"

A shuddering gust of air bore the words from Arthur's chest against his will. "It was magic." He hadn't meant to say anything, but the words tumbled out like they needed the air the same way that Arthur did to survive. Breath fogging a vambrace. "The wounds. They were some kind of dark magic." He brushed a hand over his face and then pressed his mouth to his palm in a pointless effort to stop himself saying, "He tried to save her from them, and they nearly killed him too."

Leon stepped around the bed and crouched on the balls of his feet at Arthur's side. He set one hand on the cot near Merlin's knee to steady himself. "Will he recover?"

Arthur nodded, swallowed a sudden rush of bile and lifted his head from his hands with a deep, forced breath to recompose himself. "Yes, Gaius believes so."

"Were you attacked as well?" Leon didn't make it obvious that he was giving Arthur a thorough once-over, but subtlety wasn't really Leon's strong point either.

"No," Arthur replied. He couldn't stop himself reaching out to check for breath again. "Merlin took it on himself. They didn't touch me."

"Forgive me, sire," Leon prefaced. "But I have to ask: will they come for us now? Is there a chance that they followed you back here?

Arthur blinked a few times, his mind struggling over the question, and then retracted his hand so that he could twist and face Leon. "What are you asking?"

Apologetic, but never intimidated, Leon replied, "The sorcerers that afflicted and killed the queen, sire. Will they follow you here to press their attack?"

"No," Arthur replied. "There's no one following."

"And Merlin, sire? Are you certain that whatever attacked him is now gone? That it hasn't left some residue?"

"No. No, I got him into the water in time." Not that Leon had enough information to understand the significance of that. "Morgana cast whatever that was, and she's dead now. There was no one else. It's gone now." He prayed it was gone.

Leon glanced quickly at Merlin and then asked Arthur, "The Lady Morgana is dead?"

It was only then that Leon's comment about his silence really struck home. Arthur had literally said nothing since riding back into the city, hadn't he. "Yes. The war is over, I think, unless someone else steps into her place. But I don't know who could." Arthur looked at Merlin after he spoke that lie. But Merlin never would. Merlin was a nobler thing than that.

"How, sire?" Leon asked. "How was she defeated when all other attempts failed?"

Arthur tipped his head to indicate Merlin's person. "He ran her through to stop her attack on us."

"What – Merlin killed her?" Leon gaped at the bony frame of the unconscious man beside them.

"Are you really so surprised?" Arthur asked. He genuinely wanted to know, too. Of course, Arthur knew the things of which Merlin might be capable. He had seen enough hints by then to paint a frightening and confusing picture in his mind to lay over the bumbling Merlin who dropped his dishes and couldn't keep his rooms tidy. Arthur might have to judge his own public reaction to the announcement of Morgana's death by someone else's less-informed opinion of Merlin, because Arthur's was too mixed up in his head to trust anymore.

"Actually," Leon allowed, "I am not surprised, sire. Merlin has often displayed an uncommon strength. Still." He grew guarded and contemplated his own knee for a moment. "Perhaps it would be better to leave out such details. Announce only that the Lady Morgana is now dead, and leave it at that."

Arthur narrowed his eyes, thinking of Guinevere and the sacrifice that Merlin might have made to save her. "He deserves the recognition," Arthur countered. "After all that he risked trying to save his queen." Arthur couldn't recognize him for the magic he wielded on Guinevere's behalf, or the valiant attempt to sacrifice himself for her. Not to mention all of the other things that Arthur suspected he had done over the years to protect them all. The only thing that Arthur could safely reward was this – that Merlin killed their greatest enemy, and even though he couldn't save Guinevere, he did save the rest of them all from her endless hatred and war.

"Sire, consider how it would seem." Leon cast Arthur's person a wary glance without meeting his gaze.

Arthur wondered what he was trying so hard not to say. "It would seem that Merlin served this kingdom as bravely as any knight."

Leon raised his head and faced Arthur fully. "It would seem strange that a mere servant was able to kill a high priestess of the old religion."

They eyed each other for what felt like a long time, both inscrutable, neither willing to break the stalemate first. Arthur could tell that Leon was trying to figure something out – searching for some tell in Arthur's face. It crossed Arthur's mind that Leon might know what Merlin was, but if he did, then surely he would not try to shield Merlin like this. Neither from Arthur, nor from the laws of Camelot to which he took an oath to uphold.

A soft gurgling grunt drew both of their attentions to the bed where Merlin grimaced and shifted, but didn't wake. Arthur had already seen the half-consumed sleeping draught sitting on the little table near Merlin's head. He wouldn't likely wake for a while, not without someone assaulting his person.

Arthur sighed. Leon was right; there would be too many questions. "Yes, it would raise suspicions he doesn't need. Thank you, Leon."

Leon nodded, looked around in discomfort, and then ploughed ahead. "The queen's body has been prepared, sire. Shall I have them lay her out for the vigil?"

For an indeterminate span of time after that question reached his ears, Arthur's mind took in nothing. Did nothing. When the fog cleared, Leon had moved to stand guard at the door leading out into the infirmary, his entire face a worried frown, and Gaius was checking Merlin's pupils. Arthur watched, slack and expressionless, as Gaius peeled sticky lids from sightless eyes. If it weren't for the clarity of Merlin's irises, half rolled toward his hair, Arthur would have checked for breath yet again.

Gaius might have been speaking to Arthur all along – he had no idea how long ago Gaius returned – but the first words that made it through the fuzz in Arthur's thoughts were, "These marks concern me, sire." Gaius picked up one of Merlin's limp hands and turned it to reveal the vivid, thready wounds tracing a pattern similar to veins over the surface of Merlin's skin. "Leon said that magic caused them. Can you tell me anything more about it?"

"They were screaming," Arthur whispered back. He reached across Merlin's body and pulled Merlin's hand away from Gaius. It wasn't personal; he just wanted it for himself. Flaccid fingers twitching in Arthur's grasp. Warm skin. Proof of life. He raised his brows to glance past Gaius at the little window on the other side of the room. No light remained to shine behind the shutter, which meant that full night had fallen while Arthur languished within the nothing of his thoughts.

Gaius considered Arthur carefully from beneath wrinkled brows. "Forgive me, sire. But it is time for you to sit vigil with the queen. It will look bad if you fail to appear."

Arthur looked up, his thoughts pale. "Yes." He was sick to death of how things would look to others. "Gaius…"

When Arthur failed to finish that thought, Gaius prompted, "Yes, sire?"

Arthur let his breath out unformed and tapped the back of Merlin's hand. There were too many notions clamoring to break free. Accusations and accolades, both. "Do you think… Do you think things may be different one day?"

Gaius peered at him, concern etched into the grooves of his face. "Sire?"

"Never mind." Arthur shook himself and forced his legs to hold him as he stood. "I need to be with Guinevere."

Gently, Gaius replied, "Yes, sire." He seemed to understand something that Arthur did not, because he added, "I have no other business tonight. He'll be safe until he wakes."

Before, Arthur would have remarked on that – demanded to know why Gaius thought it important to tell him that. Who was Merlin, anyway? Just a servant. A bloody liar and a sorcerer, no less. And Arthur was king, and he didn't have time to dally at the bedside of a sick peasant. It seemed absurd to him now, that he could ever dismiss Merlin so easily again. "I can't forget the sound," he blurted out. Shrill. Piercing. An earwig writhing into his skull. He wanted to remember the sound of Guinevere's voice- her sweet laughter, and her coy flirts - but all he heard was screaming in the echo chamber of his mind.

In Arthur's periphery, Gaius looked down for a moment, and then labored on creaking joints to his feet. He shuffled around the cot until he could take Arthur's arm and turn him bodily away from the sight of Merlin lying pale and motionless with the marks of those things still on him. One of the wheals had left a red line up his cheek. It nearly touched his nostril. Arthur remembered the exact moment it happened. It was seared on his mind's eye

"Sire." Gaius stood in front of him to force his attention. "You must be strong. For all our sakes, now."

Arthur drew himself straighter, though he spent more effort at it than he thought he should. "Yes," he breathed. Reality hadn't quite crashed down on him yet, and he knew it. He wasn't thinking straight. God, how had Uther survived this feeling? Losing a piece of his heart… Arthur wished he could ask, but he would never again make the mistake of thinking that the shade beyond the veil was still the father he thought he'd known. "Thank you, Gaius."

Gaius nodded and ushered him toward the door. "Leon will go with you. Won't you, Sir Leon?"

Leon nodded. "I'll stay all night, if need be."

The urge to swallow caught Arthur by surprise as he recalled another vigil, and not being alone for it. Abruptly, Arthur turned back and seized Gaius by the sleeve of his robe. "I don't want him to feel that he's alone."

Mildly alarmed, Gaius covered Arthur's hand with his own. "He won't be."

"He sat with me all night," Arthur explained, completely nonsensical. "So that I wouldn't feel alone. I can't do it back; I have to sit with Guinevere myself. But he lost her too."

"I will sit with him," Gaius assured him. He must have remembered the same incident that Arthur did, even if the significance eluded him, because it was not just an empty platitude meant to hustle him on his way. "He won't be alone."

Arthur nodded and backed down, aware that he was acting like a lunatic. "Good." He felt winded, and decided that he needed to leave before he broke down entirely. There would be plenty of time for that in the dark watches. "Good." Arthur fumbled past Leon and down the steps into the main room of the infirmary. He was so distracted that he ran into a stool and bounced his hip off the corner of a worktable as he stumbled. The screech of the wooden table leg dragging across the stone floor stopped Arthur in his tracks, his heart rabbiting in his throat. Before he could coax himself to keep walking, he had to remind himself that it wasn't one of those things, screaming. It was only wood on stone. They were safe, and it was over.

It was only wood on stone.

---

Arthur glanced to his right as he adjusted his livery collar over his chainmail. After eyeing Merlin for signs of, well, anything less than amicable, Arthur warned him, "Be nice."

Merlin swiveled his head around and quipped back, "I'm always nice."

"Lies, Merlin. Don't forgot, I know you." Arthur shrugged his shoulders until his cloak fell the way he wanted it to. They were both standing in the corridor outside the main doors of one of the more modest dining halls, and Arthur honestly had no idea how his simple dinner invitation to four druids turned into a proper royal event. Just to remind himself, Arthur asked, "How many of them are there, again?"

"Fourteen," Merlin replied, in reference to the total number of druids who invaded the citadel and assisted in the assassination plot. The remainder had kindly presented themselves at Arthur's front door, basically, to request forgiveness as Alator presumably instructed. Somehow. Without actually talking to them.

"Fourteen," Arthur mumbled back. "I'm going to embarrass myself, aren't I."

"More than usual?" Merlin smiled at him, and it was that old encouraging look, disguised as teasing, that he used to give Arthur back before Arthur settled into his own skin. The look that said that if Arthur wanted to move a mountain, he could, even if Merlin had to break his own back, and not tell anyone, to make it happen. "You'll be fine," Merlin assured him, leaning in with that old, secret smile of his - the one that looked like it should come with a wink, but never did. Like he knew things Arthur didn't. "And I'll be right beside you the whole time."

Arthur narrowed his eyes because time was, Merlin said that a lot, and Arthur always scoffed at him for it, or let it insult his own sense of capability to handle being king. He wondered if his failure to appreciate that support in the past had led to its retraction in more recent times. He so rarely saw it anymore. Rather than let those words shove him into old, arrogant habits, Arthur looked down at the clasp of his cloak and replied, "I know you will. You always are."

Merlin threw him a curious glance.

Apropos of nothing, Arthur remarked, "It's been twelve years since you came to Camelot."

"Just about," Merlin confirmed.

Arthur cleared his throat and tossed a look at the door leading to the dining hall that was inscrutable even to himself, and he was the one wearing his face. "This is that destiny of yours, come to roost."

Merlin shifted his shoulders in discomfort. "Maybe."

Arthur angled his torso toward Merlin. "You don't think so?"

With an uncomfortable sigh, Merlin smoothed his hands down the front of his buttoned surcoat, along the embroidery that ran from throat to the tops of his thighs. Arthur recognized the pattern as one of Guinevere's, and wondered if that thread actually came from her hand. Peering more closely at the matching design of Merlin's cuffs, Arthur could tell that the thread was too new to have come from Guinevere, which meant that Merlin had either requested the design specifically, or else stitched it himself. He was a terrible tailor, though; it would have been a painstaking endeavor. Pale cream cloth peaked out from the edges of the cuffs – bandages wrapped around the welts on his arms. The faint scent of camphor reached Arthur's nostrils and curled there, easy to dismiss as something else.

"Can we not talk about it?" Merlin looked up and regarded Arthur from beneath unreadable brows.

It took Arthur a moment to recall the thread of conversation. "I didn't realize it bothered you so much."

"It doesn't," Merlin returned automatically, and then relented, "It never used to." He swallowed, his face tinged queasy at the edges. "I used to revel in it. Destiny." Evading Arthur's gaze, he murmured, "Pretending to be special only made me arrogant. And people died." He yanked too hard on his sleeves and then left off fussing at his coat with a grimace. "Prophecy is always contrary; you can't trust it."

Arthur canted his head to acknowledge that, and forced himself to stop fiddling with all of the shiny, buckled parts of his attire. "Alright," he replied, but only to acknowledge that this was a topic that Merlin wanted to avoid. It didn't mean that Arthur agreed with all of the subtle implications of those comments. "Inconsequential diplomatic dinner, it is." He paused to peer at Merlin covertly from the corner of his eye. "You're feeling alright? No lingering…you know…whatever?"

"I'm fine," Merlin chirped, which was not convincing at all.

"So, it's just you in there?" Arthur pressed, flicking his fingers toward Merlin's temple.

Merlin flinched back even though Arthur hadn't actually touched him, and shot him a blunted glare. "Now you're just being an ass."

Arthur lowered his hand back to his side. "Alright, yes, but I'm also serious."

Merlin dropped his gaze briefly, and then darted his eyes back up to the door. "I just have a funny feeling." He grimaced and huffed a sharp breath out through his nose. "It's like with Eira. I feel like things happened that didn't. Or when I kept insisting that Mordred was with us at the canyon." He tossed Arthur a covert apology with his eyes for mentioning that day without warning. "Finna," he clarified. "I do know her. Not well, but I've met her before." He grimaced and pressed a palm into the soft bit at the edge of his ribcage, just above his stomach. When Arthur touched the back of his hand in mute question, Merlin shook his head and pulled his clothes straight again instead. "It's nothing. Sore from this morning still." He took a forced breath and then let it back out, controlled, as he peered avoidantly at the door. "They're right, though. I've never actually met Finna. And yet, I know her. I recognized her. And I have... I have gratitude for the way she died."

Arthur watched him fiddle at the much nicer neckerchief that he'd pulled out of nowhere on their way to the dining hall. "What do you think those are? Not visions, obviously."

Merlin shrugged. "Memories. Or as close as matters." He quirked an eyebrow at Arthur and lifted his chin so that he could fold the edge of the neckerchief more comfortably without removing it. "It's like looking into the crystal of Neahtid. They're things that might have happened, but didn't. The world, though – it remembers those things too because it was so close. They're still echoing out there, on the other side of the moment that separated us from it. Like it all turned on one instant – so faint that even the gods weren't sure of the outcome."

"Then what you're saying is that we avoided a worse fate by the skin of our teeth?" Arthur cocked his head at the door and wondered what could possibly have been worse than losing Guinevere.

"I'm not saying that we avoided it at all," Merlin countered. He leaned into Arthur's space so that Arthur had to look at him. "Some of it is still swimming around, unbalanced. Some of it was supposed to happen." He paused for a beat, intent on holding Arthur's gaze. "Some of it still wants to."

Arthur stared at him, at the crystal blue sharpness of his irises, improbably clear in an otherwise gloomy hallway, and then sucked in a long, deep breath. Rivers and floodwater, he thought, and then banished the image from his mind. "I will never get used to you talking like that."

Merlin drew back and shifted self-consciously. "Sorry."

"No," Arthur countered. "I know it's just part of who you are, and you've been hiding it from me for a long time. I don't want you to go back to that." He tugged his gloves more tightly onto his fingers and then reached over to clasp Merlin's good shoulder. "I'll get used to it."

Merlin appeared dubious, but nodded.

"Good." Arthur smacked him lightly on the back, which he maintained was a friendly gesture, but Merlin lurched a step forward under the assault anyway. "Wimp." With a wave, Arthur summoned the guards lingering back at the end of the corridor to give them privacy to speak before the banquet. Because it had turned into that, to judge by the number of platters entering through the serving entrance at the other hand of the corridor that ran along the hall. Arthur still had no idea how he lost control of that situation. He glanced at Merlin and just to annoy him, ordered, "Try not to overreact if someone shakes my hand. That boy nearly wet himself at the inside-out comment."

Merlin simply narrowed his eyes, unimpressed. "You say that as if I wouldn't have done it."

Arthur gave him an exaggerated blink, face blank. "I can't tell if you're joking or not."

Merlin grinned. "That's the idea." Then his gaze shifted past Arthur and he nodded to someone.

When Arthur turned, he found Gwaine strolling toward them with all the casual, bored grace of someone putting on nonchalance like a cloak to cover what they were really wearing. With a nod to Merlin's person, Gwaine asked, "How are your ribs?"

"Feels like I got kicked by a goat." Gingerly, Merlin smoothed a hand down his chest again.

Arthur grunted and then snickered like a surprise sneeze at the thought of Meliot's face, should he learn that his good efforts earned him comparison to a farm animal.

"What?" Merlin demanded. "It's not funny."

"Relax," Arthur chuckled. "I'm not laughing at you."

After directing a reproachful glare at Arthur, Gwaine pointed out, "Better sore than dead."

Merlin grimaced. "I'm sure I'd have been fine either way."

When Gwaine got a strange look on his face, Arthur interrupted, "I wouldn't take the chance that you're impervious to harm, Merlin. You'd only get to make that mistake once." Not to mention, the ego of such an idea. It was just tempting fate to prove him wrong, but either way, it didn't bear easy contemplation. "Let's not get into that now. We agreed to discuss everything after dealing with the druids."

"You agreed," Merlin shot back. "I haven't agreed to anything."

Before Arthur could decide whether to be indignant or conciliatory in return, Gwaine merely said, "Merlin," in a tone that struggled for definition. It was soft, though, in that way that could cut like a knife if no one paid close attention.

Merlin slowed his nervous picking at his clothes and once again pulled his sleeves down to cover the bandages on his arms. "I know," he replied in like manner. He dug a single fingernail into the back of one hand and worried at a patch of pink skin stretched over a tendon. He didn't stay at it long enough for Arthur to yell at him again. "It's fine. He can tell you whatever he likes."

Gwaine opened his mouth, and then sucked his lips in between his teeth as he averted his face, probably so that Merlin wouldn't see his frustration and irritation. "Because he's the one I want to hear it all from."

"I'm not having this conversation." Merlin reached to grab the staff he'd propped against the wall when he'd arrived.

Arthur angled back so as not to get an inadvertent knock upside the head from the thing. "What is that monstrosity, anyway?" It was pretty hideous. Big garish blue stone at the top, and gnarled rune-carved wood all down the rest of it. And it smelled odd, like rotten petrichor, or a peat bog if Arthur got too close to it.

Gwaine snorted. "Are you compensating for something there, Merls? I feel inadequate."

Merlin narrowed his eyes, but his lips threatened a smile. "Are you being lewd?"

"Always," Gwaine grinned.

Merlin bobbed his head from side to side, looked Gwaine up and down, and then replied, "I can assure you, I don't have anything to compensate for."

Arthur coughed, hard, and pretended that jealousy wasn't the first thing he felt when Merlin said that to Gwaine, of all people. He didn't have proprietary rights to Merlin, and he doubted that there was any true interest on Merlin's part anyway. Not in Gwaine. It still stung, not to mention making Arthur flush, which he hated.

Laughing, Gwaine said, "Alright, big man. Seriously. What is that thing?"

After a brief hesitation, Merlin admitted, "It's a Sidhe staff. Imbued with magic from Avalon." He shrugged, sheepish. "Thought it might be good to – I don't know – make a point? Especially since you insist on only having six knights in there with you."

Gwaine blinked at the staff, and then at Arthur, who could feel his own eyebrows trying to climb into his hair. Completely ignoring the very sensible-sounding explanation for what was apparently a show of force, Arthur shifted his gaze to Merlin and asked, "Where on earth did you get that? How long have you had it?" He had other questions that he didn't dare ask, like: Then you are fae, and you just lied about that too?

"A while now." Merlin tried to shrug but it just looked queasy where the aborted motion sat on his shoulders. "I had to kill a few of them. This was from the first one. I just kept it afterwards; it's been useful."

Gwaine's eyes got huge, and the guards that Arthur had called forward earlier both took a step back, exchanging wary looks with each other. With another incredulous glance at the staff, Gwaine demanded, "You killed a bloody Sidhe? What are you, mad?"

"Gwaine!" Arthur barked.

Merlin looked down and then off to the side. "I'm not mad." He picked his sleeves again, and mumbled, "About that, anyway." With a huff to bring himself back to some state of ire, Merlin snapped, "They went after Arthur. I wasn't about to just let them."

"How did you – " Arthur cut himself off, looked at Gwaine, considered if he really wanted to know, and then asked instead, "How many, exactly?"

Rubbing his nose as if it tickled, Merlin confessed, "Three, total. Over the years." Quickly, he added, "But they deserved it. They tried to kill you, Arthur. One of them was a changeling, and your father wanted you to marry her because no one noticed – she would have been your queen, and then all of Camelot would have fallen under their rule – "

Gwaine interrupted with a faint curse.

"What?" Merlin demanded. "I wasn't just going to let them do it."

"No, of course not," Gwaine replied. He was looking at Merlin like he'd never really seen him before, though.

"And it worked. It's been years since they interfered with Camelot. They won't bother us again," Merlin assured them both. "They know I won't stand for it."

"You won't stand for – for the Sidhe getting in your way?" Gwaine opened his mouth to say something more, but nothing else made it out except for a faint, "Mate… What?"

Arthur walked around Merlin to stand on his other side, both to be farther away from the Sidhe object - the stink really was pronounced in close quarters - and to buy time to order his thoughts. "I won't pretend it doesn't bother me that you say that like it's nothing," he admitted. "I don't know much about the Sidhe, but if even half of the tales echo reality…" Arthur trailed off and shook his head. If even half the tales he'd heard were true, then Merlin was a bloody nightmare in ways Arthur hadn't considered, and he didn't know what the hell to do with that information. "We can discuss all of this later, after the druids leave Camelot." Arthur cleared his throat and then shook himself into a pose of regality. "Gwaine, close your mouth before you catch flies."

Gwaine did, but immediately enjoined, "Wait. The druids are going to know exactly what Merlin's carrying, and what it means."

Hefting the staff, Merlin shrugged. "It's not a big deal. It just means I can wield Sidhe magic, a little."

"No, lad," Gwaine told him, apologetic. "That's not what it means at all."

Arthur waved his hand to physically dispel the whole topic. "Calm, Gwaine. We don't have the time it would take to completely air that out." Figuratively or literally, which was a shame. Arthur breathed through his mouth and hoped that the smell of fresh food would cover the algae bucket smell that wormed into his nostrils every time he caught a whiff of the staff. "We'll just have to improvise if it comes up."

Gwaine rolled his eyes, and though the gesture was carefree, it was also stiff and forced into being so. "If it comes up, he says."

"Shut it, Gwaine." Arthur signaled at the guards – the guards openly wearing the same faintly spooked, wary expression that Gwaine was trying to hide – to open the doors and announce them. "Let's get this over with."

Merlin jerked the awful staff around and smacked Arthur in the chest with it to abort his attempt to approach the door.

"Ow!" Arthur held his hands back to avoid touching the thing. "What was that for?"

"That was harder than I meant," Merlin apologized.

Arthur bared his teeth and shoved him just to make a point. "Why, Merlin?"

After bouncing off the pillar right next to him, Merlin planted the staff on the ground to make himself a tripod, presumably in case Arthur shoved at him again. "Don't start laughing again when we go in there."

Arthur gave Merlin a funny look. "Why would I?"

"Just…don't." Merlin gave everything except Arthur a shifty-eyed look. "Please? They can be overly enthusiastic about me."

Arthur made an obvious face. "I have noticed."

"No," Merlin countered. "It gets worse than that." He wrung at the neck of the staff with both hands and muttered, "They might bow or something."

"Or something, yes," Arthur mocked back. "I've read that note from Alator a hundred times. Calling him worshipful isn't far off the mark. And that boy, when we caught him infiltrating my chambers? He unironically called you master a half dozen times."

Merlin slanted his eyes up to meet Arthur's. "I don't tell them to do that. I never told them to do any of that. They just do."

"I'm not accusing you of anything."

"No? Good." Merlin squeezed his staff so hard that his knuckles creaked.

Arthur rolled his eyes, but only halfway. "You are an odd little man."

Of course, three steps into the banquet hall, the reason for Merlin's request became clear. All fourteen of their druid guests immediately stepped up and either bowed or knelt in front of Merlin. Some of their foreheads nearly touched the floor. If Merlin weren't standing there pretending he could merge with Arthur's shadow, Arthur might be jealous at that level of deference; he hadn't had someone genuflect that low to him in ages.

The herald standing at the door cleared his throat and belatedly announced, "I present, um. King Arthur of Camelot and the, uh, Prince Merlin of Dyfedd and – and Camelot."

Arthur threw the herald an irritated glance but the man was too busy ogling the spectacle of Merlin's admirers to notice.

Merlin redirected the hand that he nearly used to palm his face, and gripped his elbow instead before saying under his breath, "Please don't."

"Great Emrys," Alator greeted.

"Really," Merlin muttered without looking at any of them. "Don't."

Arthur felt his face split in amusement at the look on Merlin's, and immediately cleared his throat to cover for it.

Alator either didn't hear Merlin, or for some reason, this was the one thing that Merlin could have said that he didn't care about. "We are honored to meet you on this momentous day to witness the fulfillment of your destiny."

"This really isn't necessary," Merlin protested. "It's just supper."

That time, Arthur made no attempt to disguise his shit-eating grin. But he didn't laugh. He was a man of his word, after all.

"We rejoice in your victory," Alator's voice rang out.

Arthur nudged Merlin with an elbow and mouthed, "Victory." Merlin mouthed back something far less polite.

Without noticing the exchange going on above him, Alator continued, "And we pledge our lives to you in your quest to create the world we dream to live in."

"Yes, alright." Merlin hugged the staff to his chest and made a point of ignoring Arthur. "Thank you. That's enough now."

Arthur refrained from clapping his hands in glee, but it was a near thing.

Which was fortunate, as that was the moment everyone seemed to actually look at Merlin and what he was holding. The druids went very intently, very carefully still, like prey in a dark wood, and then half of them scrambled back to their feet and gaped. To Arthur's left, Leon, Percival, Caradoc, Marwen and Lamorak fingered their swords at the abrupt change in the mood of the room. Hunith stood near the head of the table where she had evidently been talking with the druids earlier, glancing back and forth between her absent son and their odd guests. Alator openly stared at the magical object that Merlin casually held wrapped in one arm, leaning into it as if it were a prop, and not a terrifying magical object. The two druid women flanking Alator managed to tear their eyes from Merlin, but from the look of them, it was only to start counting exits.

Well. That got awkward quickly. Arthur cleared his throat and reminded himself that Gwaine wasn't entirely stupid, and Arthur should perhaps heed him on occasion whenever he got a very not-Gwaine look on his face. "Right, then." He may as well have been speaking to the pillars the way old Leundugrance often did, for all the reaction his words evoked. "It is my great pleasure to welcome all of you to Camelot as friends. Long ago, our peoples were allies. It is my hope that we can find a way to be that again."

Not a single person was paying attention to Arthur except for Percival. Good, steady Percival. Arthur squished his mouth up in a squiggly line, and Percival replied by lifting an eyebrow. A few of the druids whispered Emrys under their breath the way soldiers whisper unthinking prayers on the battlefield, waiting for the first charge. They stared at Merlin as if they hadn't already decided to call him that, and then Marwen shook himself from the collective revery just to mumble, "Bloody hell."

Merlin shifted closer to Arthur, standing in his shadow as he once had as a servant, close and ready and normally unseen. Just an extension of his king. It wasn't really a self-shielding move, though, the way that Arthur had once thought. He could tell, now, abruptly, that even as Merlin seemed to defer into Arthur's space, or even hide behind him like the servant he once was, Merlin was actually claiming space. Claiming Arthur, for lack of a better descriptor. It was a dominant move directed not at Arthur himself, but at anyone who may approach Arthur. It was possessive. And now that Arthur noticed, he wondered how he ever thought it to be otherwise, because clearly, it never had been.

Apparently, Arthur was the only one who just now realized that Merlin wasn't cowering when he did that. As soon as it happened, all of Arthur's knights tensed and sized up the druids across from them as if Merlin had given them a war signal. Which he basically had in his own fumbling, accidental way. And when had Arthur's knights learned to speak fluent Merlin anyway? This wasn't going well, and they were barely through the door. Arthur glanced around to confirm that there were indeed servants and platters of food waiting to be shuttled to the tables. Thank god. Except that servants were very good at holding grudges, and very fond of Merlin, and they had been inconvenienced by the druids less than half a day ago. None of them were looking warm or effusive at the moment either. Great.

Arthur smiled and clasped his hands for everyone to see. Half the occupants of the room jumped or jerked back at the clap they made as Arthur slapped them together. "We have a lovely feast prepared for all of you. The kitchen staff has done a wonderful job on very short notice." He ploughed right on through the persistently uncomfortable atmosphere of the room. "And Merlin was kind enough to assist us with providing some seasonal fruits and vegetables that we otherwise wouldn't have available at the end of winter." Sort of. He didn't bother to explain that there were now a dozen squash vines laden with ripe produce covering the kitchen floor like a briar thicket, and a row of confused blackberry brambles in the royal gardens drooping toward the ground from the sudden weight of their shiny new fruit. Arthur sincerely hoped that there would be pie; he deserved it for the trouble of managing this situation.

Arthur bounced on the balls of his feet, one of those pesky tells for his own discomfort that he still hadn't quite eradicated yet, aware that his face was doing things he didn't appreciate, like turning pink and betraying how much he didn't know what to say or do to break the odd stalemate in the room. Still half-genuflected in front of Merlin, Alator moved his mouth as if he meant to make words and didn't, and then craned his neck to widen his eyes at his companions for help. No one helped him. Merlin leaned away from Arthur so that they could also exchange uncertain looks with each other. Arthur canted his head toward the druids, and Merlin shrugged as if demanding to know what Arthur expected him to do about it.

"Okay, then," Arthur chirped, facing the room again. He smiled his best friendly king of Camelot smile and hoped that it wasn't the one that Merlin thought made him look like an imbecile. "Talking can wait. Let's just eat, shall we?"

---

With All My Heart, Alternate Day of

"I can save her!"

Arthur tasted salt as he evaded Merlin's elbow flailing dangerously close to his face. This was a fresh water lake.

"Let me go – let me go! You're letting her die!"

"She's already gone," Arthur might have said. He didn't know; the only things he could hear clearly were the roar of blood in his ears, and Merlin screaming at him.

Merlin thrashed and made an ineffective bid to kick his way loose. "No - no, no please, stop. Please!"

A howling like banshees shrieked from out of thin air all around them both - a continuous cacophony that rattled Arthur's teeth and vibrated in his marrow. Magic. It was those things, torn apart by Merlin's hands, shredded as he ripped them from Guinevere with his own sorcery. Sticky parasites, black as tar, shrieking without pause. The sound alone made Arthur nauseous.

Merlin contorted himself enough to nearly slip from Arthur's grasp. He lunged toward the shore, hands grasping at air, and lost his footing as Arthur snagged at his ridiculous Dolma costume to yank him back. "Gwen!" His knees raked over the rocky lake bed as he twisted to try and get Arthur off of him, snarling mindlessly at the fingers he could not pry loose.

L ike an animal, Arthur thought. Savage like a sorcerer should be. But only savage in his quest to save a woman's life. The two things didn't match, and Arthur saw it - he finally saw what he'd been missing all these years as he desperately dragged Merlin way from Guinevere's expiring body - prevented Merlin from a pointless sacrifice that only the purest of hearts could ever make.

Arthur twisted him up so that he couldn't wrench free again, hugging Merlin's thin body to his chest in an unforgiving grip and raising him partially out of the water so that he couldn't drag his feet to hinder them. It was instinctive, the urge to look past Merlin and back toward the shore. Guinevere was facing them, her hand outstretched, but she didn't seem to be reaching for them. She was just smiling to see them go. She was smiling that they left her there, abandoned her to her hideous end, and all around that loving expression, her broken body twitched with the coming death knell, covered in splatters of shiny tar that writhed weakly even then to find succor in the willing body that Arthur had torn from it. Arthur's breath punched from his chest, and he only knew that a word came with it because he heard the anguished sound of it echo in his head in the wake after. "Guinevere."

Feet away from Guinevere on the shore, Morgana wheezed with breathless laughter as she, too, expelled the last of her life into the dust of the cauldron, curled around the sword point speared through her abdomen from behind. She, too, watched Arthur retreat, but the only thing left on her face was the madness that brought them all here.

Fingers clawed at Arthur's hands in an effort to break their hold, and Merlin warbled in desperation, kicking frantically to get loose, flinging water in every direction. Arthur tore his mesmerized gaze from the shore and dragged Merlin deeper into the water, squinting at the light of the goddess near the center of the shallow cauldron. It didn't emanate from anything, that light; it simply was, and it blinded. "Please," he begged. "Please, help him. I can't lose him too."

"Stop!" Merlin kicked, but the water dragged at him and those ridiculous costume robes; they hampered his movements more even than rope. "It isn't too late." Fingers scraped at Arthur's armor, and there was some blood – broken fingernails, Arthur thought, from the force with which Merlin scraped to get him off. "No," Merlin choked, garbled and anguished. "No, no, no – "

Arthur looked down and sobbed outright at the things covering the backs of Merlin's hands. Threads like yarn, sentient and oily-black, writing like snakes up his arms. He yanked Merlin around and shouted at the light, "I'm begging you! Anything – I'll give anything for his life!"

"Let me finish," Merlin pled, still trying to pry his way from Arthur's grasp. "Arthur, please, whatever you think of me, just let me finish!" Those things, those tendrils - they had worked their way up his arms and into his clothes, Arthur realized. He watched horrified as Merlin stretched his neck, tendons popping. The stringy black things writhed their way up from his collar, tapping and seeking at his throat. "Please, Arthur." Merlin sounded like they might be choking him. "Please!" he gasped, heart a rapid flutter and lungs pulsing shallow within the band of Arthur's arms. He stopped struggling and the water bore him up within the circle of Arthur's arms, a billow of black cloth swirling around him like a funeral shroud as he twisted to escape from something within, rather than from Arthur now. The sodden fabric gleamed in the twin light of the sun and the goddess.

Arthur whirled toward the light, sending a wave of water swelling out in a wake around them as he faced the goddess. "What good is a goddess if you won't do anything?" he shouted. "What good is magic if it only destroys? Please! Please, he doesn't deserve to die like this!"

A strange gurgling sound ripped its way from Merlin's mouth and he arched in the water as if run through. "Please, Arthur." He sounded exactly the same as when the dorocha touched him, and he begged Arthur not to send him away. "You can do whatever you want to me after." He grunted and his whole body jerked violently. One of the black things slid up toward his nostril. "I won't run," Merlin ground out, strained, his limbs drawing tight with resistance. "Please, I have to go back."

Arthur waded closer to the light, his armor dragging at his limbs. If he slipped here, he would drown; the weight of mail and plate would keep him from finding his feet again in the water. And then all of them would die. "My life," Arthur gasped into the painful brightness, offering the only thing he had on his person to give that he thought might entice a goddess of the old religion.

Merlin jerked in his arms and shouted, painful and hoarse, "No! No, you don't take him!"

"Anything!" Arthur cried. " For the love of all that is good, I will give anything to save him!"

"He's not yours to take!" Merlin howled into the light. He ground out another wordless denial, his eyes rolling up in his head as he thrashed, but it was mindless now. The brightness pulsed pure and colorless in front of them. Cold. Unresponsive as the thready black strings crawled up Merlin's cheeks, wailing. Arthur was crying. His whole face felt hot and swollen. He didn't know what else to do. If this goddess refused to help, he didn't know what he would do. He didn't know. Arthur clutched Merlin tight to his chest in the water, helpless, and just stood there staring into a void of light while magic screeched in his ears, hoping that this so-called goddess would notice him. Praying that it cared. A terrible sound bubbled up from Merlin's throat. Without warning, he arched backwards in a rictus as he finally gave in and clawed at the tendrils attacking him.

Too quiet to be heard above the shrieking, and somehow calm in the center of the storm, Arthur fixed his gaze on the goddess and said, "Don't let him die. I need him."

The sky above them stretched clear and blue. Serene. It was a sky like any other, bright with the summer sun. Merlin twisted sharp in Arthur's arms, desperate now to evade the things twined around him, and turned his face up toward the crystalline expanse, eyes blind to the beauty of the heavens.

"Without Guinevere, he's all I have left."

Merlin opened his mouth, face contorting as he coiled his body in the water. His screams blended with the magic.

---

Arthur picked up his wine, aware of Merlin glaring at him, and gulped down too big a mouthful. Merlin, of course, did not have any wine in his goblet, and he had taken every available occasion throughout this farce of a state dinner to remind Arthur of his displeasure over the fact. Arthur forced himself not to slump into his chair at the table's head and hide behind the scrolled onlays carved into the back. Not a single person seemed inclined to any idle, friendly chatter. Not out loud, at least. Merlin kept shifting in his chair, glaring at various druids, rubbing his forehead, and looking like it took a lot of effort to remember that he should only respond to what people said with their mouths, out loud. Not that there was much of that. For a feast, everything remained horribly muted - more funeral than welcome. Arthur would have given a dozen gold coins to know what the druids were all saying to each other. There was some kind of discussion raging off and on between serving courses, and Merlin got twitchier with each passing tray of food.

Arthur looked down at the lovely little berry pie sitting between him and Merlin. There was a hole in the crust the size of a gold coin where Merlin had poked his knife, disordered the filling, and then stuffed a finger in after for good measure before pronouncing it safe. Arthur desperately wanted leave to enjoy the treat somewhere less conspicuous. The stress of this gathering spoiled his appetite. With a resigned sigh, he pushed the pie away.

Merlin's perpetual scowl dimmed a bit as he leaned to his left, toward Arthur's right hand where they both sat next to each other at the head of the table. It wasn't the norm - either Arthur's queen should sit beside him at the head, or no one should - but Merlin hadn't argued when Arthur dragged his chair around the corner of the table, and no one else dared comment on it. Merlin hardly had to move to speak into Arthur's ear, given the traditionally close quarters in which they sat. "Are you on a diet or something?"

Arthur narrowed his eyes. "Why? Are you going to call me fat? Very diplomatic of you."

"I was going to point out that you get cranky when your belly isn't full enough, and I am in no mood to deal with it tonight."

"Fish wife," Arthur grumbled. "Have you no sympathy for your king?"

"I haven't made a single comment on the extra holes in your belt for months now. That is the extent of my sympathy."

"There are no extra holes in – " Arthur blinked and then leaned reciprocally into Merlin's space. "What have you done to my belts? And don't you dare say you enhanced them!"

"Fine," Merlin agreed. "I adjusted them to account for the expansion of your personal domain."

Arthur sighed at him, irritated. "This is about the wine, isn't it."

Without answering, Merlin merely reclaimed his own space with a droll look on his face, slightly angled in his chair to keep Arthur in his periphery. The man had no sense of how to properly recline at a meal, and Arthur was tempted to point out that Merlin had hardly eaten anything either. He also hadn't let go of the Sidhe staff at any point, which Arthur thought should concern him. Merlin twiddled it constantly in his hand, rocking it back and forth like a child's toy stick with the bottom planted firm on the floor, or hugged it in the crook of an elbow when he needed his hands free for something else. His fingers tapped an agitated stacatto around the shaft now and then, and he'd even absently pressed his forehead or his cheek to it a few times while his mind appeared to wander. Were they in some kind of danger that Merlin felt the need to be on guard through the whole meal, or was the staff simply dangerous enough on its own that he didn't want to risk someone else touching it or moving it? In which case, perhaps the dinner table was not a good place for it.

Merlin wiped a hand down his face and looked at Arthur as if he'd finally come back to the present. He looked drawn, suddenly, and Arthur leaned toward him with his fingers casually raised to block his voice from travelling. "Are you alright?"

Sparing a quick glance for the others arrayed along both sides of the table, Merlin tipped himself toward Arthur and the illusive privacy offered behind his hand. "How long do we have to stay here?"

Arthur nearly told Merlin that he could leave whenever he liked, but it would miss the point. Merlin wasn't going to leave Arthur here with the druids. "All of the food has been served. I doubt we can find much more to talk about."

Merlin nodded and glanced to his right. Following his line of sight, Arthur assumed that Merlin was looking at his mother, seated around the corner of the table from him, close enough to touch. They hadn't been in the same room together for months, as far as Arthur knew, and other than exchanging awkward pleasantries in various corridors, Arthur didn't think they'd spoken to each other since the night Merlin confessed that he had the memories of someone else tangled up with his own in his head. He certainly hadn't told Hunith the truth of why he so assiduously avoided her. The stalemate between them had edged into cruel, to the point that Arthur would have to force a conversation soon. Hunith hadn't said much throughout the meal, stealing glances at her son's profile with a wan expression that did nothing to hide her stifled hurt at the fact that Merlin hardly acknowledged her all night.

"Merlin." Arthur tapped Merlin's arm to regain his attention, and Merlin turned back toward him as if his gaze were pulled there. Again, Arthur asked, "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Merlin replied, totally unconvincing. "Eat your pie."

Arthur pursed his lips, but he really did want that pie. It was even still warm from the kitchens. "Giving me orders again?"

Wordlessly, Merlin held out a spoon without even deigning to look at him, because of course he knew that Arthur would take it. Which he did. Arthur scowled at the pie, tapping his spoon against his own arm as he contemplated the merits of it. Eating it would be a concession at this point, and he didn't want to give the Merlin the satisfaction. He was also morbidly curious as to whether or not he would be able to taste Merlin's magic in the berries somehow. Or if they would taste any different at all for having been grown unnaturally.

While Arthur pondered the mysteries of his pie, Finna set down her knife and smiled across the table at Hunith. She clearly noticed the tension between mother and son, but given the esteem in which the druids all held Merlin, Arthur doubted that anyone would question it. "I wonder, your highness, how different you find Camelot from your old life in Essetir. Do you ever miss your village?"

Oh, finally, Arthur thought. Vapid conversation. That would surely make this meal easier to bear. And he meant that without sarcasm. He set his spoon down without taking a bite from his dessert, and Merlin glanced over long enough to glare at him for that too.

After recovering from the startlement at being addressed, Hunith replied, "Every day. Not the cold or the lean harvests, of course, but it was simpler. Kinder, in a way. It's a different sort of peace than castle folk get, I imagine."

"When we have little," Finna said, "it is easier in some ways to appreciate the immaterial."

"Less to lose," Hunith agreed.

Arthur glanced to his right, and Merlin rolled his eyes to convey what he thought of all of that. "Kinder, my arse," Merlin whispered under his breath. Arthur cleared his throat and reconsidered the merit of stuffing some pie into at least one of their mouths in order to maintain the peace.

"And to have raised a blessed child in such ease," Finna continued, leaning forward intensely. "It must have been wonderful, knowing what he would one day become."

Merlin's face skewed up to one side at the word ease, and Arthur tried not to snort.

Hunith blinked, and though she retained the same smile as earlier, it seemed to flatten. "What do you mean?"

One of the other women offered, "Oh, but there must have been portends. Did they frighten you?"

An older man interjected, "The sky darkened in midday, I heard."

Under his breath, Merlin muttered, "Did it really?"

Arthur shushed him, thought about it briefly, and then held his own wine goblet in front of Merlin's face.

"I imagine you had many questions," Finna pressed on. "Did you receive a prophecy before he came, or were the portends your first signs?"

Merlin narrowed his eyes at the wine, and then at Arthur for good measure because he knew damn well that Arthur meant it as the publicly acceptable form of putting his hand over Merlin's mouth.

Hunith let out a nervous laugh and rearranged her skirts in her lap. "There were no portends. I didn't even know he was in there until I had to let out all of my clothes. Even then, I suspected the village fare had simply fattened me up. I was, I suppose, very naïve not to have realized sooner. But I was barely more than a girl myself."

Even though Merlin had been at odds with his mother for months now, there was no animosity in the way he looked at her. It was more that he didn't seem to know how to take her anymore. Merlin glanced at Arthur long enough to betray his own discomfort before settling his gaze on the hand that Hunith rested on the edge of the table nearest him. His fingers crept closer to hers and then stopped. He seemed to want to take her hand - to comfort her somehow - but he didn't.

Since he'd ignored the wine, Arthur tipped the remainder into his own mouth and then held the goblet in his lap to stop anyone refilling it.

After casting a strange glance at Alator, Finna pressed, "But he is fated."

Merlin snatched his hand back and snapped, "She didn't know that. Stop pestering them."

Arthur shifted and decided that now would be a good time to change the subject. "Alator." He turned toward the man seated on his left. "I'm curious about your order. What is a Catha, exactly? I understand that you are warriors of some kind."

"No." Alator flickered his eyes toward Merlin, and when Arthur looked too, he found Merlin staring back oddly. "I can fight with a sword," Alator said. "But that is not the purpose of my order. It is only what we were forced to do to survive."

Merlin's fingers tightened on his staff, and then went slack again as he explained to Arthur, "The orders differ by the magical disciplines they master, and often by the god or goddess they take as their chief patron." Then he looked at Alator and stated, "That's what Gaius told me, anyway."

"He was correct," Alator allowed, but he offered no further explanation of what a Catha, specifically, was supposed to master.

Merlin appeared apologetic and told Arthur, "There are initiation rites; Alator isn't allowed to reveal the mysteries of his order to an outsider."

Arthur furrowed his brow. "I thought you weren't an outsider. Isn't that what the whole Emrys thing means?"

"No, that's not what it means," Merlin replied with a telling quirk of his mouth. "But you're right; I'm not an outsider." By which he implied that Arthur was.

The druids all nodded at that – all fourteen of them. It wasn't clear exactly how Arthur realized that Merlin's casual comment was a bluff. Perhaps the wary look behind his smile gave it away – that subtle expression that Arthur only recognized now because he had seen it for years and learned its meaning through the hardship of unshared secrets and misplaced distrust. The druids assumed that Emrys held certain knowledge, and Merlin was Emrys. But Merlin didn't know these mysteries to which Alator alluded, and he didn't want the druids to realize that. He had that friendly, wry look on his face as he gazed back at Arthur that spoke of a decade past – of the boy Merlin trying to make awkward jokes and figure out social graces while looking as if he really didn't understand what was going on half the time. It might not even have been a façade back then, at the beginning. Clumsy bumpkin, sort of in awe but not of Arthur himself – rather, of how much a prat Arthur could be, and how Merlin, simple boy that he was, couldn't fathom how a prince could be such a moron.

Weaknesses, Arthur thought to himself. Like the conversation months ago in the aviary, Merlin seemed overly aware of the points at which they were vulnerable. Knowledge they didn't have. Abilities that Merlin hadn't mastered. Where his skill or education failed, and brute force would not suffice. The weak points in Camelot's defenses.

"Why do you wear that?"

Arthur looked up from his musings to find the imposter serving boy, introduced earlier as Arun, pointing at Gwaine's chest.

"This?" Gwaine asked, fingering the charm that he always wore on a chain along with the gold ring he never talked about. "It's the crescent moon."

"I know that," Arun replied. "It's a crescent moon etched with the sun wheel. Why does a Knight of Camelot wear it?"

The nervous laugh that followed came unexpectedly from Marwen. "Knights of Camelot can wear what they wish, young man. See?" Marwen glanced down the table in Arthur's direction, but persisted in reaching for the leather thong he wore around his neck. He pulled out a small wooden charm. "Even symbols of the old religion."

"As he says." Gwaine narrowed his eyes on the boy, who paled a bit without backing down.

Merlin perked up and told Marwen, "There's magic in that."

Marwen might have paled a bit; it was hard to tell.

Careful to sound neutral about it, Arthur asked, "Marwen, do you have magic?"

"No," Marwen denied immediately. Perhaps, too vehemently? "No, sire."

Merlin tapped the table to shift Arthur's attention and told him, "I think it's a protection charm. Feels nice from back here."

Marwen made a clicking sound, looked at his charm, and confessed, "It wards against harm and guides the wearer to safe places."

One of the druid men indicated Marwen's charm with a flick of his finger. "Which wolf is it that you court?"

Marwen pointedly did not look at Arthur again; his gaze held too steady on the druid who had spoken. "We don't speak his name except to call him."

Arthur's eyebrow twitched. He knew Marwen had an interest in the old religion since he seemed to know a lot about it, but this was the first he'd realized that Marwen might actually practice it. Since that would have been illegal in Camelot until recently, Arthur wondered if he had always practiced it, or more recently attached himself when the laws changed.

Another druid man asked Marwen, "Is your wolf the guide, or the healer?"

Hesitant, Marwen admitted, "Both."

Several druids nodded to each other, satisfied, while Marwen appeared to regret inserting himself into the conversation. He had been odd all evening, actually, Arthur reflected. Usually, Marwen tended to smile and interject himself into every conversation, jolly and distracting. And since the fated night at the wellspring before Samhain, he'd been open about tales of the old religion with which he grew up. That was why Arthur asked him to attend this meal; his frank manner of regarding magic and the old religion should have fostered at least some open discussion. Hell, most of the time, his gregariousness even made Merlin edgy, since Marwen seemed to like him more than just casually, as a knight to Arthur's personal manservant. Arthur's thoughts petered out and he gave Marwen a critical look. Bastard, he thought, as it struck him. Marwen had known not only what, but who Merlin was all along. That was why he acted the way he did toward Merlin – respectful without thinking, and always a few heartbeats late in covering it up. He'd been seeking favor not from Merlin, servant with access to the ear of the king, but from Emrys.

Marwen tucked his charm away, tossed Arthur a nervous glance, and then looked again, this time sustained long enough to realize what Arthur might be thinking. His eyes darted away and he made himself smaller in his seat.

"What is it?" Merlin asked, soft for Arthur's ears only.

"Nothing." Arthur shook his head and forced himself to dismiss everything he'd just thought, lest Merlin catch it on his face, or worse, hear it somehow in the quiet of Arthur's thoughts. He sincerely doubted that Merlin had cottoned onto Marwen's worshipful side, and Arthur didn't want to be the one to make things even more awkward at court. Though it might be amusing to watch them both try to dance around each other, and Merlin was adorable when irritated. He would hate the deference as soon as he recognized it.

Arun shifted in his seat and addressed Gwaine again as if there had been no interruption. Tact was obviously lost on this boy. "But yours is a woman's charm, Sir Gwaine. It shows the tide lines – "

"Arun," Alator snapped. He made a shushing gesture, and then said to Gwaine, "Forgive him. He is young."

"Of course," Gwaine replied, though it was more of a growl, and not very forgiving in tone. He gripped his baubles tightly for a moment, and then dropped his hand.

Arun swallowed and looked down. "I apologize. I should not have asked."

"No," Alator told him sharply. "You should not."

"It's alright," Gwaine said, and this time, his demeanor at least slightly reflected his words. "The boy's only curious. No harm done."

Arthur exchanged a glance with Merlin, but he couldn't tell from Merlin's crafted features whether he knew about that charm or not. Enough nights spent in the woods with hunting and scouting parties had given Arthur an idea, but even drunk, Gwaine revealed little. Whoever she was, she was dead now. He kept those as reminders. It made a sad sort of sense; no man became the type of drunk that Gwaine was from paternal alienation alone. He was too desperate about it for that – too self-destructive, and in more than just ale consumption at the beginning of their acquaintance. Even Merlin had commented once that Gwaine seemed not to care, at times, if he lived – that he reveled in fights where he stood at too much of a disadvantage for it to be anything but purposeful.

Finna had been intermittently watching her plate, Hunith, and Merlin since her last attempt at opening conversation. When she spoke next, it was to diplomatically change the subject. "Master, will you tell us of your deeds with the king on behalf of magic?"

Merlin blinked a few times, still looking at Arthur, and then cleared his throat as he directed himself toward the druids again. "Um. What?"

"Your deeds, Great One." Finna smiled, expectant. "How did you come to find the Once and Future King, and guide him to the side of magic?"

Merlin pushed himself straighter in his chair by bracing a palm against the edge of the table. "I'm not sure it really happened that way."

Arthur decided that it might be a good idea to effect yet another diplomatic change of subject. "Alator, perhaps we should discuss the requests in your original letter. Access to the royal forests and to Camelot's sacred springs and groves. I would be happy to grant passage to these shared ancestral sites."

"Are they shared?" Alator asked, terse. "I understand the Pendragons are warriors of the bloodlines of Rome. They disdain our ways and slaughter those like us throughout Gaul."

Merlin broke in to correct him with, "His mother Ygraine is a Briton. But surely you know that."

"Merlin." Arthur spoke softly to mollify them all. He appreciated Merlin's defense of him, but he couldn't condone the tone of it when this dinner was supposed to stand in for some kind of peace talks. "Yes," Arthur went on, turning to face Alator again. "My mother is from these lands. She followed her family's worship of the new god in recent times, but her blood is from the kings and tribes of the old religion."

Merlin pointedly added, "The Cornovii of Dumnonia, I believe." He narrowed his eyes at Alator. "Your tribe, on the other hand, isn't from these lands at all. The Catha hail from lands well south of the channel. You imported your goddess to these shores. How long ago did your order come here to claim our lands as your sacred right?"

A few moments passed in tense silence at the public rebuke, wherein Arthur gave into the urge briefly lower his face into his palm, and then Alator relented. "I apologize. Arthur is the king of prophecy. Albion bore him. His lineage does not matter."

Odd how he made the apology to Merlin, though, and not Arthur, who was sitting right there. Arthur let it pass, mostly because he was a bit interested to learn that Merlin knew about noble genealogies and faraway cults now. Perhaps that tutoring he had arranged was paying off.

Alator faced Arthur again, more respectfully this time. "Let us speak of the sacred lands."

From the corner of his eye, Arthur could see Merlin rubbing his temple, his face pinched, though whether in pain or at the mention of prophecy, Arthur couldn't tell. It turned out to be neither; a beat later, Merlin hissed and slammed his fist on the table, upsetting his water cup and rattling the cutlery. "Will you stop talking into my head! I am fine."

No one moved, or even breathed in the immediate wake of his shouting. Eventually, Lamorak reached over to lend Hunith a friendly touch on the arm, since she'd recoiled from her son in shock, and Merlin made no effort at reassuring or calming anyone.

Arthur exhaled, though he didn't relax. "Fine. We'll deal with this, then. Alator, Finna: say what you must, but out loud for all to hear."

Merlin sat up a little straighter in his chair. "We don't have to do this now. Shouldn't we focus on public matters?"

Finna took no heed of Merlin's objection. "You are certain you are not in any danger, Great One?"

Hunith threw her son a sharp, searching look.

"Look," Merlin returned, voice curt. "I have asked you to call me by my name. Here, at least, like the rest of them."

Arthur raised an eyebrow at him and wondered when, exactly, he had asked them for that. It certainly didn't happen out loud.

"It's true," Marwen offered with a supportive nod toward Merlin. "He doesn't allow the titles we gave him either."

That caused an interesting assessment among the druids, and they all gradually left off silent-talking to peer down the table at Merlin with various types of accommodating or admiring smiles on their faces.

Finna demured to show her willingness to play along with what she seemed to think an eccentricity. "Of course, Emrys."

"My real name," Merlin clarified.

The gentleness gradually faded from Finna's face. "That is your real name."

Alator stirred himself from his sullen judgementalism to say, "He prefers his given name."

"Merlin," said man piped up, voice brittle. "The one my mother gave me."

Finna glanced at Hunith, regrouped, and immediately corrected herself, "Of course, Master Merlin. I apologize for any insult."

Diplomatically, Arthur butted in with, "I'm sure none was taken."

At Merlin's exasperated look, Alator took up their cause, possibly in the hope of stalling any further delays. "Merlin, forgive us for prying."

"I seem to recall that's your specialty, actually." Merlin smiled with more teeth than mirth.

Arthur cleared his throat to cover for the kick he delivered to Merlin's ankle. "Please go ahead and ask your questions, Alator."

Alator accepted the invitation to keep going even though Merlin himself might have been hostile toward the topic. "It is indeed the skill in which I am best trained," he acknowledged. With a nod toward Arthur, he added, "That is the vocation of my order. We uncover secrets. That is our greatest skill of magic, as Merlin already knows."

"Interrogation," Arthur guessed, to put it more plainly. "Yes, I am aware of your skill in that art." Gaius hadn't been entirely close-lipped after that debacle, just irritatingly vague at times. "There is no call for that particular magic here, I trust."

"As do I," Alator replied, which wasn't any sort of promise. He looked back to find Merlin watching him carefully. "Merlin. Again, forgive us for prying." This time, Merlin let him continue. "We are only concerned. The sickness which we saw afflict you is not part of the prophecies."

"Not everything is part of prophecies," Merlin bit back. His fingers tightened and then loosened again on his staff. "Or do you also object to my hay fever every harvest season?"

The knights all bobbed their heads in agreement with that point, as they had all witnessed Merlin ruin perfectly good seasonal hunting parties by sneezing, coughing, and snuffling until there was no prey left.

Finna shifted in her seat. "That is merely a joke the world plays. It is not the same thing."

Before Merlin could get all prickly about that, Alator resumed speaking. "Your kind is not subject to such malady as we saw today. It cannot be natural."

"Aye," one of the other druid gentlemen put in. He was older than most others there. "There is magic at work there."

"We do not wish to offend or accuse," Finna told him. Thankfully, she omitted any address at all to avoid any further interruptions from an irate Merlin. "Only to know that you are not mistreated." She glanced at Arthur, but also down the length of the table at the knights. "By anyone."

Merlin sighed and picked up his water cup, presumably just to give his restless hand something to do. "Do you really think I'd stay if anyone were mistreating me?"

Without hesitation, Alator replied, "Yes. You are a being of destiny; you are devoted to it at all costs. You have already risked your life to fulfill it, and debased yourself to service men as if you are less than one of them."

"Hang on," Arthur interrupted, offended.

"We would expect you to bear much more," Alator spoke over him. "As is right. But you must know that you no longer bear it alone."

"Arthur's a prat," Merlin allowed, his voice brittle, "But he never debased me."

Hunith shot Arthur a curious look, but merely asked Merlin, "What is this sickness they're talking about? Have you been ill?"

"It's nothing to worry about," Merlin told her.

"I am worried," Hunith countered. "Is this why I haven't seen much of you? Was the wound worse than you told me? I thought it healed well."

"Mother," Merlin warned. "Not here."

"Master," Finna put in brusquely. She must have decided that she could get away with calling him just that, despite his earlier request. "Even your mortal mother knows that something is amiss."

Arthur's eyebrows twitched at the term mortal mother.

"Please entrust us with the difficulty you face," Finna implored. "We will help you, in any way we must."

Several of the druids glared across the table at the knights as if to highlight just how far they would go, if asked. In response, Arthur shook his head at his own men and made a stand-down gesture low near the table where he hoped it wouldn't be obvious.

"You are our greatest hope," Finna continued, leaning forward where her intensity edged into uncomfortable. "We owe our futures to you. It is a small price to ask our attention in return."

Merlin bit his lip, and Arthur only noticed the faint disgust wrinkling the skin around his nose, mostly obscured by the bristles of dark hair covering his lip, because he was so close. "You say that like you're eager for something to be wrong with me."

Finna drew back quickly, hands gripping the edge of the table. "Of course not, Great One. We only want – "

"Merlin!" Merlin corrected sharply. Before Finna could say anything else, Merlin made a rude sound and snapped, "For gods' sakes, stop pestering him. If he says he's fine, then leave him alone."

Arthur cleared his throat and pawed over the detritus of his meal in a truly pitiful attempt to draw attention away from the fact that Merlin just referred to himself in the third person. "Obviously, this day has been fraught for some of us, starting as it did, but perhaps it would be best to set that behind us so that we can focus on our hopefully shared futures." His hand lit on the pie again, so he pulled it over into the space between his elbow and Merlin's, jabbed his knife in a sloppy line down the center of the crust, and then poured half his wine into Merlin's water cup.

Merlin watched him arranging everything like a manic toddler, and then asked, "What are you doing?"

"I can't eat the whole thing," Arthur replied, which they both knew was a lie. "You can eat half."

"I don't want to eat half," Merlin replied, his forehead a topographic map.

"Come on," Arthur prodded, expectantly holding out a spoon. "You're a rake under all those robes. It'll make me feel better."

Merlin squinted at him, but took the spoon. He then regarded the pie as if it might be a trap.

Hunith reached out to place a tentative hand on Merlin's forearm, which drew her attention to the extra padding of the bandages under his clothes. She squeezed a few times, which diverted Merlin's eyes to her hand, and then asked, "Are you injured?"

Merlin grumbled something under his breath and then looked straight at Hunith. "Why are you even here? I sent you to Essetir for a reason. You promised me you would stay away."

"I – " Hunith paled as she stared back at him, eyes wide, and snatched her hand back. As if it hadn't registered prior, she breathed, "They called you Emrys."

"Yes, they do that." Merlin's eyes flickered away from her and tripped over the other occupants of the table. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"

"They called him Emrys too," Hunith breathed. "Oh, Merlin. No."

"What?" Merlin demanded. "And don't think I didn't notice you ignored my question, turtle."

Hunith covered her mouth, her eyes welling, and shook her head as if to deny him altogether.

"Merlin." Arthur grasped his arm just below the elbow. When Merlin glared at him for touching him, which in itself was unusual, Arthur murmured, "Take a moment. You're upsetting your mother."

Merlin froze, still like a rabbit in the woods, then shifted away from Arthur's hand, discomfited. "Yes. Sorry." He cast Hunith a worried look, as if she might not be safe to him, and then pushed his chair back from the table. "I have to – " Without finishing that, Merlin stumbled to his feet, using the Sidhe staff to catch his balance, and walked toward the servant's door at the back of the room, his steps measured and purposeful so that it wasn't obvious that he was running away. From some corner, unseen, George darted out to hurry after him. The silence in their wakes could have drowned out screams.

"He called me that," Hunith whispered into the hushed room, still partially covering her mouth to hide the tears that spilled over her cheeks.

Seren moved around her chair to kneel beside her and tried to stop her saying anything else. "Come, my lady. It is late; we can retire."

Hunith didn't acknowledge her; she had found Arthur with her spilt eyes, and though it felt like accusation when she fixated on him, she didn't demand any sort of explanation or apology. "When I was a child," she told him. "To make me smile."

Helpless, Arthur just shook his head. He didn't know what to do in this situation, and the nervous rustling of over twenty-five other dinner guests and servants didn't make it any better.

"Please, my lady." Seren rose back to her feet and removed the cloth from Hunith's lap, using it to push her food and drink back from her place at the table. "It has been a long evening. You should retire."

"My uncle Merlin," Hunith pressed. She may not even have noticed Seren fussing right beside her. "Myrddin." The difference in her pronunciation of the names was so subtle that there might not have been one at all. "He called me his little turtle when I didn't get my way because he said my mouth pointed at the ground like a beak. He always tried to cheer me up when he saw it. Said he couldn't abide my mouth looking like that."

Arthur broke their gazes himself and shoved his chair back from the table. Everything felt too exposed, unfolding before the eyes of strangers. "Alator, friends, please excuse the interruption." He didn't need to signal Leon to meet him as he stood; he was already there, helping Seren coax Hunith from her seat before she could say anything else. "We'll only be a moment." Arthur smiled nonspecifically at the other side of the table, and then moved over in front of Hunith.

"I don't understand." Hunith looked toward him, but didn't focus on him; her gaze remained steady and faraway.

Arthur tried to sound both kind and firm as he told her, "Come, please, cousin. Now."

"No one knew he called me that," Hunith said. She allowed Arthur to help her to her feet and pass her off to Leon. "I would swear it," she insisted. "I never told a soul, and he wouldn't either."

"Go with Sir Leon," Arthur encouraged. "We can discuss this later, after everyone has calmed down."

Leon nodded at Arthur's silent urging to hurry up and get her out before she said anything damning in front of a set of guests that Merlin seemed to think they should be careful of. "Come, my lady." Leon placed Hunith's hand on his arm and covered it with his opposite hand to hold it there in a parody of courtliness. "This way."

With Seren on her other side, they managed to guide Hunith out of the room through the same door by which Merlin had just left. When Arthur turned back to the table, his tongue already searching for a polite means of exit, Alator was standing beside his chair, his face alarmed. "King Arthur – "

"Everything is under control," Arthur assured him, but his own knights belied that by shifting around and glancing at each other as if they had secrets. Which they did – other than Percival, they had all witnessed Merlin's performance at the wellspring the night before Samhain. They all wore the same expressions on their faces that they had the last time they saw Merlin speak with the voice and affect of a dead man. "Alator, you have a long journey ahead of you in the morning, but perhaps we should plan to speak before – "

"That was the mad prophet of Caermarthon," Alator cut in, intense in the softness of his voice, but the least severe he'd been since Arthur met him. His expression, in fact, echoed that of the knights, where concern and care kept the visceral fear of the unknown at bay.

Arthur swallowed and opened his mouth, but he didn't have an excuse prepared, and he ended up just closing it again.

Alator glanced over his shoulder at Finna and a few other druids who had risen from their chairs, then back to Arthur. "This is very wrong. It cannot be allowed to go on."

Obviously, Arthur wanted to say. But he didn't know these people, and Merlin evidently didn't trust them as far as he could throw them. In a tone that brooked no argument, Arthur told him, "It is a private matter."

"It is the charm in the note we felt," Alator countered, and the druids behind him murmured their agreement.

"I really must insist," Arthur replied, his voice more biting that time. "Not only I, but also Merlin would thank you to respect his choices and privacy on this."

Nothing on Alator's face appeared outwardly menacing, but his stance spoke of some threat that Arthur, as a knight, recognized as the moment before a strike. His own posture must have betrayed that, because behind him, his knights all stood and drew their swords. In return, the druids scrambled from their chairs as well, and though most moved out of the way, seeking shelter, about half arrayed themselves around Alator, standing the way that Arthur had seen Merlin do on plenty of occasions, hands empty but hardly unarmed, fingers spread to ward.

Arthur stepped confidently forward, hands stretched out at his sides, his sword snug in its scabbard still. "None of us came here to fight, Alator. There is no reason for us to make ourselves enemies." He hesitated, and even though it carried the risk of sounding like a threat, Arthur added, "Think of Merlin." Who would absolutely flip his lid if anyone attempted violence against Arthur. But that was not the point that Arthur was trying to make. "After all he has sacrificed, would he want this for us? More violence? More wars?"

Alator watched him, expressionless. "No. He would not want that."

"Then let us stand down and behave like friends." Arthur took care not to move his hands near to his sword belt.

Alator kept staring at him, unblinking like a lizard, and just as still. "This does not give us confidence in the future possibility of friendship between us."

Against his better judgement, Arthur stepped close enough that his words would not carry to more than a few of the other people in the room, engaged in the standoff with them. "At the risk of making this worse, let me remind you that you have no right to Merlin's confidence, nor to his person. You may claim him as Emrys, but he is not obligated in any way to you. If you really respect him as much as you want us to believe, then you should consider respecting him when he wishes for you to leave him alone."

Alator narrowed his eyes, an interesting effect on an entirely bald man. "You threaten us?"

"I remind you," Arthur breathed in return, "of the limitations of our association."

"Yes," Alator purred, a menacing sound. "You do threaten us. I commend you for that, King Arthur of Camelot. Not many would dare, when you could do little to stop us."

"I rely on your goodwill," Arthur snapped back. That and Merlin's spectacular propensity to overreact when Arthur was in danger.

Alator smiled, fanged like a snake, as if he knew what Arthur was thinking. It was nothing like when Merlin gave Arthur that feeling, though; nothing about Alator implied that he might actually be able to hear any of the things that Arthur did not say. "My goodwill to you is finite," Alator finally warned. But he stepped back afterwards, and the druids around him relaxed as well.

Arthur nodded at his knights to stand down and then inclined his head to Alator. "I hope that you will forgive me if I cut this feast short. You and your companions are free to linger as long as you like; the servants will provide anything you may require." Arthur shot said servants a sharp look to underscore that, since they had been cold toward their guests for most of the night. "I must take my leave now. But I would appreciate the opportunity for us to speak in the morning, before you leave the city."

"We accept this," Alator said. He turned away after that and looked over his companions as if handing out instructions. Then he nodded to Arthur. "We will not keep you, King Arthur. It is late, and we have much to discuss amongst ourselves."

"Of course," Arthur replied graciously. He feared that his expression didn't reflect that, but it couldn't be helped. "You are all welcome here in Camelot." He gestured for one of the servants to approach, and ordered, "Please ensure that our guests have all necessary accommodations for the night." For good measure, Arthur tacked on, his voice slightly harder, "I expect them to be treated with every courtesy."

With a final nod to turn the druids over to the servant's care, Arthur backed away and glanced over his remaining knights to ensure that they followed. Except for Marwen, they all did. Arthur let him be about it; having a knight watch over the druids might be a good idea, even if Marwen might be more sympathetic to their ideas than Arthur would have liked. He trusted his knights. All of them; he had to.

Arthur strode out into the narrow servants' corridor and immediately yanked at the clasp on his cloak to loosen it. He should have insisted on this meal being casual, with limited attendance, but it was done now. His remaining five knights followed him out and Percival, the last in line, shut the door on the dining hall behind them.

Arthur thumbed his brow and sighed. His breath gusted loud and sterile in the quiet corridor. He had no idea what this outcome meant for their aborted peace talks, if they could even be called that. Or the druids' purported confidence in their Emrys, for that matter. This whole outreach hinged on that, didn't it? On the druids' devotion to Arthur's former manservant – on their likely willingness to cede to his wishes. That was Arthur's mistake, though; Merlin was no figurehead, and Arthur should have listened when Merlin said as much. Now, Arthur worried what might happen with the druid folk when they realized that too. To say that he had not performed well was both unkind and true. It was also a testament to the fact that Merlin had been right in the past to accuse Arthur of expecting Merlin to play parts for him. Arthur attempted trading off of Merlin's reputation with magic folk, and it had backfired twice now.

It was the silence that allowed them all to realize that they could hear raised voices nearby. Above the ambient, close air of a corridor in a castle that never really sleeps, Merlin's voice crested clearly enough in the quiet that everyone heard him insist, "That's not what happened."

With his diplomatic face on, Lamorak suggested, with a gesture to the other knights, "We should retire and leave the king to his private business."

From farther down the corridor, fainter but no less clear, Hunith cried, "Don't treat me like a child!" In the tone of someone repeating a question, she then demanded, "Why my son? Why did you have to take him?"

"He – I – didn't," Merlin spluttered back. "That's not – "

Gwaine looked at Arthur and just said, "This isn't good."

"No," Arthur agreed. He started off down the corridor, following the voices. Gwaine followed on his heels, but Arthur didn't pause to make sure that the others either stayed put or left.

"Did he die that day?" Hunith pleaded, her voice getting louder as Arthur approached. "Is that what no one will tell me? Is my son dead?"

"No!" Merlin insisted. "I mean – yes, it was a – a mortal wound, but the magic brought me back. I'm not dead. I'm still your son."

"But you're not," Hunith sobbed.

Arthur rounded a corner and spotted several nervous servants loitering with guilty looks on their faces. They scattered as Arthur came into view.

Hunith kept speaking, her voice ringing through the corridor in spite of its habitual softness. "You wouldn't look at me. You barely spoke to me for months. It's because I would notice, isn't it."

"No," Merlin denied.

"You hadn't figured out how to hide it. How to act enough like him – "

"No!" Merlin's voice turned pleading as Arthur rounded the corner into the back hall in which they stood. "Mother, please - "

"I'm not your mother," Hunith choked out.

When Arthur caught sight of them, Merlin had his back to a door leading out into the royal gardens. From their positions, Hunith must have caught him there and bade him stop, though they both stood as if cornered by the other. George stood helpless to one side, staring as the confrontation unfolded.

Closer to Hunith, Seren broke from her paralysis and reached for Hunith's arm. "My lady, think of how you will feel in the morning, saying these things."

Hunith's whole demeanor screamed of denial and horrified disbelief, and she didn't heed Seren's warning. "You already had your life," she told Merlin. "Why did you have to steal his too?"

"I didn't – he didn't." Merlin looked up at the sound of footsteps and the relief on his face should have staggered him. "Arthur, tell her that's not what happened."

As if on command, Arthur opened his mouth, but he didn't get his words out fast enough.

"I never should have let you come here," Hunith moaned.

Abruptly, Merlin's face darkened. "Let me?" he echoed. The atmosphere in the corridor changed, subtle but unmistakable. Merlin straightened and drew his head back, his eyes narrowing. "You practically forced me to come here."

Hunith nodded. "And by god, I wish I hadn't."

It was a question that Arthur himself had asked already, in private and out loud – that even Leon and Gwaine had voiced at one time or another. Merlin had said once that he didn't want to know the answer, and didn't want to ask. He did now, though. Plain and bitter-sharp. "Why did you, then?"

From just past Arthur's shoulder, Gwaine warned, "Merlin. Don't, lad."

If he even heard Gwaine, Merlin ignored him. "You had to know what would happen to me if they ever found out what I am, but you sent me anyway. To the one place I should never have come. Why?"

Hunith shook her head as if that alone were justification enough. "You had to leave. You were angry, and unhappy, and I couldn't control you anymore."

"Control me?" Merlin repeated, uncredulous and hurt. "You couldn't control me?"

"You nearly dropped a tree on Old Man Simmons."

"That was an accident!"

"How many more accidents was I supposed to overlook?" Hunith stepped back from him, still looking at him as if she couldn't recognize her own son before her. "You wouldn't listen. You wouldn't stop using magic."

"I can't stop using magic! I was born with it!"

"And you would have gotten yourself killed with it!" Hunith took a deep breath, her face haunted. How many nights had she lain awake with that fear? That her son would be murdered for something that neither of them asked for, and that neither of them could help? It wouldn't have stopped with sending him away; her fear, just like Merlin's own, pervaded every moment of their lives, to one extent or another. Hunith shook her head at him, reasonable and defeated, both. "Someone had to teach you that."

The silence stretched pregnant between them, and then Merlin cocked his head the way birds do. The lack of recognition between them suddenly seemed mutual somehow. "Someone had to teach me that?" Merlin intoned, low with the kind of hurt that desperately strove to sound dangerous rather than wounded. "Someone like Uther? That's what you thought?"

Hunith let out a soft bleat of denial. "Someone like Gaius. Someone I knew would love you." She looked down then, worrying her hands at the apron of her dress, and then whispered mostly to herself. "Love him. My boy."

Again, Merlin insisted, "I am your boy."

Hunith looked up, eyes shining. "You gave yourself away. No one else ever knew that you called me that. Turtle." She tried to smile and failed. "It was our secret."

Merlin opened his mouth, ticked once, and then his expression grew remote. He didn't seem aware of himself when he murmured, "Because you weren't supposed to talk to me. Wynn was afraid I would…pull you into it." Merlin shook his head, took a shaky breath, and blinked as it occurred to him what he'd just said. He sputtered a few non-syllables as if to try and refute that or explain it, but he couldn't. Stricken, he looked at Arthur and begged with his eyes for him to find some way to fix this.

"As you did pull me into this," Hunith breathed. "Even from another kingdom, you found a way to invade my life. You perverted what should have been a blessing."

Merlin shifted his gaze back to his mother, his helplessness betrayed in by parted lips and curved brow.

"You could have taken anyone else. Why did it have to be him?"

"No one took me," Merlin asserted again, but it was a fainter denial that time. "I don't know why I have these memories. They're not mine."

Hunith squeezed her eyes shut briefly, and when she opened them again, she directed her gaze at the floor. "That wasn't a memory. Memories don't speak as dead men. It was you, and you know it."

With a dispirited sound, Merlin looked at Arthur again, and Arthur finally managed to find some words as he stepped forward to try to eclipse Hunith's attention. "Cousin, allow us to explain. This isn't what it looks like." Never mind that Arthur couldn't explain, since none of them actually knew why Merlin kept slipping into the affect of a man long dead. "Nerves are running high right now. Don't say or do something you'll regret later. That is still your son. He's no different now than he was." He was leagues of difference, but not in any way that should have mattered.

Hunith tipped her face toward the ceiling and shook her head, visibly gathering something within herself. "If he's truly no different now, then it's worse because he was this all along. He was never my son."

Almost a squeak, Merlin protested, "Mum…"

"I should have known," she sighed. Her face took on a frightening air of resignation. "You were so like him. Always so like him. I should have known when you ran away and talked about living like a wild man that something was wrong about you. I had no idea where you could have come by such notions." She smiled, wan and bright-shine, and looked at Merlin again. "It was you all along, and I didn't want to see it. But you knew that, even back then. Before. When you made me promise never to come back here – it was because I'd know this, if I did. Ignorance doesn't have to be a curse. You're a mad, cruel bastard, but you did show me kindness, in your own way." She drank in the sight of Merlin, the form of her child, as if looking back on something lost. "But you're not my son. I never had a son. You took that from me, like you took from all of us." Her eyes shifted to Arthur, and though her words were not kind, her face held an apology for it. "All just to make him." Hunith smiled at Arthur, genuine but sad, and then she looked back to Merlin. "Was he worth it?"

Merlin had frozen at some point, and listed enough that Gwaine had stepped up to steady him. He swallowed a few times, but no words came out. His face, though… That was a battlefield at dusk, in the devastation where only bodies remained to burn. His eyes lidded, and Arthur followed them past Hunith, finally realizing that not only were the servants all still there, his knights were too. Lamorak, Caradoc and Percival all stood among them at the cross corridor, mute with sympathy and horror at what they witnessed.

When no one offered any further refutation, Hunith nodded and searched the dim corridor beyond Arthur's still form for her maid. "I don't belong here," Hunith announced. She reached out and Seren immediately took the proffered hand. "You were right," Hunith added. She looked at Merlin, but only as much as she had to in order to make it clear that it him to whom she spoke. "I broke my promise, uncle."

Merlin flinched, hard.

"I will return to Ealdor." Hunith swiped her free hand down the front of her dinner gown. "I was happy there. None of this was meant for me." She held that same hand out in an understated gesture at the riches adorning her own person. "If there is to be a royal line of Dyfedd, then let him continue it." She inclined her head toward Merlin without looking at him again. "It should have been his anyway. He was the eldest son. I've done my part in this. I gave the conduit of my own body, and I loved him like my own. I know it's more than Adhan ever gave you, and maybe that's why you did it – to have that – but you were cruel to take it from me."

Seren made an odd sound and pulled on the hand she held to usher Hunith away from them all. She exchanged a look with George, and then met Arthur's eyes as well, shocked and obviously not quite certain of what was happening. As they slipped past Arthur, headed back the way they'd come, Arthur shifted his gaze to Merlin, wondering how in the seven hells he was supposed to address this.

Merlin was staring hard at the floor, Gwaine's hand still clamped at the nape of his neck in a parody of comfort, but as his mother's footsteps moved farther away, he looked up, at the back of her, his face cold and blank. "Have what, exactly? I never had it. You are just like her."

Hunith slowed and turned halfway back, her eyes wide and gleaming with tears that she must have shed only after she'd put her back to them.

Gwaine shook his head and tugged on Merlin's arm in an effort to turn him away. "Don't."

"Should I cut my arms open and bleed on the cornerstones to complete the demonstration?" Merlin snarled at her. He hardly noticed Gwaine attempting to hush him.

"Let her walk away," Gwaine hissed, concern bleeding into his words. "You'll only regret this."

Merlin yanked his arm to free himself, but Gwaine wouldn't budge. Low and dangerous, Merlin spat, "At least Adhan had the decency of madness to excuse her turning her back on her child."

Arthur stepped in front of him to block his view of his mother. "Merlin. That's enough."

"Is it really who I am?" Merlin demanded glaring past Arthur's shoulder. "Or is it what I am that disgusts you so much?"

"Enough!" Arthur growled, grabbing Merlin's other arm. Not that he knew what he intended to do with it – Merlin wasn't struggling anymore or trying to go anywhere; he was just standing there between Arthur and Gwaine, ignoring them both.

Speaking over Arthur's shoulder, Merlin accused, "You never wanted me to have magic – you hated that I had it. But whose fault was that? You fucked a dragonlord. You made me like this."

Hunith shook her head, her face pale and splotched. "No. I didn't make you. What you are is…" She trailed off and looked down, blinking at the floor.

"What?" Merlin goaded. If Arthur weren't holding his arm, where he could feel Merlin shaking in fine waves like ringing metal, he would have thought Merlin's tone inviting. Friendly. "Just say it, mother. Tell him what he is."

Arthur clenched his fingers hard enough to bruise the delicate skin of Merlin's bicep as he leaned close to hiss, "Shut up, Merlin." He had never meant it so vehemently.

On Merlin's other side, Gwaine murmured, "Merls?" As if he weren't sure that he was.

"I thought I wasn't your son," Merlin taunted reasonably. "Why hold back? You're not speaking to him, so what does it matter if you just say it?"

When Merlin attempted to take a step toward Hunith, Arthur blocked him, shoving him back with his shoulder. "Stop it," Arthur breathed. "Whatever you're trying to prove, just stop."

Merlin didn't acknowledge Arthur at all. "Every horrible thought he's ever had about himself – go on, turtle. Tell him he's right."

Gwaine unhanded him and shuffled back a step, fingers dropping uncertainly to his sword.

Merlin's lip curled with an entirely mirthless laugh. "Do you want to know one of the first questions I ever asked Gaius?"

"Please," Hunith begged. "Please, stop."

"I'm not a monster, am I?"

Hunith's eyes filled anew. "I don't know what you are."

"No," Merlin corrected, and for some reason, his voice turned kind. Gentle like knives. Arthur knew that look on his face. It said things like, It's alright, and, I don't mind. There wasn't any forgiveness in it, but that was only because there had never been any blame to precede it. That expression did nothing but accept and understand the pain. It was a brutal, terrible grace, and this time, Merlin used it exactly like the weapon it was. "That was the question I asked him: I'm not a monster, am I?"

Arthur swallowed and looked away.

"Fifteen summers old," Merlin mused, wistful now as what was left of the hard edge bled from his voice. "Barely. And that was what I needed to know most. That's what I took with me from your house." Merlin took a deep breath, backing down, his spine loosening as he finally dropped his gaze to his hands. His fingers picked at each other for a moment. "In hindsight, probably a good thing I asked him, and not you." He raised his eyes but not his head and offered Hunith some kind of shrug. It wasn't clear what he meant by it.

Hunith blinked once, her eyes riveted on Merlin now that Merlin seemed unable to look back at her. "You know I always loved you. Always."

"Yes," Merlin agreed, but he didn't look at her when he raised his chin, glanced at Arthur, then pushed through the door into the night-shrouded garden and walked away.

The only sound in the corridor after Merlin left was the distant din of servants moving about the bowels of the castle, readying the citadel for bed. Far away, the echo of laughter reached Arthur's ears, gay and sudden. It was obscene in that moment, with no one to blame for the incongruence. Gwaine swiveled to almost touch on Arthur with his gaze, but he just kept going instead and pulled open the door by which Merlin had left. Unexpectedly, Percival jogged down the hallway, passing Arthur without pause, and shouldered through the door after them. George broke his startled paralysis a moment later, in time to catch the door before it closed, and disappeared into the gardens with the others.

"Is he?"

Arthur only realized that he, too, had turned to follow when he had to spin back to face Hunith again. "I'm sorry?"

Hunith didn't nod at the door to the gardens so much as bow her head toward it and then act as if she hadn't. "Is he a monster?"

Arthur swallowed the lump like pain in his throat. "No."

Stark and barely audible across the space between them, Hunith asked, "Are you certain?"

Arthur scoffed, but she was serious, and he knew it. Rather than simply answer that too, he returned, "Am I a monster?"

Hunith blinked, incredulous. "Of course not, sire."

"Then, considering that I am not, I don't see how Merlin could be either. The man I am now – the king I became? That was him. I learned most of that from him." Arthur shook his head and held a hand out to the air as if comprehension might be placed in his palm for him to give her. "I thought you knew that."

"I do," Hunith replied. Her face crumpled and she looked down again at her hands bunched in her shawl. "He's always been different. Special, I thought. But what if he's not? What if he's just wrong inside like all the others."

Presumably, she meant the other madmen and women in her family. There had been plenty of them. The burn of acid in Arthur's belly underscored the banked fury that he felt at her insinuation that even if Merlin were subject to that, he would be the mean, cruel kind. "Merlin is not wrong inside."

"Then what is he?" Hunith demanded. "Because that was not my son. Whatever he says, I know my boy, and that wasn't him. I know who that was. I remember him."

A chill took hold at the base of Arthur's spine and rooted there. He didn't know how to answer that; he only had the platitudes he'd been telling himself to hold the fear and uncertainty at bay. "Hunith…"

"You don't know either," she whispered, low perhaps to save herself hearing the words too.

Arthur looked down, away, and then just shook his head. "Merlin has… He's done things that frighten me. Things that some might call monstrous, but so has any knight." He lifted his head to fix her with a pointed look. "So have I. In fact, I'd argue that I've done worse because at least when Merlin does it, it's in the heat of the moment when there seems to be no better option. He doesn't kill innocents."

Hunith blinked, started to ask what he meant, and then must have realized that Arthur referred to sorcerers. People with magic who did no other wrong to anyone. People like Merlin himself that Arthur killed.

"Hunith, he doesn't know why this is happening to him. I promise you, he's just as frightened as we are. It's eating him alive."

With an unconvincing series of nods, Hunith wiped her cheeks and said, "I accept that you believe that."

Dissatisfied, Arthur stepped in a half circle away from her just to give an outlet to his mental restlessness. "Did Myrddin ever work any magic on you? Give you something, a blessing, a spell to hold, a charm – any object at all – anything strange before you left Camelot?"

Hunith shook her head – not in denial, just at a loss. "I wouldn't know. He was always doing magic; it was in his veins like blood. The same way that Merlin's is."

Arthur frowned at the floor. Without looking up, he asked, "Why Merlin? It's not a common name; people would associate it with your uncle. If you want to hide a boy with magic, why give him a name with a legacy of it?"

When Hunith didn't answer right away, Arthur looked up to see why. She had her eyes on her hands again, and then she glanced at Seren, who smiled in uncertain reassurance. "A reminder," Hunith finally replied, still holding Seren's gaze. "That a boy with magic is still just a boy." She drew in a shaky breath that spoke of long misplaced memories perhaps willfully forgotten. She left it behind, after all - her family, their legacy - and never intended it to be known. "I saw how my family treated him. Myrddin. And what it did to him, by the end. To have no one. To be rejected even by his own mother, and to be wished dead by her for – " She dropped her eyes again, and more softly, finished, " – for what she made him. It destroyed him. What Uther did was a blessing at the end; he would have done it himself, given little more time."

Arthur watched her quietly for a moment, refusing to dwell on the particulars of the blame she did or did not place for the unjust execution of a pitiable man. "Then be reminded, cousin. Whatever else he is, Merlin is still just a boy with magic."

Hunith didn't acknowledge that, but Arthur knew she heard those words in the flint-sharp manner that he intended. Instead, she replied, "He's right, though. I did swear never to come back. What if this is why? To keep me from seeing this?"

"I think it's simpler than that," Arthur told her. "You look like Adhan, don't you? You have her features?"

It was Seren who answered, "Yes, sire. She does."

Arthur already knew that since Merlin had told him as much, but he didn't think it would help to report that. "So, you look like her, and Myrddin knew things – things that would only happen after his death. I think, perhaps, you frightened him. Nothing more. If his mother did him that much damage, then what might he have thought, in his madness at the end, looking at you? Knowing that you would birth a son who so resembles him that you even gave him the same name?"

Hunith looked at Seren again, who made no response this time, verbal or otherwise. "Then…" She turned back to Arthur. "He made me promise to stay away because he didn't trust me to love my child?"

It was harsh, and Arthur didn't think he should actually say it. But he was angry too, even if he didn't show it the way that Merlin did. Arthur knew the feeling of a parent's rejection even if his did come from the literal ghost of his father. However unmalicious it may have been, or however based on a misconception, Hunith had just done that to her son. Arthur had many faults, and this need to say the unnecessary unkind thing was likely another one, but he would never let it be said that he failed to defend his friends. Especially as he seemed to actually have so few.

Arthur spread his arms out to indicate the corridor as if it were a battlefield. "After what just happened here? You tell me." He let his arms drop back to his sides, hands empty. "You have the advantage, though, cousin. You aren't Adhan. And you knew when Merlin was born that you didn't want to be."

Arthur inclined his head without waiting for a response and turned away again, ending the conversation for good this time. Only after the door closed behind him – after he had paused to look up at the dark sky and breathe the chill, frosted air – did Arthur let his own concern bleed through. The line between Merlin and Myrddin had been clear up until now. In every past slip, Arthur had been able to tell if Merlin were speaking, or if the echo of whatever Myrddin was were punching through some ill-defined veil. This was the first time that Arthur had looked at Merlin, and not been able to tell which of them carried on that conversation.

Or which of them was with Gwaine right now. Arthur opened his eyes and brought his gaze back to the earth. To say that Gwaine hated Myrddin, or at least the intrusion of him on his friend, might be an understatement. He'd even hit Merlin for it once, no matter that Merlin hardly deserved hurt for someone else's usurpation of him. If that was even what these episodes were. Arthur strained his ears in the hope that they hadn't wandered far, but he couldn't hear anything aside from the distant activity of the lower town, and the changing of the night guard.

Arthur groaned low in the back of his throat and rolled his eyes at the starless, overcast night sky. He didn't think that Gwaine would seriously damage Merlin's person, but Myrddin seemed to like poking things that poked back, and Gwaine had a hair trigger about some topics. Arthur needed to find them both. At the very least, Arthur wouldn't sleep until he knew for sure that Merlin was still just Merlin, and that just-Merlin was alright. It was too dark, and the ground was too hard to check for the small chance of tracks to show him where they went, so he took a guess and headed off to the left, which would be the long way back to the practice field and a door that would lead back to the physician's quarters. It was as good a place to start as any.

---

TBC