A/N: First chapter! Yay! Note, this story is set early series 5. Specifically, shortly after 5x03, Deathsong of Uther Pendragon. Just some context, something to keep in mind.

**EDITED**

"Arthur," Mordred called from his position in the midst of the riding party. "You seem very confident that we will be able to kill this dragon," he said, sounding rather skeptical of their chances. He shot a sidelong look at Merlin, who studiously avoided his catching his eye. Merlin did not see why Mordred had had to come on this trip, or why Arthur had allowed it. Mordred had only been a knight for a scant few weeks; surely he was not yet trusted enough to be considered a Knight of the Round Table. And yet here he was, riding alongside Sir Leon as if he had every right to be there. No one else seemed to share Merlin's reluctance to incorporate Mordred, though, so he didn't bother to say anything about it.

"I have killed a dragon before, I see no reason why I should not be able to do so again," Arthur said dismissively. Again Mordred looked to Merlin, brow furrowed. "Of course, at the time, I was led to believe that that was the last dragon in existence. Now, however, we have evidence that Morgana has a dragon at her command. We discovered that to our detriment at Ismere. I'm assuming that she is behind this."

"How did you accomplish it, my Lord? Defeating the dragon, I mean. Dragons are immensely powerful magical creatures. They are not easily slain," he pointed out.

Arthur opened his mouth to tell Mordred in detail how he had bested the Great Dragon but, upon realizing that he could not actually really remember much about the confrontation itself, he turned expectantly to his servant, who mouthed silently for a moment, trying to think up something to say that would mollify the curious knights, only one of whom had actually been in Camelot at the time of the attack.

"Uh…he, er…he dealt it a mortal blow," he said lamely, glancing around at them all. "With a spear. To the heart, I think. Let out a big roar, it was bleeding all over the place. Then it flew off. Couldn't have survived with the amount of blood it was losing, not for long."

Most of the knights were nodding and looking suitably impressed at the feat, but Mordred just stared at Merlin suspiciously, eyes narrowing. The two villagers who had requested their aid, flanked by knights on all sides for safety purposes, were also looking inquisitively at him for some reason. It made him feel uncomfortably exposed. Merlin hastily faced forward again to avoid the eyes.

"How much further do we have to go?" Merlin asked quickly, wanting to change the subject as much as to find out the answer, and trying to keep from sounding like he was whining. Which he sort of was. They had been riding for two days practically nonstop and Merlin still maintained that he didn't have any of the helpful padding that Arthur did to keep his bottom from becoming sore on long rides like this, not that he was going to say that; he did not want to start that conversation again. Arthur always got so touchy where his weight was concerned.

"Tibalt says we should reach the village by nightfall," Arthur said, rolling his eyes and gesturing back to the older of the two villagers. "You will be able to rest your aching backside in an hour or two, Merlin, don't you worry."

"Rest?" Merlin grumbled under his breath. "Since when do I get to rest? As soon as we stop it'll be 'Go tend to the horses, Merlin,' 'Go set up the campsite, Merlin,' 'Go cook us all dinner, Merlin,' 'Go get firewood, Merlin.' Yes, rest is definitely something that's going to happen."

"Did you have something to say, Merlin?"

"No, of course not, Sire."

"Good, because no one wants to listen to you complain anyway."

"Nah, the complaining's your job."

"I can complain as much as I want to, Merlin, I'm the King."

"That's just your excuse for everything, isn't it?"

"Merlin."

"Well, it is."

Arthur's irritated and no doubt stunningly clever retort was cut off by the appearance of a cloaked figure out of the shade of the trees ahead of them. Arthur and Merlin, at the head of the procession of knights, pulled their horses to a hasty stop and stared at the new arrival in surprise and no small amount of suspicion.

The man reached up and removed the cowl of his dark blue cloak, revealing a weathered but kindly face with sharp dark eyes under a thick mop of close-cropped graying hair. He appeared to be wearing a white tunic and black breeches under his cloak and he had an unadorned sword at his hip, but he did not reach for it. Instead he held up his hands in a placating gesture.

"Who are you?" Arthur asked in his ringing, kingly voice. "State your business here."

"My name is Gerund," the man answered. His voice was gravelly and slightly hoarse, as if he spent much of his time shouting. "I swear on my life that I mean you no harm, King Arthur." Even though the man was addressing Arthur, his gaze had locked with Merlin's, who stared back at him through eyes narrowed with confusion and mistrust.

"What business do you have here? Why have you stopped us?" Arthur asked.

"It was I who sent Tibalt and Thalia to you," Gerund said. When their names were spoken, the two peasants spurred their horses forward around Arthur and Merlin, smiling and waving to the cloaked man in greeting. He nodded to them with a smile of his own and the villagers rode past him in the direction of their town, leaving the knights behind completely.

"You are from the village under attack?" Arthur questioned, demeanor much more serious as he slid off his horse's back. Merlin followed suit, watching the man closely. "What can you tell me of this dragon?"

"Kilgharrah has done us no harm," Gerund said with a gentle smile.

Merlin felt like he had had a heavy weight swung into his face. This man knew the Great Dragon by his true name. Merlin had never known anyone besides Gaius and Balinor who had known Kilgharrah by his name, rather than by the title he had been given. He was hard pressed to keep his shock from showing on his face.

"I regret to say that I may have led you here under false pretenses," Gerund continued. "But then again, in all honesty, it was not you whomI was leading." He again turned his gaze to Merlin, eyes bright. "You are the spitting image your father."

Merlin suddenly forgot how to breathe. His father? This man had known his father? Merlin had long since given up hope of ever having more than a name and a face for his father, but now he felt a spark of it rekindling in his stomach. He dropped the reins of his horse and moved forward, ignoring the noises of protest that came from behind him at the motion, eyes fixed intensely on Gerund's face.

"You…you knew my father?" he breathed hesitantly, not sure whether or not this stranger, who had led them out on a wild dragon-chase, could really be believed in matters such as this but praying desperately for it to be true all the same.

"In my youth, we were the best of friends," Gerund said with a wistful look on his face, nostalgia pulling the corners of his mouth up into a little grin. He stared at Merlin for a beat of silence, examining his face as though to memorize it. "You look so like him back then." Merlin could not help the tears prickling the backs of his eyes or the small elated smile that crept onto his face at this.

"You led us here under the guise of a dragon attack just to speak to Merlin?" Arthur demanded incredulously, snapping Merlin out of his surprised daze as he stormed forward to push Merlin behind him once more.

Merlin glanced back around as he remembered the pack of knights at his back, all of whom were glaring at this stranger; they were very protective of Merlin, whom they often jokingly referred to as their little brother-in-arms. As much as Merlin appreciated their concern most of the time, at the moment it was getting in the way of possibly learning about his father and he was less than pleased by it. "Who exactly are you and what is the meaning of this?"

"My apologies, your majesty," Gerund said diffidently, bowing respectfully toward Arthur and the knights. "I am Sir Gerund, Foremost Mage of Carthis. I am sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused you, but I am in urgent need of Merlin's help."

Merlin's eyes widened slightly in alarm; the only people who had ever sought out his help were those who had known of his magic and had been in need of the power that he could wield. He could not let this man, this mage, blunder on and reveal the secret which he had worked so hard to keep secret for the last eleven years of his life. Concentrating, Merlin cast his thoughts out toward him.

Arthur and the knights do not know of my abilities, he thought frantically. Please, they cannot be allowed to know. Whatever business you may have with me, it must be undertaken without the King's knowledge. Gerund quirked an eyebrow at him quizzically for a moment before Arthur's voice called him back to attention.

"You need Merlin's help? Merlin?" Arthur repeated skeptically before barking a laugh. "What could you possibly need with Merlin?"

Merlin could not help the slight scowl that crossed his face, though he knew that Arthur had no reason to believe him capable of providing much aid to anyone, especially not a mage such as Gerund. He didn't have to sound quite so disbelieving, though. It was rather insulting. Gerund hesitated, obviously trying to think of a way to procure Merlin's services without telling Arthur exactly what those services might be.

"It has to do with Merlin's father," he settled on. "I believe it to be a conversation best held in private," he added, looking to Merlin, who nodded. Merlin made to cross to the mage, but Arthur grabbed his arm and pulled him back before he had gone so much as two steps.

"Merlin, what in the world do you think you're doing?" he hissed, but Merlin knew him well enough to detect the underlying concern. "I may not be very knowledgeable in things such as these, but I know well enough that 'mage' is another term for 'sorcerer.' There is no way I'm I am going to let you go wandering off alone with him."

"Arthur," Merlin whispered. "He knew my father." He looked to his friend imploringly, hoping that he would remember the conversation which they had had many years ago over a campfire in the woods, both of them lamenting the parent they had never known and wishing fervently for the chance to know more.

Merlin had envied Arthur the rare opportunity he had been offered, despite the offer having been made by a manipulative and ill-intentioned witch, to see the mother he had not known, to speak with her. Merlin had made no move to dissuade Arthur from his chosen path then, and so Arthur could not deny him this, not without making himself a hypocrite, and he willed Arthur to remember that. Obviously he did, and it must have galled him greatly to do so, because Arthur scowled heavily in worry and frustration but released Merlin's arm anyway.

"Be careful, Merlin. We don't know anything about this man except that he's a sorcerer, and sorcerers are not to be trusted, no matter what they promise you. This is a dangerous path to take; you would do well to remember the consequences of the last time something like this happened," Arthur said heatedly.

As always, Merlin had to push down the pang in his heart at hearing Arthur speak so acidly about his kin, although he had to concede that he had a good point seeing as the last time had ended with Arthur nearly killing his own father, but he nodded anyway.

"I have to try," he insisted. "I didn't try to stop you, did I? Please, I just…I have to know."

"I know," Arthur sighed, visibly deflating. "Just be careful." With a final nod, Merlin crossed to Gerund's side. The mage turned to the King and his knights.

"My camp is just through these trees if you would like to share my fire for the night. I'm sure Thalia and Tibalt would be happy to provide a meal for you before they return to their village," he said hospitably, gesturing in the direction the villagers had gone. Merlin saw Arthur's jaw clench as he tried to decide whether it was worth it to share a camp with a sorcerer if it allowed him to stay closer to his servant.

Finally, he jerked a reluctant nod and remounted his horse. He took up the reins of Merlin's mare and tied them to his own, and then led the knights past them without a backward glance. Merlin watched them ride away, meeting Mordred's curious gaze directly this time. He wondered if his telepathic message had been broadcast into the druid's mind as well as Gerund's, but it didn't really matter if it had. Mordred, of course, knew of his magic and his destiny. He did not, however, know of Merlin's father or his Dragonlord abilities. No one but Gaius knew of that.

Once the knights were out of sight, Gerund made no move to speak and instead led the way toward the camp as well. Merlin fell into step beside him, trying to observe the mage without being conspicuous about it. He had said that he was from Carthis. Merlin was sure that he had heard the name before, but he could not remember much about the kingdom other than it was not an ally of Camelot. There was no open hostility between the kingdoms at the moment, but they were not on good terms. He supposed that this was the reason for that.

Sir Gerund, Foremost Mage of Carthis. Sir Gerund. That sounded like being a mage in Carthis was the equivalent of being a knight in Camelot. Which would mean that magic was legal there. He felt as though he should have heard of such a place before now, but maybe the stigma attached to all matters surrounding magic kept gossip about such a kingdom to a minimum within Camelot's borders.

Now that Merlin was close enough, he saw that Gerund's cloak bore a small symbol stitched into the blue fabric on the right side of the breast—two serpentine dragons entwined around each other and each emitting a burst of flame which melded together to encircle the dragons completely, all embroidered in golden thread. The royal seal of Carthis, he assumed. He felt like he had seen that somewhere before as well but could not remember where exactly. Probably on some sort of official document left on Arthur's desk at some point. Not that he had been reading the things on Arthur's desk.

Gerund did not seem like he intended to start his conversation while they walked, which suited Merlin just fine. His head was still spinning. This man claimed to have known his father. Of course, he did not have any proof of that just yet. Balinor's name had not even been mentioned—although he could only be grateful for that, as Arthur would surely have recognized the name as that of the Dragonlord they had gone in search of so many years ago, and Leon as well. It would have raised a lot of questions that Merlin would not have been able to answer truthfully, and making up and delivering convincing lies on the spot really took a toll on him.

This may have been a risk, going with this stranger, but much like Arthur following Morgause's instructions on the hint about his mother, Merlin had to know. If this man could tell him anything at all about his father, then he would be willing to follow him anywhere. Besides, even if Arthur didn't know it, Merlin was far from unable to defend himself against one man, sorcerer though he may be. He was perfectly capable of holding his own against just about any foe that he could imagine.

The two of them reached the camp a moment later to see the knights clustered together by the horses and looking vastly uncomfortable with the situation in which they had found themselves. Well, most of them were. Mordred and Gwaine looked perfectly at ease talking to Thalia and Tibalt around the campfire. They were chatting and smiling and eating stew out of rough bowls. The others had bowls in their hands as well, but they all looked much more hesitant to eat from them, no matter that Gerund was the sorcerer, not Tibalt or Thalia.

Merlin rolled his eyes at the blatant suspicion on Arthur's face before following Gerund to a tent set up on the outskirts of the small camp. Gerund held open the tent flap for him and ushered him inside before closing the flap behind them and whispering something that made the seams of the tent shimmer golden for a second before fading away. The chatter from the camp was silenced immediately and Merlin nodded in approval; he recognized enough of the words to know that it was a silencing spell to prevent eavesdropping and, knowing Arthur, it would probably be a good thing.

Gerund turned to face him and beckoned for him to sit in one of the rickety wooden chairs arranged haphazardly around a small table which bore nothing more than a few lit candles. Merlin sat where indicated and looked up expectantly at the mage, who was pacing slightly and seemed to be gathering his wits about him. After a brief moment of indecision, he sat down in a chair opposite Merlin but he still did not speak. Merlin decided to break the silence himself.

"Did you really know my father?" he asked.

"Balinor was my best friend when I was a boy," Gerund said. Merlin let out a silent sigh of relief at the confirmation that this man had not simply mistaken him for someone else, that he really did know who Merlin's father was, that he finally had someone who could tell him about the man his father had been before his banishment.

"Tell me about him," he all but begged, sitting forward in his seat. Gerund looked at him strangely, raising an eyebrow.

"I was hoping you would be able to tell me," he admitted. "I had not seen nor heard from Balinor in over twenty years when news reached us of his death. I was hoping to know where he settled down, why it was that he never tried to get back into contact with us." He hesitated again, a strained sort of look on his face now. "Merlin, what all do you know of your father?"

"Just that he was a Dragonlord," Merlin told him sadly, looking down at his hands in his lap, picking at a chipped fingernail morosely. "That he was betrayed by Uther Pendragon and banished from Camelot, then pursued beyond its borders and driven into hiding. He didn't even know that I existed until Arthur and I sought him out when Kilgharrah was attacking Camelot and we were in desperate need of his help. To be fair, though, I didn't know about him until then either. My mother raised me on her own."

"You do not know where your father came from then?" Gerund asked slowly.

Merlin furrowed his brow, trying to remember if his mother or Gaius had ever told him anything about his father's past, about anything earlier than his flight from Camelot to Ealdor, but he could not think of anything at all.

"No," he admitted. "Since he was banished from Camelot, I just assumed that he came from there. I guess I was wrong. Was he from Carthis?" He looked up at the mage curiously, almost hoping that his answer would be in the negative.

If his father had been from a kingdom where magic was free, then Merlin could not think why he would not have returned there after he had been banished from Camelot. Surely Uther could not have pursued him into a rival kingdom, not during the Purge when his intentions towards magic were so blatantly aggressive. Balinor could have taken Hunith—and thereby Merlin—with him back to his kingdom. Merlin could have grown up free and happy and unashamed of who and what he was. But Balinor had not done that.

"He was," Gerund confirmed, but it sounded as though there was more he was not saying. "Merlin, do you know much about Dragonlords?"

Merlin shook his head; he only knew what he had managed to figure out on his own since his father had died and he had had the abilities thrust upon him, and that really was not very much at all. Gerund shifted in his seat, looking a bit discomfited, like this was an unexpected development and he was not quite sure how to proceed. Merlin waited patiently for him to figure out what it was that he wanted to say.

"Dragonlords, as may be expected from the title, have traditionally been considered nobility," he said eventually. Merlin's eyebrows shot up.

"Really?"

"Of course," Gerund said. "Dragonlord. Dragon-lord. Those families with the ability have always been noble."

"My father was a Carthisian nobleman?" Merlin asked in disbelief.

"Well, not exactly…"he responded. He ran a hand tiredly over his face and let out a sigh. Then he faced Merlin head on, straightening his shoulders, and spoke much more firmly, apparently just needing to get whatever he had to say out as quickly as possible and be done with it. "I don't see any way to put this gently, so I'll just come out and say it: your father was the Crown Prince of Carthis."

Merlin's jaw just about hit the floor. He gaped at Gerund in what was sure to be a very unflattering fashion for several seconds before he found his voice again.

"What?" he tried to shout, but it came out more as of a squeak than anything else. "P-Prince? Prince of Carthis?" he spluttered. Gerund nodded. "My father was a prince? A prince, as in, supposed to be a king?"

He nodded again.

Merlin continued to stare blankly at him, unable to wrap his head around the information that he had just been given. Questions swirled too quickly through his head for him to be able to make sense of any of them. He latched on to the first one that he could and blurted it out.

"Then…why wasn't he? Why did he go to Camelot? Why would he leave his kingdom behind to live in a different one?"

"Your father was never fond of his title. He did not look forward to wearing the crown," Gerund said, his tone somewhere between sad and fond. "He was far too carefree for the responsibilities placed upon him. He was the youngest of three—he had two older sisters—and they often sought to shelter him from the politics of the court, to let him have his childhood for as long as possible." He smiled, a little grin that spoke of nostalgic yearnings and youthful remembrances. Then his smile faltered.

"But then his father, King Renor, was struck ill when Balinor was only eighteen," he said. "The King died in just a few short days. Balinor had not expected that he would need to take the throne at such a young age, and certainly he did not believe himself to be capable of ruling at that time. He wasn't prepared for it, had not even been given time to come to grips with the fact that his father had passed away. Terrified at the prospect of having to take over the ruling of an entire kingdom, Balinor begged his oldest sister Theanor to take the crown in his stead.

"It was…unorthodox, to say the least, but she was the eldest child, so she had a legal claim of her own, and she was next in line for the regency. Balinor formally relinquished his right to the throne and handed it over to Theanor and she was crowned Queen shortly thereafter. Theanor and his other sister Eleanor, along with the council and the rest of the kingdom, were not best pleased with his decision. Eleanor would not speak to him for days." He shook his head.

"Many of the people thought him a coward for his refusal." The muscle ticking in his jaw told Merlin exactly what Gerund thought of that. "They began to lose faith in him. Unable to take the disapproval pouring in from all sides, I guess, Balinor took the dragon with whom he was most familiar—Kilgharrah—and left the kingdom a few weeks later. We heard very little from him after that, and nothing at all after Uther instigated his Purge, until news reached us that he had been killed."

Merlin had his face buried in his hands at this point, his elbows resting on his knees. He struggled to comprehend Gerund's tale and reconcile it with the Balinor whom he had known so briefly. He tried to picture the bitter man he had met with an untroubled smile on his face, dressed in silks and velvets with a circlet of gold on his head and a jeweled sword at his hip, but he found that the image just would not come to his mind; it was so far removed from anything he had ever tried to imagine before.

And Merlin had not even started trying to come to grips with the implications of what Gerund was telling him. His father had been a prince. His father was supposed to have been a king. That would mean that Merlin was technically a prince as well, legally unacknowledged and illegitimate though he may be. As far as blood was concerned, Merlin was a Prince of Carthis.

"You did not know any of this?" Gerund asked gently.

Merlin shook his head, the motion rather impeded by the hands still covering his face.

"I told you, I never really knew Balinor," Merlin said miserably. "I met him only briefly just before he died."

He heard the creaking of Gerund's chair as the man leaned toward him and he glanced up to see the mage looking pained and curious at the same time.

"How did…how did Balinor die?" he asked tentatively, like he was not quite sure he really wanted to know but felt the need to ask anyway. "All we heard in Carthis was that the last Dragonlord was dead and the Great Dragon had been slain by Prince Arthur of Camelot. Obviously, Kilgharrah was not killed, we knew that much within weeks. I guess it was silly of me to hold onto that last thread of hope that maybe Balinor's death had been exaggerated as well."

Gerund looked down sheepishly, embarrassed at his own foolish sentimentality, but Merlin just nodded understandingly; he knew that fool's hope better than anyone.

"When Kilgharrah was attacking Camelot, King Uther sent Arthur out to search for Balinor and bring him to our aid." He chuckled a bit, scrubbing a hand down his face tiredly. "I was so angry that no one had ever bothered to tell me my father was still alive. No one had ever even given me a name; it was apparently too painful for my mother to talk about and I never wanted to press her on it."

Never mind how painful it had been for him to grow up wishing and wondering, but he had buried that hurt a long time ago and it certainly wouldn't help to dwell on it now, when he was finally getting all the answers he'd ever wanted. Even if they were a far cry from anything he'd imagined as a child.

"Anyway," he said. "Arthur and I tracked him down and found him living in a cave in a forest in Lot's kingdom, where he had been for many years. When we told him why we had come, that we needed his help, he said that he would not help Uther Pendragon, not after what happened the last time he had gone to the man's aid. He said that Camelot should be left to reap its rewards for the injustices dealt by its King.

"It wasn't until I said that Gaius had claimed that he was a good man and that I had hoped Balinor would be more like him that he gave in and agreed to come back with us, for the people's sake and definitely not for Uther's."

"Ah, Gaius," Gerund interjected, smiling. "That old coot is still alive?"

"He has been my guardian in Camelot for eleven years now," Merlin told him, smiling back. "You know him?"

"He came around Carthis a few times when he was a much younger man," the mage said. "To compare methods with our own healers. Even back then he was legend. One of the best physicians around and a dab hand at healing spells as well. Tell me he's still practicing."

"Medicine, yes. Magic, not so much," Merlin said. "He is Camelot's Court Physician. Uther spared Gaius' life in the Great Purge because he swore never to practice sorcery again. Now, Arthur may be a better man than his father ever was, but under the law Gaius could still be hanged simply for knowingly harboring a sorcerer—namely, me. Gaius was the one to tell me that Balinor was my father. He failed to mention, however, that my father was a bloody prince," Merlin added, grumbling.

Gerund's lips twitched into a smile, but he gestured for Merlin to continue with the story he had been telling before they had gotten sidetracked by the familiar name.

"Right. So I had managed to convince Balinor to return to Camelot with us. I realized that he didn't know about me, that he didn't know that he had a son at all. It took me a while to work up the courage to tell him, honestly," he said with a sheepish shrug, remembering how he'd agonized over it and always backed out at the last moment. He was glad he'd taken the leap. "And then the next day we were attacked by a patrol of Cenred's men. Balinor jumped in front of a sword that had been meant for me. He saved my life at the expense of his own."

Merlin sniffed, blinking rapidly to clear away the tears that were gathering in his eyes as he remembered how the sword had sunk into Balinor's stomach, the way his body had jerked from the impact, the look on his face when he had realized what had happened. A glance up revealed that Gerund, too, had misty eyes. Sniffing again, Merlin wiped his eyes on his sleeve embarrassedly.

"He died in my arms. He had barely enough time to tell me that a dragon's heart is on its right side, not its left, and that I would have to be strong when I faced Kilgharrah back in Camelot."

"Well, I could not have asked for a more honorable death for my friend," Gerund said quietly, looking at Merlin with something like fondness in his eyes. "There is nothing more noble than sacrificing oneself for one's family." Merlin swallowed audibly around the lump in his throat and cast around quickly for something else to talk about.

"How did you know about me?" Merlin asked, as much out of honest curiosity as to change the subject to something less painful. "Even Balinor didn't know he had a son, how could you possibly have known that I even existed, much less who I was?" Gerund sat back in his seat and crossed one leg over the other.

"Is it not obvious?" he asked. Merlin quirked an eyebrow at him; obviously it was not or he would not have had to ask. "Our reports said that Kilgharrah had been killed. And yet, that year alone we had several sightings of him flying around the edges of the kingdom. I saw him myself a time or two, so obviously he was not dead. So why was the young Prince Arthur of Camelot being hailed as a dragonslayer?

"We weren't too concerned with that at the time, mourning as we were for the loss of our own Prince—he could simply have been mistaken, or exaggerating his tale to make himself look better—but it came back into our minds when we heard tell of another dragon. Kilgharrah was supposed to have been the last dragon in existence, so where had this one come from? If a new dragon had been hatched, then clearly there had to have been a Dragonlord to call it forth from its egg. So either Balinor was still alive and the rumors were wrong, or Balinor had left behind a son to carry on his legacy."

"So you sent out villagers to tell us that you were being attacked by a dragon in the hopes that I would reveal myself?" Merlin asked, seeing the brilliance of the plan and impressed in spite of himself.

"Indeed. And you did," Gerund pointed out, grinning. "If there truly was a Dragonlord out there, we knew that he would not be able to sit back and do nothing if one of his kin was doing harm to innocent villagers. I disliked the need for deception, but I admit that I could think of no other way to contact you without first knowing of your identity. And no one in the whole of Albion seemed to know."

"That's because no one does know," Merlin shrugged. "It is the best kept of all of my numerous secrets. Only Gaius and I know, and he's certainly not telling anyone. But earlier you said that you need my help with something. If Kilgharrah and Aithusa are not causing you any trouble, then what could you need my help for?" Merlin asked confusedly.

Gerund's smile dropped and he looked vaguely apologetic for some reason. The expression put Merlin a bit on edge and he found himself already dreading whatever the mage was going to say next.

"You will recall that I said Balinor gave his crown to his eldest sister Theanor," Gerund began. Merlin nodded. "Queen Theanor was killed by an assassin many years ago and, since she had no husband and no children, the crown passed to her closest remaining blood relative, Eleanor, Balinor's other sister."

Gerund stopped to take a deep breath, grief briefly clouding his features. "Last month, Queen Eleanor died in childbirth. Unfortunately, her daughter was born sickly and she did not last long without her mother."

"I'm sorry for your loss, but what does that mean for me?" Merlin asked, not seeing how he could be at all helpful in this situation.

Gerund sighed again, obviously frustrated that Merlin was not seeing what he wanted him to see.

"Merlin, both of the Queens—your aunts—died childless. Theanor never married and Eleanor's husband predeceased her by three months, killed in a nasty skirmish along the border to Mercia. Upon Eleanor's death, in lieu of any named successor, the crown would have been passed back to her brother, Balinor."

Merlin just stared, uncomprehending.

Gerund ran a hand through his hair in frustration at having to spell it out like this. "Merlin, you are the one true heir to the throne of Carthis."