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)

9. Chapter 9

With All My Heart, Alternate Day of

"Guinevere…" Arthur rocked her against his chest, heart rabbiting dangerously within the cage of his ribs, stunned and unable to process what was going on anymore. Dragons and magic, and Morgana, and Merlin was saving them, he was – he had to be, because Arthur certainly wasn't, and Guinevere – the sound – against the rocks she hit, the sound of her bones, he could feel them under his hands where he supported her weight against them and they were all wrong – they moved all wro – "Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh – "

At the fringe of Arthur's smeared vision, Merlin stumbled to his knees on the other side of Guinevere's twitching body. The glamour of the Dolma faded before Arthur's eyes, dissolving like smoke to reveal Merlin's own familiar, pale features. His lack of coordination was the only indication that he shook as badly as Arthur from the shock of everything that just transpired, and he flung the trailing bits of his stupid tatty costume out of the way to free his bloodied hands. Blood all up his forearms too. Morgana's blood because he just –

"Merlin, she – she's hurt. You have to help her."

"It's alright," Merlin babbled, reaching for Guinevere. Whether he said it to reassure Arthur or himself wasn't clear. "She'll be alright."

How could Merlin sound so gentle after what he just did? He was still panting from his sprint across the shore to grab Excalibur from the ground at Arthur's knees, flinging chips of rock and grains of sand from beneath his feet, a fury the likes of which Arthur had never seen. Merlin was made for running, he thought in absent fashion. He was made to blur. No wonder Morgana didn't see him coming.

"I'll – I can fix this," Merlin stammered, voice crackling like embers. "I can…I'm…" His words failed him and drowned in an abundance of air, no one breath staying long enough in his lungs for his body to use well. His hands trembled as they brushed Guinevere's body, assessing her as the physician he nearly was.

"You have magic," Arthur said nonsensically. Magic could save her. "You can use magic. You're a – "

"A sorcerer," Merlin sniffled. He lifted his hands from Guinevere long enough to swipe them harshly over the water painting his cheeks. It could have splashed there from the lake he tripped into as he struggled briefly with Morgana, the sword already buried in her body, her life already forfeit. Arthur knew it didn't, and when Merlin lowered his fingers, he left swirls of Morgana's blood behind on his cheeks and in the crease of his nose, unnoticed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Sorry – why was he sorry? "You can't help her," he realized. He meant it as a question – as an expression of doubt. Later, on the path home, clutching both his sword and Merlin's limp body after the convulsions, Arthur would remember this, and how when he said it, his voice gave it the timbre of an order. But now, in the actual moment, it was only disbelief that he felt because of course Merlin could help her. He was a sorcerer. He had magic. He was made of everyday miracles. Why would he imply otherwise?

Merlin swallowed thickly. "I know you hate magic, but I swear, Arthur, it's not what you think. I can do this – let me do this."

Hate? "No," Arthur croaked his denial of that, unaware at the time of how it would sound to Merlin to hear only that word in response, and not the silent one in Arthur's mind that preceded it. Arthur reversed his hand and brushed the back of a finger through the tear tract running down Guinevere's cheek. It was just a stress reaction to pain. Just a reflex; it wasn't real sorrow. She could be nothing left inside, and still cry.

"I have to." Merlin's hands crabbed at Arthur's where they gripped Guinevere – at Arthur's fingers laced too tightly in hers, and his other hand shaking like palsy where he tried to smooth away the hair stuck to her face. "Let go; it will be alright. Just let me have her. Move back."

Guinevere arched in the crook of Arthur's elbow, sightless eyes fixed on the sky as she struggled mindlessly to breathe, but only the top part of her body moved – around the shoulders and above.

Arthur's breath burst from his lungs with a hoarse, biting sob. "Guinevere." He whined low in the back of his throat as he realized that she probably couldn't feel his hand holding hers – that the only comfort he knew how to give meant nothing.

"It's alright," Merlin murmured. He pried Arthur's hands from her and pulled her from his arms just to lay her back down where Morgana's magic had thrown her, beside the boulder she struck so hard with her spine that Arthur heard it break from the shoreline – a sound forever imprinted in his ears like a crunch of gravel beneath a cart wheel. Guinevere's eyes wouldn't focus; they were clouding already, breath rattling in her chest as Merlin touched her face, focused and intent.

"No…" Arthur moaned. He grabbed at the front of his own armor and bent double over his folded thighs. "No…god, Merlin… Don't…" Don't let her go. Don't let this be how she ends, a hollow queen bleeding emptiness into the ground. Don't let the void take her.

"I'm sorry," Merlin said again, voice sheer and torn. "I can't just let her die."

None of his words even registered for Arthur; he didn't have the capacity to hear them just then, or realize why Merlin kept saying those irrelevant things – that he wasn't having the same conversation that Arthur was. That Merlin was hearing everything wrong. "Please…" Arthur cried, air whistling so thin and tight through his vocal cords that he may not have spoken at all. "Please, no…"

Merlin took Guinevere's hand, trembling fingers threading through the rictus of hers, but rather than working magic, Merlin looked at her closely for the first time since the dragon descended on them. His entire body fell still, and then he let out a shivering breath. "Oh." He saw what Arthur saw, finally. He realized the extent of her injuries. The fact that she was broken now beyond repair. A shattered doll on the shoreline.

Arthur's vision narrowed as he fought to breathe through the pain in his chest. None of his air could penetrate the congestion comprised of horror and denial. Arthur was drowning, a flood of mucus and water and hope clogging his lungs – hope that maybe Merlin really was made of miracles. Arthur already knew that impossible deliverances followed him like moths. Chance aligned for him. Merlin would make a deliverance for Guinevere, wouldn't he? He loved her as his friend and his queen, and as Arthur's wife. He loved Arthur and Guinevere together – he loved what they were as much as Arthur did. Merlin would do this for her, and if by some chance not for her, then he would do it for Arthur, because he promised. He promised to find a way to bring her back. Merlin lied, and he pretended, and he wasn't always what he said he was, but when Merlin promised things, he meant them. He would save her. He had to save her.

Arthur's chest jumped, his lungs useless as he raised his head to look past Merlin's where it bowed over Guinevere's chest. Morgana's fingers clutched uselessly at the point of the sword protruding from just below the edge of her ribcage, speared through the soft belly of her from behind. The sandy, pebbled ground all around her ran with rust. On the other side of a line that Merlin somehow drew with magic, the crippled white dragon paced and danced, lunging only to fall back again and again because Merlin commanded it to. The beastly thing shrieked and chirped at Morgana, frantic and unable to reach her. Dragonlord. Dear god, he was a dragonlord too.

Even as Arthur watched, Morgana slumped against the ground, bleeding her life out into the dust, curled like a comma around the death of her. Suddenly, she started laughing. "Emrys," she cackled, contorting her neck at an unnatural angle to look at Merlin. "Emrys."

Merlin flinched and looked back at her too, his face a mystery, unreadable, every inch the sorcerer that Arthur didn't know except from stolen glimpses and accidents unmentioned. Merlin regarded Morgana with something like pity, but it was a cold regret that washed his eyes out like that. After staring at her for a moment too long, Merlin's skin visibly prickled in the sunlight and shifted like goose pimples in a warm breeze. His gaze turned calculating, and then Merlin looked back down at Guinevere lying sightless between them.

Arthur took a deep, ragged breath, forcing himself to be there in that moment. To see what lay before him without the lens of knowing that magic would always save him, in spite of the way he cursed it. His deliverance had always been undeserved, and now he faced it. There was no deferment left on the tithe due to his hypocrisy. "You can't," Arthur whispered, accepting the awful truth. It was too late. His lovely Guinevere was too broken for even magic to save now.

"I will," Merlin countered, turning calm and still as undisturbed waters – so foreign from the bumbling man that Arthur knew that Merlin's own face could have been a glamour of magic too. Merlin touched Guinevere again – feather light fingers on her slack face, her heaving breast. "I'll bring her back, and then you'll see. You'll understand."

The only part of that which Arthur comprehended was the not-yet-broken promise. He relegated the rest to gibberish. We'll find a way to bring her back, Arthur. But she was already dead between them; her body simply didn't know it yet. "Don't – " Arthur breathed, sheer like the wind. Don't give me false hope, don't promise again, don't do this to me, to us, to her –

"She's not dying like this," Merlin declared, plain and unadorned. It wasn't denial like when Arthur said it, or a plea. It was just a fact on which he had decided. "You need her."

Yes, but the world didn't work so fair. And Arthur would still have Merlin, at least. It might even be enough one day.

"I'll fix this, and then maybe someday, you can forgive me."

For what? Arthur thought. None of this was his fault. "Merlin," Arthur said, trying to be reasonable even though it was the last thing he had energy to do. He reached out for Merlin's shoulder, knotty costume fabric rough and grotesque like a funeral circus under his hand. "It's too late."

Merlin shook his head. "It's not. Get your hands off me, Arthur. I don't want to hurt you."

It had to be an empty threat, because the idea that Merlin would choose now to hurt him – to turn on him, after all that they had been through and all that Merlin had done with his magic to keep Arthur safe – was ludicrous. "Let her go," Arthur breathed. "We have to let her go."

"No!" Merlin shouted, finally lifting red-rimmed eyes to Arthur's face. Finally looking at him, when the only thing left in Merlin's gaze was ice and rage. "You can hate me all you like, but don't tell me to let her die just because you're a bigoted arse. You've killed enough people by it already – I won't let you kill her too. She doesn't deserve it – she loves you. And she is still in there, and you know it – you saw it too. I won't let magic be the thing that takes her from you. You have to face it someday. Not all magic is evil – not all sorcerers are like her!" He jabbed a finger toward Morgana.

The words registered, finally. The dichotomy – the completely unrelated conversations they were having, but all of Arthur's reflexes were sluggish with horror and grief, and he didn't have time to react to the realization. Merlin flung his hand off and shoved Arthur from the other side of Guinevere's body, toppling him back onto the pebbled shore. Before Arthur could recover, he slapped both palms flat over Guinevere's chest even as it heaved with the death knell.

Merlin's eyes seared bright, and the magic crackled in the air all around him as he drew on power that Arthur didn't realize he could. "Yfel gaest, ga thu fram thisselichaman."

Arthur flopped back on his hands, his attention arrested by the pinprick of light bursting forth from the air above the lake, divine and cold as an icy sun.

"Bith hire mod eft freo," Merlin incanted, his tone reverberating with power – with demanding the attendance of a goddess. "Ar ond heofonutungol sceal thurhswithan!"

Guinevere's breath gurgled wet in her throat. Merlin twisted his fingers and dug into something that Arthur couldn't see, that didn't reside in her body or her skin but that dwelt within her all the same. When he pulled, a ropey, shining thing writhed out into the open, black as tar, dripping magic like poison, tangled around Merlin's fingers like seaweed wrapped around the chain of an anchor.

That was when the screaming started.

---

Merlin smacked at Hubert's hand yet again. "Enough! You're not helping." He went back to rubbing hard at his temples, his face pinched.

"And your pupils are different sizes," Hubert snapped. "You know what that could mean."

Standing behind Merlin's chair with his arms crossed, Arthur asked, "What could it mean?"

Hubert left off touching Merlin just as the situation seemed destined to dissolve into a childish rendition of slappy-hands. Instead, he tossed things around in his medicine basket. "It means he could have suffered an edema of the brain. At the very least, his blood is congested."

"I have a headache," Merlin argued. He shoved his way to his feet so that he could pace away from Hubert, one hand massaging his sternum.

"You have a mental affliction," Hubert snapped back, by which he clearly meant that Merlin was an idiot, not that he was literally mentally afflicted. Though, he was that too in some capacity. Mostly in jest. "What are you doing to yourself? Are your lungs off?"

"My lungs are fine." Merlin pointed at the medicine trove with the hand not crimped at his chest. "You have snakeroot in there, and hawthorn. Just mix it with willow bark and put it in a tea."

"Yes, I do know how to do my job," Hubert grumbled back. He appeared to already be selecting the very herbs that Merlin had listed. "And it should be a tincture; you're acute."

"I'm fine, and you don't have them as tinctures, so it doesn't matter."

"It does matter – sit down, dammit." Hubert fished after Merlin's sleeve and deposited him ungently back into his chair. "You'll do yourself a worse turn rambling around like that, and I don't make nearly enough coin treating you as it is."

"Right, tell me another one. I know you make twice your normal rate every time you get called for me because Arthur doesn't know any better, and it pays straight from the royal coffers."

Arthur quirked an eyebrow and wondered if he really were being fleeced every time Hubert came up to the castle.

"I didn't say I got shorted," Hubert retorted. "I said the pay isn't worth dealing with your moods."

Not fleeced, then. Hubert was correct; he was severely underpaid for dealing with Merlin.

Merlin narrowed his eyes at Hubert and snarked, "Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."

"Yes, and it was you, you cranky old goat. I swear, you get more disagreeable every day. How Gaius put up with you, I'll never know."

Leon chose that moment to come back into the room, and Arthur moved away to speak privately with him while the physicians went on squabbling. Every step made Arthur wince, and he fought not to let it show on his face. He had already endured Merlin's snide and surprisingly unfriendly banter about Arthur landing on his backside, and surely having plenty of padding to cushion it properly. "Were they receptive?" Arthur asked, referring to the message he asked be delivered to Alator's group.

"They weren't there," Leon reported. "In fact, I think they've been gone most of the night."

"They've been…" Arthur blinked. "Hang on." He turned around and limped back over to Merlin, into the middle of an apparent stalemate since he and Hubert had finally stopped insulting each other. "Look at me."

Merlin bristled, but looked.

"Don't think about it, don't analyze, just answer the first thought you have. Were you with the druids last night?"

"Yes, in the dining hall," Merlin replied. "Why are you asking me this? I already told you – "

"Did you see them later?" Arthur pressed. "In the gardens, or in the forest while you were out there rolling in mud?" When Merlin only looked bewildered by the questions, Arthur pressed, "Did they give you those clothes?"

"No," Merlin replied. "The girls gave them to me." He started and his eyes lost focus for a moment as he evidently cast his mind back. "At the brothel by the Rising Sun. That's where these came from. People leave things behind a lot…" He frowned down at the ill-fitting tunic and pinched the fabric over his chest between two fingers so that he could tug it out from his skin. "I think I'd rather have gone about naked, actually."

Leon made a surprised sound in the back of his throat. "You spent the night at the brothel?"

Merlin shot him an unkind look. "Clearly not for the reasons you're thinking."

"Why, then?" Arthur asked.

"I needed a bath," Merlin shrugged, but his words were petering out in testament to his own confusion. "I was filthy, and they're…nice. They're kind to me, usually. The girls. I don't bother them about their trade. And I think they feel they owe something to me on Wynn's behalf, so…"

Arthur narrowed his eyes. "Did you go there, or did they see you in the street?"

"That," Merlin replied, pointing at Arthur. "The second one. They pulled me in off the street; I was babbling a lot. I didn't want to go at first." He looked up and seemed to read Arthur's next question on his face, because his whole expression bridled. "I wasn't drunk!"

Arthur wanted to believe him. It was just that setting aside the thing that happened earlier with maybe-Myrddin, being drunk was much more credible than the crazier theories needed to explain everything about his lost time if he weren't. And Merlin had certain vices of late that none of them could ignore.

"Arthur – "

Arthur pushed his palm out in the air to stop him speaking.

Disregarding that, Merlin repeated more forcefully, "I wasn't drunk."

"And the night you got nettle all over yourself?" Arthur asked. "Were you also not-drunk then?"

Tellingly, Merlin didn't answer right away. "Alright," Merlin allowed. "I know how it looks."

Arthur rounded on him and shouted, "No, you do not! When George gets back here, is he going to be surprised that we weren't talking about you being in your cups on a regular basis? That being a drunkard is what he was covering for? That's the ill he didn't want to speak of you. Dammit, Merlin."

Arthur stalked away from him before he yelled anything else in Merlin's face. He came up an inch short of smacking his head into one of the tree branches. Every ounce of Arthur's temper hissed like water dousing coals as an abrupt calm stole over him. Yes, Merlin had normal issues like drinking to excess, but that wasn't the only thing going on. It was a symptom, not the cause. Arthur took a deep breath, then another, the calming scent of sage invading the back of his throat. Something did happen that morning. Drink could not explain the slips or the memories that Merlin shouldn't have. The protections he kept weaving unawares. The languages he shouldn't know. The ability to read and write when no one taught him. Something else was going on. They just needed to figure out which things were due to drink, and which were not.

With a sigh, Arthur relented. "Alright. Look – "

"No." Merlin stumbled to his feet, clearly dizzy, and used the back of his chair as a prop for his balance. "There's no point if you don't believe me."

"Oh, for god's sake." Arthur grabbed at Merlin's elbow and tipped him back into his chair yet again.

Merlin wheezed for a moment, and then flung Arthur's hand off with a beleaguered grunt. "Don't touch me."

Arthur sighed hard through his nose, the edge of one tooth bared, and stalked away to glare into the fire. In his periphery, he could see Merlin jamming the heel of one hand into his chest hard enough to bruise himself if he kept at it. Hubert reached over to pluck it off, but Merlin glared him into second thoughts and they ended up leaving each other alone.

Before Arthur's scattered temper flared again, George tipped through the doorway and paused on his front foot, his arms laden with an overburdened food tray. He scanned the scene briefly, and then ducked over to the sideboard to lay out the food.

Gwaine meandered in a moment later, his expression languid. "Good morning, my lords. George said you wanted to see me." It only took him three steps to drop his usual insouciant attitude and straighten at the tension in the room. He gripped Merlin's good shoulder, squinted at him, and then asked, "What happened?"

"Nothing," Merlin grunted. He pulled himself to his feet again using Gwaine's arm this time, and paused briefly to catch his breath while hanging off of him. "Ask Arthur. He'll be happy to tell you all about my shortcomings."

Frowning, Gwaine steadied Merlin's weight and peered critically at his ear since that was sticking out right in front of his nose. "I'd rather your confidences come from you."

Merlin grinned in a parody of his silly old imbecilic cheer and shifted to lean on the back of his chair. "How would I know my confidences? I'm just a drunk." He giggled; the sound carried an hysterical edge. "When I'm even me. Sometimes, I'm not anymore."

Over at the sideboard, George grimaced in embarrassment, presumably for his master's behavior, but he didn't interfere. Instead, Hubert popped his head up like a beige badger. "What do you mean, you aren't you? You never said anything about this. I haven't even been treating you for that kind of affliction."

Merlin dropped the act and snapped, "It's called sarcasm, Hubert."

"That wasn't sarcasm. I know your sarcasm." Hubert glared at him in disbelief and demanded, "Are you hearing voices?"

Sighing, Arthur passed his fingers over his brow and told Hubert, "Ignore him; he's being an idiot. And you," Arthur pointed at Merlin. "You are not helping anything. Sit back down."

"Why?" Merlin asked, short and clipped. "So that you can yell at me some more?" Without waiting for Arthur to respond, he demanded, "Why would I do this to myself?"

"I don't know, Merlin," Arthur groaned.

"No," Merlin exhorted. "I want a real answer. Why, Arthur?"

Gwaine hadn't ceased his frowning, but he did divert it from random objects to Merlin's face. "No one thinks you're doing this to yourself, mate."

"He does," Merlin sneered. He gestured at Arthur with the hand not in use bracing his weight against the back of the chair.

Ever the diplomat, Leon stepped into the middle of the conversation, literally, and held up his hands for peace. "We are all fraught, I think." Not that he knew why, exactly; he may have walked in on Arthur hyperventilating on the floor with Merlin flopped over his lap, but he didn't know what happened. He could only have assumed that Merlin fell ill again in his usual fashion, which Merlin did not. "None of our interests are served by fighting among ourselves."

Arthur acknowledged that with a nod. "Leon's right. I apologize, Merlin. No one thinks you'd do any of this on purpose; you just can't always control yourself."

The only reason Leon didn't roll his eyes was that he shut them first.

At least Merlin didn't take the bait. Instead, he hung his head between his arms and shook it.

"Right," Gwaine muttered. "Is somebody gonna tell me what's going on?"

Respectful but firm, Leon added, "I would also like to know that, sire."

Arthur bit his lip, his eyes straying to the weary bow of Merlin's back where he stood bent against the back of the chair. The knobs of his spine traced a map down from his hair like stepping stones hidden beneath clothes that didn't belong to him.

"You know," Merlin said, quiet and calm. "I understand him now, I think. Why it drove him mad. Everything in me is screaming, and nobody hears it but me."

Gwaine shook his head like a smear against the air above his neck. "Merls, don't say that."

"It's not even the sound of it echoing in my skull that does it," Merlin went on. "It's all the rest of you, outside, acting as if I should be able to do something about it. Like it doesn't exist. I can't even hear you sometimes over the screech of it."

Arthur looked down and found himself picking at the dry skin of his own knuckles, cracked and calloused from sword work and quills alike. A memory drifted though his mind, faint. He couldn't recall the exact time or place of it, just the sound of Merlin's voice saying, there's no way not to hear it when they're all screaming. Arthur didn't think that the two conversations were connected in any way, but he recalled the earlier one all the same. Arthur had been angry when Merlin said that. He had snapped a response because in its original context, Arthur knew exactly how Merlin felt. Helpless to stop it all. The threat of drowning in the screams of others. Desperate to find peace again.

No one said anything and the silence stretched too long, until they couldn't have replied anymore without it being awkward and flat. Merlin breathed deep, his ribs expanding under Arthur's watchful eye only to wane again. He nodded as if to confirm something to himself by everyone else's muteness, and straightened. Then he just walked away from them, using a wall for balance. The sound of the main doors clicked an unexpected echo through Arthur's chambers a moment later, and Arthur started as Merlin's footsteps faded out in the corridor.

Hubert looked up from his medicines, twisted around to survey the room, and asked, "Did he just…?"

George set down the tray he was holding and rushed after Merlin, though not before Hubert shoved a stoppered bottle into his hands – the infusion, presumably, that he had already brewed for Merlin.

Arthur sighed heavily at the floor. "Leon, go question the night guard and the servants – the ones who attended us at dinner last night, and any who stayed in the castle overnight. See if anyone saw or heard the druids leaving. Find Sir Marwen, too; I fear that his sympathies may be problematic. Make sure he had nothing to do with this."

"Sir Marwen is loyal," Leon objected.

"Yes," Arthur agreed reluctantly. "But to Merlin. Not as much to me."

Leon blinked at that and exchanged a glance with Gwaine, who was arguably also far more loyal to Merlin than to Arthur. Unlike Marwen, though, Gwaine made no secret of that. Still looking at Gwaine, Leon replied, "Yes, sire." He and Gwaine conversed a moment longer with their eyes, trading looks that Arthur could not decipher. It was not acrimonious, whatever it was. Leon moved away soon after, though his steps seemed hesitant. Leon threw Arthur a last dissatisfied look before hurrying from the royal chambers as ordered. Once the door closed after him, Arthur let out a breath he hadn't meant to hold and scrubbed his nose to stop the itch there.

"Sire?"

Right. Hubert. Arthur closed his eyes briefly before turning around. "Yes, physician?"

"This doesn't add up," Hubert told him, shrugging toward the clootie tree spreading dead branches in a lattice behind Arthur. "Excessive drink needs years to graduate to the point of hallucinations and madness."

Arthur shook his head. "But he does have a problem with drink."

"Arguably," Hubert replied, "so do you."

Arthur narrowed his eyes over his shoulder.

Repentant, Hubert added, "With respect, sire."

"With respect," Arthur mimicked back. "What is your point, physician?"

"It was not a joke," Hubert said. "The comment about not always being himself. Nor an exaggeration. I know what he looks like when he jests."

Great. All he needed was yet another person realizing that Merlin's affliction did not stop at convulsive fits. Arthur put on the most convincing royal countenance he could manage, opened his mouth to gloss over all of Merlin's outbursts just then, and then didn't get a chance to actually say anything.

"I am good at what I do, sire." Hubert made a show of wiping down one of his used medicine bottles with a fine white rag. "I studied under Aëtius of Amida before coming here."

Arthur fought back the urge to sigh and tried to sooth Hubert's apparently bruised ego instead. "I have no doubts as to your qualifications."

"And I am not fishing for compliments." Hubert set his bottle down, thought about something briefly, and then put the rag aside as well before facing Arthur directly. "My point is that while you know Master Merlin better than I do, I know medicine better than you." He added a brittle, "Sire," afterwards, accompanied by a borderline insubordinate bounce of his eyebrows. "It is true that Master Merlin imbibes too much, and at inconvenient times, but as far as excess goes, he drinks far less than you seem to think."

"I have to agree," Gwaine interjected. "Take it from an actual drunk; Merlin isn't one."

Arthur forbore to groan at that and turned away instead, waving his hand at them as if to discount their very valid points. "Yes, fine. I take your points."

Hubert kept going in the wake of Gwaine's support. "I don't think you do, sire. The drink is still unhealthy in any amount for one afflicted by fits as Master Merlin is, but there is no evidence of hardening of the liver, or bile buildup, or fluid retention in the extremities. He shows no evidence of being the kind of drunkard who falls to the ailments of the liver which lead to degradation of the mind."

Arthur sighed and passed a hand over his eyes. "I said I take your points. And I would normally just accept what you're saying without argument, but right now, I am left with the possibility that during the time he lost last night, he was helping a group of possibly hostile druids to leave in secret from my castle. And I can think of no reason why Merlin would do such a thing unless he were somehow impaired."

"Then perhaps you should ask what they may have done to him," Hubert argued, "to make him willing to subvert you like that. Because while I see no evidence, medically, of a malady to cause this…this screaming in his head, or the sensation of being someone else, there are plenty of spells which may mimic the organic maladies well enough to accomplish the same thing."

Gwaine narrowed his eyes. "Are you suggesting enchantment?"

"I suggest nothing, Sir Gwaine." Hubert averted his gaze and fingered some of the premade remedies in his basket. "I merely point out that in his right mind, Master Merlin would not act against the crown. If he drank last night, then he would have been vulnerable. Even if he did not, he has not been well overall. His mind and possibly his will could have been weak."

"But they worship him," Arthur countered. "Why would they use or assault him like that?"

Hubert licked his lips and flipped the lid of his basket closed. "I am sure I do not know, sire. I am a physician, not a sorcerer. I only point out the inconsistencies I see."

"Of course," Arthur said, wandering over to a window. "I do not believe that Merlin is simply enchanted; he is still far too much himself." And yet, his own traitorous mind threw up a retort from months ago, of Arthur searching Merlin's face for evidence of enchantment only to have Merlin spit back, You've never noticed before. Arthur faced the glass, arms crossed, but he wasn't really looking out of it. "Will you be able to cover his duties for an indeterminate amount of time?"

"Only until the spring fevers start, sire." Hubert's boots clopped softly across the room as he gathered his things. "I am due out in the port towns at that time. The harbormasters pay me handsomely to screen the passengers and crews of incoming ships for the pox and other plagues. Notwithstanding the fee I earn for it, I doubt that your majesty would want to interfere with that service."

"No, I wouldn't," Arthur confirmed. "It is a vital task, I think, for all of us. There was famine in Gaul this winter from the failed crops last summer; it will make the plagues worse come spring. When do you leave?"

"Just after Beltane, sire." Hubert appeared in Arthur's periphery to bow to him. "I will send the exact date before then, so that you may prepare in some way."

About a month, then. Arthur nodded and angled himself toward but not at Hubert. "Thank you. Keep me apprised of any needs you have in the meantime."

Hubert bowed again and took his leave after that. Alone now with only Gwaine to witness his weakness, Arthur tipped his head toward the ceiling and shut his eyes. He didn't know what to do.

Gwaine wandered up next to him, audible only as a shuffle of leather soles on stone. "What happened this morning, Arthur?"

With a sigh, Arthur opened his eyes to gaze across the room at the clootie tree rooted and dead in his dining table. "Myrddin. I spoke to Myrddin this morning."

The stillness at Arthur's side betrayed all that Arthur needed to know about Gwaine's unfavorable reaction to that. Thankfully, Gwaine did not express disbelief or fury, or any other rash sort of emotion. He simply asked, "What did he say?"

"That this is my fault," Arthur confessed. "That Merlin told me something, and I didn't listen. That…" He sucked in a shaky breath as a feint to buy time before he had to say, "That I'm killing him."

"You wouldn't," Gwaine stated immediately.

Arthur laughed, mirthless and dark. "You have no idea the things I might have done to him. I could name a half dozen times off the top of my head that I thought about killing him. Executing him for what he is."

"But you didn't," Gwaine argued.

"I tried to," Arthur contradicted. "Only once, in the beginning, but I did." In his mind, the night of his father's death had blurred and faded like parchment left too close the fire, the edges curled brown and the ink bleeding from the heat. But Merlin's face remained clear in the center of it. Old, gnarled, and all wrong apart from the eyes. Horrified at his own failure even as Arthur lunged with his sword across Uther's dead body. "I would have done it if he hadn't stopped me."

Gwaine didn't respond right away. Eventually, he merely amended his earlier assertion to, "You wouldn't kill him now."

"Not on purpose," Arthur agreed. There was no comfort in that, though. "I wish Guinevere were here." He didn't really register the words leaving his mouth; it was just what he felt. "She understands these things better than I do. People things." Like when she seemed to be the only servant who genuinely felt sympathy when Uther's mind began to go. She had been so gentle with him throughout that long decline. And the only person, including Arthur, who could convince Uther to eat and drink on his worst days. She had a gift for caring.

A dissatisfied huff cut through Arthur's brooding, and Gwaine said, "Right. I'm going to leave you to your pity party, then. After you pull your head out of your arse and realize how useless that is, you come find me."

"What?" Arthur turned with his arms crossed over his chest to watch Gwaine stalking toward the door. "Where are you going?"

"To do something useful," Gwaine snapped. "Which you are not. And don't think I've forgotten your bloody promise."

"I haven't. But if you're thinking of browbeating George into telling you things, he won't. He's even more stubborn than Merlin."

"And if your queen were still here, she'd make you go after him right now, not me."

Arthur's eyes widened onto saucers. "How dare you – !"

"Good morning, sire."

Arthur gaped first at the door that Gwaine shut figuratively in Arthur's face, and then at the haze of dust swirling through a maze of dead tree branches in alternating shafts of sunlight and shadow, stirred by the drafts from behind thick curtains. That – that utter bastard! To say – And then to just walk out on his king without permission? No matter that Gwaine might have a point – Arthur didn't dismiss him. Arthur didn't dismiss Merlin either, but Merlin was…Merlin. And a prince, so he could walk out of whatever room he liked. Except that Gwaine was technically a prince too, disinherited son of Lot or not, and damn him anyway for having the right to just put his back to Arthur like he wasn't important enough to stay for.

None of this was the fault of some silly tree, but the tree was convenient just then. Arthur took a resolute breath and strode to his newly identified sword chest. A hatchet would have been better, but Arthur had a magic sword, and it seemed a fitting tool to use against a maybe-magic tree. He grabbed Excalibur from its scabbard and stalked across the room, raising it in preparation for the first strike as he went.

He didn't hear the door open, or anyone call out their intended entry. As Arthur hefted his sword and took aim at the trunk of the blasted thing, all that he heard was a sudden patter of footsteps rushing toward him across the stone floor. Arthur jumped and arced his sword around to defend himself from what he assumed was an attack. It took him several spans of frantic heartbeats to understand what he was seeing, which was nothing. He was seeing nothing – there was no one there.

Arthur let out a shuddering breath and scanned the rest of the room, then took off to ransack the curtains and check closets and cupboards, the wardrobe, behind the privacy screen, even under the bed like a child. He found nothing. Spooked and bewildered, Arthur wandered back out into the middle of the room, spun around one last time, and then tipped his head up to look through the branches of Merlin's damned tree. Dust particles drifted in gentle whorls around the rag strips and plant sprigs dangling from it. Arthur's arm bent down beneath the weight of his sword until the tip touched the stones at his feet. He took a step back, incautious, and nearly fell backwards over the bench in his way. The screech of the wood dragging across the stone floor stopped Arthur in his tracks, his heart rabbiting in his throat. He looked down at the bench, startled by his own reaction, unable to place the sudden dread that spurred his heart to jump and falter. It was only wood on stone.

As if it might strike him back, Arthur tapped his sword against the bench, frowned at it, and then delivered it an unexpectedly savage kick. The bench clattered into the nearby wall and bounced over onto its side, and Arthur growled behind his teeth in frustration.

"Sire?"

Startled, Arthur swung his sword out and scrambled back against the wall.

Leon held up his empty hands in the doorway. "Apologies, sire. I did not think to knock; it was remiss of me."

Arthur puffed out a faint breath and recollected himself as he straightened. He ignored his own inexplicable shaking and set his sword on the table near the base of the clootie tree so that he wouldn't betray himself by fumbling to slide it into his belt. He gave Leon a quick once-over, and furrowed his brow. "You couldn't have spoken to anyone already."

"No, sire. I apologize; a messenger arrived. I could not afford the time to complete that task."

"Why?" Arthur asked, noting that Leon wasn't out of breath since he was in good shape, but he was definitely winded. "What is so urgent that you had to come running back up here? Who is the message from?"

"Bayard, sire." Leon held out a roll of parchment as he strode forward.

Grimacing, Arthur took the message, still trying to parse out what Leon's body language meant, since it seemed somewhat over the top. "Well, he's right on schedule. You've been expecting him to react poorly to our recent changes in the laws."

"I expected a demand for redress for the treaty violation," Leon replied. "I was not expecting him to arrive unannounced with his army to demand parlay."

Arthur looked up sharply from the message he hadn't even started reading yet. "What?"

"He is already within the borders of Camelot, sire." Leon shook his head and pointed toward the northeast, where Mercia lay. "Less than a day's ride from here. He demands that you either meet him in person, or else prepare for his advance."

---

With All My Heart, Alternate Day of

"You stupid, foolish man," Guinevere snarled. "I was never yours, and never will be."

Arthur ignored the flare of pain in his chest at her denial of him. He knew it wasn't her. It wasn't his wife saying those things; it was just her face and her voice employed by someone else.

The Dolma kept step with them as they stumbled up the rocky shore, wearing Merlin's boots because Merlin still hadn't learned to disguise himself properly. "You must reach her, Arthur. Reach out or all is lost."

Guinevere wrinkled her whole face at the Dolma over Arthur's shoulder. "Who's this old crone?"

Arthur wrenched her closer by the grip he maintained on her arms. "You loved me once," he reminded her – reminded them both.

Speaking quickly, cruel with the plain rejection, Guinevere replied, "You're easily fooled, Arthur."

Yes, and he knew it. That didn't make it hurt any less. Arthur persevered, his voice steady and insistent despite his inner turmoil. "And still do."

"It was a trick!" Guinevere replied with malice in her smile. "Nothing more." Her tone hardened and became more forceful as she tore at him with her words. "A subterfuge to pass Camelot to its rightful queen."

"I don't believe that," Arthur asserted. Belief or not, it was anger at what she said that made him back toward the water and drag her with him.

"Believe what you like," Guinevere spit at him, resisting his pull. "The fact remains."

Arthur bared his teeth and yanked her forward, glancing over his shoulder to check his footing.

"No!" Merlin commanded with the lisping, put-on voice and accent of the Dolma. "It must be of her own will!"

Arthur twisted to glare at the Dolma – Merlin in his costume face like a bloody idiot. Clenching his teeth, lips pressed into a frustrated line, Arthur turned back and dragged Guinevere closer to himself. "Look at me," he ordered. "Tell me you don't love me."

Guinevere wrenched her arms within Arthur's grasp, trying and failing to break his hold. "Let me go!"

"Arthur!" Merlin snapped in warning not to drag her into the water by force.

Arthur concentrated on Guinevere before him, but not on the sight of her now. He called up the memory of her, and how it felt to love and be loved. How her regard made him feel. How she felt under his hands back when he knew for certain that it was still her. "Do you remember when I asked you to marry me?" he asked. Urgently, he added, "Do you remember what you said?"

Guinevere's struggles lessened, though they did not stop altogether. She was looking at him, at least – truly at him, her eyes narrowed as she stared back. Something he said finally pierced the spell beneath which she languished. Her expression turned confused, as if she recognized him but couldn't place him.

"You said, 'with all my heart.'" Arthur gentled his hands on her arms. "That's what you said, Guinevere. That was no subterfuge. No trickery."

The struggles trickled to a stop. Guinevere's face was a devastation as she looked at him, and an absent life seemed to surface for a moment in her eyes like a bloated and dying body rising from the depth where it had all but already drowned.

Arthur met that gaze with all of the love and determination he had, willing her to see it. To feel it. "With all my heart," he said again, for himself that time. In answer to the gift she once gave him. Then he let her go and stepped backwards toward the water. "With all my heart."

As he stepped into the lake without looking, Guinevere's breath hitched. Like an echo of herself saying it once before, she breathed back, the sincere intonations slurred from disuse, "With all my heart."

Guinevere stretched her hand out toward the one that Arthur extended to her. Close – so close to brushing the tips of his fingers. She wasn't all there in her face, but Arthur could glimpse the light of her dormant love bringing life back to the well-worn creases around her eyes. It was enough – enough to propel her one step forward, confusion and longing in the dip of her mouth. The space between their fingers was negligible at that point. He could feel the warmth of her hand against the skin of his palm in that bare moment preceding touch.

None of them noticed the pale white dragon begin its descent from the clear, open sky above them.

---

Arthur rushed through the corridors of his castle, half dressed in his armor while a handful of servants carried the rest and ran along behind him. As he strode into the war room, he demanded of the gathering at large, "Where the hell is Merlin?" It was selfish and irresponsible of him, and the last thing Merlin needed was Arthur's problems to solve when he should be resting, but Arthur needed him. He was weak that way.

Lamorak turned away from the maps spread across the table. "The servants are looking for him."

"Well, find him!" Arthur roared. He spun and pinned an innocent paige boy with a glare that was more fear than actual ire. "You. Help them search. Now." It would do little to actually aid the effort, but Arthur needed to order someone to do something useful just then, and the boy had the misfortune of proximity. Arthur spun back toward the table without waiting to see the boy leave. He heard the scrambling of feet, though, which was enough for him. "What do we have here? Quickly. Fill me in."

Leon must have been right at Arthur's heels the whole time, because he rounded Arthur's shoulder and pointed past him to a section of light forest a day's ride into Camelot from Mercia's border. "Our reports place them near here, between the Forest of Essetir and this ridge on the edge of the royal forests. We cannot be certain of that, though, sire. It is just as likely that they encamped at the edge of the Darkling Wood instead, to come at us from the north."

Arthur pointed to the open plains separating the Forest of Essetir from Camelot's woods. "Why prefer this point, then?"

"That is the direction from which the messenger came and left." Leon swept his finger north again, though. "But if I were Bayard, I would either use that as a feint, or have soldiers at both locations."

"Box us in," Arthur nodded. "And flank us the moment we move out, whichever direction we choose."

Leon nodded. "Yes, sire."

"Alright," Arthur mumbled under his breath, calm now that he had something on which to focus his mind. Tactics, he could do. Battles and war plans were sadly familiar to him. "We need to try to get a better idea of where he is. Have you dispatched riders?"

"I did," Caradoc called from across the table where he stood sandwiched between Howel and Aymer. "Four of them, sire. As long as they are not intercepted, we should have additional intelligence sometime before dawn tomorrow."

"That's too late," Arthur said. "But it may help those of you who wait behind."

"Wait behind?" Lamorak spoke up, alarmed. "Sire, surely you do not mean to agree to his terms."

Arthur held up the message from Bayard. "There is a deadline on this," he announced. "Bayard demands my presence for parlay by tomorrow morning. He has specified a site skirting the eastern edge of the Darkling Wood, roughly halfway between the citadel and the border. This is a careful calculation," Arthur asserted, meeting the gazes of the men looking at him one by one. "To make this meeting, we have to leave immediately, ride until past dusk, and set up camp without any daylight to scout the land around us. There is no time for reconnaissance, or for elaborate planning. There is no time to bring in the outlying troops, amass or move heavy weaponry, set up a supply line, or gather soldiers from the southern and western villages. Bayard means to catch us off guard, and weak. He means for us to be undersupplied and undermanned. It worked." Arthur lowered his arm and slapped the message on the table beside the maps spread out over most of its surface. "I intend to be at the meeting place tomorrow at dawn; that is not negotiable. However, I need your suggestions and comments on everything but that, and I need them quickly. We have to ride out within the hour unless we want to travel all night."

A clamour in the corridor drew everyone's attention, and Merlin slipped past the guards to take in the scene within the war room, eyes wide and intent. "They're saying Bayard's army is upon us."

Arthur exhaled in relief. "Not quite." He hooked Merlin by an elbow and propelled him up to the table with the rest of them. As always in a true crisis, no distractions seemed to play on Merlin's mind. The confrontation in Arthur's quarters may never have happened. Merlin was focused and present, and wholly honed in on Arthur. Merlin had also changed into his own clothes, and George discretely skirted the edge of the crowd behind him, so at least Arthur could be reassured that someone had eyes on him after he left the royal apartment. Dismissing all of that in favor of the emergent situation, Arthur said, "I remember back in the hollow near Nemeton that you used magic to look beyond in the forest. You saw the Saxon camp at the stone dance, as well as the hoard in the forest, and our men – the hunting dogs, at least – out at the spring, miles away."

Merlin glanced around at the men circling the table – most of the knights and counselors from the round table – and then dismissed them to attend to Arthur. "Yes, sire."

"How far can you see when you do that?"

"As far as the slope of the land allows." Merlin frowned at him.

"With how much detail?"

"If the weather is clear, as if I were standing there myself. Why are you asking?"

Arthur gathered him up via an arm around the shoulders and steered him toward the door, fighting the pain of each step as he jostled his tailbone and aggravated the bruising on his backside that he had only glimpsed in the mirror long enough to know it would bloom spectacular. "A higher vantage point will allow you to see farther?" Over his shoulder, Arthur ordered, "Come, all of you. Bring the maps." He faced forward again and prompted, "Merlin?"

"Yes," Merlin replied, confused but biddable. "A higher point would be better. What's this about?"

"Just come along." Arthur hustled him through the great hall and then down into the older parts of the castle, at the center of the royal house. As they approached the door leading to the aviary, which itself branched off only partway to the top, Arthur lowered his voice for privacy and asked, "Are you alright to be running around after this morning?"

Merlin merely cast him a sidelong glance as he hurried along at Arthur's insistence. "Whatever you need, sire."

The formality of it occurred to Arthur, finally. Sire this, and however I may serve, that, basically. "I don't have time for your deflection games. Don't just tell me what you think I want to hear, and don't pretend you respect me to shut me up."

Droll, Merlin replied, "I do respect you, sire."

Abruptly, Arthur raised his hand to signal everyone else to stop and stay back, and grabbed Merlin by the elbow to make him look at Arthur. "I am reminding you," he hissed too low for anyone else to hear.

Merlin clenched his teeth, his arm stiff in Arthur's grasp as a prelude, maybe, to wrestling him off. He wouldn't do it in front of the council unless he felt he had to, though; it would look too much like disrespect in public. Instead, Merlin glared at him from under the cover of his wilder-than-usual hair and told him, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Without breaking eye contact, Arthur quoted his own words from a chill autumn morning on the practice field back when Arthur still thought that trust between them might come easy someday. "You will do your best never to lie or keep things from me again, and I will remind you when you need it. You've failed at your side lately, but I've failed at mine too by avoiding you, so I am setting it right now. I am reminding you, Merlin. You gave your word you would try."

Merlin allowed himself a convulsive swallow before most of the tension went out of the arm that Arthur was holding too tightly. With a nod, Merlin replied, "I meant it. Whatever you need."

"That is not what I asked," Arthur pointed out.

"Even if I weren't alright, I wouldn't tell you while an army is threatening to break down your door." Shaded with apology, Merlin added more softly, "Promise or no, you're the king. It's not my place to distract you with my problems."

That was laudable; it was. But it was also very similar to things that George had said about servants' places and who had a right to inconvenience who, and Arthur hated to think that any such servile notion had finally penetrated Merlin's psyche now that he wasn't a servant anymore. He didn't need Merlin for his subordination. "Merlin, I need to know how far I can rely on you right now, because I know that I shouldn't rely on you at all. It's not an insult; you are not behaving as you normally would. You need to tell me if I should set you aside from this."

A denial clicked in the back of Merlin's throat, but he made an effort to be cognizant of the fact that Arthur was right, and they both knew it. "You're asking me – the madman – if he's sane enough to advise you?"

"I'm asking how far you think you're slipping right now. At this exact moment – are you able to do this?"

"Right now, yes, but it doesn't mean anything. I'm always fine until I'm not."

Arthur forced himself to gentle his hand and absently smoothed the wrinkled fabric of Merlin's sleeve that he had distorted in his grip. "Look at me." When Merlin did as ordered, Arthur stared at his eyes briefly to confirm that they appeared normal again – that the pupils had gone back to the same size. It would have to be enough. "Alright – come along."

When Arthur strode away that time, he left Merlin unmolested to follow under his own aegis, which he did – of course, he did, even if the cadence of his footsteps did betray his bemusement at Arthur's behavior. He seemed fine, just as he claimed, but that didn't mean much; Merlin had seemed mostly fine for months now, with scant but notable exceptions. Consummate liar, Arthur reminded himself, and hated that he both knew it to be true and still trusted Merlin in spite of it.

"Does your backside still hurt?"

"Shut up, Merlin. You should be thanking my backside for its trouble. The alternative was letting you split your skull on the corner of my table."

Arch yet understated, Merlin told him, "I don't think we have time for me to show your backside the gratitude it deserves. And anyway, pervert, I was trying to ask if you needed me to do something medical about it."

Arthur glanced over his shoulder, inappropriately delighted at a time when he should be somber. "You're calling me the pervert? I didn't even mean it that way, but by all means, Merlin. Schedule my backside a gratitude session for as soon as our business with Bayard is concluded."

Nothing on Merlin's face changed from his servant-y polite-face, but that only happened when Merlin was plotting mischief. "George?"

From near the front of the pack of council members following them, George crisply replied, "Yes, my lord?"

"Don't you dare tell him to schedule that," Arthur hissed.

Merlin smirked. "Never mind, George. Thank you."

Arthur faced forward again, grumbling as he went. "You're a bloody menace."

"I'll get you a poultice before we leave so that riding your horse doesn't leave you lame by sundown."

"You could have just said that to start."

"Yeah," Merlin replied, the shrug evident in his voice. "But where's the fun in that?"

Arthur pushed through the door to the aviary tower and started climbing the stairs. His knights and council, as ordered, followed him in a flurry of rustling footsteps and unasked questions. Arthur peered past his shoulder as he led the way and called back down to the train of people trekking up the stairs in varying degrees of confusion, "I asked for comments and suggestions. Let's hear them, gentlemen. Time is of the essence."

From a distance down the stairwell, and puffing at the exertion, Lamorak called up, "I suggest that you send someone else in your stead, sire."

Arthur called back down, "I told you no. Bayard was clear that he will not accept a substitute."

Ignoring that, Caradoc interjected, "You could send Merlin. He is the prince, and your heir. He can speak for you."

Someone else muttered just loudly enough to hear, "And bury the army himself if Bayard won't see sense."

Arthur bristled, but before he could round on the steps and shout at whoever spoke, Merlin grabbed him by the sleeve of his gambeson, discrete where no one else would see. His eyes were troubled when Arthur met them, but Merlin shook his head in a mute plea not to make a fuss about it. Arthur flared his nostrils, but acceded to the request. He wouldn't be the one to force a confrontation on Merlin's behalf if Merlin truly didn't want one. But Arthur remained affronted all the same. Merlin was not a tool of war; Arthur had promised as much.

Arthur hopped up the last few stairs and strode past the aviary, pulling his keyring free so that he could unlock the heavy door leading into the old watchtower. "Come on. Options, gentlemen. I know you have more opinions; you always do."

"What is the point, sire," Aymer asked tritely, "If you will not be swayed?"

"The point," Arthur bit back, his patience thin, "is to make certain that you have some kind of plan in place in the event that I do not return tomorrow." He jammed the key into the old lock and wrenched it hard to make the tumblers move. A cloud of dust billowed out from the tower as Arthur dragged the door open, stale air rushing out to stick in beards and threaten the men gathered on the landing with fits of coughing. It covered the rush of protests, at least. Arthur brushed his gambeson free of dust particles and headed inside.

"Sire, you are not serious – "

" – irresponsible of you – "

" – must remain here, as your father would – "

" – are perfectly able to wage war on your behalf – "

Arthur ignored the jumble of voices that followed him as he began climbing. They were all repeating the same useless things now; it didn't much matter if he paid attention or not. Once their rote protests died down, Arthur would listen again. The dust kicked up thick all around him, a disturbance of years of accumulated emptiness. It billowed in the dim illumination diffused through the evenly spaced arrowloops ringed around them and refracted the light like fog. Some of the din of his council faded in the drafty confines of the tower while the remainder blended with the sound of his own breath wooshing heavy in his ears.

There was a tapestry down in one of the seldom-used council rooms, an old thing left over from before the purge – from before his father took the crown, even. Arthur had always wondered if Uther kept it on purpose, or just forgot it was there. It showed a dragon stitched in bright red and orange thread, alighting onto a parapet high above grey castle ramparts in a wild land. A man wearing a crown stood small and insignificant on the parapet, his pale, stitched hand held out toward the dragon in that gesture that Merlin used when warding or commanding magic. The royal forest stretched wild and uncut as far as the eye could see, pressing right up against the walls of what was now the courtyard ramparts. The lower town didn't even exist when the tapestry was made; it was that old. And the tower that Arthur led them to now was the same tower sewn into that last surviving testament of where the Pendragons got their name.

Arthur reached the top of the tower with enough lead time that he could step out into the open air and pause alone, a single man stood atop the highest point in the kingdom, buffeted by winds and silence. He lifted his face up and watched the clouds pass in a series of slate rolls, wondering how many of his forebears – how many of Merlin's, for that matter – had once stood in this same place, calling down dragons.

Merlin stepped out onto the wide, flat ledge ringing the roofline of the tower and eyed the dangerously low, round-topped parapet twenty feet away from the door. After a moment, he peered around at the rest of the perfectly flat, clear stone surface and moved up beside Arthur, careful to stay back from the edge. "This is a dragon perch."

Arthur nodded without looking at him.

"You're not asking me to call a dragon, are you?"

"No," Arthur replied. He shut his eyes and drew in one last, clean breath of air from the wind that blew too high above the city to have touched it, or carried its scent. When he opened his eyes again, most of the council had stepped out to join them, though a few knights held back. Ronhael, for one; he looked as if he might be sick, in fact, and kept hold of the door jamb he refused to step past.

George shuffled around him and out onto the parapet, discretely placing himself between Merlin and the edge. It was endearing, in a way, but also slightly terrifying that George saw the need to do it.

"Sire," Leon cautioned. "Please be careful. The wind this high can be dangerous. It often breeds gusts strong enough to knock a man down."

The wind immediately died, and Arthur looked quickly enough to catch a trailing edge of gold as it faded from Merlin's eyes. Arthur held his arms out and smiled. "There you go, Leon. No more wind." Then he asked Merlin, "Is this your bell jar spell?"

Merlin crinkled his eyes in confusion. "My what?"

"I've seen you do this with the wind before," Arthur informed him. "Like standing in a bell jar to shelter from it."

The tilt of Merlin's mouth demanded to know when on earth Arthur had spied on him doing that particular magic before, but all he said was, "I guess a bell jar is one way to put it, yes. Why are we up here?"

Arthur motioned Leon closer before looking at Merlin again. "We need to know where Bayard has encamped his troops. I need you to use your magic to scout the land between here and the border, and tell us what you can about them."

Merlin cocked his head at Arthur, and then turned an uncertain gaze out over the city.

"Here," Arthur prompted. He pulled Merlin around to the northern curve of the tower. "We believe that they are just this side of the Forest of Essetir. Can you see that from here?"

Merlin swallowed and set his feet, shook his shoulders, and then flicked his head a bit. Arthur stood at just the right angle that he could see the flare of amber in his eyes as Merlin stretched his neck forward like a bird angling out to look at a treat held before its beak. Merlin ticked his face a few degrees back toward Arthur, and then nodded minutely, eyes fixed with preternatural precision into the unseen distance. "They're at the edge of the forest, yes. But not an army. It looks like a royal party, and not much more. An honor guard of some sort? Bayard's standards are there; I can't tell if he is, though."

When Merlin took a step forward to peer in a more northerly direction, a half dozen hands shot out to grab at his sleeves and the back of his surcoat. George planted his shoulder in Merlin's chest and braced his weight with a heel on the slippery raised edge of the rounded rim of the parapet, his expression solemn but pale as he eyed the open expanse beyond the toe of his boot. Arthur himself ended up with a fistful of the back of Merlin's collar, and the knot of a bright red neckerchief. "Merlin – "

"There," Merlin said, pointing out toward the Darkling Wood. "There's an encampment that way, half a day out." He leaned forward as if for a better look, and Arthur eyed the edge. The round perch along the rim barely reached halfway to a grown man's knee; the perfect size and shape for a dragon to roost. But it would not stop anyone from toppling over into the open air and a painful death on the walkways below.

Arthur exchanged a look with George and they both tightened their grips on Merlin's clothes and belt. The other men holding onto Merlin braced themselves to haul him back if needed, and Leon jerked his head at Arthur, requesting permission to do just that. Arthur shook his head, but he wouldn't tolerate a single step farther.

After a while, Merlin reported, "It's still not the full strength of his army." He made a face at the impossibly distant encampment. "Unless they're hidden somehow, but I don't see any place they'd be able to shelter from the sky." He started moving again, but the collective insistence of Arthur, George, and five knights kept him from stepping forward. Instead, Merlin rolled off of George's shoulder and pivoted to the side, tethered by his clothes on somewhat safe ground. He ended up facing a westerly direction. After staring for a while longer, unnaturally still, Merlin drew his head back and straightened enough that the men bracing him all lurched back, away from the edge of the parapet at the shift in weight dispersion, dragging Merlin in a jumble of limbs with them. "Arthur…" Merlin gripped back at Caradoc's conveniently located arm, and twisted to look at Arthur. He still had a dozen hands on him, securing him from harm. "You haven't had any missives from Annis or the Kingdom of Caerleon, have you?"

"No," Arthur replied, his face going slack. "Why?"

"She's moved an army into the foothills of the White Mountains, and the rest of Bayard's men are near Isgard."

Arthur swallowed, flickering his gaze around at the white faces of the men standing dangerously near the tower's edge with them. "Are you certain?" Arthur asked.

Merlin nodded, his other hand coming to rest on a fistful of the front of Arthur's gambeson. "They're clear as day, sire. She's positioned to split their supply line, but they're close enough to each other that I don't think she's there to stop them. The fortifications aren't facing the right directions either; she's built them to face your winter garrisons in Denaria. And your men there don't seem to be aware of the invasion either."

Tugging to get Merlin farther away from the edge of the parapet, Arthur ran a hand down his face to buy himself time. "They have us surrounded."

"Yes, sire." Except for Arthur's, the extra hands gradually fell away from Merlin's person as they all moved back onto sturdier footing. Merlin swallowed, shifting his gaze outward again, but only into the middle distance this time; it was only a thoughtful, if troubled, gaze – nothing magic about it. "I could take care of it if you get me close enough. I could just put an end to it now. You don't have to shed blood with them."

Arthur left off his unseeing contemplation of the empty air and turned to look sharply at Merlin.

"If you wanted," Merlin added. "Or needed me to." He wasn't looking at Arthur, or at anyone else even as every single person up on that perch fixed wide eyes on him. Merlin's gaze remained still and unfocused, which seemed deliberate; it hovered too steadily on a point near the sheer drop from the tower to be anything else. Arthur knew him, and that stance. Merlin only made that offer because he felt he must, not because he wanted to. And while what he offered was a largescale horror, he did so out of some convoluted type of kindness or thoughtfulness, no matter how absurd it sounded. To spare Arthur a war, and the sacrifice of his own people. To spare Arthur the guilt of ordering any of his men to their deaths.

"No," Arthur replied, plain and unadorned. He was actually more affronted than horrified though, and had to know, "Why would you ask me that?" Because Merlin could not possibly think that Arthur would court such dishonor in combat – not like this, premeditated and wholly on purpose. Beside the fact that Merlin had said plenty often enough that he did not want to be that kind of sorcerer.

Merlin shrugged, just a queasy tip of his shoulders as he continued to sightlessly watch the edge of the parapet. "You demanded options. That is an option."

He would absolutely have done it, Arthur realized. If Arthur asked. That was why Merlin wouldn't acknowledge the men arrayed around them, or their horrified stares. It shamed him. Merlin was ashamed to know that he would do such a thing at Arthur's behest. Be that monster out of Uther's own nightmares. Prove the wisdom of a tyrant true. But it shamed Merlin more that everyone else knew that as well – that his integrity could be bought for nothing more than the price of a single man's asking. Even if that man were his king.

Angling himself at Merlin to underscore his conviction, Arthur told him, "No. I neither want nor need that from you." A monstrosity couched as mercy to bring a swift end to war before it begins. "I will not abuse your magic, or anyone's magic, like that."

Merlin finally looked at him, his chest expanding with the slightly faltering breath he drew. A cautious relief painted the lines on his face.

"Peace, lad," Caradoc added, his face a poor concealment for the remembered massacre Merlin perpetrated once before to save them. "This is soldier's work now. You don't have to spare us that."

Arthur held Merlin's gaze, watching him absorb that as well as Arthur's firm refusal. As if compelled, perhaps perversely, Merlin asked, "You're sure?" It wasn't so much that he asked, as the way he asked: circumspect, and not entirely believing of Arthur's words.

From a few feet away, Howel demanded, "Are you really that eager to do it again? I assure you, none of us have forgotten the power you wield."

"Enough!" Arthur snapped at Howel. "You overstep, my lord."

In spite of Arthur defense, Merlin cut his gaze aside and raised his voice to reply, "No, my lord Howel. It is the last thing I want to do right now, but not every soldier wants to ply trade with a sword either. He offers to wield it anyhow because that is the thing he has to offer his king." Merlin slanted his eyes back to Arthur. "I offer what I have."

It occurred to Arthur that Merlin might merely be biding time until Arthur gave into the temptation of the easy resolution, and the easy eradication that magic offered. Taking offense would have been easy enough, but Arthur knew that wasn't what motivated Merlin's doubt. Arthur stepped closer, aware that they could have no privacy in this open space, clustered together with the attendance of most of the council and round table. This was important, though; it needed to be said now. "I know that you have Seen the sky rain fire onto a scorched earth, but there is no indication that it might happen now, or that it has to happen at all."

Merlin peered dubiously at him, silent as he studied Arthur for tells that Arthur wasn't sure he had.

"That will never be something I ask for," Arthur insisted. "I swore it, Merlin: I will not request you give me a monstrosity. I will not make you into that."

"Kings have asked worse than this of magic," Merlin replied. "And for less noble purpose."

"There are no ends that justify such means," Arthur returned.

Merlin's face turned circumspect. "You should be wary of uttering absolutes. You don't know what the future may bring."

"Neither do you," Arthur returned. Because he didn't, not for certain. All things not yet come were mutable. It could all still turn and change on a single instant. Just like the instant that stole Guinevere and rendered the rest of the world wrong so that it echoed with the alternate events that plagued Merlin sometimes when his mind slipped. Arthur leaned closer to insist, "I remember what you said about the use other kings have for magic. How they treat sorcerers. About why you welcomed the risk of my father's form of mercy if the alternative were enslavement as a machine for someone else's wars. I have not forgotten that you praised a tyrant, saved his life on multiple occasions, and acted loyally toward him for being, in just that one way, preferable to them. I will never put such a choice before you again – to decide which tyrant you can resign yourself to live with serving."

Merlin's gaze flickered from Arthur's right eye to his left and then back. Finally, he said, "Alright." But his tone tripped upwards at the end, and it might have been a question rather than an acknowledgement. Arthur couldn't tell. "Thank you, sire."

Deciding to take Merlin at his actual words rather than the timbre of them, Arthur nodded and drew a deep breath as he backed down. He didn't realize that he had been engaged in some kind of confrontation until that moment, in the wake of diffusing it. Merlin swallowed and bowed his head in return before looking quickly away in a deliberate show of submission. Arthur could tell it was calculated by the way Merlin's eyes skirted over their audience from beneath hooded brows, inscribing a circuitous path to the door that led back into the tower. Merlin was making a point: he obeyed Arthur. Magic served him, and would do as Arthur wished, no matter the cost. In hindsight, Arthur had to give credit to the display because he could see how the men watching relaxed in a way they had not done in Merlin's presence since Samhain. That simple offer, reluctantly given and gladly deferred, had finally earned their trust. They could finally see past the sorcerer to where Merlin had been all along, unchanged except in their own biased perception. Ever Arthur's most loyal servant. A man who would give Arthur literally anything, even his own dignity and pride – his life, if needed – because he had that rarest of impregnable love for his king.

Taking the hint inherent in Merlin's continued facing of the door, Arthur gestured everyone to follow him back inside. Once the last of his men stepped into the tower and closed the door, cutting off the majority of the wind, Arthur stopped. A rather sharp draft remained in the stairwell, but given the age and state of repair of the thing, this came as no surprise. Arthur turned to look back up the gently curved stairwell where his nobles and knights pressed close in the cramped tower space. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, exactly, but he thought that he saw it in their faces just the same – some wordless giving of permission and acceptance. Arthur nodded to them and watched them straighten, then looked at Merlin. "I am leaving you in charge here."

Merlin's whole face made a concerted effort to do more than just frown a bit. "What are you talking about?"

"You are my heir," Arthur reminded him. "And in time of war, that means that you are my regent."

"No," Merlin told him plainly.

Arthur ignored him because he expected resistance, and the best way to plough through that with Merlin was just to pretend he hadn't spoken. "Leon will remain as well to advise you."

Leon perked up at that, frowning. "Sire, if I may – "

"It's already decided," Arthur cut him off, hand raised to fend off any more words from that quarter. He redirected himself to Merlin again, and the glower darkening the entire step beside him. "Leon is loyal, and will advise you well. You can trust him."

"I know I can trust him," Merlin returned, his voice far more calm than his face implied. "But I'm not staying here."

"We can't both be on a battlefield," Arthur asserted. "I know you don't want to rule – "

"And I'm not going to," Merlin interrupted flatly, as if he were the one in charge.

"This is not a discussion," Arthur informed him. "You have a duty – "

"A duty to protect you so that you can rule this kingdom. You can't go without me." Somehow, Merlin's tone was still reasonable and understated, even as Arthur kept raising his voice. "I won't allow it."

"You – I'm sorry, you won't allow it? I am your king, Merlin! You obey me." Wasn't that what the damn display outside had been about?

Infuriatingly, Merlin snorted, and there was genuine mirth in it. "Since when have I ever just done what I'm told?"

Arthur cocked his head, temper sparking in spite of himself. "Merlin – "

"No one here actually thinks I should be in charge. Look at their faces, Arthur."

Arthur did, and none of them seemed eager to be dragged into this spat. "They accepted you as my heir – "

"Lord Howel is actually turning different colors."

" – and they will respect my decision – "

"Only because there's no reasoning with you when you're being an idiot. They're resigned to your stupidity; don't mistake it for approval."

"Stop interrupting me!"

"Then start listening to me," Merlin snapped, though his tone was more stern than angry. "I don't want your crown. That is not what I'm for."

"I never accused you of wanting it," Arthur retorted. "I know you don't want it. This is about necessity. I cannot go to the border without knowing that this kingdom is in good hands in my absence – that someone I trust is holding it and protecting it for me."

Merlin shook his head and raised his chin as he drew back. "I am the last person you should trust with that, Arthur. There is a reason why magic folk are not given to rule. You saw what happened when they tried. The purge was an atrocity, but those who ruled in magic were corrupt. They needed to be carved out. I know that, Arthur. I killed enough of the remnants myself."

Arthur scoffed. "You are hardly a power-hungry warlock bent on personal gain."

Ignoring that, Merlin merely repeated the same thing he had said multiple times in the past months. "You need a proper heir, Arthur. One who is not me."

"There is no time for that now!" Arthur barked, his patience eroded to the point he feared he might put hands on Merlin to manhandle him into compliance. As if that ever worked. "I have to leave immediately for what may very well be the start of war, and someone needs to hold the throne now. It's you or no one."

"Then it's no one." Merlin twitched his eyebrows at the obvious conclusion – obvious to him, at least. "And that is why I will not stay here while you traipse off to war. I hold and protect your throne by protecting you! If you don't come back, there is no one else who can wear your crown in your stead. No one else legally to succeed you."

Traipse? Excuse him; Arthur did not traipse anywhere. "You legally succeed me!"

"I have to consent to that," Merlin pointed out. His continued calm was nothing short of infuriating. "I've studied your laws, Arthur; Alder made sure of it. I have to consent to being your heir, and I never have. It's done. The only thing left is to make sure that I am with you, beside you, keeping you safe. I have to bring you back."

Arthur hissed through his bared teeth and snapped, "I am your king. Nothing is done until I say it's done." The bluster in that hardly covered the sudden hollowing of his gut, though, at the words that Merlin chose because he had said them before. About Guinevere, about promising to bring her back. And he hadn't. Discomfited and desperate to hide it, Arthur showed his teeth again and squared up close to warn, "You would defy the succession? Defy me?" He didn't want to put Merlin in his place in front of half the court and humiliate him, but Arthur was properly angry now, and he couldn't just roll over to a subordinate when challenged like this in public.

Before Arthur's anger swelled any further, Merlin snapped and finally raised his voice to match Arthur's. "I defy nothing! You're the one who wanted to go after this stupid destiny, remember? Not me. And this is how that works. I stand behind you, or not at all."

"You – " Arthur cut himself off, blinked a few times, and then balked.

Howel's voice broke into the quiet that fell between them. "Sire?"

The hair rose on the back of Arthur's neck and he gripped the hilt of his sword. It wasn't that he thought Howel would do something; it was only that Merlin always seemed to think that he had to be wary of Arthur's nobles, and censor himself and his magic in order to not frighten them too much. Arthur had spent years ignoring Merlin's funny feelings and his cautious nature, and all it had taught him was that when Merlin grew wary of a person, there was cause. Without breaking eye contact with Merlin, Arthur angled an ear toward Howel stood right behind him on the stairs. "Yes, my lord?"

If Howel noticed where Arthur's fingers rested, he gave no indication of the possible threat. "What destiny, sire?" When Arthur couldn't find an explanation quickly enough to brush off what Merlin just said, Howel asked, "You did not make a deal with magic, did you?"

"Not that it's anyone else's concern," Arthur replied carefully, still watching Merlin impassively eyeing him back, "But no, I did not."

Merlin shook his head and whispered, "Not true."

Irritated at being contradicted in public once again, Arthur barked, "I did not make a deal with magic. I made an agreement with – " With a man made of everyday miracles, whose face no longer aged. A man who could breathe ethereal light into the palm of his hand just to see the chamber pot in the middle of the night – Arthur's strange and loyal friend who spoke sooth in the dark. "With you." The fight drained from Arthur's limbs, until the lassitude that remained felt like nausea. He made that agreement with a man who, by at least a dozen independent accounts, might literally be magic itself. "I made a deal with you."

Merlin's expression softened into some kind of remorse to which he did not actually give voice as he nodded. "That I would help you achieve the destiny you want, but that I would never stop fighting you on it because you don't actually know what that means, in the end. For either of us."

The convulsive swallow took Arthur by surprise, but he choked it back down his own throat along with the spittle collected in his mouth. "I know what it means," Arthur countered thickly. "The lake."

A sad smile billowed up on Merlin's face, then dwindled quickly to echo instead in his eyes. "This has nothing to do with the lake."

Arthur sucked on his teeth and glanced up at their audience.

"I can't stay behind and be your regent," Merlin clarified, though it was unnecessary at that point. "I tried to tell you, Arthur. You need a proper heir."

"Yes, you did try to tell me," Arthur acknowledged. For the sake of his own ego, he grumbled, "Might have helped if you explained why before now."

Merlin sighed; it was mostly regret. "You never wanted to hear it. You deny it, but I know you want me to be a proper prince. Like you, at least a little bit. But Arthur, I'm not like you. I never will be."

"Sire," Lamorak interrupted, though from his tone, he wanted nothing more than to cease drawing notice to himself. "What destiny? What is he talking about?"

Reluctant to bring any of this into a public domain, Arthur slid his eyes further to the side until he could see Howel in his periphery. "That is no one's concern but mine."

"We are your privy council," Lamorak objected. "Sire, I understand your hesitance, but if this kingdom is in debt to magic, or to anything else, we should know. It is incumbent upon us to advise you in such matters."

"This kingdom bears no debt," Arthur returned.

"Then it is a personal commitment," Howel concluded. "Sire, these kinds of deals are more dangerous than you know. Magic cannot be – "

When Howel didn't finish that, and didn't even breathe again from what Arthur could tell, Arthur twisted his torso to look for some cause of the abrupt silence.

Howel did not return Arthur's gaze; he was looking at Merlin, and while there was wariness in his eyes, perhaps a queasy shade of fear, it looked more like the desire not to say the unkind thing he was thinking. Not from self-preservation or for political gain, either; it seemed a genuine disinclination to give offense. That alone showed the gravity of the moment; even at his courtliest, Howel was never really all that concerned about the offenses he gave.

"Lord Howel is right," Merlin offered into the quiet. "Magic cannot be trusted. Not in this way." When Arthur dragged his eyes back to Merlin, leaving Howel to swallow his unspoken reticence behind him, Merlin smiled. "It's just the truth, Arthur. I've told you myself."

From further up the stairwell, Lamorak pointed out, "Your father made such a commitment, sire. We all know the fruit that it bore."

Arthur bit the tip of his tongue to caution himself to mediate his own reaction. "I am not my father."

"And Uther broke his word," Merlin added. "His fruit came of that."

Small and subdued, a voice drifted down the stairwell. Meliot, of all people. "Sire, your father broke his word because he did not want to condemn you to a fate you could not control. He did not want magic to have power over you. This power. It killed your mother to see its ends done; he feared the same come to you."

Arthur narrowed his eyes, searching the narrow space above him for Meliot. He remained out of sight, though, likely hidden by the curve of the tower, high up nearer the door to the dragon perch. Fear was something Merlin also ascribed to Uther's motives, eventually, in the momentary despair of the present winter. Fear of how it would use and discard Arthur, callous to achieve some unseen goal.

"The lake?" Howel queried. "A rain of fire? These are troubling portends. Dare we ask which destiny you court, sire?"

Leon shuffled nearby and interjected, "The king would not have made any agreement lightly. Perhaps we should not question him at this time. Bayard's threats surely take precedence."

No one responded, but the harping also stopped. Arthur propped a hand on the wall so that he could turn on the stair and face the men above him without tottering off the stair. It was strange, standing below his court like this, looking up at them as if he were the supplicant. He should have kept his peace about Merlin's utterances. He never should have mentioned a burning sky or the ominous lake. Merlin was not entirely stupid about the need for discretion, and keeping his secrets from a wider audience. It would be too easy to turn their fear on him as the messenger of doom, rather than on the doom itself, and their faces reflected that impulse. Many of the men in the stairwell watched Merlin from the corner of their eyes, as if he were…well. As if he were fae.

"Come now, my lord Howel," Arthur drawled. "Let us not be coy. You were intimately engaged with the events of my conception. I'm sure that you already know exactly which destiny we mean."

Howel shuffled his feet, huffed out an uneasy breath, and then said nothing after all.

Lamorak stressed, "Your father wished to spare you from his missteps, sire. And with good cause."

"It was never Uther's choice to spare him or not," Merlin admonished. "Only to make him or not. And once made, Arthur is the only one who may choose what he becomes. That is something that Uther never understood."

"My choices are my own," Arthur told them, chin raised by necessity in order to see them all. Most of them, at least; some remained around the bend above, blocked from sight. Arthur's scalp prickled at Merlin's presence behind him, though, because it never failed to unnerve him when Merlin started speaking like he somehow knew wise and mysterious things. "And I make them freely, in the best interests of Camelot. As I always have."

"The Once and Future King," Merlin murmured, "is bigger than Uther could appreciate. And Arthur is worthy of having it, should he choose to."

A dozen pairs of eyes flickered past Arthur, careful of the force with which they stared, as if Merlin may be triggered the same as a crossbow with a hair's catch. Some of the looks were knowing – Lamorak's and Howel's, Caradoc's, even Leon's. Others merely wore fear to cover their ignorance.

"The Once and Future King," Howel echoed. "Sire… I fear that you do not know the tales at all, if you seek that so calmly."

"I never claimed to have no reservations," Arthur countered. "Even Merlin tried to talk me out of it."

"As he should," Lamorak said, his voice imploring. "Sire, please consider what must have driven your father to reject this for you. Uther was a conqueror. If uniting the land were all that the prophecy foretold, he would gladly have helped it along. He would have celebrated a High King of his bloodline with pride. You should take heed that he did not."

Arthur shook his head at the notion that he should have to explain himself to anyone, and certainly about this. "I will not let the threat of personal misfortune stand between Camelot and a golden age. This risk is worth it. What happens to me is secondary to the good of this kingdom."

"Not for so long as you leave no heir," Lamorak countered. "And there is no guarantee of a golden age, sire. Prophecy is treacherous and easy to misinterpret, and Myrddin was mad besides when he said those things to your father. Who is to say that he saw sooth? Even the others – the priestess and her order who provided the actual magic that conceived you – did not confirm what he said. This is folly."

"I did not ask for a guarantee," Arthur countered. "And I don't expect one. If I'm honest, then I should tell you that I barely believe in such a thing as fate or destiny. The idea that my life's course is not my own doing is abhorrent to me. I'll allow the possibility that given the past or the present, some things are inevitable, but I cannot expect a certain future to be handed to me in exchange for my father's ill deeds."

The older members of Arthur's court exchanged bewildered looks until Caradoc finally asked, "Then what are you doing?"

"Hoping," Arthur replied. "The path is there; it doesn't matter how it came to be, only that it is. I don't have to give credence to prophecy to decide to try walking it."

"Prophecy is a self-fulfilling thing," Merlin murmured, hushed in the wake of Arthur's strident assertion. "Even Uther understood that much. You cannot want or actualize something you know nothing about. Why have prophecy at all, in fact, if not to make things true?"

Arthur read the strangeness of the atmosphere on the faces of his men as they watched Merlin speak at Arthur's back, until he felt compelled to turn around and see whatever it is that left them all breathing shallow and spooked. Never mind the words themselves, which Arthur had heard already, verbatim, from the mouth of a woman who once spoke for a goddess.

Merlin's face was soft in the dim light of the stairwell, kind and sad. In spite of its youth, there was nothing young in the way he gazed back at Arthur. "Uther knew it was only a matter of time until Myrddin told you stories of the Once and Future King. Stories of magic. It's why he had to be killed. It's why they all did. Every utterance had to be destroyed so that you would never hear of it, and choose to make it for yourself."

Arthur watched Merlin as he spoke, preternatural and unblinking, blue irises bright like a fever, his pupils impossibly small in a dim space that should have turned his eyes black. A chill caught Arthur unaware and he ticked his shoulders in a sharp jerk.

Merlin smiled – a fractured, thin thing sharp with fondness as if for a pet rather than for a king. It was no expression that Arthur had seen him wear before. "As much as Uther raised you to be harsh and unforgiving, he also taught you that a king must never set himself before his kingdom. And you learned that lesson well." Merlin tilted his chin up, his eyes alone hinting at some kind of satisfaction. "Of course, you would want a golden age for your people, if someone offered it to you."

Arthur swallowed while his men shifted above him. "Merlin?" The sound of his voice carried far in spite of that, owing to the utter silence of the men crowded on the stairs above him, and the close walls of the tower. "What are you doing?"

"He wanted you to be the best of his line. To surpass him. But he also couldn't bear to know how he himself endangered that. You are payment to magic, Arthur. You are the debt Uther owed for the privilege of having another man's wife. How petty, in the end." Merlin's voice reverberated not with power but with the hush of his words. With the intensity of their softness. "When he could have had any other woman than she."

Arthur cocked his head. The air felt close in the confines of the sloping stairwell, and Merlin looked as much a sorcerer as he ever did, which was not much at all. Foppish hair, and pale skin – a bit awkward and too gangly to go unremarked. Hat racks jutting at the joints beneath his skin. But the air itself said something else; it tasted faintly metallic, and heavier than it should. Nothing about Merlin's appearance made the difference obvious, other than that Arthur knew him, and a shimmer seemed to hum about his person in a way that sound might be perceived as a picture even though it could never be seen with the eyes.

"The only chance he had left was to simply deny you a choice in the matter. Because he knew, Arthur. You are just as much your mother's son as his. He knew your selflessness, and what that nobility would cost you. It haunted him, that knowledge. He could not risk leaving anyone to tempt you with the promise of an age that you yourself would never see."

A nervous rustling crested behind Arthur, and then died again. Arthur extended his arm at his side, fingers spread in a warning to everyone else not to interfere, or think that they had to say or do something just then. As much as Arthur's skin prickled at that last utterance, he knew that it had more to do with the presence of the men behind him, spooked and possibly considering rash actions, than with the actual words that Merlin spoke.

"In the end," Merlin mused, "he wasn't actually trying to save you from magic." He smiled mysterious and fae within the shadows that painted his face. Like he knew things he shouldn't. Which he did, but Arthur wondered how many of those things he would remember a candlemark from now, after the glamor faded and the magic left him alone again to be just Merlin. "He was saving you from yourself," Merlin said, voice rich with things beyond the mere man Arthur knew and loved. "From the better nature that he himself nurtured in you. To be selfless. Prideless. He wanted to save you from the consequence of being the good man he hoped you would become. That he himself was not capable of being. I wonder if he is proud or horrified to have succeeded in one only by failing in the other."

"Horrified," Arthur whispered by wrote, because it was a fact he already knew, from the shade of Uther himself. "I've destroyed what he built."

"He destroyed it himself," Merlin countered, eyes glittering not with amber, but with something far less tangible. "Perhaps in a fit of irony? Even he knows that the most fertile soil is the soil tilled with blood and ash. It's why we plant wheat in the battlefields after the bodies are burned."

Arthur shivered, the hairs prickling on his forearms. He could see hands raising behind him like pale flowers birthed from the stone, a halo of warding signs at the edge of his vision – protections that until that moment, Arthur had thought dead with the purge. Gestures against evil, against misfortune – old superstitions that had no place with the new god or his empty rooms. It only highlighted once again that no matter how many Uther killed, no matter how many shrines or sacred spaces he desecrated and razed, the old religion could never truly be eradicated. It lived even in those with no magic of their own. Even in men like Ronhael, who worshipped fervently at the bare alter and wooden cross of the christ man. Even he abandoned it all now for the so-called blasphemy of finger-formed sigils meant to appease old gods.

Arthur looked at none of them sketching their weak wards in the dark. He held Merlin's gaze, unwavering, for long enough that his silence oppressed and his men began to fidget, wondering if they needed to intervene in this standoff. That was the point at which Merlin finally blinked, amidst the whisper of boots on stone, and then blinked again as he bobbed his head, grown briefly too heavy where it perched atop his neck. His gaze dropped like a stone and skewed to the right, but only for a single heartbeat. When he looked up again, the pall of other worlds was gone.

With a short exhale, Arthur stepped down and turned Merlin away from the men above them, forestalling the question that surfaced on Merlin's face because Arthur could tell that he didn't remember everything he had just said. The conversation broke somewhere for him there in the stairwell and was gone – lost to the cloud of sour bodies and stale breath of too many men crammed into a humid space. "Come on; it's alright. We're done up here."

Thankfully, Merlin took the hint and merely navigated the steps abreast with Arthur, his downcast eyes and the turning of his back the only privacy he had to recollect himself enough to cover for his lapse. Arthur kept his arm curled over Merlin's shoulders as much to steady his steps as in some vague fear that what just happened may spook someone badly enough to spark bloodshed. Arthur should have listened better every time Merlin cautioned him about the fear of the people toward magic – of how little tolerance remained for the mystery of it in light of the fear it could engender. If ever there were a moment when someone may think it forgivable to save Arthur from the force of dangerous magic trapped in the man he sheltered close, that was it – amidst the veiled foretelling of Arthur's ruin and death.

Arthur glanced up as someone else came abreast of him, on his other side, opposite Merlin. It was only Leon, and Arthur nodded to him even as he self-consciously loosened his fingers from the hilt of his sword once again. In his periphery, Arthur also glimpsed George slip down through various gaps between people who severely outranked him, until he walked at Merlin's back, hands clenched tense into fists and his posture wary of the men he had put behind him. Idly, Arthur wondered if he would ever truly feel safe again in his own castle – in his own home. The assassination attempt on Merlin had shaken him more than was readily apparent, and for reasons he hadn't expected. He did not trust most of the men surrounding him in this stairwell for the exact same reason he no longer trusted Meliot, and he forced himself to finally acknowledge that. They all loved their king, and they would all both kill and die for Arthur in accordance with the oaths they took for their offices. They would protect Arthur as loyal vassals should, no matter the cost. And that was exactly why Arthur could never fully trust them. Even Merlin's own wariness came from that place of knowing that they would do whatever they deemed necessary to protect their king, and he had paid once already in blood for their good and honorable loyalty.

The soft rap of fingers on Arthur's chest drew him back to the moment. Merlin had reached over to tap his fingers there as they walked, and he frowned at Arthur now, brow knit in concern.

"It's nothing," Arthur assured him. He regretted the curt edge to his tone, but anything softer would have risked sounding maudlin just then.

From Arthur's other side, Leon remarked, "You will need to choose another regent immediately, sire."

Thank god for Leon. Arthur's shoulders loosened at this simple shift back to business. Even impending war seemed light compared to whatever just happened in the stairwell. "Yes," Arthur replied. He exchanged an inscrutable look with Merlin, and at least in the privacy of his own thoughts, acknowledged the utter folly it actually would have been to leave Merlin sitting on his throne. The man wasn't all there all the time, clearly. In good conscience, Arthur hadn't even been able to let him remain the royal physician for the time being, but he would have set the whole kingdom in Merlin's lap instead? No, Merlin was right, and if Arthur hadn't brought it up like that in front of half his court, he would have seen as much at the first protest.

Oblivious to Arthur's meanderings, Leon continued with his earlier thoughts. "Perhaps if the prince cannot remain behind as regent, then the queen may be willing?"

The pain of that stabbed like fire in Arthur's breast. He knew that Leon did not mean to recall Guinevere, or to rub salt in the old wound of her passing; he merely referred to Hunith by her proper title. It still hurt. "She has not left?"

Leon replied, "No, sire. She has not had time enough to make any plans."

Merlin made a face at that, but he rotated his head away before Arthur could identify the expression.

Arthur inhaled to make an argument against Hunith looking after the throne in his absence, but other than her complete unfamiliarity with such a task, he didn't have a reason to refuse her. Hunith would not covet the throne any more than Merlin would; she would genuinely pray for Arthur's safe return to reclaim it. And her rank already all but demanded that Arthur entrust his kingdom to her, as other than Merlin, she was the last of his family suitable to be leant on. When no objection came from other quarters either, Arthur sighed his collected air out again. "She may not be all that kindly disposed toward me right now; I said some harsh words to her last night. But you're right, Leon; she is the next best choice. Go and escort Hunith to the throne room. Try to be discreet about the situation, though. I don't want her to have time to think up a good reason to refuse the regency."

"Sire." Leon inclined his upper body toward Arthur and then hurried ahead to do as ordered.

As Arthur gathered Merlin again by his shoulders and steered him toward the stairs that led to the main hall, Merlin tried to force a casual mien. He must have been able to feel the tension all around them even if he didn't recall what caused it. "She's not actually a pushover, sire. Just pretends it."

Arthur played along for appearance's sake and dryly replied, "Yes, I do know where you get your mulish tendencies."

With an air of forced neutrality, Merlin asked, "Are you planning on tricking her into this?"

"I'm planning on telling her she's in charge until I get back, and then running out the door before she can object."

Before Merlin could tell him that was a terrible idea, from the back of the line of lords, Caradoc of all people spoke up. "Sire, I realize that the queen seems meek and kind, but if you do as you propose, she will be extremely unpleasant the moment you step foot back into the city."

"She will," Merlin agreed, nodding sagely. "She'll give your throne back, but I doubt you'll be happy to sit in it for a while after."

Arthur threw an incredulous glance over his shoulder as soon as the agreeable murmurs rose up from various of the rest of the men. It seemed important to clarify, "I realize that she can be unexpectedly stern at times, but this is still Hunith we're talking about. She is a lovely and gracious woman." And not at all given to physically assaulting people as punishment for treating her poorly, if that were actually the meaning of the jest that Merlin just made.

A few of the men glanced at each other, then at Merlin, and then Caradoc asked, "You do know the stories of the maternal line of Dyfedd, sire, do you not? Perhaps the prince has told you – "

"If you call me a prince one more time," Merlin cut in, and then didn't finish the threat.

Arthur sighed at all of them. "Are you gossiping again? I swear, you lot are worse than the servants." He sincerely hoped that no one tried to bring up the madness endemic to Merlin's bloodline. No one needed to air that laundry, especially not with Merlin and his precarious sanity walking right next to them.

When no one else said anything, Ronhael cast a searching glance over his shoulder and then remarked quietly, "Sir Meliot has been very congenial since Samhain, sire. Have you noticed?"

"Incredibly pleasant," Brennis agreed.

Merlin quirked an eyebrow at Arthur. "Yes, he pops by the infirmary regularly."

Arthur tossed him a sharp look, and then scanned the group in his immediate vicinity to confirm that Meliot was indeed no longer among them. Thus reassured, Arthur leaned toward Merlin and demanded, "Is he bothering you?"

"No," Merlin shrugged, then did it again, discomfited, as if resettling a mantle resting across his shoulders. It was only Arthur's arm, though, and Arthur refused to remove it. "I think mum told him to be nice, and he's just very bad at it. And less afraid of me than of her, so he keeps coming around."

Arthur thought about that for a moment, and then had to ask, "Do I want to know what she did to him?"

"She talked to him," Brennis replied.

Ronhael added, "Alone, of course."

"Or so we've heard tell," Brennis added.

"So, this is gossip you're spreading," Arthur guessed. "Like a room full of bored aunties."

The only sound for the next few moments was boots clomping on stone.

Arthur craned his neck to look back at them again, but only briefly; he needed to watch his footing. "I don't believe this. You are soldiers, not tittering girls." When no one objected to the insult, Arthur cast Merlin an assessing glance. "You'll have my back on this, at least, right?"

With absolutely no hesitation, Merlin smiled at Arthur, gave him a patronizing pat on the back, and replied, "No."

Arthur slowed enough that Merlin could pull a few steps ahead of him, out from under the thoughtless drape of Arthur's arm, then glared at the back of his head. "Traitor."

By the time they all marched into the throne room, Gwaine appeared from the direction of the armory, late and bedraggled, though thankfully dressed in his armor and ready to go. Rolling his eyes at Merlin, Gwaine tromped over to one side of the chamber with the other knights. The non-fighting nobles veered off to the left-hand side, and Arthur quirked his brow at Gwaine to catch his eye. When their gazes met, Arthur shrugged a question about his attitude, and Gwaine made an underhanded gesture at Merlin, accompanied by an annoyed face and a second, rude hand signal. Arthur had no idea if that were code for where has he been, I've been looking for him all morning, the irritating ponce, or something else. Percival cut their exchange short by clapping Gwaine too hard on the shoulder, and jostling his attention away from Arthur.

A quick look out the window confirmed that the royal party was nearly ready to depart. Arthur turned away to watch his men milling around the throne room, waiting, dressed in varying degrees of armament. The collective tension could have choked a man, but it struck Arthur abruptly that it all seemed excessive. His gaze alit on Merlin, standing behind Arthur's throne with his hands clasped behind his back. He was the dichotomy in the room. Arthur took a few steps away from the window to better study his strange and afflicted friend. Merlin seemed calm, alone over there behind Arthur's throne. Always behind, support and shadow both. As if he still believed that standing behind Arthur was all he could ever be good for. And he the only person in the room not wearing his worry plain on his face.

Arthur pointed two fingers in Merlin's direction, but they were on opposite sides of a room full of people; he could hardly yell at him from across half the court. Dropping his hand, Arthur threaded his way through the room, aided by the fact that people parted from his path. Merlin looked up as Arthur climbed the step toward his throne, and then appeared puzzled when Arthur stepped behind it with Merlin, rather than sitting down. "Sire?"

"Why aren't you worried?" Arthur demanded.

"Who says I'm not?" Merlin retorted.

"You don't look worried. Do you know something? You know, know know…capital Know?"

"What are you even on about?" Merlin replied, exasperation plain on his face. "I told you what I know. And since when has it ever helped to run around like a headless chicken? You have Ronhael for that."

Arthur blinked, but reflexively followed Merlin's nod toward the main doors where Ronhael was indeed striding around in tight, anxious circles. And it wasn't like Merlin ever actually looked worried about things. Not in the light of day, at least; he tended to save those things for late at night by the campfire whenever Arthur couldn't sleep. "Alright, fair point. Come over here." Arthur dropped the inquiry and led the way back toward the alcove behind the throne where sound didn't carry quite as loudly from the court.

It took a moment for Merlin to trail him, hesitant as he glanced around for some kind of clue to Arthur's behavior. He slipped into the aumbry with Arthur before making a querulous sound.

"Look," Arthur started. "I know that things are difficult right now, and you – " He cut himself off, blew an irritated breath to flare his nostrils, and shifted his feet. "Merlin – "

"You can't coddle me," Merlin interrupted gently. "Arthur, I know that."

"Yes," Arthur agreed, but he shook his head as he said it and couldn't manage to look Merlin in the eye. "I'm sorry. I said things this morning that I shouldn't have, and there hasn't been time for me to correct that. I don't want you to think that I don't care, or that I dismiss what you're going through."

"I know you have a temper," Merlin replied, his tone neutral. "I'm used to being the brunt of it. Sometimes, you just need to say things without thinking."

Horrified, Arthur shook his head. It was like the days before Samhain, when Merlin acted as if being hit and having things thrown at him in anger were not some form of abuse. "You aren't supposed to excuse – "

"I was your servant," Merlin cut back in. "You got used to using me to let off steam. It's a hard habit to break, is all."

Arthur hardened his countenance and snapped, "No. It was wrong when you were a servant, and it's wrong now."

Rolling his eyes, Merlin clipped back, "Fine. It was wrong and you're an arse. I forgive you. Are you done now?"

No, he was not done, but Arthur had no idea why none of that worked out the way he meant. At a loss, he tried to stress, "I am worried about you. This is serious, this – this thing with you."

Infuriatingly, Merlin merely shrugged and agreed, "Yes." He cocked his head, inappropriately amused, and asked, "Do you have an urge to hit me right now?"

"With a flag staff," Arthur replied. No hesitation at all.

"That would leave a mark," Merlin objected. "People will talk."

Arthur gave him a long, blank look, and then punched him in the arm. He pulled it at the last second because Merlin was a delicate little flower boy about that kind of thing, but it still soothed Arthur to do it.

"See?" Merlin rubbed his arm, grinning like an idiot. "Do you feel better now?"

"No," Arthur groused, crossing his arms as he glowered in the opposite direction from Merlin's mocking sympathy face. "Look, I need you to hear this, so just shut up and listen to me. You were right earlier. I need you beside me; I rely on it. It never would have worked to leave you here while I went to the border. The future of Camelot is at stake, and I know I function better with you than without. Don't comment on that."

Merlin tilted his head with a tolerant smile and shut his mouth again.

"I'm trying to explain that as much as it pains me, and as worried and sorry for it as I am, I need all of my focus on Bayard and his threat. I can't afford the time to deal with your issues too right now."

"I know," Merlin assured him, waxing serious once again, thank goodness. "Arthur, I'm alright."

"You are absolutely not alright," Arthur returned. He bit his lip after he said it and planted his hands on his hips to stop his fingers from fidgeting in an unkingly manner. "In the past, I have neglected people in favor of serving the crown. People I loved, and most of them are dead now. The two may not correlate all of the time, but there are enough instances where they do that I know it happens. I have made demands of my friends and used my rank to compel them in ways that may, on occasion, go too far. And I don't want…" He couldn't finish that, not because he didn't understand the sentiment he wished to express, but because he truly didn't know which words to use for it.

Merlin laughed, but it was an uncomfortable, forced sound. "Are you asking me to forgive you for being king?"

Clearly, he meant it as sarcasm, but Arthur merely met his eyes in silence after he said it.

Merlin blinked and sucked in a breath that he held for a beat before cocking his head in realization. "Arthur, no."

"I know that I take advantage far too often, and as king, I have a certain leniency to do so. A duty, even, to use people to my kingdom's best advantage. But it comes at a price: we can't be friends. You told me that yourself once." Technically, Arthur was the one who said it, but it only came from the fact that Merlin wouldn't say it himself. "Not the right way, at least. And especially not now when you need it from me."

"What's gotten into you?" Merlin demanded. "I know that you can't give me some things; I'm not asking you to."

"I don't want to be the man who always has better things to do," Arthur hissed, angry at himself even though he spat the actual words at Merlin as if he might be the cause. "I need you to know that – I don't want to take you for granted, but I have to. I don't know how else to balance this." He tried to convey how much he hated that idea by refusing to break eye contact. "I have to put this kingdom before everything, Merlin. Everything." Just as Merlin accused him earlier – of being noble like that. "No matter what. Even when I don't want to."

Visibly angering, Merlin leaned in to hiss, "I'm not going to forgive you being a good king. That is what I love about you – you are every bit the man this land deserves. I would never support you otherwise. You have to see to the people. I will never ask you to neglect that duty just because I can't keep my head on straight."

"You are also my people," Arthur pointed out.

"I am your servant," Merlin bit back, emphatic. He jabbed his finger at the ground to cut off the imminent protest he could likely see brewing on Arthur's face. "You can define that with whatever title you like, but they all boil down to the same thing: I serve you, and I will always come second to the kingdom, if I rank even that high. That is not something that you apologize for. You have armies within your border. Do you really think I want you to sit here and fawn over me? George can mind me just fine – he's been doing it for months. You need to focus, Arthur. And not on me."

Lovely creature, Arthur thought; it was mostly involuntary. Merlin was always most compelling when spouting off passionately about Arthur's merit, or the better nature that he seemed convinced Arthur possessed. Or when he was calling Arthur a turnip head, which was lovely in a whole other way, but he digressed. "I know," Arthur whispered back. Merlin's fervid loyalty and disregard of his own interests was a force Arthur recognized. Even the borderline lecture was familiar. Maybe the tendency to dress Arthur down remained hidden most of the time, but there was something comforting in it now – in being told in no uncertain terms to stop being a pansy and do his duty the way he knew he must. To stop apologizing for the worst – or perhaps better – parts of his nobility. "You do enjoy telling me what to do."

Merlin snorted and gave him a disdainful once-over. "Yes, well, sometimes you're an idiot." He relented a moment later though and shook his head, dropping his gaze. "An invasion with a full army makes sense for Bayard. He's done it before, and he holds a grudge against your father – and by extension, against you."

It took Arthur a moment to fully absorb the change of subject. "You're just going to ignore what I said?"

Merlin sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and replied, "I am not ignoring it, but there is nothing I can say about myself that is of any benefit to you right now."

"You don't always have to have to benefit me somehow – "

"Please," Merlin hissed. In spite of that, his voice still cracked and he had to breathe for a moment to gloss over it. "I can't think about that, Arthur. Please, just let me do my job. Or what's left of it, while I still can. I need to focus on something that isn't me screaming inside my own head."

Arthur paused to consider that and then nodded as he pressed his lips together. "Fine. We'll focus on the matter at hand." He eyed Merlin with concern, though, and enough pity that he felt shame for trying to pin such a thing on him. Merlin was many things, especially at that moment, but pitiful was not one of them. Arthur did him a disservice to regard him like that. "Go on, then. Bayard holds a grudge, and…?"

Merlin nodded and took a breath that he seemed to need in order to shift his attention away from his personal situation again. "Yes, a grudge. The peace accords were always shaky between Camelot and Mercia. But Annis?" Merlin shook his head and rocked back on his feet as he peered into the middle distance, face slightly pinched. "Annis likes you."

With a faint wince, Arthur reminded him, "I did murder her husband."

"Yes, but if it really bothered her that much, she wouldn't have honored the outcome of single combat." Merlin shook his head. "I don't think she particularly liked him; he was Roman, and she's not. She's of Gwent. A Silurian. Marrying him was likely political necessity at the time."

Arthur bobbled his head to one side. "Her people do seem happier with her in charge."

"Of course, they do – they're not Roman either," Merlin scoffed. "Annis is also not opposed to magic the way your father was, or she never would have considered alliance with Morgana. She used magic against you, Arthur. Or, she bade Morgana do it on her behalf."

"I know; I felt it." He squinted sidelong at Merlin. "Just how much of that win was you, and not me?"

Merlin got shifty. "I don't see why it matters; she cheated. 'Course, she didn't see it that way, and that's my point. Magic is just a thing that exists to her, and when it presented itself for use, she used it. Annis is practical, Arthur; not rash, and not vengeful. And to her and her people, you were blessed by the gods in single combat. That's why she took you so readily as an ally when you defeated her champion. The fact that her people all accepted this only proves how much the old religion still holds sway over them. Turning on you now would anger the gods. Annis wouldn't risk that over a change of law that you make in Camelot, even if it does break treaty. And especially not over this law. She would only turn on you out of self-preservation." He took a considering breath. "She's not here because you legalized magic; she's hedging her bets. And frankly, I don't think that Bayard is really here over your laws either. He spent most of last season fighting the Saxons; a war with you now would only ruin him."

Arthur pondered that for a moment, but he agreed, to a point; this behavior was unlike either of their neighbors. "I do find it odd that Bayard demanded parlay. Why not just attack? He's already crossed our borders, and we were unaware thanks to slow-melting snows cutting off communications with the outposts. If I were him, I would have kept my silence and pressed on." He shrugged, though. "I suppose he could be trying to lure me out. Capture me, hold me as surety for the conduct of my nobles."

"He is not that stupid," Merlin cautioned. "He knows you would sacrifice yourself for the kingdom. There is no surety in holding you hostage; he would only guarantee attack by those loyal to you."

"Agreed," Arthur conceded. He mimicked Merlin's stance as well as his distant gaze. "He gave up at least some of his advantage by pausing, though, and sending a message to us. So, you may be right; he doesn't want a war any more than we do. The question, then, is what does he want?"

"I think he actually does want to talk." Merlin turned his head enough to look at Arthur sidelong, and smiled something that threatened to be inscrutable. "Think about it, Arthur. Why threaten war as leverage to force you into a face-to-face meeting unless he really wants that meeting?"

Indeed – why expose himself to attack like this? The caution, the subterfuge, the last-minute demand… And Bayard had to know all about Merlin too. The Mercian emissaries to Arthur's court only left after the events of Samhain. After the audience where Arthur called Hunith the Queen of Dyfedd, and referred to Merlin as her son. After Meliot outed Merlin officially in court as a sorcerer. Bayard did not only risk attack from Arthur; he risked one from Merlin specifically, and he must know that. He had seen the lengths to which Merlin would go if he thought Arthur were in danger; it nearly ended in war then, too, over that stupid poisoned cup. "Why the armies, though? He could threaten war without them." Arthur turned to look properly at Merlin even though Merlin stood so that only part of his face was visible. In answer to his own question, Arthur suggested, "He thinks the meeting won't go well? The army is a contingency plan?"

Merlin shrugged. "You should know that the camp he set up near the meeting place is small. It's well-armed and provisioned, but if a fight were to break out, they probably couldn't break through our lines, even as small as our own party is. They would have to rely on withstanding siege behind temporary wooden fortifications until more of their men could come."

Arthur stared at him for a moment, because that was the kind of tactical insight that Arthur expected from everyone except Merlin. That tutoring with Leon and Alder must be intense if he were analyzing things like that within the first month. "You know," Arthur had to say, "you really are much smarter than you seem."

The compliment didn't have much impact at first; Merlin's face just sort of twitched a bit, as if Arthur were spouting gibberish.

"So, what you're saying is that they must have a communication line ready," Arthur went on. He flicked his gaze up toward the arched ceiling, aware of Merlin trying to hide how surprised he was in Arthur's periphery. "Or some kind of dead drop. A relay runner who can dispatch a call to arms if a safe word does not reach them from the main camp by a certain time." Arthur left off faffing his attention at the rafters and faced his body toward Merlin, arms crossed over his chest. He took in the tinge of pink at the tips of Merlin's ears, and the pleased glint in his eyes. "This is why you should speak up in council when I ask your opinion. It's worth hearing."

Merlin demurred and then let out a long breath as he scanned the room again. "I guess the resident madman isn't entirely useless."

"I don't listen to madmen," Arthur replied. "I do listen to you."

Embarrassed, Merlin sort of grinned and chuffed at the same time, all cautious smiles from the side of his mouth as he teased, "Since when?"

"Since I made you prince, and your opinion mattered."

Merlin ticked and then squinted at him, likely trying to figure out if Arthur were joking or not.

It wasn't a flippant matter, though, and Arthur sobered abruptly. "All the time, Merlin. I listen to you all the time, even though it used to embarrass me to care what a servant thinks. I ignored what you said because of that, which is entirely on me, but I still heard you." He had to avert his gaze from the softening look on Merlin's face because it spoke too much of the feelings that Arthur knew Merlin didn't want returned. "Merlin, please tell me honestly: are you alright?"

Surprisingly, Merlin simply replied, "No." He craned his neck forward, but only to look down the steps they stood atop. He looked as if he had something stuck in his throat when he did that, like a chicken trying to get something big down its gullet. "I am..." He appeared to weigh several choices of words in much the same manner he occasionally used to select the perfect insults to hurl at Arthur. Eventually, Merlin settled on, "Precarious. I am precarious right now. And…and very scared."

The fact that he admitted to fear actually soothed some of Arthur's own frayed nerves. "I never would have known," he admitted.

Merlin nodded and looked down. "Learned that from you. How not to show it."

Arthur swallowed the shame he felt at that, and wondered why it affected him so. Surely, he should feel pride that Merlin could maintain his composure so well just from following Arthur's example. "You know, Merlin. All those jokes about you being a coward... I never really meant any of them. I always thought you were the bravest man I ever met."

For a moment, Merlin merely breathed at his shoes and swallowed a few times. Then he forced a grin, too big and too many teeth, and it was a familiar expression meant to cover too bare of a truth at a time when he couldn't handle it. The deflection didn't follow this time, though. No ill-timed, awkward joke to mock himself. No uncomfortable laugh or inept banter. His grin wobbled and came back a rictus, and then he spun toward the back wall where no one else in the room might glimpse the way he clapped a hand over his mouth and fought his own chest for breath.

Alarmed, Arthur glanced at the people milling obliviously throughout the hall, and then crowded closer to Merlin's shoulder. "Merlin – "

Merlin shook his head violently to stop him saying anything kind or trite, and then spoke hushed and harsh into his hand. "I'm not brave. If I were brave, I'd stop this."

"Stop what?" Arthur asked. He grasped Merlin's wrist but didn't try to pry his hand from over his mouth.

"This," Merlin breathed, clenching his eyes shut. "Something dreadful is coming. It's not Bayard, but it comes from him, it starts with the peace you forge there, and I don't know what it is but I know it's terrible and I don't know if I can do this."

Let not Dyfedd tremble when the men of Albion come together in council, in a single party, of one mind with the Mercian firebrands.

Arthur hardly noticed that Merlin basically assured him of the outcome of the next day – that there would be an accord. He was too busy replaying that strange, monotone proclamation that had haunted him in Merlin's voice for weeks. Merlin who was fighting not to tremble beneath Arthur's hand as something kept chipping away at his precarious possession of himself.

"I can stop it all," Merlin whispered, shaking on his feet, hands clenched into fists as a focus to maintain the outward illusion of calm. "Now. Right now, I can still stop it – it's not set yet." He fumbled his free hand at Arthur and somehow ended up with his hand resting over the pommel of Arthur's sword. It was likely simply the first part of Arthur's person that he could grab. "I don't know if I should stop it, Arthur, there were so many times I should have stopped things before and didn't because I didn't want people to die, I didn't want to kill them, and I don't know anymore if I'm supposed to stop this or not."

"Look – look at me!" Arthur hissed, as forceful as he could be without raising his voice. He shoved Merlin out of sight, into a nook near a small door, and grabbed him by the ears. "Merlin? If it starts tomorrow with Bayard, then the only way to stop it is to sabotage the peace talks, and I know you don't want to do that."

Red-rimmed eyes met Arthur's, shining with more than just water and fear. "No, never," Merlin assured him. "I'd never sabotage you."

"I want peace," Arthur reminded him. "I want unity. I can't have that if you stop it."

"No," Merlin agreed, but his face had gone puzzled, and for an alarming moment, his eyes went empty as he fought to respond to Arthur's words. "I want those too."

"Then whatever is coming, when I face it, you face it with me." Arthur shifted his hands to Merlin's wrists because he was fumbling at the places where Arthur's hands pulled at his ears and the hair at his temples. "Right? Merlin? You'll be here, at my side, like you always are."

"Protecting you," Merlin panted, winded in the wake of whatever the hell just happened. His eyes blurred and then sharpened on Arthur's face as the trembling gradually subsided and gave way to Merlin's familiar old conviction. "I'll be here at your side, like I always am. Protecting you."

Arthur nodded as the words echoed and sparked a memory from long years ago, walking down a colonnade as the city prepared for siege. An inadvertent echo of a conversation they had once before when Merlin smiled more, and Arthur mocked him. "Protecting me," Arthur agreed, watching carefully as Merlin emerged from what he now recognized as panic. Just a moment of panic, out of context and dropped like a ton of bricks without warning into a completely benign conversation, but only that. This, here, was not a thing of prophecy, only of coincidence. It was merely the feinting heart of a man under siege from within. "Are you with me?"

Merlin nodded between Arthur's hands and shut his eyes to concentrate on slowing his respirations. The air still tattered as it left him, but he had control of himself again, and that was all that mattered. "Always." Merlin hummed after the shuddering intake of his next breath and then spoke in a voice thick with waning emotion. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened."

"It's just what I told you about before," Arthur assured him. "The way the body prepares for war even when there isn't one to fight anymore."

"But there is one," Merlin countered, voice thready with way he kept gulping down too much air.

"Yes," Arthur allowed, shifting his fingers to feel the pace of the blood racing through the artery in his neck: far too fast. He kept his own voice deliberate and calm as he assessed the pace of Merlin's comedown. "And that's probably why it hit you worse just now, but it's still only the same mistake that a body sometimes makes when it forgets that it's safe. A surge of the blood when one isn't needed. Happens to old soldiers all the time."

Merlin nodded, brow furrowed as he drank in Arthur's assurances. "It doesn't feel like that. Ow." He opened his mouth to breath that time and grabbed at the fabric covering his chest. "Oh, that hurts."

"You need to calm back down." Arthur gentled the fingers that Merlin used to rub at his sternum, but didn't try to peel them off. "Measure your breathing. With me, Merlin. Match me."

"I don't know why this keeps happening," Merlin gasped. "I want what you want; I don't – don't want to undermine you, I'm – I meant it. To help you – I want to." He trained his eyes on Arthur's chest a moment later, swallowed repeatedly, and then labored to mirror his respirations.

Arthur wasn't sure that he wanted to know the answer when he asked, "How often, exactly, does this keep happening?"

"Um," Merlin hummed, fingers crimping and releasing the brocade fabric of his surcoat jacket where he had bunched it up over his chest. "Not for a while, actually." He shifted both hands to scrunch at the chainmail covering Arthur's forearms, and frowned. "Who's been handling this? It's all wrong."

"No one has access to my armor anymore except you." Arthur peered down at his own person just the same and critically eyed the front of his mail.

Still pensive, and just slightly more vacant about the eyes than Arthur liked, Merlin grumbled, "Doesn't feel like me." He poked at Arthur's sternum and then examined what appeared to be two or three specific links.

Arthur let him do it because it obviously calmed him more effectively than watching Arthur breathe evenly. Merlin wore a similar expression to the one he donned when he played absently with the sparks and smoke in Arthur's fireplace after supper, a common occurrence since Arthur ordered him to always dine with him. It tingled where Merlin kept on poking at him, and Arthur wondered if this were some kind of magical ward repair.

Eventually, Merlin drew back, and the faint otherworldly illumination faded from his irises. "Sorry." He cleared his throat and backed off from Arthur's space. The tips of his ears tinged pink in embarrassment, but the irrational panic had passed. "I'm fine now."

Arthur cocked his head in concern, but Merlin didn't seem more off than he always had been. Strange and circumspect at the most illogical times. "I won't suggest that you stay behind because I know that if I try to make you, you'll just sneak out alone when no one's looking. But is there something easy that we can do so that this doesn't happen again until after the meeting with Bayard? That, or any of the rest, for that matter. Is there anything that helps, or anything we need to avoid saying or doing?"

Merlin shook his head. "It's better when I'm not left to my own devices. When I'm with people – when I have things to do, to focus on – it seems farther away. I still waver, or confuse things briefly with the past, but I don't forget myself entirely, and I don't think I lose time like last night. There's enough going on around me to call me back." He didn't say from where. "But it's fine – George is a pest, but he's been good at keeping me right lately. For the most part. You don't have to worry."

Arthur covered his flinch at that phrase by yanking his sword belt straight after Merlin's panicked pawing. It was just an innocuous platitude, and he needed to stop equating it with portends and creepy dreams. If all Merlin needed was to be given things to do to keep him from wallowing in his very serious problems, then Arthur could work with that. He had always been good at ordering Merlin around. He still took the time to snap, "Don't tell me not to worry about you, or try to get me to brush this off. If there weren't war drums sounding as we speak, I'd wrap you in wool batting in a corner of my quarters to make it easier to stab anyone who gets too close to you."

Merlin opened his mouth with some wrote retort, then froze and blinked a few times at the imagery. "That wouldn't really be a productive use of your time."

"That's a matter of opinion," Arthur countered. He cocked his head at Merlin and found a sidelong glance meeting his. "I'll repeat myself if you need it." He didn't really specify about what, though.

In like fashion, Merlin merely replied, "I already know what you think."

"I'm not sure you always believe me though."

Merlin narrowed the one eye that Arthur could see and mimicked back, "That's a matter of opinion."

That didn't even make sense. Dissatisfied, Arthur nonetheless sighed through his teeth and peered back out into the main room. He sincerely hoped that Hunith hadn't done a runner last night too, which would explain why it was taking Leon so long to bring her in, but Hunith was hardly the running sort. "I am encouraged by one thing, at least. Your great uncle may take liberties with your person, but he doesn't seem to mean any harm. He was concerned for your wellbeing." Arthur didn't mention the threat about making another king because Merlin would certainly overreact to it, and the only target for his overprotective wrath just then was himself.

Merlin made a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat, much like his elder alter ego Dragoon might have made. "Oh, you can say that, sure. You're not the one he's sending on strange errands in the middle of the night, or – or getting all confused about which me we're supposed to be."

Arthur tried not to squirm at the uncomfortable idea that Merlin might actually have a second person living inside of him, tapping at the underside of his skin to get out now and then. Grimacing, Merlin tapped at his chest in unconscious imitation of Arthur's own thought, thumping gently at his ribcage the way that someone else might gently tap a door late at night to see if anyone were still awake inside – lightly enough not to disturb them if they weren't.

With a wide-eyed shrug, Arthur clapped Merlin on the shoulder – the good one, of course. "We've dealt with stranger things, though. Right?"

Merlin allowed himself to be jostled, then crossed his arms over his chest. "Sort of, I guess." He frowned at his fingertips for a moment where they rested over his forearm. "Do I want to know what I did just now on the tower stairs?"

Arthur grimaced at the floor. "Probably not. Nothing horrible, if that's what you're worried about."

"I'm worried I embarrassed you," Merlin confessed. "Or that I did something that casts doubt on your conduct toward me. The fact you trust my judgement."

After taking in a long breath, Arthur shook his head. "Nothing like that. And you were still you the whole time. No slip."

Merlin directed a dissatisfied look at the wall, and then almost casually mentioned, "I think I know what I was doing last night." His eyes traced a meandering path back to Arthur's face. "The Sidhe staff. I think I was out there somewhere burying it in the woods."

For a moment, Arthur didn't react to that; he was too surprised. Then he asked, "Why do you think that?"

Merlin shrugged. "George found my clothes at the brothel. They're filthy – worse than that time you found me in a bog. The girls almost burned them, they're so bad. And I still have dirt caked so far under my fingernails that George couldn't even scrub it all out with his vaunted brushes." He raised a hand demonstratively to show Arthur the thin dark lines of dirt that remained deep beneath his nailbeds. "The only thing I can think is I was digging around in the mud with my bare hands, and since the staff is gone, I don't know what else I might have done with it. I had it when I left your gardens, but not when I got to the brothel."

Arthur shook his head, bewildered. "Why on earth would you bury it? Are you sure the druids didn't take it?"

"They wouldn't dare," Merlin replied. "It's a powerful magical object; I can't see them ever trying to take if off of me."

"That's exactly why I'd think they might," Arthur argued.

Merlin scoffed. "They couldn't wield it, not without risking themselves in the process. Sidhe magic is volatile – Abas ocus bithe duthected bithlane. It's the power of life and death, just like Avalon itself."

The foreign words elicited a shiver that Arthur didn't appreciate – like walking over a grave. "And you brought it to the dinner table."

"I – " Merlin flubbed his words briefly and then just stammered, "Yes."

Arthur snorted, because it was both utterly ridiculous and utterly Merlin of him. Never mind that Merlin didn't seem to think it odd that he could wield the thing safely himself. His underestimation of the extraordinary nature of himself continued to boggle; he was either that daft, or that self-deluded on purpose.

"I think maybe that's why I got rid of it," Merlin admitted. He shifted his feet as well as his eyes, uncomfortable and perhaps wary of saying certain things out loud. Of making them tangible. "It is a powerful magical weapon that few could ever guard against, and I brought it to where you were – I had it in my hands next to you. If what George said is true, and what you thought this morning – if I'm protecting you from me – then I wouldn't want me to have a weapon like that, would I? I'd want it hidden somewhere even I can't find it."

Arthur considered that, and wondered if it were better or worse for such an object to be out there somewhere within a night's walk of the castle, out of Merlin's reach but possible for some random other person to stumble upon. "Is it hidden from you? You're sure you don't know where you put it?"

"It's blank," Merlin confessed. "Last night – I have fuzzy recollections of leaving the royal gardens, and then of the girls from the brothel trying to calm me down in the street and bring me inside. Between those two things, though, there is literally nothing. It's all gone."

"Merlin…" Arthur still hadn't dropped his hand from Merlin's shoulder, and he used it now to pull Merlin around to look at him. "You do realize what you're implying, don't you?"

"I'm not implying," Merlin said. "I'm repeating what I've told you before. Magic isn't always safe, and I might not be safe to you."

Arthur shook his head. "You're saying that in your lost time, you're Merlin – my Merlin – the one who will risk anything for my safety. And that the rest of the time – like right now – you're not."

Merlin blinked a few times and then turned to squint at the back of the room, his eyes unfocused.

"It's not your great uncle trying to protect me, right?" Arthur pressed.

"So he says," Merlin replied.

"Yes, so he says. If that's true, why don't you remember these things? Why forget the times when you're acting like yourself?"

"I don't know," Merlin admitted, eyes still narrowed in consternation.

"Don't you?" Arthur asked. "The thing, I don't think it's really you doing those things. It's something else."

"Why would something else think it needs to protect you, though?" Merlin shifted his shoulder under Arthur's hand, but didn't seem to be trying to shrug it off. "And why use me for it if I'm the problem?"

"Maybe you're not the problem," Arthur suggested. "Maybe that's what we're missing."

"Did Myrddin say that?" Merlin demanded. "I know you haven't told me everything he said this morning – you're no good at hiding things. Is that what he told you?"

"No, he just told me off."

"Good; you need to be told off sometimes." Merlin didn't even do Arthur the courtesy of looking at him when he said that, which meant that it was not entirely in jest. Dismissing that, Merlin rubbed his nose and returned to the earlier point. "You're suggesting there's a third thing inside me. If it's not me, and it's not Myrddin, then there's something else doing weird things to protect you, and whatever it is thinks I'm the threat."

"Maybe," Arthur replied, and then hazarded, "You've told me that sometimes, the magic wants things. That it can take over."

Immediately, Merlin's affect shut down; he stared back at Arthur with a blank slate for a face. "You sound like your father when you say that."

It would have been easy for Arthur to take offense. Too easy. But Arthur knew his own insecurity on the subject of his father, and the fact that Merlin used it against him now only proved that he also knew it for the weapon it was. The fact that Merlin scratched back for once could only mean that Arthur's suggestion struck some chord with him. A bad one. "You know I'm not saying it the way he would have."

"Aren't you?" Merlin asked, his tone curious if still brittle. "It's the same scenario. The same implication, and the same risk. The same solution to the problem." Execution to purge the vessel.

"Not the same solution, Merlin," Arthur argued back. "And not the same motivation to suggesting it either. I don't want to put you down like a raving dog just to save myself from your magical contamination." He sneered the words on purpose, because the idea really did offend him.

Merlin shook his head but backed down, nostrils flared as he stepped around Arthur so that he could glare at the people milling about the throne room. "It's a stupid idea, anyway. I am magic."

He said it so casually, Arthur thought. As if he didn't realize the weight of such a thing – to be an abstract concept, somehow. If he truly was that, of course; Arthur maintained that Byrdde and her tales were cruel and twisted. Though perhaps rooted in some odd fact of Merlin's nature – in what it meant to be possessed of the elemental kind of magic that Merlin had – those stories were more indicative of Byrdde's own dogma than any literal truth. Archetypes and floods, and more piles of bullshit to obscure the simplicity of a man born with uncommon, maybe unpredictable magic. But Merlin had clearly heard the same dogma at some point, and internalized it. Some part of him seemed to believe that he actually was that. Cautious of eliciting any further flares of temper, Arthur said, "That's sort of my point. Your magic is unique. It might not work the same as the magic of others."

"My magic would never harm you," Merlin croaked, sharp and cold. "It's of me – nothing of me would ever harm you."

"Yes," Arthur agreed. Because it was true – he believed that. "And then you hide a weapon from yourself just because you once brought it near me."

Merlin blinked as he finally understood what Arthur was getting at, his eyes meeting Arthur's again. "So… My magic… It knows something I don't?"

Arthur shrugged. "You tell me. It's definitely not Myrddin doing these things; he said that you would never let him."

Merlin bobbled his head in agreement; he would never allow anyone to interfere with Arthur, especially not where magic came into play. It hardly even bore mentioning.

"Then what else is left?" Arthur asked.

A swell of conversation in the wider room drew Merlin's flickering glances, but not for long. His gaze skirted around Arthur's face again a moment later, reading the outline of him. Searching the space around Arthur for something no one else could ever see.

Arthur let Merlin look as he would, distracted perhaps but listening, so Arthur kept voicing his thoughts. "The things you do without volition and then forget about seem designed to protect me. We both agree on that. And at some point, you either told George that you were the one I need protection from, or you did something else that made him think that."

"But I would never hurt you," Merlin said. He sounded oddly uncertain of himself, though. "Not on purpose."

Arthur recalled the scorched ceiling beams in his quarters, and the very real fear at the time that Merlin would inadvertently set the castle on fire around them. He imagined he could still taste the desperation of that moment, trying to help Merlin regain control and reign that magic back in. Whatever the form of what followed, and the means that Arthur employed, there was nothing erotic about his memory of that incident; only utility and the wash of panic. "You are not always in control of yourself anymore. Your magic swells, and you suppress it, and Hubert has already suggested that it's not good in the long run. It needs an out."

"Yes. He still thinks it causes the fits."

"You don't?"

"I don't know." Merlin shrugged. "To me, it just feels like it needs out. And it's been better these last few months, since I use it more." Merlin seemed to echo his earlier thoughts on the fire though, at least in the abstract. He rubbed at his chest as he looked away again, troubled. Unexpectedly, he said, "It sounded like screaming in my head."

It took a beat for Arthur to shift focus onto this seemingly new topic. "What did?"

"In your quarters," Merlin replied, scanning the crowd beyond the back of Arthur's throne, out where the light shined through the tall windows from the courtyard. "The fire, the – the panic? I think that's what it was. Just, the magic in my ears. Like rushing blood. As you said, I couldn't control it."

Arthur studied the side of his head, his face fighting the urge to furrow all over in consternation. "I remember." More or less. Except that in Arthur's memory, the surge of magic was silent. The only things he recalled hearing, other than Merlin himself, were the fabric-flapping sound of flames, and the occasional falling or shattering object. Grappling limbs, breath, and a quieter panic. Arthur tore his eyes from the side of Merlin's head and then shut them briefly. "Your mother is here." Indeed, the court began to part for her, clearing a path toward Arthur's throne.

Merlin shook himself physically, like a ruffled dog, and the discomfiture sank into his skin where Arthur couldn't see it anymore. He appeared every inch himself as he regarded Arthur afterwards, a friendly and encouraging smile on his face, limbs drawn straight and tall. For some reason, though, Arthur could perceive the artifice of it this time – how it struck hollow. "Go on, then. I'll meet you in the courtyard."

The oddness of the moment crumbled and Arthur scowled as he realized why Merlin must have put on that expression. "You are seriously leaving me to face your mother alone? I thought you were joking."

"Arthur, even if I weren't afraid of what she might say to me after our argument last night, there is something you seem to keep forgetting."

Arthur narrowed his eyes at his recalcitrant sorcerer. "What do you think I'm forgetting?"

Merlin leaned in, and if Arthur were the poetic sort, he would have called that glint in Merlin's eye a twinkle. He wasn't a poet, though, and Merlin was an infuriating rascal. "All those things that you think make me a menace? I only had one parent, Arthur. One example to model myself after. How do you think I came by those traits?"

Without thinking about it, Arthur retorted, "Dishonestly."

"Mm-hm," Merlin hummed.

"Now you're patronizing me."

"You lack perspective," Merlin shot back. "My mother was a princess – " Under his breath, he added, "evidently." Then he resumed spouting off. " – from a line of conquered tyrants. She hid as a peasant in one of the poorest border villages in Essetir so successfully that no one ever suspected the privilege she came from. She was somehow never assaulted as a young maiden even though she should have been easy picking for the first randy single boy she encountered. Then she proceeded to seduce a dragonlord, put off your father's men when they came searching for her lover, birthed a child out of wedlock with no father to name in a community where that should automatically raise cries of either sorcery or harlotism, reared that child without anyone figuring out what he was and killing him or selling him to Cedric, punched a raider who tried to take a sack of grain from one of her friends, faced the man responsible for her exile and her family's ruin as if she didn't know exactly who he was, lied to your face repeatedly to protect me, without you cottoning on at all, and you think she's meek?"

"Well." Arthur let his gaze search around the corridor for something to save his face. A table, perhaps, that he could thump it against? "I mean. When you put it that way, no. I suppose not."

"Meek, my arse," Merlin replied.

Automatically, Arthur glanced at said arse, then colored and deliberately went back to searching the ceiling for face-saving objects. Under his breath, he griped, "Arse," though it could have been a simple anatomical acknowledgement rather than the epithet he intended. Arthur sighed. How did Merlin always manage to do this to him when he needed to be at his most sharp and focused on a crisis? When Arthur peered out into the room again, he briefly met Hunith's gaze where she patiently waited before his throne, calm and poised. Arthur's eyebrow twitched, and he shifted his gaze when she did, to the strange and fae man at his side. "You're proud," Arthur realized, easily identifying the expression on Merlin's face as he inclined his head briefly in respect to his mother. "Whatever else you're angry about, you're proud of her."

Still watching his mother, Merlin simply asked, "How could I not be?"

There was reconciliation there, Arthur thought. Or hope for it, at least. Eventually. After some of the fresher hurts had a chance to fade. Arthur smiled, just a tiny thing for himself to feel; he didn't need to show it to Merlin. "Go on, then," Arthur deliberately echoed Merlin's earlier words. "I'll meet you in the courtyard."

Merlin twisted to glance at him, his face puzzling at whatever Arthur's was doing. He didn't comment on it, though. "Don't take too long. We need to leave before the next bell."

"I do know that, Merlin. Stop telling me what to do."

Merlin merely looked unimpressed with him. "Yes, because you're the king and all that. Maker of Decisions, Giver of Orders… Sir Prattly of Prats."

Arthur squinted, but not at him, the cheeky bastard. He refused to give Merlin the satisfaction. "Merlin?" He waited for Merlin to emit that happy hum that meant he was enjoying himself. "Get out."

"Oh, of course, sire." Merlin sketched a complete mockery of a bow – pretentious and entirely too amused. "Right away, sire."

"Now, Merlin." Arthur watched Merlin grin like an imp as if their earlier conversation, and the attack of misplaced panic never happened. Once satisfied that Merlin was indeed leaving, Arthur turned back toward the audience chamber and took a single step forward.

"You're not the wheat."

Reflexively, Arthur jerked and whipped his head around. "What?"

Already several steps into the shadows leading to the narrow doorway secreted in a dark nook behind the throne, Merlin paused and frowned over his shoulder. "What, what? I'm going."

"You – " Arthur snapped his jaw shut on the rest of that.

Merlin's frown deepened, but so did his confusion. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Arthur shook his head too quickly for it to be anything but suspicious. "Nothing. Go on. It's nothing."

Merlin's brows drew into a rumpled groove between his eyes. His gaze darted past Arthur, around the room milling with various of the council and court, searching for the source of Arthur's abrupt discomfiture. When he evidently found nothing out of place, he bowed again, slight and genuine this time, before resuming his way deeper into the aumbry. George popped out from a crevice of stonework hidden somewhere back there and yanked the door open for him before following dutifully one step behind.

Alone now in the shadows behind his throne, Arthur looked down. He was wearing the same riding boots he'd worn on Samhain, and he noticed abruptly how the leather in the seam just around the soles was darker than the rest. Rusty brown in a splotchy line that ran along the stitching there. Permanently discolored from the blood in which he had stood that day. Those kinds of stains, once soaked into leather, could never be fully washed out. He knew that. It wasn't the first such pair of boots he had worn.

Arthur's breath faltered in his chest as he looked up. His eyes found Hunith's by chance, as she stood the closest to him. Her face had paled in the span of time between Arthur's glances. She heard that last bit, then. About the wheat. And from her expression, she understood the same thing in that comment that Arthur did, somehow. As if she, too, had heard the reference before. The most fertile soil…

Her voice fading in the middle, Hunith asked, "Did he say…"

"Yes," Arthur replied lowly. He didn't need her to repeat it to know what she meant. He also didn't need her to say out loud what they both took from that. If Arthur were not the wheat, then he had to be the other part. The part that came before it.

It's burning, Merlin had said. Sitting on the cold floor of the infirmary, holding his head and moaning about a dying bear. Whole field is. And later, desperate before Arthur's fireplace, eyes glittering with things only he could see: Everything burns to the ground. All of it, a scorched earth.

"My mother used to say it," Hunith told him, stepping forward, up onto the dais and past Arthur's throne. "When I was small. The most fertile soil is the soil tilled with blood and ash. It's why we plant wheat on the battlefields after the bodies are burned."

Arthur jerked his shoulders straight to cover the urge to bunch them up near his ears to weather the shiver.

"It's why we never cross a wheatfield at night, in case it was once a killing place."

Arthur held her troubled gaze, staid and resolute. "I know," he whispered. "It is a custom we observe here too."

Hunith's face pinched, but she did not lower her eyes. "He will be the death of you," she breathed.

"No," Arthur denied.

"He is a harbinger, like my uncle before him. I never should have sent him here to you. If I had known – "

"If you had never sent him, I would already be dead, and this land fallen." Either to a neighboring kingdom, to Saxons, or to Morgana. In all variations, it spelled ruin for his people. "Hunith, I know what I'm doing."

Hunith stared at him. "You cannot possibly."

"Trust me," Arthur implored. Then added, "Trust him. He is not what you seem to think."

"With respect, sire, you do not actually know what I think." Thankfully, Hunith subsided after that, but none of the worry left her face. "I apologize for my outburst. This is not why you called me here."

"No, it's not." Arthur held out a hand, fingers gently curled into a cup that he offered for hers. "Try not to hate me too much for this, cousin. Time is short, and I have no other options."

Hunith shot him a confused glance as she placed her hand in his. "I remain at your service, sire."

Arthur tendered her a wry smile. "You may regret saying that."

---

TBC