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)

12. Chapter 12

They started seeing flags made of ragged strips and torn clothes just as the sun touched the ridgeline above the road they traveled. Night fell earlier in the hills than in the plains, and Arthur eyed the dwindling path before them, rocky and treacherous, especially in the dark. They continued along the marked path, eerie in the deepening twilight, sticks jammed into the ground and adorned with rags on either side of them like riding between pairs of sentinels standing guard along the road.

"They are sentinels," Merlin said.

Arthur jerked his head around to stare. He had not said that out loud. He knew he had not. It might have meant that whatever the dragon did to Merlin was wearing off. Or it might not; he didn't know.

"What?" Merlin asked, forehead wrinkling as he frowned. "That is the point of them. You're right."

Arthur faced forward again and tried not to give away just how spooked he was. "Yes, thank you, Merlin." Setting aside Merlin's changing demeanor and the uncertainty of the magic trying to control him, what did it mean that Merlin kept hearing him like that? Was it part of the enchantment, or just something endemic to Merlin himself? Months and an age ago, Merlin had remarked offhand that Arthur was magic like him. It had puzzled Arthur at the time because it wasn't true; Arthur may have been conceived with the assistance of magic, but he wasn't anything like Merlin in that regard. Could this have been what Merlin meant, though? This connection that they seemed to have?

"What do you mean?" Gwaine piped up from where he rode just behind Merlin. "Sentinels?"

When Arthur glanced over his shoulder, he caught the tail end of Merlin gesturing at one of the cloth-adorned sticks standing high to mark the edge of the path. "Them," Merlin replied lowly. "They're old, but look at them. They aren't flags."

Arthur looked as Merlin bade, and swallowed when he noticed what Merlin meant. It was obvious after he pointed it out, but Arthur could be dense and blind to things he didn't deem worth his attention. While it was not an attractive trait, at least he knew it. The rags were indeed not flags or ribbons. They were the tattered remains of clothing, ancient and mostly torn apart by time and weather. And the sticks were props like those erected in fields to watch over crops planted on the burned remains of the dead – like the wooden frame that Merlin's friend Will kept in his house all those years ago, dressed in the livery of a deceased father to keep the spirit and memory of him close. Even considering Arthur's distraction on their last sojourn through this land, he should have noticed that before now.

From farther back in the line, cautious with the night and the unnatural quiet, Caradoc ventured to ask, "Were they living people?"

"Don't know," Merlin replied. "Either way, I don't think it matters anymore. They are what they are now."

Arthur swallowed and spurred his horse to pick up the pace. It hadn't occurred to him the last time he came here that the silence pervaded this road in a way that the quiet outside should not – a pervasive and heavy blanket where the night and the wilds should have sound.

After a few minutes, Ronhael called up, "The road is getting treacherous. We'll lame our horses if we keep going like this."

"Aye," Caradoc agreed. "It's too rocky for riding, sire. And too dark soon to see where we're going."

They had a point, and Arthur knew it. They had also slept very little the night before, and the fact that they were still polite through their exhaustion was a grace of which Arthur should not take advantage. "Keep an eye out for a place we can camp for the night, off the main path."

"Away from these things, too," Meliot added with a covert gesture to the clothed staffs standing upright along the road. "Give me an ulcer."

Arthur glanced at one of them himself, and then deliberately away again. "I don't think we can manage that. They line the path all the way up."

"Here," Merlin announced as if to purposefully contradict him. He pointed past Arthur and off to the left. "It's clear up there, and we can shelter behind the boulders, out of sight of the road."

Ronhael prodded his horse past them all and went to scout the area without being asked.

"No firewood," Percival remarked offhand.

Arthur sighed, but only at the fact that of all the things Percival chose to say, for a man who said distressingly little in the first place, he uttered something entirely unnecessary. They were in a rocky, barren vale where even the scrub grasses refused to grow. Of course, there was no firewood.

Gwaine nudged his horse up beside Percival just so that he could lean in and pretend to whisper in confidence, "Fancy a cuddle, then?"

Without looking, Percival shoved him so that Gwaine had to catch himself before he fell straight off of his horse.

"Come on," Gwaine wheedled. "I promise, I'll keep you warm."

Arthur rolled his eyes and decided to dismount so that he could lead his horse off the path with less risk of it turning a foot on unseen rocks.

"With what?" Percival shot back. "You're barely stuffed enough for a pillow."

"Oh," Gwaine chuckled. He probably couldn't help himself flirting with everything with a pulse. "You'd like to stuff me then, would you?"

Percival threw something at him, and Gwaine let himself be forcibly dismounted that time, cackling as he dropped to his feet just as Arthur passed by, leading his horse. Gwaine sobered alarmingly fast once he straightened, though, and snapped, "Oy! Merlin."

"Hm?" Merlin hummed distractedly, and looked over his shoulder at Gwaine. "What?"

"It's this way," Gwaine reminded him, even though it seemed absurd that Merlin would need to be reminded of the location that he himself pointed out.

Merlin's gaze meandered past Gwaine to where Arthur stood watching him carefully, and then past Arthur to Ronhael riding his horse slowly back toward them over the uneven terrain in the deepening dark. Llamrei stamped a few times and jostled Merlin in the saddle; she clearly wanted to turn around and follow Arthur's horse, but Merlin was pulling the reigns taut in the other direction to refuse her.

Sharp in the hope of snapping him out of whatever fugue he was in, Arthur snapped, "Merlin! On me."

Merlin twitched as if Arthur had actually struck him, and then loosened his pull on the reigns so that his horse could turn around and do as she wished. "Right," Merlin said a moment too late to go unremarked, vague and seeming surprised at himself.

In Arthur's periphery, Gwaine exchanged glances with Meliot and Caradoc before George cantered his horse past them and interrupted their views of each other. When George reached Merlin, the two men eyed each other strangely until George took a deep breath as if to brace himself. "It is this way, my lord." He cocked his head in the relevant direction, eyes fixed on Merlin as if not certain how to take him just then. Testing him, perhaps, to see what he might say. It was a clever way to judge the state he might be in – to see if he were slipping back into the worse part of the enchantment. Arthur should have done it himself.

Merlin turned his head toward the boulders as indicated, but not his eyes – not right away. They slid off of George's face only when they had to, because his head turned far enough to necessitate it.

Bolder than anyone else, George persisted, "I can take your horse, my lord. If you will?" He held out his hand for the reigns, to hold while Merlin dismounted.

Airy like an afterthought, Merlin murmured, "Don't call me that." Then he shivered hard and blinked a few times like returning to a moment he didn't realize he'd left. When he noticed George's outstretched hand, he pulled his head back on his neck like an irate chicken. "What? I can manage a horse." He swung himself down from the saddle on the opposite side of his horse from where George was and stalked over to take Arthur's horse's lead as well. "Not that shit a servant," he muttered. He also glared at Arthur for good measure. "Whatever you think."

Arthur cleared his throat and dismounted without addressing that, or asking if Merlin remembered that Arthur had once punished him via George's instruction on how to do servant things properly. Arthur passed the reigns over and then watched Merlin lead both Hengroen and Llamrei off toward the boulders, into a clear space that may serve to tether them for a few days. As before, they would need to continue on foot due to the uneven, rock-strewn ground. It was no road for a horse to take unless they wanted to have to put them all down one by one as they turned ankles, fell, or otherwise lamed themselves.

"It was unkind of you, sire," George said, breaking into Arthur's thoughts.

Startled, Arthur looked up at George. He had forgotten he was even there. Like an idiot, rather than parsing that cryptic remark for himself, Arthur asked, "What was?"

"Punishing him by making me teach him how to be a servant." George pressed his lips together briefly in distaste. "He had been one for years already. And while he may have needed instruction, that was a cruel manner of going about it. To both of us."

Arthur pursed his lips. "Are we really rehashing that now?"

Primly, George replied, "One should not put off until tomorrow what one may do today."

"Oh, for god's sake." Arthur turned around and started feeling his way forward with his feet.

"I was insulted," George persisted.

"You need to learn about situational propinquity."

"Ah, yes," George mused. "Master Merlin did once mention that you like to flex your ego by using big words that you don't think your lesser peers will understand."

Arthur grimaced, but…yes. "Seriously. Shut up."

George did not shut up; he didn't even acknowledge that Arthur had spoken. "You did not ask me to instruct him because you thought me the best person for the job." George slid to the ground just as Arthur glared over his shoulder to watch him wobble on legs jellied by all of the riding to which he was not accustomed. "You merely wished to use me as a tool of irritation. Very bully of you, sire. And I admit that it did take me a few days to realize that." He looked at Arthur with deliberation. "I was quite taken aback."

With a disbelieving snort, Arthur asked, "Are you angling for an apology or something?"

"Oh, never that, sire." George gave him a perfectly respectful, crisp little bow. "It is not my place to rebuke my king."

Arthur blinked but at least held in the urge to gape as George pretty much flounced past him to follow Merlin to wherever he was putting the horses. Insubordinate little… Alright, he had a point, but now? George wanted to bring that all back up now?

Gwaine meandered up next to Arthur while his horse tried to eat his hair, for some reason. "Good old Merls is rubbing off on him. Mouthy, speaks his mind, doesn't give a fig about your rank… I like him more each day."

Arthur flared his nostrils. "George is a lot more bitter than I would like."

With a droll glance, Gwaine pointed out, "So is Merlin, mate." He bumped Arthur's shoulder companionably with his own, and then tried to smack his horse's nose out of his hair as he headed after the others.

Arthur twisted his mouth up on one side and followed them, shaking his head. He took note of Merlin loosening the horses' tack, removing saddles for the night, and hobbling them in lieu of any suitable place to tie a tether. With a soft sigh, Arthur began hunting around for a clear space to lay himself out for the night. In truth, he was utterly done in after not sleeping the night before, but he didn't want to admit it to anyone. Good old royal pride. His skin buzzed with exhaustion, though; he knew that he would not make it another day without sleep.

"Over here, sire," Merlin called.

When Arthur looked up, it was to the realization that he had been staring blankly at a collection of pebbles on the ground for long enough that everyone had tended their horses and were already laying out bedrolls. Arthur smeared a hand over his face and then stumbled over toward where Merlin had cleared the ground enough to lay out Arthur's bedroll. "Where's yours?" Arthur asked him.

"Um." Merlin seemed taken aback. "I was going to go sleep over by the horses. With George?"

"No," Arthur countered, more snappish than he meant to be. "Put your things here. I don't want you out of my sight."

Merlin's brow wrinkled at that, but all he said was, "Of course, sire."

Arthur rubbed his nose while looking at his own bedroll, then glanced at Merlin walking away to retrieve his own from wherever he had already put it. Apropos of nothing, and softly enough that only the knights around him would be able to hear him, Arthur remarked, "He isn't as vague as he was earlier. He might be coming out of whatever fog the dragon put him in."

"Aye," Caradoc replied as if Arthur needn't have said anything at all. "I'll take the first watch, sire. I slept better last night than anyone else; I can manage best until the witching hour. You should rest."

Arthur exhaled, long and exhausted by more than long days and lack of sleep. "Thank you, Caradoc." He toed his bedroll and contemplated removing his boots before simply sinking down on it as he was. He saw Gwaine move around him, and then heard him kicking stones out of the way and scuffing the ground up before he evidently laid out his own bedroll nearby, head-to-head with Arthur's, feet pointing away into the darkness. For his own part, Arthur was already in the sleep fugue by then, sprawled out on his bedroll with his boots hanging off, completely beyond caring. His eyelids wouldn't open again, but his attempt to lift them was half-hearted at best, so it didn't bother him much.

A light murmur penetrated Arthur's awareness sometime later, and then someone lifted his legs and moved them over onto the bedroll. Arthur hummed lightly at the tugging and arranging of his person that followed, but he recognized Merlin's touch. Even then, when he should be wary, it comforted Arthur to feel his habitual care, familiar as his own clothes or the feel of his sword in his hand. Sound carried well enough through the ground that Arthur knew like a second skin where Merlin laid himself down, right next to Arthur. He shifted around for a while, just as he always did, before going still, and Arthur peeled his eyes open just a slit so that he could glimpse Merlin there, an outline in the dark, curled on his side with his back to Arthur, facing out toward any threats that may come.

Sleep-muddled and thoughtless, Arthur reached out a hand to tap at Merlin's spine, rounded there in front of him. "Too many bones," Arthur complained. Or he thought he did, but he wasn't sure that his mouth actually made syllables out of that, so he may have just burbled unintelligibly at Merlin's back. No matter. He let his eyes close again before anyone could question him on it, and drifted off.

Time unraveled for a while, and even asleep, Arthur could feel it stretch and bend with his body's insistence that he rest, finally. He didn't dream; he was too tired for that. So it took him a while to realize that he was staring unblinking at Merlin's bedroll beside him. He might not have woken up at all, for all the consciousness he registered just then. Gradually, recognition filtered in along with awareness of his sight, and he noticed that Merlin wasn't sleeping anymore. He was sitting up, closed off with his knees tucked up against his chest, arms tight around his shins, staring into the night with a naked look on his face. He was shivering.

Arthur worked his tongue in his dry mouth until he could croak, "Merlin?"

Merlin blinked and turned his head to look at Arthur, his eyes slightly wider than usual.

"Hey," Arthur whispered. He fumbled a hand out and tugged at a flap of Merlin's surcoat that was bunched up near his hip. "You should sleep," he slurred. "Come on."

If anything, the cold shook Merlin harder at that. He ignored Arthur and went back to peering out into the darkness, shivering in waves that couldn't be explained solely by the chill of sleeping outdoors without a fire.

"Merlin," Arthur griped, though he barely managed volume enough for a whisper. "Lie back down. You're making me cold." Somewhere in the back of Arthur's mind, he noted how odd Merlin's posture seemed, even for someone that chilled. Merlin sprawled, normally, when sitting or resting on the ground. He leaned back, rested on his elbows, propped his shoulders against things – he showed his belly like a contented dog, even when he was freezing with all of his limbs crossed. He didn't huddle like this.

Merlin rested his chin briefly on his upraised knees, and then tilted his head to contemplate Arthur. Distressingly direct, his voice choppy from shivering so hard, he said, "I'm not going to make it to the cauldron."

Arthur felt his stomach sink like lead, hot and sick. The awareness on Merlin's face appeared stark, and sharper than it had in months. All of him was there, suddenly. In full knowledge so plainly that Arthur couldn't believe how he hadn't noticed such large chunks of him missing before. Arthur pushed himself upright, palms flat against the ground, limbs still heavy from sleep, with dread adding a weight that they didn't normally have. It made Arthur clumsy, but he sat up in spite of it without taking his eyes off of Merlin's. "Yes, you are."

It wasn't the cold at all, Arthur realized abruptly, that caused Merlin to tremble like that. It was strain. "I'm not," Merlin breathed through what sounded like a lump in his throat. "I can't fight it anymore, Arthur; it's too much."

"We're almost there," Arthur whispered back.

Merlin shook his head, his mouth wavering into a thin, shadowy line. "I'm sorry."

"Don't give up yet – not when we're so close." Arthur reached out to grip Merlin's shoulder – the bad one, the one Meliot stabbed him in. The one that still hampered his range of motion and pained him sometimes. "You can do this, Merlin. Just one more day." He could feel the shivers coursing through Merlin's frame, violent and pervasive in ways that simple cold was not. "That's all. Just hold out for one more day. For me?" He pulled, and Merlin started to unfurl in his direction, posture opening like a flower reaching for the dawn, hands dropping to the ground near his hips.

Abruptly, Merlin jerked to a stop, half turned toward Arthur, and went completely still. Even the shivering stopped. Just past Merlin's knees, Arthur saw Gwaine raise his head, eyes wide, movements careful as he watched Merlin's profile. Arthur felt his own face fade to blank as he shifted to see where Gwaine had silently grabbed Merlin's wrist and now held it against the ground.

Merlin's expression washed out and turned cold. "I nearly had you."

Arthur swallowed and met Merlin's gaze as Gwaine rolled toward them and used his other hand to pry the knife from Merlin's fingers. It was Arthur's knife, from his boot. Merlin must have taken it hours ago when he so carefully put Arthur to bed.

"You were always gullible," Merlin told him. There was hardly any affect on his face at all; his expression could have been carved from wood. So much like what the caricature of Guinevere once said to him, just before he lost her. You are easily fooled, Arthur.

"Caradoc?" Arthur called, faint with the way his heart pattered out of control in his chest.

"Here," Caradoc replied, much closer than Arthur expected.

Arthur didn't look away from Merlin as he ordered, harsh through his closing throat, "Rope. We need rope."

"Aye," Caradoc breathed back. He shuffled away as if scouting obstacles with his feet; Arthur figured that he wasn't willing to look away from Merlin just then either.

Merlin allowed himself to be disarmed, and then just sat there while Gwaine held his arms back, staring at Arthur the whole time with a tiny smirk on his face and a cold nothing in his eyes. It was more chilling than any amount of ranting or struggling might have been. He just sat there and stared like he knew how easily he could devastate Arthur without landing a single blow. I could take you apart with less than that. And he had. Just as he once threatened he would. He didn't even need to touch Arthur – not with flesh, nor with magic – to tear him apart.

Arthur scrambled backwards off of his bedroll without warning and stumbled to his feet, eyes fixed on Merlin's dead stare until Caradoc got in the way with a coil of rope in his hands. His heartbeat throbbed in his ears, thick and dizzying, and Arthur staggered away from the small camp space they had cleared – away from Gwaine and Caradoc tying up a man wearing the face of someone Arthur trusted with his life. Should not have trusted – was warned repeatedly not to trust –

Rocks conspired to trip Arthur as he lurched away into the dark, and the urge to retch took him entirely unaware. It was in his throat before he realized, and he doubled over like a spasm to cough it out, bilious and hot, burning his throat with the acid of his own blind stupidity – Merlin had warned him. And Arthur knew he wasn't always himself – knew better than to trust him, but he hadn't believed that at some point, Merlin wouldn't stop himself anymore. That he would go for Arthur, and mean it. That he would lose –

A clatter broke out behind Arthur, and then, "Alright – it's alright."

Arthur coughed and then gagged again as Gwaine grabbed him from behind and stopped him falling face first into his own sick.

"That's it," Gwaine soothed, arms wrapping over his chest, body solid and warm at Arthur's back. "Let it out." Nothing about Gwaine's voice was steady; he was not unaffected, not by a long shot, but he wasn't as useless as Arthur just then. Maybe he hadn't been as oblivious as Arthur. Maybe he had expected this all along. Why else lay his bedroll precisely as he had? "Just get it all out."

Somewhere behind them, Ronhael called out in concern.

Gwaine shouted back, "Piss off! You let him have some privacy, for fuck's sake."

"Right, calm down," Ronhael carped back, but he must have done as Gwaine requested because no one approached them.

Arthur covered his mouth even though he was relatively certain that he still had strings of saliva hanging from his lips. "It wasn't him," he garbled, disbelieving.

"No," Gwaine assured him. "It wasn't. He would never."

But Gwaine didn't understand – Arthur wasn't looking for reassurance, he was trying to explain, "It's not him anymore. It's not him."

Gwaine hugged him as if threatening him. "He's not gone. He's still in there, and we're going to get him back. We knew this might happen – you don't give up now."

Hushed like a terrible secret, Arthur told him, "He was going to kill me."

A long pause followed, and then Gwaine admitted, "Yes."

"Merlin was going to kill me." Just saying it made Arthur's face heat with the urge to be sick again, like cold sweats.

"No," Gwaine corrected firmly. "It only looked like him."

It wouldn't be me, Merlin had said. Urgent and intense. Not really. I wouldn't be there. It would just look like me.

Arthur clamped his hand over his mouth to stop himself saying anything he didn't want to admit out loud, squeezing his eyes shut too, denying himself the desire to just break down then and there. Let it loose, this awful thing in his chest. Like a balloon of blackened blood climbing up from punctured lungs to drown him. It would have been kinder, he thought hysterically, if Wynn hadn't been there on Samhain. If all that came of this was Arthur watching someone kill Merlin again, this time out of mercy to stop him the way Uther always said sorcerers should be stopped – before the evil took them, like putting down a raving dog before it turned corrupt – it would have been kinder to just let Merlin die on that stage, smiling like an idiot through the blood staining his teeth, ecstatic and breathless at hearing Arthur finally, truly set him free.

"I can't," Arthur breathed into his palm, in spite of his desperation to muffle himself. "I can't do it," he choked nonsensically. "I can't watch this again – I can't. Gwaine, I can't – "

"Stop it!" Gwaine snapped like a tree branch breaking in his ear – one sharp crack of sound to startle him and stop him in his tracks. "Stop pitying yourself. You're a goddam king, not a coward. You will do this. You owe him that for what you did to him."

Gwaine didn't specify what Arthur did to Merlin, but it wasn't as if he needed to limit it to any one thing. It may have been more fitting to just lump every single infraction together – a dozen years of slights and harsh words and little cruelties both purposeful and unwitting. Everything – just let it encompass everything that Arthur didn't do right the first times around.

Even though Arthur had time to level a hundred individual castigations at himself between that last sentence and Gwaine's next, there was, in truth, barely a breath's pause before Gwaine added, with deliberate aim, "Guinevere would expect you to make this right."

Arthur stiffened and opened his eyes to stare at the shapeless dark, his hand still covering his mouth. Yes, she would. And damn Gwaine for using that as a weapon. Arthur wanted to rage at him for it, but he didn't feel the fury that he wanted to feel. He only felt shame. He was failing them both. Again. Regardless, he still snarled, "Fuck you," in response.

Gwaine wasn't fooled by the attempted bravado. "Anytime you like, princess." It wasn't flirtatious, though; Gwaine uttered that comeback like a gauntlet tossed down between them. "Now pull yourself together. You can't go back there with your face looking like that."

Indignant at being told what to do, Arthur nonetheless obeyed, swiping angry hands over his face and mouth, and then just giving up and wiping it all over the sleeve of his gambeson. It didn't matter; no one would notice his snot mixed in with all of the other dirt and sweat and horse-stench. Once he'd gotten his face as dry as he could, he paused. Gwaine had said hurtful things, and treated him brusquely, but he was still sitting tight up at Arthur's back, and he hadn't let go yet. Arthur dropped a hand to cover Gwaine's fists where he had clenched them together over Arthur's navel, and all of his ire left him. Gwaine wasn't being mean; he was hurting just as much as Arthur. The fingers beneath Arthur's hand loosened, and Arthur gripped them back when they sought his in silence.

Gwaine slumped against him and thumped his forehead down against the nape of Arthur's neck. "I have to be the one to do it, remember?" Gwaine whispered, just at the edge of hearing. "I'll have to do it, not you."

Arthur squeezed Gwaine's fingers painfully between his own. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't make me think there was another way," Gwaine pleaded. "If I have to kill my friend, let me know I had no other choice. That we all tried everything we could, and didn't have a choice at the end."

"I will," Arthur told him. It was a mercy that they couldn't see each other when they said these things. "Everything. You won't have any other choice, if it comes to it."

Gwaine nodded, forehead digging into Arthur's spine, and exhaled hard as he finally pulled away, unlatching his hands and leaving Arthur's fingers cold with their absence. "No one is going to sleep anymore tonight." Gwaine sniffed hard, and betrayed all of the emotion that his sharp and biting voice had hidden. "Can you lead the way in the dark?"

"Yes," Arthur replied. He craned his neck up and around to look at Gwaine standing up behind him. "I remember the way, but we'll have to walk. We can't take the horses any farther."

"We should leave George here with them," Gwaine commented, forcibly stoic. "Either we all come back, or we don't, and if we don't, he shouldn't have to see what happens up there. He plays it tough, but he's not hard enough for this."

"He won't stay behind," Arthur pointed out. "He's as bad as Merlin at that."

Gwaine nodded, but said, "I'll talk to him," before walking off without looking at Arthur.

Arthur stayed behind a moment longer just to breathe and make sure that he could face what awaited him back with the others. He filled his lungs with the taste of the dry night air and reminded himself that Merlin had always thought him to be a better man than he was. That even though his trust, and later on his faith in Arthur sometimes faltered, he believed in the same king that Guinevere somehow saw in him. A good man. A brave one. Someone they were proud of. He still wanted to be the king they thought he was. There might even still be time for it. Arthur girded himself with that, and then turned to make his way back to his men. To lead them on through the darkness, hopeful fool that he was.

---

Arthur nearly tripped again, and caught himself as they climbed up the steep road leading to the cliff trail above. The sun, newly risen, cast a harsh light over the grey landscape and cut shadows like blades across their path. Once he gained better footing, he reached a hand back and yanked Gwaine up as well. The others still struggled along below them while Arthur braced his hands on his lower back and stretched to crack out the kinks. "What did you tell him to make him stay?"

Gwaine rotated his shoulders and gazed down across the distance they had managed to cover in the dark. "George? I told him that if none of us come back, someone needs to take the message to Camelot." He propped a hand on his sword and looked at his own boot scuffing the ground. "Warn them he's coming."

Arthur tossed him a sharp glance but didn't ask the obvious: Is that what you actually believe will happen, or did you only say it to scare him into waiting behind?

Just to be contrary, maybe, Gwaine grimaced at the path before them and said, "Either way, I don't think you'll come back if he doesn't. And if it goes wrong, and we can't get him back, and we can't stop him… Well. He might not be able to stop himself anymore." He glanced over at Arthur and shrugged. "Tell me I'm wrong."

Arthur just watched him for a moment, and then looked away. That was probably all the confirmation that Gwaine really needed as to Arthur's own intentions, at least. "It's not much farther." He pointed up the path where it smoothed out and widened at less brutal an incline. "We camped there and reached the cauldron by the next midmorning."

Gwaine nodded and turned as the sound of armor scraping on stone reached the point that he couldn't ignore it anymore. Arthur swiveled back as well and they both held down hands to drag the other men up onto more stable ground. Percival came last, all but dragging Merlin by his bound hands. He handed the rope off to Arthur before swatting Gwaine out of the way and hauling himself up the last few feet. Since Merlin was being uncooperative, Arthur and Gwaine each grabbed him under an arm and lifted him without a word. Once he had steadied himself, Merlin turned his head to glare at Arthur, his eyes featureless and cold.

"Move," Gwaine exhorted. He shoved Merlin from behind to break his stare, and glared right back when Merlin turned that look on him instead. "Percival is happy to carry you over his shoulder like a sack of grain if you prefer that."

"Yep." Percival nodded. "Won't even break a sweat."

Merlin quirked an eyebrow at him, visibly unimpressed, but just as he hadn't replied to a single comment or taunt since they left George behind with the horses, he didn't say anything then either. His limbs moved unnaturally for him as he sauntered away, loose and indolent. Actually, it wasn't all that unnatural; Arthur simply hadn't had the chance to see it often. Merlin moved like a predator sometimes. Like the arrogant pantomime of every sorcerer Uther warned Arthur about. Not often, perhaps, but enough that Arthur knew what it looked like.

Arthur let out a breath and briefly shut his eyes as the tension bled out again. It had been like this all night, and it was wearing, but at least they were making progress. He lifted his lids again in time to see Caradoc grab at the slack in the rope lead, pulling Merlin away from the edge of the path by his hands. Arthur frowned at the way Merlin kept eyeing the drop afterwards, though.

After a while, Gwaine complained, "There's no color up here." He gave the whole view a proper once-over, spinning all the way around as he walked. "Grey everything; we stand out like sore thumbs."

Realizing what Gwaine meant, Arthur tipped his face up toward the sky. "Maybe it's not here anymore," he suggested, referring to Morgana's lonely white dragon.

"Do you think we're that lucky?" Gwaine asked.

Arthur coughed up something like a laugh, humorless as it was. "No."

Up ahead of them, Merlin veered off to the right again, brought up short by the rope tethering him to Caradoc. Arthur glanced over the edge of the path, easily picking out the place where Merlin had fallen the last time, followed by Arthur himself. It was the only ledge between the path and the rock-strewn valley below. They passed it up, and Arthur twisted to walk sideways as he gazed over his shoulder, then up at the cliffs before finally peering again at the edge of the path and sheer drop beyond. With prescience prickling at the nape of Arthur's neck, he sped up until he walked perhaps a horse's length behind Merlin.

"We're being watched," Merlin called back, stumbling at Caradoc's insistence that he keep moving, his arms pulled taught before him at the end of the rope.

Arthur glanced at him but told Caradoc, "Mind his shoulder. We don't need to tear it all up again."

Merlin twisted his hands to grab the rope lead and yanked backwards, startling Caradoc enough to trip him up, but not to make him drop the rope. "Are you listening to me?" Merlin demanded. He planted his feet and refused to keep walking.

"We hear you," Percival snapped. "And we're not that thick."

"Aren't you?" Merlin growled, face wrinkling up the way old Dragoon's may have done, with disgust as he eyed up a man twice his size. Enunciating every syllable like an obnoxious prat, Merlin repeated, "We are being watched."

Arthur stepped up into the semicircle of men paused on the path, motioning Percival to back down, and regarded Merlin as he would a stranger. "Merlin said that last time."

Merlin snorted meanly. "And I was right, wasn't I? Keen for someone else to die because you're too important to listen to a servant?"

"Don't," Gwaine warned Arthur. "Don't give him the satisfaction."

Arthur flicked his fingers up to acknowledge that, but kept his eyes trained on Merlin. He had concerns other than being observed just then. "I know you're still in there, Merlin. You looked at the cliff like that the last time we were up here, too. The morning after, when you asked me if I dragged you into the water." He alternated his gaze back and forth between Merlin's eyes, searching, but he couldn't see anything there that reassured him. It was only Merlin's actions, his absent meanderings, that seemed to betray him now. "I'm paying attention this time," Arthur told him. "Stay away from the edge."

Whatever was inside of Merlin narrowed his eyes. "Why? Afraid that I'll push you off of it?" His gaze darted past Arthur's shoulder, out beyond the brink, and then back.

"Just don't," Arthur ordered.

Merlin's lip curled minutely, and then he shot forward, arms pulling to the side as he strained at the end of the rope tether to sneer in Arthur's face. "I wouldn't give you the satisfaction. If you want me dead, you'll have to kill me yourself. Or get your drunken dog to do it."

Arthur held himself still, unreactive, as Merlin remained where he was, too close and shaking. He probably wanted Arthur to think it was rage that did it. Or at least, some part of Merlin that wasn't actually him may have thought that. When Arthur failed to rise to the threat in front of him, Merlin's next inhalation mirrored the trembling of his limbs. His face lost its severity and rough edges, and he blinked several times as he dropped back on his heels. He seemed stunned, like waking up from an unexpected nap to find half the day gone. A number of inscrutable expressions flickered across Merlin's face, under his skin where most people wouldn't notice. Arthur noticed, though. He saw the softening around Merlin's mouth, and the pained crinkling at the corners of his eyes that betrayed the struggle inside. Merlin's respirations picked up, but not in fear – not in anything so simple. He shook his head, a minute series of motions that barely graduated beyond the shivering of the rest of him. Abruptly, Merlin grabbed at his chest and curled his shoulders inward with a soft grunt, crimping the fabric hard in his fingers, his knuckles paling to white.

It wasn't pain, Arthur realized suddenly, watching Merlin's hands scrabble in their bindings to clench at the front of his clothes. And maybe it had never been pain that made Merlin do that. He wasn't feeling for a handful of fabric, or covering an ache in his chest in the hope that it would help him breathe easier; he was clutching the sigils that he wore in secret underneath. Arthur's mark, and the one that once belonged to Ygraine. Reminders of Arthur's claim and want of him, and of where he belonged. The promise of a home that wanted him in it. Merlin was grounding himself. He was hanging on.

Arthur slid his hands up to cover Merlin's where he had balled them both up over his heart. He could feel the unforgiving ridges between Merlin's fingers of the two sigils caught in there. He also felt how rough the rope was that bound him, scratching unpleasantly even at Arthur's sword-calloused palms. Merlin let out a harsh breath and bowed his head down beside Arthur's until he could press his brow into the tip of Arthur's shoulder. "Please, stop this," Merlin pleaded. "Just let me go."

Arthur squeezed Merlin's fingers around the two sigils hidden beneath his clothes. "No."

It nearly broke Arthur's heart when Merlin just started quietly weeping against him without raising his head like that was a bad thing, and he'd expected no less. Arthur could feel Merlin's exhaustion in the matter-of-factness of the sound, and the loose way that Merlin leaned against him while he made it. Soft as the breath that shuddered out of him, Merlin sobbed, "I can't, Arthur. I can't anymore."

"That's the spell talking," Arthur told him, even though he knew it probably wasn't. Merlin wouldn't be able to endure much longer; they could all see it.

Arthur startled when Gwaine grasped his shoulder, the one that Merlin wasn't crying into. That was when Arthur realized that everyone around him had drawn their swords, though other than Gwaine, they held back to give Arthur privacy. It was a sobering reminder that the last time Merlin evoked Arthur's sympathy, it was a ploy to get close enough to stab him. Except it probably didn't start as that. Arthur had been sound asleep, and Merlin sat there with that knife for hours before Arthur woke and noticed him shivering. If the whole thing was just a feint, then Merlin could have dispatched him without Arthur ever waking up again. None of this was as simple as Gwaine or the others seemed to think it was. In fact, Arthur credited the possibility that when Merlin initially took that knife, he hadn't meant to use it on Arthur at all.

Arthur shook his head and Gwaine backed down, but only just. "Merlin?" Arthur shook him by the hands still tangled between them. "Listen. I know you're tired, but now is not the time to rest."

"I don't want to do this anymore," Merlin insisted, reedy voice too loud to muffle against Arthur's armor; everyone else shifted as he said it, then looked away. "I want to be done."

With a reluctant glance at his men, Arthur focused back on Merlin and said thickly, "Yes, well, I don't really care what you want." He strove for cold. Arrogant. I'm the king Arthur. He might even have achieved it well enough to fool the man in front of him in that moment, distracted and distraught as he was. "I've never abandoned a quest, and I won't do it now for you." He shifted to grab hold of the front of Merlin's surcoat and then shoved him back, forcing him to stand upright on his own two feet again. Flinging his hand out toward Caradoc, Arthur ordered, "Give me the rope."

Caradoc hesitated, looking to the others for some kind of guidance, or perhaps for an excuse to refuse. But he couldn't just stand there like that for long, denying his king's request. Caradoc handed over the short of coil of rope tethering him to Merlin and watched, troubled, as Arthur measured out the length of it. "Sire, may I ask what you're doing?"

Arthur tossed him a pointed glare and merely continued wrapping the loose ends of the rope around his own waist. He raised his eyes when he noticed Merlin stepping back, but Merlin was looking at Arthur's hands, not his face, and shaking his head. "Arthur…"

Defiant, Arthur yanked at the knot he was tying and added a few loops for good measure.

"You shouldn't do that," Merlin told him, but there was no energy behind it, only resignation. The refutation was rote because he knew that Arthur expected it, and Merlin always did try to give Arthur what he wanted.

"What was that, Merlin?" Arthur demanded, deliberately obnoxious. "Since when do I take orders from you?" He grabbed Merlin by the bicep and dragged him around to face the road ahead even as Merlin lifted his shoulder and cringed. "Try to give up on me, and I go over the edge with you."

Something unfamiliar flittered across Merlin's face, and was gone. It took the man Arthur loved with it. Taunting, Merlin spat, "Is that a promise?"

Arthur nodded, his eyelids fluttering as he fought the urge to shut them against what he could see right in front of him. Without looking away, just to prove to himself that he could face this, Arthur replied, "Yes. It's a promise. Now, move." He shoved Merlin forward and hated himself for the unkind manner in which his own terror made him treat someone undeserving of approbation for what Arthur's own mistakes had caused.

Merlin stumbled a few steps forward and then dragged his feet as he kept going, slower than before and hunched into his own ribcage. He dropped his bound hands from his chest a few seconds later. "Are you just going to ignore what I said?"

"Yes," Arthur replied, striving to sound disinterested. He dogged Merlin forward, resolute and emotionless. He could afford nothing else just then. His men fell in behind him, even more subdued than they had been before.

"She's still up here!" Merlin insisted, wrenching at his bonds in agitation.

Arthur tensed and looked up again, into a clear sky devoid of clouds or dragons.

Merlin laughed abruptly, cackling like a loon, entirely unlike any sound that Merlin had ever made, and entirely mad. "You can't see her," he sang. Then he spun abruptly to walk backwards and grinned at Arthur, a clay copy of cheer stretched grotesque on his face. "But I know she's there. She's watching you, Arthur Pendragon." He twirled back to face the path, his back to Arthur as if he didn't consider any of them to be a threat. "She's been watching the whole time."

Arthur narrowed his eyes at the familiar cadence, however wrong, of Merlin's voice. His men were peering into the sky, wary with their hands on their swords as they circled in place or walked backwards to cover all angles possible for the stealthy approach of a dragon.

Gwaine rolled his eyes once it became apparent that no dragon waited to attack them from above. "I liked it better when you weren't talking."

"It's not him," Arthur murmured quietly.

Under his breath, Gwaine snapped back nastily, "I know it's not him."

"No," Arthur whispered. "I mean, that one's Myrddin. The mad prophet."

Unexpectedly, Merlin called back, with deliberate volume, "How do you know? We've already established you can't tell the difference." Then he peered over his own shoulder without turning, eyes piercing and grey to match the landscape. "How do you know I'm enchanted at all, really? Even the great bloody dragon couldn't see anything but me."

Even as a few of his knights made noises to warn him off playing this game, Arthur retorted, "Because you're not clever enough to plan such a hoax as this." Merlin was right, though. Other than part of that cackling pronouncement a moment ago, Arthur really couldn't tell for sure which Merlin spoke now. He only knew that it wasn't his Merlin.

Merlin groaned at the sky in exasperation. "Oh, here we go. Do go on, sire, about my many grave mental afflictions." He meandered around at the end of the tether, and then mused, "Now that's a thought, isn't it? You once accused me of being in love with Gwen, and called it exactly that." He then mocked again, this time in what was presumably a prince Arthur impression, "grave mental affliction." Then he turned contemplative again; the rapid shifting from one unfamiliar demeanor to another was dizzying. "What if you were right? I was always good at playing a fool. Simple Merlin, the prince's harmless, grinning idiot. What if I am that clever? Even Morgana thought I was courting Gwen in the beginning – perhaps I was." He tossed a snide look over his shoulder and eyed Arthur over like rotten meat. "And if she accepted my court? I would be angry at anyone who trespassed on her. I would probably agree to help her with any vengeance she wanted."

Gwaine seized Arthur's shoulder and hauled him back into a steady gait. "Don't. He's just trying to goad you."

"Is it working?" Merlin asked, as if he were genuinely and innocently curious, deadened eyes flickering over Arthur for tells. "You look like you sucked a lemon so often, it's hard to be sure."

Arthur shook off Gwaine's hand, but also snagged his arm briefly in return to warn him off retreating entirely. Gwaine was right, of course. For one, Merlin wouldn't ever call it courting unless he were making fun of Arthur paying court to someone. And as for supposed secret affairs, they should all be laughing at the thought that Merlin could have sustained a romantic attachment with any girl, let alone Guinevere. Merlin was merely asking provocative questions in a bid to plant doubt; there was no substance to the implications he made.

When Arthur glanced up, he caught Merlin watching him as he tread forward without paying attention to where he was going. Chillingly, Merlin remarked, "Now that is interesting. Your lips didn't even move."

Arthur wiped his face clean of expression, but he couldn't quite prevent the brief trip in his chest. Merlin could have been bluffing. But why? And how would he think to bluff that?

Merlin tipped his head with a contemplative hum and then went back to watching the road in front of them, his limbs unnaturally loose as he wended his way around cracks and fallen rocks on the path. The sound he made put Arthur on edge. Gwaine elbowed Arthur and made an inquiring sound with his tongue on the backs of his teeth. Arthur shook his head.

With no further comments on the movement of Arthur's mouth, Merlin picked right back up where he'd left off. "I bet it never even crossed your mind that there's no enchantment at all. That there never was."

Arthur took a deep breath and braced himself.

"I mean, you did murder her father," Merlin continued with a casual shrug, glancing up at the grey sky. "Did you just conveniently forget that? Did you think she forgot? Most women wouldn't. What is there to love, exactly, in the man that stabs your innocent parent in cold blood?"

"I didn't kill Tom," Arthur asserted. "I didn't touch him."

"You arrested him," Merlin countered. "You could have shown restraint or sense. Some of that mercy she thought you had. What happened to him is your fault, so what's the difference, exactly? You could have prevented it, and you didn't. Doesn't really matter who held the blade in the end; it all came down to you, and the report you chose to give your father. There was never any chance that Uther would let him go after what you told him. Gwen knew that."

Meliot, of all people, moved up to flank Arthur on his other side, face dour and haughty as it used to be, before his disgrace. His eyes hovering on Merlin's back, Meliot murmured, "Your queen was not so simple, sire. She had the grace of few others."

"Mm, yes. Grace." Merlin turned his face toward the sky as if basking in the stark light. "It was graceful, her revenge. Don't you think? Seducing the vulnerable young prince, enticing him to pursue her… That is what you meant, isn't it, Sir Meliot? After all, you pointed out in council that the king likes to reward his whores. She took to her task very well, didn't she."

Arthur bent his head and grit his teeth. "No one else engage with him. Just let him rave; none of it matters."

"You didn't even notice the manipulation," Merlin kept talking over him, "but that's a pattern with you. I mean, the stupidity of trusting your uncle when you knew he hated Uther and everything Uther stood for. That included you. Why on earth would you think he'd love the boy who stole his sister's life?" Merlin scoffed. "No, I take that back. You think that everyone loves you. That you'll always be forgiven. Humility is your weakness, not your strength. You humble yourself and think that's enough on its own. It's not."

Arthur looked down and sniffed, irritated that he even considered the validity of any part of what Merlin said.

Only half joking, if that much, Caradoc offered, "We could gag him."

"That would be apropos," Merlin shouted back at them. The knights all gave each other inscrutable looks over and behind Arthur's head. "Arthur hates confronting uncomfortable truths. Why make him confront this one? Just silence everyone who makes him feel bad, and then he can consider himself the best king ever without anybody giving him pesky doubts about himself. God forbid the great Arthur ever think he fell short."

It actually bolstered Arthur's confidence to hear that bit of rubbish coming from Merlin's mouth, because Merlin was the one who always reassured him when he doubted himself. Merlin was the one who still somehow thought that Arthur was the best king ever, or would be one day. Which meant that however the hurtful the words, nothing in that tirade actually was Merlin. The smile snuck onto Arthur's face before he realized it was coming, and though Gwaine frowned at him in concern, no one mentioned it.

Unaware that he'd lost whatever edge his ramblings may have gained him, Merlin kept talking without looking back at them. "I tried to kill you myself – did you know? Years ago, so you can't blame it on some imaginary enchantment. And your precious Guinevere covered for me so I wouldn't get caught." Merlin peered off to one side, setting his face briefly in profile, then kicked a pebble and faced forward again. "And why shouldn't I want you dead too? You've treated me worse than your dogs." He sighed, aggrieved, but it carried an uncaring edge – some kind of calculated disinterest. "I wasn't even subtle; you really are an oblivious potato. Takes all the fun out of it."

Arthur frowned because it seemed like Merlin was twisting things, not outright lying – he was a terrible liar and even enchantment couldn't change that. Truth was a far sharper weapon anyway, and more lethal than lies could ever be. Which meant that this was just another twisted truth, and that bothered Arthur. "When on earth did you try to kill me?"

From right behind Arthur, Ronhael intoned like a quote, "Do not allow the doubts of your enemy to make themselves at home in your mind."

Gwaine glanced back past Arthur shoulder.

"What?" Ronhael demanded. "My God is not entirely useless."

"Peace," Arthur cautioned them all. "I don't want any of us fighting over the cult we pay. If we must be divided, then there are better issues to draw lines between than that."

In a tone of apology, Ronhael merely replied, "Sire."

"And your words are wise, Ronhael," Arthur added. "Thank you for the reminder."

Meliot did a poor job of covering up his wrinkling nose, but since he wasn't looking at Ronhael when he did it, Arthur ignored him.

When Arthur faced forward again, he met Merlin's cagey, side-eyed gaze as Merlin glared over his shoulder, his countenance shadowed by more, it seemed, than the angle at which sunlight fell. "How wise is pride, Arthur? At least your father knew that people hated him – that he was hateful. Your sins aren't gone just because you talk pretty now."

Under his breath, Percival grumbled of Merlin, "You'd be prettier if you shut up."

Arthur couldn't help but snort at that, inflammatory as it was, but he sobered at the ugly, narrow-eyed look that Merlin treated him to before turning his head forward again.

"Arthur?"

Arthur looked up, drawn by the sudden change in Merlin's tone – the softness of it. Wary of the next trick, Arthur nonetheless called back in the same manner, "Yes, Merlin?"

Merlin bowed his head as he trudged on. "Do you want to know the real reason Morgana turned against you?"

"He spins falsehood," Ronhael cautioned, low and reserved, "with a silvered tongue."

"Who does?" Merlin demanded. He twisted his upper body so that he could look at Ronhael. "What a precious little man you are. They call you Sir Pious, don't they?" Merlin cocked his head and smiled; it was all the more jarring for putting Merlin's habitual kindness on display just below the glint of cruelty in his eyes. "Not a very nice thing to call you; they're not being friendly when they do it. You're a bit of a laughing stock, actually. Even Arthur refers to you as a headless chicken when you get all flappy." He pouted with false sympathy. "You do like to fuss in circles, poor thing."

Ronhael cast uncomfortable glances at the ground and the rockface to their left, but he didn't back down. "I know it's not Merlin saying these things. He was always kind to me. He may have laughed at me behind my back, but he was kind to my face."

Arthur gave him a strange look because Ronhael seemed to honestly think that made it all better.

Shaking his head, Ronhael finished more quietly, "I'll not believe your lies."

Merlin grinned, all teeth and crinkles, and it was obscene how much it looked like Merlin did when he teased one of them in honest fun on a patrol. Just everyday Merlin, and his good-natured sass. "But I'm not lying. I don't need to, when I have so much truth to pick from. Ask them if you don't believe me."

"I don't need to ask them," Ronhael snapped, lifting his head with a confidence that rang false. "I know what they say about me, and I don't care."

"Hush, lad." Caradoc stepped up to walk beside Ronhael and grabbed him by the shoulder with a sharp clang of colliding armor. "He knows all of our weaknesses and faults. Accept them, and don't let him rattle you."

Gwaine nodded too, but remained where he was beside Arthur. "Aye, Ron. You stuck by. No more taking the piss; you're one of us now."

Merlin narrowed his eyes, but he looked…satisfied? Did he think he'd won something by all of that? Before Arthur could consider the impetus behind that look, Merlin's eyes darted to his and creased at the corners. "If you'd let Lancelot have her, do you think she'd still be alive?"

Arthur breathed through the faint feeling in his chest and shook his head as exhorted, "Just keep walking."

"It was selfish of you, wasn't it?" Merlin asked. He fell back to stride at Arthur's side, displacing Gwaine. "Sort of disrespectful to her, too. Neither of you actually asked her which of you should have her. You both just decided it should be you."

"Merlin – "

"Arrogant," Merlin muttered. "She wasn't a commodity to trade."

"Shut up!" Arthur snapped.

"Maybe it's you, bringing all of our misfortune around," Merlin mused out loud, tone shifting like molten glass. "People you claim to love do tend to fall like flies all around you, after you've used them up."

"I could say the same about you," Arthur snapped. He regretted it immediately; it felt like conceding ground on a field of war, and it was petty ground at best. At least it struck Merlin silent too. They walked in sullen peace for a short time after that.

After a while, Merlin asked, soft and hesitant, "What if it really isn't an enchantment?"

Arthur glanced over at him. "It is."

"It might not be," Merlin pointed out. His eyes flickered to the side where Caradoc kept abreast of him. "You know about my bloodline, don't you? You know what they were like."

Caradoc seemed to make a point of not looking back, but reluctantly admitted, "Aye."

"Then you know," Merlin pressed.

"Yes," Caradoc sighed in frustration. "But do you? Do you really, lad?"

Arthur threw a wary glance back at Gwaine, who merely turned cagey.

Before Arthur could demand answers as to what they seemed to know that Arthur didn't, Merlin reminded them yet again, "The great dragon didn't see any magic in me but my own."

That made Arthur cast him a sharp look, and then he pointedly met the gazes of each of the others. Merlin had referred unambiguously to his own magic. That meant that he might remember that he could use it.

"I take after them," Merlin went on, seemingly oblivious. "You've all seen it – you've said it. I talk like him. The mad prophet."

Meliot growled at the sky and carped, "Because you speak sooth, idiot boy. Any prophet sounds like a madman, and all madmen sound the same."

Merlin made a face straight ahead and then huffed, "None of you has any proof that I'm enchanted. You just like that idea better than the other ones."

From behind Arthur, on Gwaine's other side, Percival replied, "We saw the stone glow in your hand. That's proof."

"That's nothing," Merlin countered, heated. He turned his head toward Arthur and snapped, "I warned you it could be a trick. That I couldn't tell what that stone was really for, and that he could have been using it to sow discord in your court. It did that."

Arthur took a deep breath and nodded, extending his arm across the space between them so that he could hook it over Merlin's shoulders far less gently than he wanted. He yanked Merlin close against his side, ribs expanding in unison as they breathed, and stopped them both on the path so that he could look down his nose into Merlin's face. "It's not working, Merlin. We are not turning around, and we're not stopping. You should save your breath."

Merlin swallowed as he stared back, close enough that Arthur could have counted his eye lashes. "I know. You're a stubborn ass." Merlin spoke that insult as if it were an endearment, laced with fond frustration, and that was familiar. He did it when he kept secrets, just before we went off to do something stupid to save Arthur without telling him what was really going on first.

Arthur tensed at Merlin's morose posture as he backed out from under Arthur's arm just to turn away from him. "Whatever you're thinking," Arthur warned, trying to sound threatening, "Don't."

All that Arthur could see of Merlin was his back and the red knot of his neckerchief resting at the base of his skull. It was the only spot of color in a grey landscape. "Sorry," Merlin replied in an odd tone. He pivoted to face them all and spread his arms wide, his wavering smile brightest where it wobbled at the edges. "You know I never do what I'm told."

Arthur looked down at the unraveled ends of rope that Merlin had dropped unnoticed as he stepped out from under Arthur's arm.

"I'm sorry I said those things."

"No," Arthur breathed, already moving.

"I didn't mean them."

"Stay where you are!" Arthur lunged forward. "Merlin!"

Arthur wasn't the only one who dashed forward to stop him, but even so, they only barely managed to grab him in time. A heap of limbs and armor slammed into the ground, but Arthur felt no road beneath him until halfway down his arm. He turned his head with a sharp gasp caused less by shock and more by the compression of someone else's elbow jabbing him in the diaphragm. All he could see was the cliff dropping below him, and open air.

"Let go of me!" Merlin spat from on top of Arthur, frantic and panicked. He kicked viciously at whoever was holding onto his leg. "Get him – get Arthur!"

Arthur rolled onto his back in an effort to maintain his grip as Merlin thrashed to get free. He could feel the rim of the cliffside crumbling beneath his weight, his shoulders cushioned on nothing but thin air. Arthur dug his heels into the ground, but he had no leverage, and their collective weight was distributed all wrong. "Somebody, help!" Whoever had grabbed at Merlin's ankle grunted and fell back, and Arthur rocked at the sudden release. Panicking now, Arthur bleated out, "Help! Help!"

Merlin yelped and threw his arms out to try and grab at something to stop their fall. "Stop trying to save me – it's him you need to save!"

A shadow passed over the sun as Arthur's heels lost purchase and tipped off the ground. "Merlin, stop struggling! You're making it worse."

"Then let go before I kill you!"

Arthur felt gravity shift, a rush of blood to the head as everything spun the wrong way, and then something jabbed him from below. He cried out as everything stopped, and he wasn't falling anymore. His boots fell back to the ground and skidded through the gritty dirt. Merlin wheezed in his arms at how tightly Arthur held him, his muscles an unrelenting vice that ached already from the strain of not letting Merlin go. Hands dragged at their clothes, pulling desperately to prevent their fall, and Arthur heard something rip as he craned his neck back. He could just catch a glimpse of gleaming scales, and the long whip of a white tail slashing through the air beneath him. Aithusa's teeth dug into Arthur's back, gouging his own chainmail into his skin where she pushed to hold him up, and Arthur wondered if this were a tease before she ate them both.

"Pull them back up!" Gwaine yelled, his voice pitched higher than usual with what might have been terror.

"Dragon!" Ronhael babbled off to the right. "That's the bloody dragon!"

Meliot's face appeared at the edge of Arthur's vision, and Arthur met the man's gaze with spots swimming in his own from not breathing. Meliot reached down and grabbed Arthur by the strap of his hauberk. Percival had hold of Meliot from behind, all but dangling him over the edge, and he dragged them both backwards as soon as Meliot nodded that he had a good grip. As Arthur swiveled, he caught sight of Caradoc and Gwaine holding Merlin's belt and one of his legs, their feet braced to stop Arthur and Merlin sliding any further over the precipice. The toes of their boots hung in the bare air while the wind scoured the sharp edge of the ground right out from under their soles.

Arthur grunted as Aithusa jabbed him harder and shoved. Everyone else lurched backwards, and Aithusa's next shove poured Arthur and Merlin back onto the path like so much flotsam tossed onto a shore. Percival tripped and fell, yanking Meliot with him, and the dragon followed them all up, climbing over the edge with claws dug into the rock like it was little harder than wet clay. Arthur stared, saucers for eyes, as Aithusa leaned over him, snout in his face, only to exhale like an explosion when she shoved him roughly back, farther from the edge, raking both him and Merlin painfully across the rocky ground.

"Woah!" Gwaine cried, scrambling toward them with his hands held out as if calming a spooked horse. "It's alright! They're safe now!"

Aithusa shoved again, and Arthur toppled across the ground, rolling over Merlin and smacking their limbs painfully together. His armor scraped against the rocks with a sound like shrieking, and Arthur winced.

"Stop!" Gwaine yelled. He scrabbled his way between them and the dragon, arms wide as if he might actually be able to wrangle a dragon bare-handed. "You're hurting them. It's alright – you can stop."

Arthur shoved himself off of Merlin and panted as he took in the sight of the dragon that had helped kill his wife. Beside him, Merlin coughed and rolled onto his stomach as he finally found the freedom to breathe again, elbows planted on the ground and his head hung between them. Arthur hardly noticed when Caradoc and Gwaine grabbed Merlin again and pulled him away from Arthur, nor did he quite register how Merlin howled at them, snarled obscenities, and fought to stop them rebinding his hands. It wasn't even clear if it were Merlin himself acting like that, or the magic manipulating and using his body to shout insults and threats in a bid to gain release.

The dragon watched Arthur in return, curious but otherwise inscrutable. She was bigger than Arthur recalled. Still not as large as the great dragon, but she had definitely grown. Wary, and careful of how his joints and limbs ached, Arthur climbed to his feet and took a step toward her.

Alarmed, Caradoc called, "Sire! What are you doing?"

Arthur shushed him without looking and crept closer to the dragon. He should have at least drawn his sword, but even considering what this creature had done in the past, Arthur didn't think that she deserved his blade. She could not have truly understood what happened in that cauldron – what Morgana bade her do – no matter what blame Merlin placed there for her actions. Arthur couldn't see any intent in this beast to cause harm. And she had just saved him. Saved them both. He extended his hand toward her snout, willing it not to shake, and brushed his fingertips over the rim of a nostril. Aithusa merely looked at him, and let him touch.

Arthur slid his feet forward another step, until he could reach Aithusa with both hands. "Hello," he greeted stupidly, as if she were a strange dog. A plume of hot air blew Arthur's hair back and he shielded himself with one arm. When no flames followed, Arthur peered past his elbow and then reached out again, running his palms over the ridges of the bones that made up her jaw.

Farther up the path, Ronhael started wibbling and praying, and everyone else shot him dirty looks for his uselessness just then. They all knew him, though; and as Merlin already unkindly pointed out, Ronhael did pull the headless chicken routine often enough that this came as no surprise.

Caradoc crept up behind Arthur and cautioned, "Should you be doing that, sire?"

"She's Merlin's," Arthur replied, even though he didn't think she was – not anymore. But she wasn't Morgana's either. "She's just lonely."

Gwaine cleared his throat and stood up from where he had been holding Merlin down to allow Percival to bind him more easily. Sarcastically, he said, "Oh, yes. Just like a lost puppy."

Aithusa chose that moment to chirp, and every single one of them jumped like frightened ninnies.

"Christ," Meliot swore, clutching his chest as he turned away to regain his shattered wits.

Arthur drew back from the dragon and wiped his sweating palms off on his trousers. "We should keep moving," he called, eyeing Aithusa to see what she might do next. When she merely stood there, bent oddly on her malformed legs, Arthur turned away.

Percival, Gwaine, Meliot, and Caradoc all stood in a loose ring around Merlin, who sat hunched on the ground glaring darkly at Arthur with his hands bound again in his lap. With a curl to his lip, Merlin said, "You think having a dragon will help you? You're pathetic."

"Get him up," Arthur ordered. He fought not to react to the expression on Merlin's face, hateful and foreign, to say nothing of what just happened at the cliff's edge. He thanked any god listening, though, for sending the great dragon the day before, because if this aspect of Merlin still realized he had magic, Arthur would be dead just from the force of his glare.

Percival bent down and dragged Merlin to his feet. He lacked the gentleness that he normally showed, and Arthur couldn't blame him. He wasn't feeling very gentle himself anymore.

Without looking at anyone, Arthur pulled out a knife and sawed off the old rope still wrapped around his own waist. Caradoc held the end of the new one now tethered to Merlin. Arthur stalked over to snatch that from him even though Caradoc tried to sputter a number of reasons why Arthur should maybe not be the one holding it anymore. This time, Arthur wrapped the rope around his forearm until there was no slack between himself and the bindings around Merlin's wrists. Furious with residual fear more than anything else, Arthur held up their collected hands and shook them in Merlin's face hard enough that Merlin jerked back to avoid being smacked by his own fingers. "That's the last chance you get to pull that trick. Try it again, and we both die. I swear it to god, Merlin."

Something familiar flittered across Merlin's face, and was gone. He shook his head in its wake, his frown confused rather than hostile, and then that too disappeared again. Merlin's hands drew into fists between their faces. "Is that supposed to stop me?"

Arthur stared back at him, hopefully impassive, and then with his free hand, made a show of unbuckling his sword belt and passing it back to whoever stood behind him just in case Merlin got any bright ideas about that option either. Then he bent down yanked out his boot knife, and hoped he didn't stab anyone as he flung that aside too. Speaking to whatever lurked beneath the surface of Merlin's face, Arthur ordered, "Move." He tugged the rope and resumed walking. None of his men dared stop him. Arthur imagined that his face must have been frightful just then – dark and determined, both. Or maybe just blank; he couldn't tell.

Merlin staggered into motion beside him and yanked at the rope a few times. When he failed to either pull Arthur off balance or slow him down, Merlin exhorted, "You're being foolish."

Arthur glanced back but he didn't stop, and he made no reply. Ronhael fell into step with the others after Arthur passed, and then all of them began muttering to themselves about the dragon trailing after them. Arthur ignored everything that did not involve him setting one foot in front of the next, and compelling a man he no longer recognized to walk beside him like a wraith.

"I know what you're thinking," Merlin told him.

In spite of his resolve, and the fact that it might not be true, Arthur replied flatly, "No, you don't."

"You're thinking it's not really me," Merlin persisted, voice sibilant with the sort of malice that Arthur used to equate with all sorcerers. How ironic. "Your Merlin wouldn't say these things to you – wouldn't raise a hand to you." He lowered his voice until it purred in a parody of intimacy. "But how certain are you, really?"

Arthur pursed his lips and regretted engaging with him.

"You've called me bitter," Merlin pointed out. "And I should be. After what you've done? Even you know I should despise you. How can you be sure that I don't?"

He shouldn't encourage conversation, but Arthur couldn't really help himself. "Because I've seen your face when you realize I'm there." Delighted to find Arthur in front of him. To recognize him when everything else in his mind came out jumbled from the convulsions. Because Merlin loved him, however desperately he tried to hide and deny it. And it showed. In every single gesture he made, including that one at the edge of the cliff, it showed.

Since that apparently didn't work, Merlin hissed, "With as powerful as I am, do you really think I couldn't have stopped Morgana earlier if I wanted to? I let her conspire right there in the castle, a corridor away from you. Why would I do that unless I agreed with her? Unless I supported her? She is my natural ally, not you."

Arthur shivered and picked up the pace, yanking Merlin faster behind him.

"You abandoned her," Merlin continued, relentless.

Unable to stop himself, Arthur snarled, "So did you!"

That gave Merlin pause, but the quiet didn't last long. "Gwen was Morgana's handmaid – you know what that kind of bond is like. She would have known what Morgana was, but she kept that secret. For years. Like she probably kept mine. Do you really think Gwen was the sort of person who would turn her back on her wronged mistress? Especially after Morgana defended her and looked after her when your vaunted father killed Gwen's? Both of them had every right to their revenge after what Uther did to them, and you didn't protect them from any of it. For all your lofty words and ideas, you are a do-nothing hypocrite. Admit it: Gwen played you, Arthur. The whole time, and you fell for it. There was no ritual – no trick – that was her, victorious. Admit it. She never loved you. She used you. And you fell for it."

"Shut your mouth," Gwaine snapped when Arthur couldn't.

"And if I don't?" Merlin demanded. "Will you hit me?"

Impotent, Gwaine growled and refused to answer.

"You won't," Merlin divined. "Because if I'm not your Merlin, you'll only be hurting him. Your precious little waif of a sorcerer."

Arthur snapped his head up at that and looked back.

Gwaine didn't seem to realize what Merlin had said – that he obliquely mentioned his own magic again by calling himself a sorcerer. His face reddening, Gwaine snarled, "Stop talking with his mouth, you ignorant fuck."

"Or what?" Merlin snapped. "You're a coward – you won't do anything. Cry into your cups like a drunkard – that's all you've ever been good for. It's why Lot doesn't want you – why would he? You're not worth anything."

"He's goading you," Percival warned. "Ignore him."

Gwaine hissed to himself and bit his lip hard enough that Arthur expected to see blood.

Merlin wouldn't let up, though. "And I'm supposed to believe that you're the one that will kill me? You can't even properly kill yourself."

Before Gwaine's tensing limbs could graduate into proper violence, Caradoc grabbed his arm and swung him around to break his fixation on the thing taunting him in Merlin's voice. Arthur watched them pause at the side of the path while Gwaine heaved in a series of calming breaths.

"I could break you," Merlin crooned lowly in Arthur's ear.

Arthur faced forward again and peered ahead. He could see the bend in the distance that led down into the cauldron. Then he turned his head to face the thing walking at his shoulder. "No, you couldn't," he realized. "Or you would have done it by now."

Merlin narrowed his eyes at Arthur.

"All you have are words," Arthur said. "He won't let you have the rest, will he?"

"I don't need the rest. I'll just break him instead," Merlin threatened lowly. "Even if you do manage to fix this, he'll have to know everything he's done. He'll remember."

Against his better judgement, Arthur asked, "Remember what? That he tried to save Guinevere? That he was willing to die for her? That's not on him; it's on me. I'm the one who stopped him. He's free to hate me for that if he wants to, but it's hardly enough to break him."

One corner of Merlin's mouth turned upward. "Not that."

Arthur scoffed and faced forward again. "You're bluffing because none of this is working; it's pathetic, watching you."

"It's alright, my boy."

Arthur's blood ran cold.

"Yes," Merlin purred. "There it is. Still think I'm bluffing?"

I couldn't get to him, he saw me, and he was gasping but he said it's alright, my boy and he was looking at me, and I couldn't –

"You're lying," Arthur asserted.

"Am I?" Merlin snorted behind him. "Or are you remembering all of the things now that didn't make sense? Things you swept under the rug just because it was me saying them?"

"I'm not listening to this anymore," Arthur averred.

"It was a thin excuse, wasn't it? You thought it then, too – I saw it on your face. How many pyres have I attended, but I wouldn't attend his?"

Unconvincingly, Arthur asserted, "You'll say anything to rattle me."

"He figured it out," Merlin pressed. "You're thinking it now: Gaius wasn't stupid. He knew something strange was going on. He even consulted another physician because to him, it didn't add up. How many times have you known Gaius to ask another physician's opinion, Arthur?"

Arthur shook his head and kept walking, but he couldn't close his ears, and he was thinking about it now. No times, was the answer. Arthur had never known Gaius to ask another physician's opinion, not unless someone made him do it.

"Exactly," Merlin hissed as if he had heard that. And he might have – heaven help him, but Arthur had to credit that possibility since it had happened before. "He would have realized eventually. Too many patterns around those fits. Too many odd behaviors. And you told Gaius yourself how I got those marks on my arms. He was the only one, in fact – other than you – who knew the whole of what really happened up here. It was only a matter of time before he put it all together and realized what you'd done."

"Shut up!" Arthur snapped.

Merlin ignored him. "Do you really think you'll have your precious Merlin back after he realizes he killed the one man he saw as a father? Attacked him, fought him – he's a murderer. You saw the bruises, and the mess of everything they knocked over. Gaius didn't go easy. He begged. Merlin had to hold him down to stop his heart. Then he sat on the floor and watched him die, and did nothing to fix it." Bitter and waspish, Merlin concluded, "It will ruin him when he remembers, and you can't stop it."

Arthur snapped; he didn't mean to, but he did. Before he realized what he was doing, he had Merlin by the throat, up against the rockface. "You will shut your mouth, sorcerer, or I'll shut it for you."

When someone latched onto Arthur and pried his hands off, Arthur let him, and stepped back into the waiting grasps of a half dozen hands there to support him. Merlin didn't even have the decency to look upset at the rough handling. He yanked his surcoat back into place, awkward with bound hands, then straightened off the rock at his back. Standing tall and insolent in front of Arthur with contempt written on his face, Merlin hissed, "There it is: Uther written all over your face. I knew it was still in there. It had to be; you still love him. How could you, if at your core, you were really any different?"

"Mate," Gwaine warned roughly. "You should really shut up now."

Merlin scoffed, focused on Arthur to the exclusion of all others. "That's all you'll ever be – the devoted son of a butcher. And he knows it. Your Merlin. Why else do you think he gave up on you? Samhain was only a reprieve; he knows you won't ever change. It's one of the surest things about you. You'll never be any of the things he thinks you are. You're not good like that."

Arthur heard his blood rushing in his ears, and the labored tone of his breathing as it turned to rasps – I want to be the king you think I am. But I'm not as strong as you, Merlin. I'm not good like that. I hope you never figure that out – before someone yanked him away. He was tethered to Merlin, though, and the rope merely cinched tight around Arthur's arm to remind him that he couldn't escape this man. They were tied together, whether he liked it or not – more than just literally. Arthur owed his life to Merlin's grace over the years – to his staunch belief that Arthur was a better man than he seemed. A deserving king. Arthur couldn't let these things coming out of Merlin's mouth rattle his convictions. Not even the bits that quoted Arthur's own words back to him.

When Gwaine reached out to tackle the snarl of rope wound about Arthur's arm, Arthur shouldered him aside. "No," he panted as he caught his lost breath. "I won't run from him. I'll never run from him. He warned us it would do this. Guinevere – " He choked unexpectedly, and then forced the rest of the admission past a swollen throat. "Guinevere did it too. She said things just like that." Perhaps her words didn't land as true as Merlin's barbs, but Merlin had always known Arthur better than anyone else. Of course, when he cut, he would cut deeper. "Keep walking. We keep walking now."

Arthur pushed his arms out to clear the space around himself, and his men parted without protest to let him walk through. Merlin strode easily at his side, no longer pulling back to hamper him, and it set Arthur's teeth on edge.

Wary of the brittle tension into which he spoke, Meliot remarked, "The dragon is still back there."

"Let her follow," Arthur replied tonelessly. "She's as much a part of this as we are."

Blessed silence reigned for short time after that, and Arthur could smell the moist air of the cauldron swirling about the high road as they approached. His heart skipped beats in his chest repeatedly; it made his stomach churn. He tried not to think of the last time he came here, but the familiar landscape assailed him with memories of that day, etched indelible and vivid in his mind. The blue of Guinevere's clothes. The moment of disbelief when Merlin stepped out looking like an idiot, wearing a tatty sack dress and a gnarled old crone's face. Arthur's droll and comedic, You look familiar, sorceress. He said sorceress the same way he might say idiot, though. The relief he felt at knowing that it was just Merlin – not some strange old woman after all, not someone he needed to guard himself against. Just Merlin being an oaf, and nobly trying to save someone without showing his real face. Just Arthur's own good, goofy old Merlin being sneaky and noble and brave like it was nothing special.

"Did she ever tell you how she covered for me when she found out I tried to kill you?"

Arthur set his jaw and kept walking out of sheer cussedness. Someone else groaned in irritation, and Gwaine appeared at Arthur's other elbow as a bastion of stoic support.

"Caught me in the act, actually. Twice." Merlin didn't sound menacing when he said it; he babbled on about it the same way he did when he recounted castle gossip while cleaning out the fireplace. And then Morris dropped the hot pudding into the laundry basin, and Brinna dumped it over his head and chased him around the kitchens with a soup pot… Just speaking to fill the silence. "First time was chance; she didn't realize until afterwards that she'd been in the way. The second time, though?" Merlin shrugged. "What kind of a woman keeps secrets like that from the man she claims to love? It's almost as if she didn't mind you dying, she just minded me getting caught at it."

Arthur clenched his jaw and just kept walking, eyes trained resolutely on the path he tread, but he could see the others exchanging worried glances over and around his lowered head.

"Maybe she appreciated the irony too much to ruin it." Merlin chuckled quietly under his breath, a mean little series of giggles. "I mean, there I was, poisoning your bath water while you took your clothes off in the same room, praising my fealty. You even said I might be the only person you can really trust. As if you'd never done anything to make me want you dead."

Arthur stared forward. He remembered that conversation, actually. It was vague in his mind, but still there because Guinevere walked in and startled him, and he had to cover himself with a pillow to belatedly preserve his modesty. She wouldn't let him have his bath, and then told him with a strange intensity that it was cold even though he could see the steam rising between them clear as day. It was right after he and Gwaine found Merlin in a bog after Morgana's men presumably captured him.

Arthur nodded and glanced down to check his footing. "Right," he croaked. "Who was it, then? Someone found you after you made those rocks fall to cut me off. Was it Agravaine? I sent him out with the patrols to look for you; he came back with pieces of your jacket with blood on them. Did he take you to Morgana instead?"

Merlin hissed and stopped talking again.

"I'll take that as confirmation," Arthur said. "She made you do it?"

Aggravated, Merlin twisted his hands in his bonds and seemed to be trying to scratch his arms around the obstacle of rope.

Arthur reached over and pushed Merlin's hands back down to stop him chafing the delicate skin of his wrists. "Will you tell me what she did to you?"

Snarling through his teeth, Merlin wrenched his hands from the restraint of Arthur's grasp and stomped ahead of him as far as the tether allowed to avoid the question.

"Fuck," Gwaine muttered. "Merls – "

Merlin rounded on him abruptly, bringing them all up short, and spat, "Don't you dare pity me. I could have destroyed her anytime I wanted. I chose not to – me! I chose it – I did that!"

To Gwaine's credit, he merely nodded a stoic acknowledgement and dropped whatever apology or platitude he had thought to make.

Careful to keep himself non-threatening since he didn't know how to best react to the surface irrationality of Merlin's outburst, Arthur took Merlin's arm and gently directed him back toward the road. Without any further comment, Merlin resumed walking, and Arthur eyed him as he kept pace for any evidence that Merlin might become properly violent. When it looked like Merlin was just sulking, Arthur sighed and faced forward again, thinking back in spite of his resolve not to listen to the vitriol Merlin spouted when he wasn't himself. That whole incident in the woods – losing Merlin, and leaving him behind to face the dubious mercy of a hoard of mercenaries… Arthur hadn't questioned anything when they found him climbing out of a bog two days later because if he asked too many questions, he might have inadvertently forced Merlin to say he used magic to heal himself of a near-fatal mace wound and escape. And then Arthur would have had to face it. He hadn't been ready, then. The death of his father was still too raw, and Arthur's doubts too broad to react the way he should have to an open declaration of magic. "I'm sorry I never asked what really happened to you after I left. Maybe I could have helped."

Resentful and foul-tempered, Merlin growled back, "Gwen helped me."

Arthur nodded since he had already figured as much, hopeful that it was really Merlin who admitted that. "I'm glad, then."

Up ahead, playing the part of scout mostly as an excuse, Arthur thought, to avoid being too close to the dragon, Ronhael crested the high point in the trail and paused to look down into the cauldron. As Arthur stepped around yet another flagstaff adorned with cloth rags propped between the rocks, Merlin abruptly yanked at the rope.

Gwaine caught Arthur as he stumbled back, the rope going slack as it unraveled, and Arthur looked over his should just as Percival and Caradoc grabbed Merlin by his upper arms to haul him forward again. Meliot followed warily at a distance behind them, carrying Arthur's sword and scabbard in the crook of his arm.

"No," Merlin grunted, twisting to try to evade their grasps.

Arthur turned and wrapped his fists around the length of rope he had nearly dropped when Merlin jerked back.

When Merlin saw that, his struggles became unexpectedly frantic. "No! No – Arthur, no – " His heels skidded in the dirt as he sank his weight toward the ground, dragging back against Arthur's hold on him.

Without any fuss, Percival bent down, slung an arm across Merlin's ribs, and lifted his feet off the ground completely. "There we go." He tromped toward Arthur with Merlin dangling against his chest.

Merlin only looked stunned at that treatment for a moment, and then he all but exploded to get free. "Stop! Stop it!" Howling, Merlin, kicked savagely at Percival's legs until Percival couldn't help but drop him, swearing.

Arthur braced his feet and held the rope as Merlin thrashed backwards along the ground, unable to get away from him.

"Arthur, no," Merlin wailed. "Arthur, stop!"

Ronhael put his hand on Arthur's wrist to stall him. "Maybe we should slow down?"

"He is trying to trick us again," Arthur bit back, shaking him off as he strained not to let any more rope slip through his hands.

"This doesn't look like a trick." Ronhael backed off though

Arthur gathered up the slack in the rope until he reached Merlin himself, and grabbed him by his bound wrists. "Come on, Merlin."

"He's going to hurt himself," Caradoc interjected.

"Percival!" Arthur called, struggling to pull Merlin up without getting a boot to the shins in the process. "Help me with him."

"Arthur, stop," Merlin gasped, breathless from thrashing on the ground. "You have to stop – stop – please stop!"

"Arthur!" Gwaine snapped. "He's going to seize."

"No, he's not," Arthur growling back. He jerked his chin at Percival and ordered, "Get his legs."

Merlin stiffened as Percival hooked his arms under his knees and lifted him. "Please," Merlin choked, eyes rolling back. "Please – "

Gwaine snagged Arthur by the strap of his hauberk. "Put him down."

Arthur yanked himself free and hauled Merlin up the path with Percival's help. "He's fine. This isn't what it looks like when he has a fit. He's playing you."

Abruptly, Merlin dropped the act and told him flatly, "I'll paint the rocks with your blood."

Gwaine jerked back, and Arthur looked down into eyes that bore no resemblance to the ones he knew.

"It's not him," Percival reminded Arthur.

"I know," Arthur replied gently. "It's Morgana. I just never realized how much she hated me."

Merlin's lip curled as he hung limp between Arthur and Percival. "You think I don't have my own reasons for hating you? I remember everything you said to me over the years about magic – about how corrupt it is, about how no good ever comes of it – do you really think it all just goes away because I'm besotted with you?"

"No," Arthur stated. "None of it ever goes away."

"You never stopped hating magic," Merlin sneered at him. "Every time you see me do it, it's on your face, how much you hate it."

Very deliberate, Arthur replied with a simple, "No." He jerked his head toward the ridge and he and Percival shuffled toward it.

"What I am disgusts you," Merlin insisted. "In the aviary? You said it wasn't natural."

"That's not what I said." Arthur groaned under his breath, though, for responding at all.

"Fine, then. Magic is pure evil," Merlin countered. "Those are your words. And you knew what I was when you said them. To me. To my face – "

"Is that all you've got?" Arthur interrupted, louder than necessary. "A whole lot of hot air? Funny how you can say all of that, but I don't see any magic happening." Arthur stumbled over the uneven ground and hauled Merlin higher in his arms before giving him a brief and pointed look. "He still won't let you, will he. Must be infuriating how he keeps you impotent."

"It is funny," Merlin replied, eyes narrowing. "Funny how you still think it's not really me talking. I'm not gone like your precious wife, remember? And Morgana is dead. All I've got as fuel are my own grievances."

Percival rolled his eyes and griped, "Do you ever shut up?"

Merlin hissed as the cauldron opened in full view below them and tensed, pulling his legs toward his chest even though Percival had a firm hold of them. "Put me down." And then a bare second later, less measured, "You can't force me in!"

Because it was true, even though they were nowhere near the water yet, Arthur nodded at Percival to set him down. The second Percival relinquished his weight, Arthur hauled Merlin's hands up by the rope, over his head, stretching him tall where he sat on the ground. Merlin hissed at the awkward angle to which Arthur pulled his bad arm as Arthur held out his hand expectantly behind him. Someone placed his boot knife back into his palm.

Merlin's eyes glittered, awash with blue in the harsh light reflecting from the water. "Go on, then. We both know you only really brought me here to kill me. You just need the illusion of some heroic bullshit quest to stop anyone asking questions. It's too much a betrayal if you do it at home. All those magic folk living in your city – people will talk."

Arthur took a preparatory breath and then slipped his knife between Merlin's wrists to saw through the rope binding his hands.

"What the fuck?" Gwaine muttered. "Why are you untying him?"

"No guile or hint of force," Arthur replied evenly, stepping back. "He has to go willingly. In full knowledge. That's what the magic needs to overcome this. We can't manipulate or force him to the water." He swallowed. "Not even in altruism, or to save him. Like I did last time."

With his eyes trained up at Arthur, hateful and cold, Merlin gingerly rubbed feeling back into his hands, careful of the angry red marks ringing his skin from where the rope chafed him.

"Get up." Less cautious than he should be, Arthur tossed the dagger straight down to lodge half the blade in the dirt. Then he stepped forward and held out his hand.

In Arthur's periphery, his remaining men carefully drew their swords even as they kept their distance. Merlin's gaze flickered over them, but he quickly came back to the sight of Arthur's slightly curled fingers as if compelled there. He watched Arthur's open hand with the rims of his eyes reddened by days, and weeks, and months of desperate struggle. The hate faded, but illusions often did when confronted. A sheen crept quietly over Merlin's irises. There was fear there, but more of other things – a terrible hopelessness, and despair. But also a perilous, treacherous want to accept what Arthur offered.

"Take it," Arthur pleaded, flexing his hand wider. More inviting. Desperate.

Absently, Merlin's fingers crept over his own skin, and he scratched at his arms through the sleeves of his surcoat. Snared in his indecision, Merlin bit the inside of his cheek, agitated, and his nostrils flared as he exhaled through his nose, finally squeezing his eyes shut for a moment.

Arthur felt his chest suck inward at the air he denied his lungs, and braced himself for denial. He could just refuse to breathe again, he thought. However long it took for Merlin to reach back. It wouldn't even be so bad to perish like this, hoping. To have an optimism he had always suspected might be fatal occupying his last thought. Arthur swallowed and shut his eyes. He didn't need to watch. He could just stand there and remember Merlin the way he used to be. Picture it until it took on the carefully rendered quality of a tapestry fixed never-changing in his mind. Arthur could live the rest of his life there in that stitching, if he tried hard enough. If he remembered well enough the way that Merlin looked when he was happy. Or when he smiled for no real reason. Or the way he looked up at Arthur on the morning after Uther died, when Arthur shoved open the doors after his vigil with the crisp dawn shining bright and clean at his back, to find Merlin waiting. Folded up on the floor like old clothes and crumpled parchment. Bathed in the illumination that penetrated the stairwell in shafts around the shadow cast by Arthur's body. Squinting up with such a soft look on his face, eyes sketching a circuitous path through the light limned all around his king as if it weren't the sun that made Arthur shine. Saying that he stayed there on the hard stone floor all night just because he didn't want Arthur to feel alone.

And Arthur never had been alone. Not in all the years that Merlin served him. Not once. Arthur owed him that much back. If he had to relegate Merlin to darkness, then Arthur would have to go with him. Gwaine was right; if Merlin didn't come home with them, Arthur wouldn't go either. There was no point. He wouldn't leave Merlin to fall alone any more than Merlin had left him. They could both go to be with Guinevere, maybe. Arthur would like that. Even if she wasn't anywhere at all, at least they could be together in a nothing place, the three of them.

Cool, clammy fingers slid over Arthur's and clamped down, shaking.

Arthur inhaled and opened his eyes. Merlin looked more naked than Arthur had ever seen him. But he was there. In his own face. He was right there, gripping Arthur's hand. Arthur pulled, and Merlin unfolded onto his feet, just that fraction taller than Arthur was, stumbling forward until they both stood close enough to breathe the air that the other exhaled. They stared at each other for a moment. Merlin had never been a coward. He may have shied away from things he didn't want to do, but at the end, when he made up his mind, he didn't hesitate at whatever must be done. But Merlin looked terrified and uncertain of himself now. He hadn't really made up his mind yet about this. Maybe he couldn't.

Lifting his free hand, Arthur ran his fingers along Merlin's face, through the grit and dust of the road, and the greasy sweat of struggling to get there. Merlin's hair desperately needed a sheering, like a black-headed sheep. Arthur smoothed it back as best he could and hooked it behind Merlin's ear, exposing the thin line of scar tissue near his temple, mostly hidden in his scalp. Merlin tried to smile, wan but so warm. Like a cottage hearth. Arthur touched it, just one brush of a single finger, and then turned away to start walking toward the water, towing Merlin silently by the hand in his wake.

High above them, perched on the most distant rim of the cauldron, Aithusa clung to the rocks and screeched. She stayed up there as Arthur and his men wended their way down the path toward the water, feet slipping on loose rocks, shuffling more than walking to avoid a nasty fall.

"Sire?" Caradoc called out, though still hushed. "We're not alone."

Arthur nodded; he had already seen them. Druids. They weren't hiding, exactly, but they did appear to melt out of the landscape, their cloaks the same color as the rocks. Dozens of them lined the path, though they stood far back from it as if in respect, or because they knew that to get too close may jeopardize whatever influence Arthur had over their Emrys to coax him as close to salvation as he had. Farther away, near the place where Morgana's bones might still lie, Alator stood tall beside Finna and nodded to Arthur as he passed.

"Is this what the dragon meant?" Gwaine asked, barely audible through lips that hardly moved. "Bringing someone to summon the goddess?"

Arthur swallowed and shook his head. "I don't think so." Common druids – even the ordered ones – were not priests or priestesses in the technical sense, and the great dragon itself surely would have come too, if this were all it had intended. But Arthur was starting to see patterns everywhere now, and he wondered if this were Merlin's own doing, sending warrior druids to this place ahead of them. Had Merlin meant for them to protect him? Or fight him to protect Arthur?

From beside him, Merlin murmured, tone broken, "It was the rabbit's foot."

Arthur looked at him, uncomprehending. "What was?"

"Gaius," Merlin replied, nostrils flaring. His swollen eyes seemed redder than before, but dry. "He gave me a rabbit's foot years ago, for protection and…and good luck."

"I don't understand," Arthur told him.

"No matter," Merlin whispered. "It really was a kind of magic, and I couldn't touch it anymore. That's how he finally figured it out."

Arthur's expression went slack, but at least he didn't gape. Even without understanding the significance of some dead rabbit's dried out foot, the implication – or rather, the confirmation… It was too huge and awful to contemplate. Instead of dredging that up now to distract either of them from the task at hand, Arthur squeezed the cold fingers entwined with his and kept going.

"I don't want to do this."

Arthur nodded, but urged, "Just keep walking."

"No." Merlin stopped abruptly and tried to step back, and Arthur had to let him. "I don't…" Merlin's gaze wandered over the many people visible all around them, and then tracked back up the path they had come down. "I don't want to be here." He spun back to face Arthur, their hands still clasped, and tugged at Arthur as if to urge him to just walk away. Together. "We don't have to do this. We can just go home – I want to go home, Arthur."

"We can't go home yet," Arthur told him, following him as he backed across the pebbly ground.

Merlin kept shaking his head, and he seemed like parts of himself had already drifted off again. He acted confused, and fraught, and not entirely comprehending, but there didn't appear to be any interloper there in his place. Anguished, Merlin sucked on the inside of his lips and demanded, "Why?"

Arthur shook his head and moved purposefully into Merlin's meandering eyeline. Like an awful confession – as if Merlin truly hadn't realized it yet – Arthur replied, "Because you're enchanted."

Merlin looked at him, straight at him, and then around at the cauldron again. He seemed to realize abruptly where he was – where they both were, and his breathing turned ragged. "No." He shook his head and then pried his fingers free of Arthur's grip. "No, no…."

Helpless, Arthur watched Merlin stumble in a random direction only to find himself corralled, his retreat blocked by the knights surrounding him. Merlin looked at the water next and then violently shied from it. "Merlin – " Arthur snagged him by the arm and tried to make Merlin look at him again, but Merlin didn't seem to be entirely there with them anymore. He was in this terrible place, yes, but not with Arthur or with Gwaine, or with any of the other knights. "Hey." Arthur grabbed Merlin's hand and pressed it to his chest, over the shapes of the royal crests that he wore under his clothes, close to his heart. Reminders. Proof that someone wanted him, and claimed him, and that he belonged somewhere. "Don't get lost. Just hang on."

But Merlin's fingers didn't close over the crests, and when Arthur stopped pressing his hand there, Merlin merely dropped it. He seemed harried and confused the same way that old Leundegrance did sometimes when he wandered into halls he didn't recognize anymore, or when he forgot who people were. Talking to pillars, or to air, or staring off at nothing at all. "We shouldn't be here," Merlin said, fearful and low. "This is a dying place."

Arthur swallowed and stepped back, willing the exhausted tremors of his limbs to subside. "Merlin. Please. You just have to step into the water, and then we can go home."

Merlin's gaze touched on the edges of Arthur's person, vague with a distant recognition, maybe, but no farther. He didn't track the nimbus that he always seemed to see, either. It was as if he didn't understand that he was looking at Arthur at all. Or maybe Arthur just didn't shine anymore at the edges, gone dark to Merlin's magical eyes, and there was no longer any point in looking at him.

"Oi," Gwaine interjected, poking Merlin's shoulder to gain his attention. "Merls. Come on. Don't do this. You stay with us, yeah?"

Merlin leaned away from Gwaine as he searched Gwaine's face. He looked for a little while, and then he stumbled away again as if he didn't know Gwaine, or couldn't bear to recognize him. "No," Merlin moaned softly. His featured crimped and he covered his ears with both hands. "No. No. No… I want to go home. I want to go home."

"You can," Gwaine told him, pitchy and forced. "When it's over, yeah? Merls? We'll take you home, you just… You have to finish this. You have to go into the water."

Merlin shook his head and kept wailing under his breath that he wanted to go home, and not be here, and then he said something about Guinevere and folded his upper body into his raised arms to shield himself from nothing.

Arthur felt his heart seize as he watched Merlin deteriorate there near the shore, so damnably close to salvation. When Merlin crumpled down onto his knees on the sharp rocks, Arthur sucked in a breath like a spasm and turned away. Was this it, then? Arthur would have to stand here again, and beg and plead, and watch someone he loved fade right in front of him? Unable to step forward? Unable to just…just not be another victim of misused magic? Arthur breathed, open mouthed through the puffy heat of his sinuses, and searched out Gwaine among the dozens of people standing silent all around, listening to Merlin fall apart in the dust. Gwaine didn't even try to hide that he was silently crying; he just met Arthur's gaze and held it.

Nothing moved – there was no sound to dampen this moment, or render it bearable with distraction, and Arthur's composure wore away at the edges. He had to do something – anything to resume some kind of momentum before the whole world just turned to stone and eroded there forever. Without giving it much thought, Arthur reached down and hauled Merlin back up by his arms, forcing him to his feet. "Don't you dare," Arthur breathed, choking over the words until they shattered and broke. "Look at me. On me, dammit! Merlin!" He shook Merlin hard enough that even Meliot rushed forward to stop him. "You can't do this. We are so close. Just another few steps. That's all. I'll never ask anything of you again if you just take those steps."

Merlin shook his head and then thumped his hand at his temple, right over the place that cracked the last time they came here.

"Don't," Gwaine enjoined. He grabbed Merlin's fist to stop him before he hurt himself, hitting his skull like that.

"Get it out," Merlin moaned lowly, and then he shrieked with force enough to shake and contract his whole body, "Get it out of me!"

Arthur flinched as the echo of Merlin's voice traveled around the bowl of the canyon and died somewhere near the sky. "Listen – listen to me – " Arthur fought to stop Merlin raising his other fist and then grabbed Merlin's chin too roughly. He didn't apologize, though, not even when his grip slipped and he yanked Merlin's head back up by his beard hard enough that tears sprung to Merlin's eyes right after. "Stop crying about it! If you want it out, then the water is right there. Go to it, damn you!"

Merlin tried to pull free, but between Arthur's grip on his head, and the other hands on his person, preventing him from either hurting himself or turning his violence on Arthur, Merlin was basically pinioned in place; he couldn't escape. Eventually, Merlin stopped struggling and hissed in pain as he smacked his forehead into Arthur's chin, likely on accident; he didn't seem very clear on why he needed to fight them. "I can't," Merlin gurgled through an excess of something caught in his throat. "Stop, please stop – "

Arthur watched him wince at nothing and shake his ear at the ground like a dog coming out of the water. "Stop," Arthur murmured, but not as a command; he said it to himself this time, in realization. Letting go of Merlin, Arthur dug under his chainmail to find his pocket, and pulled out the smushed knit hat that Vivienne had placed so deliberately on his head. It was a long shot, and probably a stupid notion. Arthur reached forward anyway, shoving his way past Merlin's obstructing arm, and dragged the ridiculous thing down over the tangled mess of Merlin's matted, unkempt hair.

A sudden stillness came over Merlin's limbs and he shivered in the backdraft of his own struggles. First Meliot stepped back, and then Caradoc and Ronhael, and finally Percival. Gwaine stayed, though, and maintained the hold he'd claimed on Merlin's shoulders. At that angle, only Arthur could see the dagger glinting in Gwaine's hand, however reluctant the angle at which he held it. Once Merlin had the freedom to move as he chose, he touched his fingers to the brim of wool pulled haphazard and low over his brow.

Arthur risked tracking his hand through Merlin's eyeline, and then used it draw Merlin's gaze up to him without touching. "Did it stop?"

Merlin looked at Arthur as if he hadn't been interacting with him all this time – as if he only just noticed Arthur standing there. "It's quiet." He frowned, puzzling through his words like wading through molasses. "It's… It hasn't been quiet in months."

Arthur nodded and wished he had listened better the first few times Merlin alluded to the noise and calamity in his head. It was a pointless thought, though; there were dozens of things to which Arthur should have listened better.

As if orienting himself, Merlin raised his head and looked around. He took in the canyon with a nauseating grimace and crimped his fingers in the brim of the knit hat to pull it farther down over his ears.

Arthur shook his head to forestall the questions brewing on Merlin's trembling lips. "You know why we're here? You remember?"

"Guinevere." Merlin swallowed and craned his neck to look at the place where she died. "We… Did we save her?"

Arthur swallowed, and it felt like nails in his throat. "No."

"No," Merlin echoed, as if reminding himself. "She was… You wrapped her in linen." He peering in the other direction, searching, and then wrinkled his brow. "The black things." He frowned down at his arms, turning his wrists up so that the veins showed. Pale blue threads twisted through the angry red marks that the rope had left on his skin, and barely visible in the bright light of a grey sun, the fine lines of scars shined faint on his skin where the magic once touched him.

"Yes," Arthur confirmed, the word little more than a musty creak. "They got inside. That's why we're here. To get them back out."

Merlin nodded, looked at the water, and then turned in the opposite direction.

Arthur was so stunned by the fluidity of the motion that it took him a moment to pursue Merlin across the rocks. "No," Arthur told him, pulling him back by one arm. "This way."

Merlin's forward momentum arced him absently around the pivot of Arthur's hand until he faced the water again, and then he went still, staring at it. Finally, Merlin sucked in an unsteady breath and asked, "Why are you doing this?"

"Because – really?" Arthur demanded. "You're really going to make me say it again? Here?"

"I haven't done anything to you," Merlin replied. It was a complete non-sequitur, and it gave Arthur pause. "I never hurt you."

Arthur dropped Merlin's arm and took a single step back to regroup. "What are you talking about?"

Merlin's expression turned bitter and hurt. "Do you really hate magic that much? I thought we were friends, at least a little. I helped you – I risked my life for you. Does that mean nothing?"

"I – " Arthur shook his head and stuttered something else non-sensical as he glanced at the water himself. When he looked back, Merlin was casting baleful glares at the knights fidgeting around them, fighting to appear as if he weren't on the verge of maybe crying. Or raging. They might have been the same thing. "What do you think is going on here?" Arthur asked.

Merlin snorted, wet and disbelieving, and shook his head at Arthur as if he were less than pond scum. "I vouched for you." He swept an arm out at, presumably at the druids standing motionless like scenery all around them. "I defended you to other sorcerers, to the druids – I told them you were different. I told them you would change things for us, but you're just more of the same. I really am an idiot. Gods, I can't believe I trusted you."

"Merlin?" Arthur called, startling Merlin's wandering attention back to his face. "Whatever you think is going on here, it's not. No one wants to kill you. We're trying to help you."

Merlin bit the inside of his cheek and glared at him sidelong, with obvious hurt. "You're lying. I can see that you're lying!"

"No. It's the magic," Arthur guessed, intent as he stepped forward. "It couldn't get to me directly, so it's using you now. The real you. It wants to turn you against me."

Merlin leaned back, but his feet didn't move, so that was something. "What magic? There is no magic. What did you do to me?"

"Nothing." Arthur took another step, but he had to stop after that because Merlin took one too, conserving the distance between them with his shoulder raised in a defensive posture. The bad one. "Not on purpose," Arthur corrected himself. "I thought I was helping you, but I hurt you instead."

"You never were very good at listening," Merlin sneered. His voice lacked bite, though, and he frowned as he watched Arthur, uncertain of him. It wasn't even abnormal, the quality of Merlin's distrust. He had looked at Arthur like that plenty of times before.

"I'm learning," Arthur replied. "Give me one more chance?"

Merlin looked down at the open hands that Arthur had spread in his direction, wary. They might have been vipers rather than stretches of Arthur's own flesh. Mostly to himself, Merlin murmured, "I trusted you." His brow furrowed and he glanced around again, puzzled maybe.

"You did," Arthur confirmed. "I know you did, once." He directed a pointed glance at his own palms and hefted them to draw Merlin's gaze back. "Come with me now. I'll go too. Into the water. I'll show you it's not what you think."

Merlin hummed and licked his lips in an obvious sign of distress as he glanced again at the knights ringed nearby to hem him in. Counting them. Taking stock.

Arthur sidestepped and only managed to warn, "Gwaine – " before Merlin lunged to the side. He had never been agile – too many long, gangly limbs for that – but Merlin was quick, and he darted at Gwaine suddenly enough to surprise him. Just like Arthur, Gwaine expected Merlin's typical clumsy body-slam because Merlin did little else in a purely physical altercation. Gwaine braced his foot and turned his shoulder in, and Arthur saw at the last second that at some point, Merlin had finally learned to feint. He rolled off of Gwaine's shoulder and closed his hands on his actual target – the jeweled dagger so often stolen from Arthur's vaults.

"Nobody touch him!" Arthur shouted, barreling forward. He careened into Merlin's side, and winced at the cry it elicited as he jarred and wrenched at Merlin's bad shoulder. They toppled over in a heap, and Arthur reached to pin Merlin's wrist so that someone could grab the dagger. He missed, though, and when Percival tried being helpful by dragging Arthur back out of Merlin's reach, Merlin clung to Arthur's shoulder strap with his free hand and followed him halfway up like a limpet.

"Percival!" Gwaine yelled.

It was too late. Arthur twisted to evade the blade, and Merlin merely moved in the same direction, hurtling forward with his full weight behind the swing. Arthur sucked in a breath to brace himself – it would be fatal, there was no escaping that now – and turned into the blow so that Merlin would have to look him in the eye when he did it. So that Arthur could look at him. Not because Arthur wanted to punish him or leave him with the memory of Arthur's dying face, but because he knew that Merlin would regret this with every fiber of his being, assuming he got the chance to live with it. Arthur needed him to know that he didn't blame him. That he wouldn't hate Merlin for it, however short a time he had left for such things. Frantic to get it out while he could, Arthur grabbed the front of Merlin's surcoat and gasped, "I forgive you."

The blade struck, and lodged itself between two or three twisted links of chainmail covering Arthur's heart. Lodged there at the tip, where it stuck.

Arthur breathed like he'd sprinted the whole length of the kingdom, and Merlin stared him straight in the eye. They were both so startled that neither noticed Gwaine already swinging the hilt of his sword toward Merlin's temple. Arthur flinched hard as Merlin fell, the crack audible, and then gasped, eyes wide as saucers. "No!" He scrambled forward, eyes riveted on the blood trickling down the side of Merlin's slack face, but Percival managed to grab him again and haul him back, out of harm's way.

Arthur's limbs moved like lead, and he let Percival drag him on his knees in a circle to face the other direction. Caradoc and Ronhael started to reach for him in a panic and then stopped, staring. Arthur couldn't hear what they said – the beat of his heart in his ears overwhelmed everything else – but he could see the shock on their faces. Arthur gulped in air as he reached for the hilt of the dagger and pulled it free of the bent links of chainmail that it hadn't penetrated. Doesn't feel like me, Merlin had complained of two or three specific links before poking at them for a bit, there in the soft shadows behind Arthur's throne. Arthur remembered how it made his skin tingle where the nimbus of Merlin's absent magical tinkering bled through. Doesn't feel like me. Magical ward repair.

"Oh," Arthur exhaled, just short of a moan. "Is he dead?"

Caradoc glanced past Arthur's shoulder and then shook his head.

Arthur grabbed at the front of his own armor with the dagger still clasped in one shaking hand, and bent double over his folded thighs in relief. He could hear Gwaine making noises behind him, presumably into his fists to stifle himself, and then crunching footsteps carried him out of earshot. A moment later, Percival rose to his feet and followed, his steps quieter in contrast to his bulk. The dagger glittered at the edge of Arthur's sight, pressed close to his chest as it was. When he glanced to the left, he saw something he had never thought to see: Gwaine curled up on his knees on the ground in a haphazard pile of shining armor, staring sightless and unresponsive into the distance while Percival tried and failed to draw him back out of himself. Gwaine was never still. He never just stopped.

Arthur sat up and took several deep breaths as he scanned the full breadth of the cauldron. He never should have asked this of Gwaine; it was a cruel thing. Even when Gwaine alluded to being some kind of proper killer, unlike Arthur, Arthur had known it was a lie. And Gwaine was right: Arthur did need to learn to handle his own messes. He couldn't keep making monsters out of other men. He looked down and confronted the sight of the jeweled dagger clutched in his own hand. A magical blade from which a life had been stolen. Fitting, perhaps, that it should claim that life back. The old religion always did crave balance.

With a literal nod toward his own fortification, Arthur shifted to one knee and stood up. He thought he might pass out; he was taking in too much air, too fast. None of the druids had moved and that seemed, oddly enough, like support just then. A promise not to interfere. To let Arthur do what he must. Arthur raised wet eyes to Caradoc, and then to Ronhael, puffing his cheeks as he blew his air back out. Caradoc turned his face away. Ronhael did not.

Light-headed, Arthur turned around to confront the crumpled shape of his dearest friend lying spread out on the ground, his face turned to one side, blood smeared along his cheek and drying tacky in the curves and hollows of his ear. Arthur owed Merlin so much, least of all his life. And god help him, but Arthur loved this lanky frame of a man, like a rack of antlers dressed in repurposed clothes. He didn't want him to die. Arthur choked and gave up trying to swallow. There couldn't be any deliverances left by then; every odd thing that Merlin had done over the past months had been crafted to keep Arthur alive, and safe from him. Merlin had Sight, or some part of him did. He had known all along that it would come to this. How else could so many protections simply find Arthur when he needed them most? At some point, Arthur had to accept that every precaution Merlin took, every strange spell he cast and every object placed, meant something. That Merlin wanted Arthur to live, at any cost. As he always had. Arthur owed him the respect due for that, didn't he? He had to do this because it was the last thing that Merlin would ever ask of him, and Merlin had earned the right to make that demand.

"No."

The shove took Arthur entirely by surprise and he nearly tripped over his own feet as he staggered to the side.

Meliot followed him as he regained his balance and shoved again. "You don't get to dangle the golden age in front of us again and then give up, you wretched boy!"

Arthur dodged Meliot's next attempt to put hands on him, too shocked to be affronted, his head thick with residual horror as if his whole person were stuffed with cotton wool. "What?"

"I ruined my bloody life for the promise of you!" Meliot howled, spittle flying – Arthur felt it strike him but he didn't have the wits to be disgusted by it. "Why the hell do you think I'm still here? No one associates with me – no one wants me – I have nothing left, but I still stayed because they promised us you! I lost every chance I ever had at a normal life when I took part in an ambush to murder an ally, and for what? So that Uther bloody Pendragon could fuck his best friend's wife? No - so that he could make you, you sodding piece of shit! If I were a better man, I'd be dead. I dishonored my family, and my fathers, and my oath as a knight – for this. I lied and did your father's will for decades I can never have back, knowing it was wrong, knowing I would be damned for it, and watched that promise get ripped apart in front of me, and burned like the bloody witches on his pyres. And then you swagger in here, some pompous spawn of a tyrant, talking about it again. Tarnished old prophecies in the stairwell, spoken from his mouth - " He jabbed a finger toward Merlin's prone form. " - and you don't deny it. You - like a wretched cur, you give us hope again. The Once and Future King – everything we wanted – everything Uther stole from us – how dare you! How dare you say those things and then take them back again! You owe me what I was promised, you arrogant brat – you finish this!"

Startled, Arthur failed to avoid Meliot pushing him again and he stumbled backwards, over the rocks that Guinevere died on, over the places still stained black, even two years later, with the remnants of her dried blood. Arthur straightened and recognized something in Meliot's face that had eluded him the entire time he'd known the man. It was that same thing that Merlin used to wear as a shield in the years following Arthur's coronation: the ugly realization that nothing would change. That his hope meant nothing and his sacrifices were in vain. The growing resignation he was forced to gird himself with to survive the bitterness and disillusionment. All of those things that stole the joy from Merlin's expression, they were there on Meliot's face now – puckered like the backend of a cat, but worse. Decades older. Old enough to fester and make a hard, unforgiving, unlikable man out of someone who must have once been just as fresh and joyful as Merlin used to be.

Caradoc stepped up behind Meliot and touched his arm to stop him pursuing Arthur any further across the shore. It was obvious, then. Meliot was what happened when someone like Merlin gave up all the way. For good. Meliot was not Arthur's nemesis on the council, and he was not the lingering bastion of Uther's brutal legacy. He was just a tired, old, broken man who couldn't bear the risk of hoping one more time.

"Do something," Meliot commanded, no matter that he wasn't the one with any right to give orders. "You bloody well do something, or so help me, I don't care anymore. I'll put my blade in the right person this time and take back my hurts on you."

Arthur shook his head, at a loss.

His voice still hard and sharp, but etched with the hint of a plea, Meliot told him, "You need him. We all know it, even if we hate knowing that you rely on a peasant and not on us. Even if we don't trust magic anymore, and might never be able to again. It doesn't matter. He is good. He wants the same things we're still stupid enough to hope for, and he can deliver them. I saw it on Samhain. When I killed him, and you realized – I saw what you'd be without him, and it's no great king." Meliot swallowed and continued, his earnestness giving way again to fury and indignant disappointment as his voice rose toward shouting. "I want a great king. I deserve that. I've bloody well earned it, damn you! You said you wanted it too. You said you knew what it meant, and I believed you. So you have to think of something. Don't – "

When Meliot found himself unable to finish that, Caradoc looked at Arthur and offered, "We've come this far with you, sire. We knew it might be in vain." With palpable sorrow, he added, "You'll find no judgement here. If it's over, then let it be over. Do what you have to, sire. And then we'll take him home."

"No," Meliot hissed, angry only in that way that terrified barn cats pretended to be. "You fucking coward."

Caradoc tried to shush Meliot. "Don't make it harder for him."

Meliot snapped, "I'll make it as hard as I can if it stops him!" He shook with rage, but only briefly. "Dammit, that stupid boy was kind to me, all right? When no one else was. He didn't have to do that."

Arthur shut his eyes and felt the moisture on his cheeks slide down his cheeks. Of course, Merlin had to go and make even Meliot like him. It was just…it was so typically contrary to take his own would-be killer and make some kind of friend out of him. Arthur opened his eyes and looked down. He didn't know what to do. Arthur agreed with Meliot; he didn't want Merlin to die, but what else was left? Merlin wouldn't even approach the water, and eventually, he would manage to kill one of them. Probably Arthur, not that it made much difference which one – not to anyone but Merlin himself. In the end, by blade or other means, it would just be the death of them both. And Merlin had been clear that he didn't want that. Arthur took in a heavy breath and looked at him.

Merlin was just a supplication of limbs on the ground, all jumbled up and pointy, and bleeding, and Arthur was just…useless. He didn't have any special power to compel things to go his way. He took too long to see what he'd done, and too long to bring Merlin back here. Leaving aside the fact that if Arthur had just been a better man, then maybe none of this would have happened at all. Not Morgana turning on them, not Guinevere's fall – none of it. And Arthur wouldn't have become this feckless failure of a king with delusions of destiny and grandeur who could neither save nor kill his best friend – a fool in gleaming armor presiding over corpses in a court of listless, disappointed old men.

Up on the ridgeline, Aithusa let out a piercing shriek, and Arthur gazed up into the leaden sky as the great dragon soared overhead. In any other situation, at any other time, Arthur would have laughed at the sight of one giant claw dangling a petrified Byrdde over the water and then dropping her as the old dragon labored to stay aloft. A few druids glanced toward the waterline, but none of them moved to help her as she splashed her way to the surface and pretty much crawled out onto the shore. It must have been a harrowing journey; Arthur wondered if the great dragon asked permission to grab her before doing it. Given the way Merlin described him, Arthur figured not.

Precarious where he hung in the sky, the great dragon labored to an outcropping midway down the bowl of the canyon and dug its claws in to land. He seemed unsteady, and perhaps exhausted. Old, creaky joints could not have made that journey easy. "There," the dragon's voice boomed out over the cauldron. It flicked a pointed claw in Byrdde's direction, and Arthur saw her flinch though she was nowhere near it. "Your priestess." The dragon waggled its head and grinned through all of those massive teeth like a terrifying, scaled cat in cream. "Someone to summon the white goddess. As promised."

Arthur stared at the dragon until it squinted with suspicion, finally noticing the tension all around. It outright frowned when its glowing yellow eyes caught sight of all of the druids standing round like sentinels, and then began carefully backing away up the sloping side of the canyon, surprisingly quiet for such a large beast. Ignoring that for the moment, Arthur turned his gaze back to where Byrdde sat on the shore, wet and bedraggled with wide eyes as she ogled the dragon who had probably abducted her. She didn't look like she had any idea what was going on, and had perhaps been literally scared witless. Arthur glanced again at the retreating dragon, and then finally to Merlin sprawled motionless on the dry ground. Movement in Arthur's periphery betrayed Byrdde gaining her feet, surrounded by druids who seemed indifferent to her at best. She met Arthur's gaze, started toward Merlin, and then flinched from several druids standing nearby even though they hadn't done anything to impede her. That head voice thing, maybe. Any kind of shout could make an already twitchy woman jump like that. Even a pompous old bat like Byrdde.

Arthur felt his eyelids grow heavy as he breathed, and then he murmured to himself, "She's still up here." That was what Merlin – or maybe Myrddin – had told him on the path just that morning. She's watching you, Arthur Pendragon. She's been watching you the whole time. They all thought Merlin was talking about Aithusa. But Merlin himself never actually said that.

"Sire?" Ronhael said, breaking into his thoughts. He tipped his head toward Merlin and ignored the glares coming from Meliot, who continued to strain against Caradoc's grip on his arm. "If it's over, then you should do it before he wakes up. Don't let him see you killing him; he deserves some kind of peace at the end."

Meliot shook his head and pleaded, "Don't. Think of something. Be the king you promised." Low and resentful, he clarified, "His king. The one he thinks you are. If you even can."

Arthur belatedly followed Ronhael's prompt and looked at Merlin. He noticed when Ronhael turned his back to the proceedings, perhaps in some misguided attempt to spare Arthur the judgement or the scrutiny. Over by some boulders where a ridiculous man once put on the face of an old woman to protect himself needlessly from a fickle, naïve king, Percival stood guard with his eyes shut over his lost composure, and Gwaine held himself small on the ground in the larger man's shadow, his head hanging low.

Arthur looked at Byrdde again, strangely remote in his own mind, and remembered thinking – angry with indignation and insulted pride – that Merlin had truly loved Guinevere, as his friend and his queen. Arthur had thought it there in Geraint's shabby little home, surrounded by arrogant magic folk while this woman condescended to him about how he was too simple to understand the old religion. Telling him fantastic stories as if instructing a child on the dangers of the dark wood – dehumanizing fairy tales about an ignorant creature of a man making dead women into gods. And Arthur had thought to himself, clear as day in words he still recalled, though he never said them out loud: surely if Merlin could do such a thing, he would have done it for Guinevere.

She's still up here.

Air filled Arthur's chest without him noticing, and he cast a widening gaze out over the glittering, unbroken surface of the lake. What if he had? What if Merlin had done it for her?

"Sire?"

Arthur neither knew nor cared who had spoken. The breeze stirred cold and dry through the cauldron as he stumbled toward the still edge of the water. It was ridiculous, what he was thinking. But he couldn't help himself; he had hope, still. And Merlin… Merlin really might be made of everyday miracles. Things so small, they could go unnoticed. A glimpse of a face in the corner of Arthur's eye. The brush of a hand in an empty corridor. One single flower standing bright and alive in a dry, dusty vase, secreted away in a room that had been sealed for more than a year. A forget-me-not. Just one, to make a point. So easy to take as coincidence or chance. So easy to overlook. She's been watching you the whole time. And Arthur had seen her doing it. He had heard her voice.

"Sire," Caradoc prompted again, sharper this time.

Arthur ignored him and sucked in a tight breath. His voice still came out harrowing and small when he looked out over the water and called, "Guinevere?"

Over to one side, Meliot sagged with a defeated sigh and finally turned away.

Arthur could feel himself shaking, nearly as violent a trembling as what sometimes seized Merlin's limbs, but Arthur's was born of nothing more than a mute and indeterminate panic. "Guinevere!" Panic that he was right. Panic that he wasn't. But he was committed now. "Answer me. Guinevere, you know me – you know my voice. Answer me."

The nameless, faceless druids stood impassively in the background, searching the water with their gazes just as Arthur did, and then Gwaine appeared at Arthur's elbow. "Alright," he murmured, sympathetic and dejected in equal measures, even as his own composure failed to hold true. "It's alright; you can stop." He grasped Arthur's shoulder and tried to turn him from the water.

Arthur shook him off and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Guinevere!" His throat ached at the strength of the sound he forced through it. The rest of his knights shifted back with the dawning realization that Arthur had probably gone mad. The thought startled an hysterical snort from Arthur's nose, and then he laughed to cover the sob. Mad king Arthur and his mad sorcerer. It really did have a ring to it. "Guinevere?" She would laugh at it too, he thought. It was funny. "I have to tell you something. Guinevere!"

"Enough," Gwaine implored, latching onto him again. "Arthur, that's enough." His voice wobbled and tripped, but he persisted. "Come away, now."

Arthur shoved without looking until Gwaine left him alone, hardly aware of the sudden savagery that overtook him, and the wary manner in which everyone else decided to simply let him rave as they kept away. "Guinevere!" Arthur wailed. "I know you can hear me." Weaker, he begged, "Please be here." Gods, it hurt. Was this what Merlin endured all these years? This aching, treacherous, dangling hope? No wonder it had so nearly ruined him. "Guinevere?" Arthur prowled along the shoreline but nothing moved on the water, not even the wind, so he spun around to confront the rocks instead. "Guinevere! You have to be here – he loved you too." A few druids drew themselves taller and Arthur cried again, raw and torn, "Guinevere!"

Nothing in particular gave it away, except for the pregnant silence. Arthur gasped in a ragged breath and stopped shouting, only to hear how thick the quiet fell all around him. He straightened and exhaled through the suffocating tightness of his chest, hoping and dreading what he might see if he turned around. The atmosphere prickled goosebumps out of Arthur's skin, but he wasn't cold. It felt like the bare moment before lightning set the clouds ablaze. Air wheezed in Arthur's lungs, heavy with the taste of storms, and he fought to draw it in as he looked out over the water that streaked and swam in his vision. For a moment, he didn't think he would be able to look at the presence he could feel standing behind him. He wasn't that brave. But he had to be.

Arthur hadn't even turned all the way around before he sank to his knees, helpless beneath his own weight. She was radiant. Arthur's chest ached as he took in the sight of her draped in purple and cream as on the day he made her his queen. The light around her faded as he watched until he could see the detail of the lace and jewels of her dress, and the ornate filigree of the crown he had once placed on her head. A swell of voices crested in the background and then fell again into nothing. Arthur choked on his breath and kept his hands clenched against his stomach, too afraid of shattering the illusion to reach out and touch her.

"It's alright," Guinevere breathed, quiet and close, and just for him. A private smile crossed her lips, impish like stolen kisses in alcoves while the torches flickered in the corridor to hide their shadows. "You don't have to worry."

Arthur let out a sharp sob and then sniffed to hold back the urge to fall to pieces in front of her. "Guinevere…" Her name shivered on the breath of air he exhaled, fragile and fine. Arthur squeezed his eyes shut to blot out the blinding shine of her, and the pain of looking upon a face that had already begun to blur in his memory, fading with time. "I missed you. I missed you so much."

"I know," she whispered. "It's alright, Arthur."

Did it mean anything that she didn't say she had missed him back? But maybe she hadn't, if she had never really gone. Arthur sniffed hard and lifted his head in time to watch her pass by him with no sound of footfalls or rustling cloth. He twisted to keep her in sight, helpless and drawn like a moth to a bright thing. She might not have been walking, actually; he couldn't tell beyond the pale, unfocused edges of her if she even had feet beneath the illusion of her jeweled gown. Her shine was too bright to see detail. But the motion and his own sorrow at seeing the back of her was the same.

As Guinevere approached, Arthur's knights scrambled to give her a wide berth, running into each other in their haste to make way. All except Gwaine. He remained standing where Arthur had shoved him, blocking anyone from getting near Merlin. He didn't budge until Guinevere paused to look straight at him. After a brief staring contest, Gwaine's torso expanded with a breath of something poignant enough to show in the paleness of his face. He stepped aside to let her pass.

It was only when Guinevere reached down to brush Merlin's hair back from the bleeding gash at his temple that Arthur realized she wasn't just an apparition. She had substance. Merlin stirred at the touch and groaned as he blinked his eyes open only to immediately scrunch them closed against the light. A moment later he froze, presumably registering what he'd just seen, and then he scrambled to sit up, frantically pushing away from her on his hands. He smacked back into a boulder, breathing heavily, and then gusted out a disbelieving, "Gwen?"

Guinevere smiled like the sun. "Hello, Merlin."

For a moment, Merlin didn't react. And then he breathed, "Oh." He looked horrified, seeing something in her person that evidently, no one else could. "Oh…no…"

"Don't," Guinevere admonished gently.

Merlin shoved himself backwards once more, harder into the boulder behind him, palms scraping the ground as he pushed with his heels. He extended one hand, tentative, fingers trembling, but almost immediately drew it back again. Barely more than air, he exclaimed, "What have I done to you?"

"You saved me," Guinevere told him. Her own tone was apologetic, though, as if she were the one who had done wrong. "The only way you could."

"No," Merlin choked, shaking his head as he looked at her – at the different parts of her that to Arthur's dim vision merely resembled Guinevere the way she was. He almost wished that he could see whatever Merlin saw, but judging by the stricken expression on his face, perhaps it was a mercy that he could not. "No, I'm sorry," Merlin breathed. "I'm so sorry, you – "

"Don't be," Guinevere replied. "I'm glad you did it."

"How can you say that?" Merlin breathed. He kept looking at parts of her as if seeing something horrible or disgusting even though he clearly wasn't disgusted by her.

"Because it let me be here now." Guinevere smiled gentle, ethereal and pale with infused light. "So that I can return the favor."

Merlin shook his head and shrank away from her. "This wasn't supposed to happen," he insisted. "You shouldn't be here like this. If I'd done something sooner – "

"What could you have done?" Guinevere inquired, soft with compassion.

Merlin seemed confused that she even needed to ask. "I could have stopped her before she hurt you. Before she hurt anyone. If I had, you'd still be alive. Everything wouldn't be all wrong now."

Arthur's eyes closed of their own accord. Morgana. Merlin had tried to imply it before, that her deeds were his fault for letting her live as long as he had. That he tried before but either didn't or couldn't follow through, or that he passed up chances to end it sooner because he didn't want to be a murderer – not even of her. Especially not of her. Arthur often felt the same, actually. He had passed up chances to end it earlier too.

"It doesn't work like that," Guinevere said, drawing Arthur's gaze again.

"Doesn't it?" Merlin asked.

Guinevere shook her head. "No."

Merlin just shook his head, breath shuddering in his chest.

"It's time to end this, Merlin." Guinevere wavered in the wash of light that covered her. "You have to give it back."

For whatever reason, Merlin grinned like a spasm and snorted damp at the sky as he avoided confronting her demand. For one bare moment, he really did look mad. As if it should have been obvious, Merlin replied, "No."

"It's killing you."

"I know," Merlin said, smiling in fits and starts as he tried to hold that false cheer on his face. He gave up after a moment and let the exhaustion show before saying again, more genuine this time, "I know it is." Merlin nodded to himself more than to her in some kind of confirmation. His mouth wavered again in a sheepish attempt to smile. "Let me keep it?"

Guinevere merely remained there in preternatural stillness, waiting. Expectant.

When his words elicited no response, Merlin fidgeted and began picking at his knuckles. Without warning, he smiled wet and small, and then asked her in a tripping voice, "How can I go back there? You know what I've done, don't you?"

She nodded. "Yes. I know."

"Then…" Merlin made a gesture as if that summed everything up, and he didn't see the point in discussing it any further. He dropped his eyes back to his hands afterwards.

Guinevere leaned closer, blurred outlines and shine, until Merlin had no choice but to look at her. "And is this what you think Gaius would want?"

Reluctantly, Merlin shook his head. "But maybe it's what I want."

"It's not," Guinevere told him. As if he might not know. As if she were telling him the weather, or that the laundry girls were behind in their work, so that he could file it away for reference.

A shadow stole over Merlin's features and he looked up with only his eyes from under a dark brow to snarl, "How would you know what I want?"

Arthur shivered and felt for the sword he had discarded up on the road, finding nothing but an empty belt with extra holes in it cinched tight over his chainmail. He stepped closer to his fallen wife and his faltering friend, though he had no idea what he meant to do if Merlin attacked her. Would she even need his help?

"Alright." A secret mirth overtook Guinevere's features in direct opposition to the outrage tinging Merlin's. "You finally found me out." She leaned closer to Merlin to mock-whisper, "I'm psychic."

Merlin stared at her, face blank, and then without warning, his whole expression broke into a watery, disbelieving grin. Cheeky like secrets, and private little jokes that no one else knew, Merlin recited back, "No, you're not."

"It's true," Guinevere replied, smiling wide and innocent like younger versions of themselves. She sobered suddenly. "Merlin, you have to stop this."

Merlin's smile wobbled and sank.

"It's not me," Guinevere told him. "You know that, don't you? It's not me you're holding onto – it's no part of what I was."

As if he didn't register her words, Merlin reached up and tapped the pads of his fingers against her face, perhaps just to prove she was really there. "Gwen…"

"I don't want this," Guinevere whispered. "I don't want you to die for me. I never wanted that, Merlin. Don't make me carry it."

Merlin's gaze turned distant as he his eyes tracked the lazy movements of his fingers down over her dress, her sleeves, the bits of lace at her cuffs… "You were smiling."

Guinevere nodded. "Yes, I was."

Merlin nodded in return. "I was supposed to save you."

"No," she denied with the kind of sympathy that stopped hearts and drowned grown men. "You were never supposed to save me."

Merlin lifted his head, unsteady on his neck.

Guinevere reached out and wiped away a smear of blood right beneath Merlin's eye. "You, Merlin. You are magic. And as long as I lived, Arthur was never going to make himself look at you long enough to truly accept that. Not when I thought I had to stop him knowing. Not while I was turning his head, and making excuses, and swearing to myself that I would never hint at anything like it. That I would keep your secret safe from him forever. Something had to change before the promise of him passed for good, and it wasn't ever going to be me that gave him the chance to get here. He needed you for that. He needed to finally see you."

Merlin seemed to be slipping away from himself again, airy and vague like the simpleton he never was. Without acknowledging the bulk of her words, he said, "But you didn't have to go."

"Yes," Guinevere lamented. "Yes, I did."

"But why?" Merlin watched her, rent and pleading.

Guinevere drew closer as Merlin's face threatened to fall apart, but she didn't actually answer. "It's alright, Merlin. I don't blame you. Even I know you belong with him. And that's why you have to go back."

When she wouldn't say anything else, Merlin lowered his eyes again and sighed. "If I go back…" He didn't shake his head so much as fail to hold it steady. "If…" His fidgeting turned harsh and he made an odd sound in the back of his throat as he graduated to scratching viciously at his arms.

Guinevere reached out and plucked his hands off as if he possessed no strength at all. Like holding back the grabbing fingers of a child.

Merlin tugged to free his hands, a futile endeavor, and then blurted out, "It picked the wrong one of us. You're supposed to be here too."

"I am here," Guinevere replied, soothing in contrast to Merlin's agitated twitching.

"Not like this," Merlin argued, words drawn out like a low moan. "This isn't right." He started rocking where he sat and looked all around them at things that Arthur couldn't see. "I don't want to be this anymore. I don't want to do this. I just want to stop – I want to stop, Gwen."

Arthur ripped himself from his own uselessness and finally stood up. "That's the enchantment talking. It doesn't want to give you up. It will put anything in your head that it has to, if it keeps you out of the water."

"It's not the enchantment," Merlin countered. He pulled a hand free and grabbed for the hair just over his ear. He found the wooly hat there instead, and started at the feel of it.

"It is," Arthur argued. "Look at yourself – look Merlin. The scratching where it touched you – the voices in your head – that's the magic."

"I know it's the magic!" Merlin snapped back. "But it's not lying!"

Arthur stepped closer, breathing hard as if he were fighting in a tournament. Fighting for his life against a foe he couldn't see. "Yes, it is. Merlin – "

"Look what I did to her!"

Arthur stopped talking and let his breath run out, silent.

Merlin shook his head again, harder this time, definitive, and retracted the hand he had used to point at Guinevere sitting there crouched before him. "I made her that," he gasped, folding in on himself, one hand still caught in Guinevere's unrelenting grip even though his fingers poked from her grasp like sticks. "I did that. I can't be a person who does that. I can't."

What did he think he had made her? Because Arthur didn't know. She only looked like Guinevere to him. Strange, maybe, and luminescent, but the important parts of her seemed the same. In an effort to steer the conversation back where it needed to be, and perhaps because it was long overdue, Arthur asked him, "Then what kind of person do you want to be?"

With a voice like tin, Merlin told him, "I just want my life back. The one I had before all this. With you, and Gwen and Morgana, and Gaius, and – and all I had to worry about was chores, and running errands, and you weren't sad all the time, and no one ever looked at me, and I was happy." He curled into his own misery and whispered to himself, "I was happy."

It was cruel of Guinevere to say what she said next, but there probably wasn't any other way to respond to that. "You can never have that back, Merlin."

Desperate to salvage wreck surfacing on Merlin's face, Arthur told him, "But you can have something like it. You can start again. It won't be like it was, but you can be happy again. You're allowed to be happy." He shook his head and begged, "Please let us help you. Please, Merlin. I want to go home too, but I can't do that if you don't come with me. You belong in Camelot. It can't be home again without you."

Merlin ducked his face into his hands to hide the desperate gulps he used to cover his weeping. But something had changed about it. Something was giving way.

Arthur crept closer and fell painfully to one knee beside the ever-shifting outline of his late, beloved wife. "I won't leave you here alone," he told Merlin. "If you can't break free of this thing, then I'll go with you, wherever it takes you."

"You can't," Merlin breathed, lifted his face toward Arthur, cheeks shining with tracts of saline. "You weren't made for the dark."

"Neither were you." Arthur swallowed his desperation. "But you went there anyway. For Guinevere. For me." He reached out and straightened the wooly brim of the knit hat where it covered Merlin's brow. "You've done more for me – sacrificed more for me than any knight. They could all take lessons in humility from you. I could take lessons. You shame me, Merlin. And I'm glad you do."

Merlin laughed, but it was wet and only got worse when he said, as he had once before, "Don't you dare knight me."

Arthur grinned back in kind. "Then don't leave me. If you die, you can't stop me giving you as many titles as I feel like." His smile wavered and he tried to distract himself from it by smoothing out the front of Merlin's rumpled clothes. He traced the shapes of his sigils hidden beneath the fabric and pointed out, "You can't let me do that. You've nowhere to put more titles, remember? So, you'll have to come back and stop me or I'll just bury you in them." Arthur's fragile composure broke and he opened his mouth to inhale because his other airway was clogged. "Merlin… For god's sake, please."

Merlin looked up with a grimace to regard the water standing perfectly still behind Arthur. Thick with distrust even as he clearly fought it, Merlin asked him, "You…you promise it's not a pyre?"

"Not a pyre?" Arthur shook his head, bewildered as he took angry swipes at the water running unimpeded down his cheeks. "What? No – it's a lake. It's a lake, Merlin. Can't you…" He trailed off with his arm stretched out to point at the water. "Can't you see it?"

Merlin lifted his chin and peered down toward the shore, perhaps searching for the glittering water right in front of him. After a moment, the clarity in his eyes dimmed again and he shook his head. "No," he breathed, falling back into himself. "No, it's… I don't believe you."

Arthur blinked at him in disbelief, just once. And then before he could think better of it, Arthur lifted the magical dagger still gripped tight and inexorable in one hand, and used it to saw through the leather straps of his armor.

Startled by the violence of the act, Merlin asked, "What are you doing?"

Arthur didn't answer as he continued divesting himself of the trappings of war – stripped himself of his armor and peeled back his veneer of protective chainmail to expose the vulnerable places beneath.

"Arthur?"

Once all of the hardened barriers to his flesh were gone, Arthur wrenched at the ties of his gambeson and parted the thick padded fabric to bare his chest. "You're right," Arthur told him, shaky and faint. "What you are frightens me. You're a complication I never asked for. There are times when I wish you didn't have magic, and that you weren't whatever you are, and that I didn't have to find a way to deal with it or understand it, or learn to accept it, or change, or make this kingdom change with me. I keep accusing you of not trusting me anymore, but it's me. I'm the one who stopped trusting. I talk around it, and I deflect, and I go through the motions, but ever since I found out what you really are, there is a part of me that looks at you and only sees the sorcerer I don't know." Arthur seized Merlin's hand before he could draw back and forced his fingers around the ornate hilt of the dagger. "But I do know you. I do. I know all of you, even that part." He twisted Merlin's fist around and touched the point of the dagger to his own chest, over his heart where Merlin's chainmail wards didn't protect him anymore. "You are Merlin. You are my servant and my friend, and I claimed you as kin for a reason, and I know the lengths you'll go to for me. I know I can trust you." He removed his hands, spreading his arms wide, and left the dagger where it was, gripped tight in Merlin's fist, the sharp point digging shallowly into the surface of his flesh. "So I will. I will choose to trust every part of you, even the enchanted one, even though it scares the life out of me to think what it might mean to give you that power. And maybe if you see that – if I can prove it well enough, and mean it – then maybe you can finally trust me back. All of me. For real. Because I want to go home, and I want you to come with me, and that can't happen if you don't trust what I'm telling you now. There is no fire, Merlin. There's only water."

Merlin swallowed hard, his throat bobbing beneath the slack lines of his jaw, and the wide-open saucers of his eyes. He was shaking, a subtle inability to hold still, and though he likely didn't realize it, his face – his eyes, fixed on Arthur – gave away so much. But he didn't speak.

"And if you can't," Arthur allowed, fighting the unsteadiness of his voice. "If you can't trust me anymore, if I've lost that right, then I understand that too. I accept it. And I won't try to stop you protecting yourself from me because if you can't trust me, then you have to. You have to protect yourself. I want you to protect yourself so that I can never hurt you like this again."

Merlin bit the inside of his cheek, agitated, and his nostrils flared as he exhaled through his nose, finally breaking eye contact for a moment so that he could look at the blade in his hand. He seemed on the verge of tears, but there was nothing simple about the perilous thing curling at the edges of his expression – cutting lines in his face as he trembled and watched his own fingers shake. Eons passed in limbo, and Arthur wondered if this would be his hell someday, kneeling in a single moment forever while he waited for his own personal Damocles sword to fall. Watching someone he loved never decide that he was worthy after all.

With a sharp gasp, Merlin pulled back and dropped the dagger. "I'll go. I'll go in the water."

Arthur closed his eyes as his arms fell, his muscles fatigued from holding them aloft so long.

"But I can't call her," Merlin choked, thick around the phlegm lodged in his throat.

Arthur reached forward and grabbed at Merlin's hand – not for any reason except to feel it – before craning his neck to look for Byrdde. His scalp prickled as he noticed that Guinevere wasn't there next to him anymore, even though he would swear that she hadn't actually moved. She hovered now at the water's edge, luminescence gradually overtaking the familiar, beloved shape of her. Byrdde stood next to her, closer to her than anyone else. It probably wasn't even all that strange to a woman who once opened her mouth to play conduit to a goddess. Byrdde nodded when Arthur's gaze found her, though she seemed frail standing beside the ethereal shapelessness of Arthur's wife. Wan and washed out. But Guinevere had done that all her life, really. To Arthur, every woman beside her paled.

Arthur faced Merlin again. "We'll handle the summoning. All you have to do it get to the water."

Merlin stared forward, his expression naked and raw. He was a literal mess. Blood and grime streaked his face, run through with shining tracts of salt. His hair might need more than just a comb to fix, and his clothes were filthy. He smelled just as an exhausted man should after days on horseback, riding hard with little rest and no chance to wash. And Arthur loved him for it, because he knew that look on Merlin's face. He knew that stubborn set to his mouth when he saw it.

Merlin stumbled once in a bid to gain his feet, and then couldn't. Arthur reached for him while at the same time, all of his knights converged to do the same. They pulled Merlin from the dusty ground, a dozen determined hands making light work of it, and set him up on unsteady legs. When he waivered there, they kept their hands on him long enough to be certain that he wouldn't just fall again before letting their fingers slip away. Then they all cleared a path and moved back, Arthur included.

Hesitant, Merlin looked at Arthur again. "I can't… I can't see it."

Arthur swallowed his shallow breath. "You can see me, right?"

Merlin nodded, but he didn't seem all that sure of himself.

"Then look at me." Arthur lifted his hand and sketched a line just beyond the edge of his own outline, in that perimeter place that Merlin's eyes had so often travelled, as if tracing a nimbus of light. "Right here. You see?"

Merlin's gaze followed the path of Arthur's fingers and he drew himself straighter as he looked. His eyes finally focused directly on something, even if it wasn't something that Arthur himself could see. It was only a tiny thing, the softening of Merlin's features. But it was there. His upper body swayed toward Arthur as if helpless to resist being drawn to him, and his voice wavered and cracked when he exclaimed, "Arthur."

A fresh wash of tears sprang unbidden to Arthur's eyes. Merlin said his name like discovering a forgotten treasure at the back of an old cupboard, delighted to find him there. Bright and pleased. "I certainly hope so," Arthur replied, voice breaking. "On me, now."

Merlin started to glance aside, features threatening to pinch closed again.

"Don't look at it," Arthur enjoined, desperate. "It's not real."

"But I can feel the heat." Merlin touched fingers to the empty air nearby and added, "I can smell it. Like a… Did you know that people on fire smell like a pork roast?"

Arthur stepped forward and framed Merlin's face in his hands without actually touching him. He didn't want to break this moment for fear that Merlin might break away again with it. "There is no fire. I would never burn you. Remember? I swore it. A dozen knights swore it. Gwaine would never allow it – there are druids here – druids with powerful magic who would also never allow it. It's an illusion. It's the Tiene Diaga. It is not real. Trust me like I trusted you, and follow me. I'll lead you to the water."

Merlin swallowed and seemed to be fighting the urge to look at whatever he thought was there beside them. Finally, he nodded.

Arthur gusted out a breath of relief and stepped backwards. "I'll go first, so you can see. None of it's real. Just keep your eyes on me."

When Merlin finally started moving, it was painful to watch. He shuffled forward with his gaze fixed on Arthur's, visibly shaking. After a few steps, Arthur noticed him start to flinch from things only he could see in his periphery, and Arthur wondered what on earth they were doing or saying to him to put that watery look on his face, and make him fight to retain at least some modicum of composure as he forced himself in fits and starts to keep stumbling toward Arthur's spread hands. Eventually, something made Merlin jump and scuttle to one side, tearing their gazes apart.

"Merlin, on me!"

Merlin tripped over his own feet and fell hard without catching himself, but he looked immediately at Arthur again from the ground, eyes like saucers as he scrambled to find the sight of him.

Actual people moved around them, and Arthur shouted, urgent, "No! Nobody touch him!" They were too close to the waterline; it could look like force. It might actually end up being innocent, well-meant force. "Stay back. All of you, stay back! He has to go in of his own volition."

It looked as if Merlin's own limbs fought him, or perhaps sought to control him. Take him back over, and walk him away. Drown him in his own head. Use his memories and his fears and his regrets as weapons, and tear him out of himself before rising up to break them all. There was an unmistakable tang on the air now, and Arthur knew the danger if Merlin was calling his magic, or if something else inside of him was. Arthur couldn't afford to acknowledge it now. He had to trust Merlin to control it, and hold it down.

"Keep going, Merlin." Arthur glanced over his shoulder and then back. "You can do this."

Merlin bent his head briefly, touching his brow to the ground and cried, "It will burn me!"

"No, it won't," Arthur shouted back. "There is no fire. I swear, you will not burn."

With a frustrated, agonized growl, Merlin lifted his head, dug his fingers into the dirt like claws, and pulled himself forward. Arthur bent his hands into fists, fingernails digging into his palms to remind himself not to do what he wanted to do so badly, and help Merlin back up. Drag him forward and get it over with. Take the burden of saving him on himself. But Arthur did that once before, and it would be the end of Merlin if he did it again. A fitting punishment, then, for his inadvertent mistakes, that he be forced to stand idle and watch Merlin crawl across the sharp ground on his hands and knees to reach the salvation he wouldn't have needed, had it not been for Arthur.

Arthur stayed there in front of him the whole way, backing down toward the water inches at a time while Merlin labored to follow him and bloodied his hands on the rocks. It actually took Arthur aback when he felt moisture seeping into his boots, and looked down to find the lake lapping at his ankles. Mere slivers of effort away, Merlin collapsed on the ground and heaved in great, rattling breaths, covered in sweat and crying with exertion. At least it wasn't despair anymore. Merlin snarled viciously into the sharp chips of ground-up shale rock, and slithered another foot forward on his belly before his strength seemed to give out. He curled in one last effort to get just a little bit closer. Every exhalation stirred up a tiny cloud of dust and eventually, Merlin inhaled that too and started coughing in an effort no to gag on it. No part of him strayed from dry land.

Arthur looked up at the collection of mismatched faces that had gathered closer while Merlin eclipsed his attention. There were druids everywhere, a whole crowd of them scattered in an irregular pattern across the shoreline, watching with no evident intention of interfering. When Arthur made a questioning gesture at Byrdde, she shook her head, so Arthur looked for Guinevere instead, but she was gone. Right, then. Arthur fell to his knees in the water and lowered his face as far as he could without drowning himself so that he could look Merlin in the eyes. "Get up, Merlin. Reach for me."

Merlin let out something like a whimper and closed his eyes. This close, Arthur could see how his limbs shivered and twitched with fatigue, the strength of his muscles depleted by a struggle that didn't show on the skin. The air stirred and a static swell of magic seemed to dissipate, unformed.

Thin and pitched higher with desperation, Arthur repeated, "Get up. You're right here. One more push and you can touch the water. Come on. Don't be such a girl's petticoat."

With his eyes still closed, Merlin emitted an exhausted chuckle, the fronts of his teeth peeking out with his smile. "Prat," he breathed. He sighed heavily afterwards and stayed where he was.

Arthur only noticed his answering grin when it fled. "Merlin?" No answer. "No – don't you dare fall asleep! Merlin!" Arthur scrabbled forward and hit him. "Merlin! Wake up, you twat!" He wrenched at Merlin's surcoat and dragged him over onto his back on the pebbled ground. "Don't – don't – " Arthur heard his voice growing in volume as if it belonged to someone else. "You don't do this!" he howled, sundered words that tore echoes out from across the water. "Merlin!"

A faint wrinkle creased Merlin's forehead.

"Yes," Arthur gasped. "Yes – wake up. Wake up!" He shook Merlin as hard as he dared and kept chanting wake up in his face until Merlin finally shifted and dragged himself into a curl of limbs toward Arthur, seeking, reaching for him – a precarious comma of a man folded over on the shore.

"Yfel gaest, ga thu fram thisselichaman."

Arthur's gaze shot up and across the waterline to where Byrdde had raised her hands to begin the incantation. Then he looked down again, following the line of Merlin's arm where he had reached around Arthur to dip his fingers in the water.

"Bith hire mod eft freo."

"Ha!" Arthur shouted, ecstatic, and then started laughing uncontrollably, which meant it probably wasn't actually laughter. He didn't care.

"Ar ond heofonutungol sceal thurhswithan!"

Light exploded out over the water, blinding, Everyone caught in its nimbus cringed and shielded their eyes. Arthur squinted down as Merlin arced like a bolt had struck him. A terrible shrieking rose on the wind and somehow, the luminescence drowned it out, as if the light were a thing perceived by the ears, and not by the eyes. Threads of writhing magic, blacker than the night sky, twisted from Merlin's body, exposed clearly now for all to see as they screamed like banshees and burned. Long threads and grotesque ropes of oily, binding magic – of hate and putrefaction – wound out from Merlin's skin – from his nostrils and his mouth, and the spaces under his fingernails. They tore their way from him, expelled by a force more powerful than fear or illusion or hate, and died, disintegrating until even the dust of them was gone. Arthur's knights were all screaming with their hands over their ears, their voices less than a buzz running beneath the overwhelming din of the light and the magic. Farther up the bowl of the cauldron where she had run to escape to fray, Byrdde collapsed into a ball on the ground and covered her head with her arms. Arthur's ears popped and his eyes watered from more than just emotion. He cradled Merlin's head against the ground when his limbs jerked and the magic tried to pull him with it as it left before every last remaining thread finally snapped. The wind gusted past them in a violent swirl, carrying the scent of lightning with it, and then everything faded out.

The first thing Arthur heard was his own breath rasping in his ears. The entire canyon seemed dim – twilight compared to the light of the goddess that had presumably returned to the water. Arthur swallowed, but his ears remained clogged. He could hear little more than a high-pitched whine overlaying the cacophony and chaos on the shore. The great dragon had descended all of the way down into the bowl of the cauldron, and for one heart-stopping moment, Arthur flashed straight back to the day Guinevere died, convinced it was happening again. That the crippled white dragon was falling out of the sky, and Morgana was here to rip apart everything Arthur still loved. Arthur's heart raced out of control in his chest, sharp with a sudden pain. He could taste magic thick as soup on his tongue – everywhere – and the smell of blood like a copper bowl too close to a fire –

"It's alright, Arthur."

Guinevere.

Arthur raised his head and grimaced through the agony in his chest as he looked at her. Threads of blackened magic climbed her incorporeal limbs and spun like vines around her core.

"It will be alright. It's over now."

"Guinevere." Arthur sagged on the ground and watched her smile at him even as whatever remained of her choked on the thing that Morgana once put inside of her. On the hurt she took back where it belonged. "Oh, god, no."

Merlin stirred and let out a weak groan as he wobbled into a sitting position and then fell against Arthur's chest when he couldn't manage to hold himself up. Arthur latched onto him like a vice and felt him stiffen as he noticed what stood on the shore with them. "No." Merlin erupted in a flurry of limbs, but he didn't have the strength left to make a good fight of it. Arthur easily held him down. "No!" Merlin yelled. "I took it out of you – give it back!"

Guinevere's smile softened as she regarded them both. "You were never supposed to carry it from me, Merlin." Her outlines wavered and dimmed beneath the onslaught. "It never belonged to you."

"Let go!" Merlin howled, clawing at Arthur's hands. "It can still kill her – Arthur, it can still destroy her! Let me go!"

Arthur held on with all of the faltering conviction of a man who didn't have anything else to hold, and watched the darkness continue to consume his wife. "I love you," he cried out to her, helpless. He didn't know what else to say, except the truth. "I will always love you."

Unable to get loose, Merlin grabbed Arthur's hands and sobbed, "Guinevere, no!"

"I love you too, Arthur," Guinevere said, lifting her chin even as the definition of her features faded and shadowed over like a blot of ink. "Both of you. With all my heart."

The flash had substance. Arthur felt it lift them and roll them back across the ground as if something had exploded in front of them. Spots swam across his vision as Arthur curled around the places he knew would surely bruise. Water rained down in buckets, and Arthur struggled to find his bearings again, drenched. He felt around until his fingers skated over the fancy stitching that ran down the front of Merlin's damp, filthy surcoat, and they helped each other sit up.

Arthur gaped at the shrunken lake and the shards of pulverized rock raining back down with the missing water, pelting anyone who had not already fled. Unable to figure out if he were awestruck or horrified, Arthur breathed, "What did you do?"

Merlin shook his head, panting hard. "I didn't do this."

Arthur twisted around to better view the smooth ground, swept free of boulders, and the now unbroken bowl of the cauldron curving wide around the gradually refilling lake. Somehow, though all other obstacles had been pulverized and reduced to rubble, dozens of sentinel flag staffs remained, their tattered rags and ribbons just then falling still as the unnatural rain fell and the wind died out. He saw his knights picking themselves up off the ground, taking stock of themselves and each other as they picked rock chips and clumps of mud from their hair. Ever the gentleman, Percival helped Byrdde totter upright to stand stunned amidst the wreckage of a sacred place. While Percival checked her over unobtrusively for injury, she glanced to her left, noticed one of the flag staffs perched there, and paled.

Arthur spun in the other direction to find the great dragon huddled far away now with Aithusa atop the ridge, out of harm's way, and then asked, "Where are the druids?"

With a strange look, Merlin asked, "What druids?"

"What do you mean, what druids?" Arthur snapped back. "The druids that were – " He cut himself off and looked again at the scene around them. At the flag staffs dressed in rags of ancient clothing, still standing when everything else had been knocked down.

Merlin shook his head. "Arthur? What is it?"

Arthur felt himself pale as he recalled the dragon's reaction to the colorless people standing all around, and the way that Byrdde flinched from them when they didn't move, and Merlin saying, This is a dying place. But Arthur had seen Alator and Finna here too, and none of their clothes could have possibly adorned these ancient sentinel stands. "It wasn't just Marwen."

"What wasn't?" Merlin asked. "What's wrong? Are you injured?"

Arthur looked at Merlin standing worried beside him, caught in the last moment he might ever have of blissful unremembrance. "In the forest after you fought with your mother. It wasn't just Marwen. It was all of them. When they followed you, trying to help you. That was why you got rid of the Sidhe staff. It wasn't just one accident. It was all of them. None of them survived."

Uncomprehending, Merlin started to shake his head, but then his eyes unfocused. His face gradually fell as the full impact of the entire ordeal evidently hit him at once, now that the mandrake curse was gone and he could remember it clearly. Barely breathing now, Merlin looked out over the torn landscape without seeming to see it and then sucked in a sharp breath.

Without waiting for Merlin to voice that thought, whatever it was, Arthur yanked him in and squeezed too hard for it to be called an embrace. A terrible, low moan made its way past Merlin's lips. "I – "

Arthur dragged him closer and felt Merlin's arms come around him in return, though only so that he could press his fingers to his mouth where Arthur had pressed it into the crook of his neck.

"Oh, gods, I killed them," Merlin keened with realization, voice hollow. "I killed Marwen. And – "

"It wasn't really you," Arthur assured him, voice choppy but firm through the shrinking space in his throat.

"All of them, and… Gaius," Merlin choked, soft and whisper-thin. He shook in Arthur's arms. "I murdered Gaius. I – "

"It wasn't you," Arthur insisted again. "It was the magic. They all knew that – Gaius knew that. It just looked like you."

A sheer, wet sound crested and broke against Arthur's skin as Merlin fell apart in his grasp. Arthur held him there – cradled all of his myriad pieces so that they wouldn't get lost – and let him cry. Eventually, Gwaine wandered up from wherever he had run or been thrown, and collapsed at Merlin's back, bedraggled and covered in muck. At his longing look, Arthur peeled just enough fingers free of Merlin's person to gesture him in, and Gwaine immediately plastered himself against Merlin's spine, everything about him screaming solace as he imitated a bookend to sandwich Merlin safe and secure between them. At some point, Gwaine's fingers migrated to include some part of Arthur in that grip, and the last bits of Arthur's own composure crumbled. He reached back, tangles of arms and rough fists, and then lifted his face long enough to glance at the receded waters.

Some part of him expected her to be there, watching. By some miracle, some part of him thought that she had to be, and he would see her just as he'd seen her so many times before, since she died. Shining in a mirage, or moving in the corner of his eye. Elusive and faint, and streaked by the wet of his own eyes, but smiling at him – she always smiled at him.

A wet cough startled its way from Arthur's throat and he clung to whatever parts of his friends he could reach as he closed his eyes and wept. She wasn't there. She wasn't there anymore, but they were. Merlin was. That was her parting gift to him – a precious thing given from the fulness of her own heart. The beloved friend she entrusted back to him. Arthur curled his fingers into the thick cloth covering Merlin's back, his knuckles pressed into knobby vertebrae that stuck out farther than Arthur liked. It was enough – this beautiful, ridiculous, magical man willing to rend himself apart for Arthur's sake. It was enough that Arthur could take him home alive from this place – not wrapped in linen and tied with cord, broken in his hands. And she gave him that. Guinevere. She stepped into the darkness with all her heart, and let them both go. It would have to be enough.

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~TBC (epilogue)~

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Notes:

Ronhael paraphrases from 1 Peter in the bible.

The rabbit foot reference is from S1E13 Le Morte D'Arthur. Gaius gave it to Merlin for good luck as he left to find a way to save Arthur from the questing beast. The night after he returned, after giving the water of life to Arthur, Merlin fell asleep holding the rabbit foot, and the death that was due passed him by. In my head canon, that's why the balance took his mother instead of him.

Some Merlin/Guinevere dialogue purposefully mirrored from S1E3 The Mark of Nimueh.