"Knock knock," a voice called, and Merlin looked up from where he'd been mincing herbs.
"Gwen!" Her smiling face appeared in the doorway over a tray laden with bowls. "You do know you're not a servant anymore?"
"I just brought these for Gaius," she announced cheerily. "There's some broth from the kitchens. I know he can't really eat solid foods anymore, but I thought maybe the cheese would be okay. He used to like this kind, and—"
"Thank you," Merlin said, and wrapped her in a hug.
"How are you doing?" Guinevere murmured, but when she pulled back Merlin frowned. Her eyes were skirting from his, almost guiltily.
"Gwen, is everything okay?"
"Yeah." She shrugged, but the casualness didn't quite reach her face. "Just worried for Gaius. And for you. Arthur says you haven't been sleeping."
"Bad dreams," Merlin murmured. Gwen had hesitated when she said her husband's name, and the guilty look was back.
They chatted for a little while before Gwen excused herself and left. She kept her pace unhurried until she was back into her own chambers (she, too, had learned of Merlin's catlike hearing), but the moment the door closed, she sagged against the wall and began to sob.
There was no reason for it, not really; Arthur had told her everything would be fine, and of course she trusted him, but she had a terrible feeling anyways. She knew about his secret meetings with Gaius and the strange Druid. He said it was the only way to keep Camelot safe from Morgana, and it probably was, but all the same Gwen couldn't help but picture how upset Merlin would be if he found out. Every time she brought this up to Arthur, he tried to justify it by reminding her that Merlin had kept his magic a secret for years. Still, it was plain to a wife's trained eye that he didn't feel comfortable with the plan, either. She had been so tempted to just tell Merlin the truth when she saw him but it was too late. Arthur would not be swayed.
"Merlin won't kill Morgana, or her dragon," he had told her one night, turned over in the dark. "He can't. So we have to do it for him."
"Arthur, you're my husband, and I love you." She spoke to the outline of his back, pale against the crimson quilt. "But as your wife, I'm telling you that this feels wrong."
"And as your king, I'm telling you that the deaths of hundreds of my people would be a lot more wrong." His voice had grown hard and, seeming to realize this, he sighed and tried again. "I have to do something, Gwen."
She didn't say anything after that.
The Druid had come like a godsend.
Arthur had just received reports of another patrol found scorched beyond recognition, and barely minutes later, a second herald approached him.
"If it's more bad news, Lionel, really, I don't—"
"A Druid to see you, sire. Likmus, of the White Mountains." Arthur hesitated, about to ask if the meeting could be rescheduled, when the herald spoke again. "He says he knows how to stop the dragon."
The Druid was tall, reedy, with a thin face and dark eyes half-hidden behind a greasy curtain of hair. He wore all sheepskin, black save for a muff of white about his neck—still dressed for the mountains, Arthur wagered, and yet he didn't seem bothered in the slightest by the warmer air of Camelot.
"Likmus, son of Andros, at your service, King Arthur." He performed a strange little curtsy, his knees almost brushing the floor. "I offer my most sincere condolences for your men. I… saw the massacre." His head was bowed.
"I'm sorry?"
"I had seen the white dragon before, setting fire to villages unprotected by your great kingdom." He blinked rapidly, and there was a terrible pain in his gaze. Arthur was suddenly struck with an image—the man standing before him, watching from a mountaintop as his own people burned. "My good King, I was on my way here, to offer my assistance in any way that I could. But as I was passing through the Darkling Woods, I… I saw your men, sire. I was too late. The dragon took to the air before I could reach them."
"It's not your fault." Arthur leaned forward. "You would have been killed, the same as my knights."
"Perhaps," Likmus said. "But perhaps not." He strode towards where the king sat on his throne. Several knights started towards him, hands on the hilts of their swords, but Arthur stopped them with a gesture. "My lord, am I incorrect in assuming that the Lady Morgana is behind these attacks, in part?"
"How—"
"Word spreads quickly among the Druids, sire."
"It's true," Arthur sighed, clenching his jaw slightly and settling back in his seat.
"I would then venture to guess that killing the dragon would not solve the threat to Camelot."
"You would be correct in your venture, Likmus."
"What if I told you that you had the means to capture both dragon and mistress, already at your disposal?" The Druid sunk to his knees, by now almost at the foot of the royal throne.
"You?"
"Me, sire, and something which I suspect you've had far longer than you know."
"Beg pardon?"
"There's a Druid legend, sire, of a book which taught men to hunt and kill dragons in a time when they reigned over the villagers with claw and fire. It was called the Drahmkonos Thanikidos. It is widely held among my people that the late King Uther kept it in his vaults rather than burning it because of his hatred and fear of dragons."
"I've never heard of such a book," Arthur had said, but he was already trying to remember the contents of the chambers. They were full of odd artifacts, and it wasn't entirely difficult to imagine a book nestled in their depths.
"It would be bound in dragonskin, sire," Likmus looked up at him. His eyes were a very deep, very dark blue.