Accolon's breathing was much improved by morning, and Merlin felt confident that they had magically removed all of the shards of metal from his lung. By afternoon, Accolon had regained consciousness and taken in a little broth spoon-fed by Morgana, before she put him back to sleep magically to control his pain.
Merlin still hadn't discussed the counter-spell with Morgana, and she'd been too busy for them to talk about it anyway. Instead, he directed Kara to begin working on the potion under Alice's supervision. He needed to tell Morgana, he knew, but he needed time to process it first himself so he could support her in this decision. He decided he could use support himself from his friends.
Merlin went in to speak with Arthur first, and found Gwen already inside his chambers.
"I'll leave you two to talk," Gwen offered.
"No, Gwen, please stay," Merlin said, running a hand through his unkempt hair. "I needed to let you know that Morgana and I will be calling off the wedding. I thought you should hear why from me."
"Merlin, what on earth are you on about?" Arthur rolled his eyes. "If this is about the impending war, we still have at least a month until conflict reaches Camelot. There is no reason why we shouldn't have…"
"That's not it. It's Accolon." Merlin explained about the enchantment, and how the only way to break it was to bind him with a former lover. The only one they knew of was Morgana.
"Oh Merlin, no!" Gwen exclaimed, putting an arm around him. "This is too much to ask."
"It's the only way. If Gaul is not with us, you and Morgana both will die on the battlefield. Arthur, you don't see how she wakes up in the mornings sobbing from her visions, how she has to relive your death and hers over and over again. If we have a strong ally like Accolon, then maybe we stand a chance and Camelot won't fall. Maybe you'll live. Maybe Morgana will live. And if that means I have to lose her to Accolon, I…" his voice broke and he shook his head, fighting back tears. "I love her enough to let her go."
Arthur sighed, and pulled him in for a hug. "You're a good man, Merlin. The best of men, really."
Merlin sniffed and wiped his face with his sleeves as he pulled away. "I haven't told Morgana yet. But there isn't another option. She'll do it because it's her duty. She'll make a fine Queen of Gaul."
Arthur's face hardened. "Dark magic, aside, I'm still king, Merlin, and she's still my sister. Accolon will not wed my sister, I refuse to allow it. She's been promised to you."
"I won't force her to marry me if she no longer loves me. Even if the reason for that is dark sorcery. I love her enough to want her to, not just live, but be happy," Merlin said. "I just wanted you to hear it from me, to know… I'll be okay." He left the room looking the most defeated Arthur had ever seen him. He was definitely not okay.
"Oh, Arthur, there must be some other way," Gwen lamented. "You don't know how long Morgana has loved him."
Arthur put his arms around her, holding her close. "What are we supposed to do? How can we possibly overcome dark magic?"
Gwen sighed. "We need to have faith in Morgana and Merlin, that they will find a way through this. That love cannot so easily be forgotten."
. . .
Leaving Accolon in Alice's care, Merlin took Morgana back to her chambers to tell her the news about the counter-spell.
"That's ridiculous, Merlin," she said, stubbornly. "If the spell will rekindle the feelings Accolon and I had for each other, then all it will have is the effect of an aphrodisiac. If I start having magic-induced sex dreams about Accolon, you'll be the beneficiary when I wake. He'll be in Gaul, hardly a threat to our marriage."
"Aglain didn't describe it that way. He said it would bind you together."
"Well, we've certainly been 'bound' before, and we got over it," she rolled her eyes. "Merlin, you're being dramatic. No stupid spell is going to erase my love for you, my desire to marry you. Have you so little faith in me?"
He took her hand and kissed it. "In you, I have all the faith in the world. In your sister's twisted magic, I have none. Your sister's magic infected your mind and made you want to kill your brother to take his crown. If it can do that, it can convince you that you love Accolon and not me."
She gave him a dour look. "It doesn't really take much for me to want to kill Arthur." She sighed. "Even if you're right, we could just try the counter-spell a second time. You would then be my former lover, and the magic should bind us together."
"I'm sure we could try that, yes," he said, patiently.
"You don't think that will work. Why?" she asked.
He sighed, pulling out a scrap of parchment to show her. "That's what I'd hoped for as well based on what Leon initially said, but the words of the potion's incantation say otherwise. You'll be bound to him as his one true love and he as yours. There's no undoing it once it's done, and it can't be redirected again."
She read the words and crumpled it up, throwing it to the floor. "What happens to the enchantment if I rip Evaine's head off her shoulders?" she shouted in anger.
"Accolon's madness will still continue, and he'll be the downfall of us all," he answered her, sitting on the bed watching her pace around the room agitated.
She suddenly shot a blast of magic across the room, smashing her vanity to pieces. He flinched but said nothing.
"I'm not sure which is worse, to lose myself to black magic, or for you to watch it happen," she said with an eerie calm, despite a desperate look in her eyes.
"I suppose if I didn't understand Accolon's pain yesterday, I do today," he said with a sad smile.
"Oh Merlin," she said, kneeling on the ground in front of him and burying her head in his lap. "What am I to do? If it were only to save my own life, I would spend these next precious weeks as your wife and to hell with Accolon."
"If it were only to save your life, I would have let you perform the counter-spell without knowing what you were sacrificing," he said, wryly.
She laughed bitterly. "I can't blame you for that, I would do the same to save your life."
"But it's not so simple. It isn't just about us, or our lives. We have a duty," he reminded her of their previous conversation.
"We have a duty," she said, in a hollow voice, looking up at him. "When do we need to perform this duty?"
"Alice is keeping Accolon sedated through today, that should give him enough time to rest and she is working on the remaining healing spells. Tomorrow, or else his guards will begin to suspect."
She nodded.
"I told Arthur and Gwen already, so we can have this time to ourselves, no one's expecting us."
"If this is our last night together," Morgana said, finally. "Then I don't want to waste it feeling sorry for ourselves."
He held out his hand to her and she rose from the floor. He pulled two rings from his pocket.
"I thought we could do this tonight. Say our vows, with our rings. Just us," he said, softly, looking at the rings they were supposed to exchange at their ceremony.
"I'd like that," she said, admiring the rings.
He cleared his throat as he held her ring in his hand. "I hadn't quite figured out what I wanted to say to you at our wedding, so forgive me for a lack of eloquence and poetry. Morgana, if all the time I get with you is what we've already had, it's more than I could ever have hoped or ever deserved. I am thankful for you every day. I would have made a mess of things. Listened to voices that told me I shouldn't trust you, when you're the one I needed to trust the most. What I would have missed out on if not for you. Your bravery, your kind heart that led to you becoming a healer, to becoming the Princess of Camelot. You struggle with the darkness inside of you, but you have never let it control you. The sacrifice you're making now, to save your brother, to save Camelot. That's the incredible woman you are. Thank you, for every day you've given me. I promise I will love you until I take my last breath. I will love you, I will honor you, I will protect you, here and past the shores of Avalon."
He blessed the ring with an incantation and slipped the ring onto her finger. "Fàsaidh ar gaol."
She took the other ring from him and brought it to her lips. "Merlin, it was your love that saved me from the darkness. In every vision, when I had turned to darkness, it was because your love wasn't there. Because I had turned away from it. Thank you for loving me, even when that meant trusting someone you were told was an enemy. Thank you for believing in me, for supporting me even when you had doubts, for fighting for me, for protecting me from myself. I suppose I can't promise I'll love you for the rest of my days," she blinked away tears and exhaled slowly to regain composure. "But I want to. I love you now. Please always remember that. Remember it for both of us. Here, in my right mind, absent of any dark sorcery, you are my choice. My heart. The other half of my soul. And I am grateful for your love today, even if tomorrow I can no longer return it. I can only hope that if we can't be together in this life, that the triple goddess will reunite us at the shores of Avalon. I promise you now, this moment, if it's all we have, I am yours, and you are mine."
She blessed the ring with the same incantation and slipped it onto his finger. "Fàsaidh ar gràdh."
He kissed her gently, then pulled away to look at her, to commit her to memory. He walked behind her to unlace her dark green gown, and slid it past her shoulders, down her waist to the floor. He helped her step out of it, and kissed her again, sweeping her up into his arms, carrying her to the bed.
He undressed slowly, pausing in between to kiss her, trying to pour every ounce of his love into every touch, every kiss. Once he was bare in front of her, he was suddenly nervous. It wasn't as though they hadn't been doing this for months, it seemed absurd. But to know it would be the last time, he could hardly stop from trembling.
Sensing his trepidation, she sat up in the bed and held out her arms to him, holding him against her. She put her hand to his face and lifted it to hers, kissing him slowly and thoroughly.
Finally, she pulled away, lifting her shift over her head and pulling him to her again, positioning him above her. "I am yours, and you are mine," she repeated.
"I am yours, and you are mine," he said, kissing her again.
He pushed into her, their bodies becoming one, consummating their union.
. . .
Morgana woke up from her dreamless slumber well before Merlin, who was exhausted from the past three nights of poor sleep. She studied his boyishly handsome face, illuminated by the moonlight coming from her window, as though she might never look upon him again.
She looked down at her ring, the same one she had only ever seen in her dreams, the one Merlin had insisted on surprising her with by designing it himself. She of course already knew what it looked like, how perfect it was: engraved with the etching of a dragon. It was nice to finally see it on her hand while she was awake, and not in a nightmare. His left hand was draped across her waist, and she admired the matching rings together.
How could she simultaneously be so happy and yet so miserable? They had just exchanged vows and their rings. She didn't want this to end; a lifetime didn't seem like enough, and one single night was certainly not enough. Aithusa, who must have sensed her growing despair, awakened and crawled into her bed, snuggling beside her. She laid her head on Morgana's stomach and chirped, "Mama."
Morgana looked at her in shock. Her first word!
Merlin opened his eyes. "Did she just talk?"
Morgana laughed. "Say it again, Thuse! Say 'mama'!"
"Mama!" Aithusa repeated, snuggling closer.
"Oh, you beautiful, brilliant girl!" she hugged her. Then she pointed to Merlin. "And who's that, Thuse?"
"Papa," she said.
"Mama and Papa," Morgana repeated in wonder, petting the little dragon's head. The dragon nuzzled her stomach in response.
"Mama! Papa!" the little dark-haired girl squealed, running as the dragon chased her on foot, flapping her massive wings only for effect. Aithusa was big enough for the child to ride, but they both preferred to chase one another instead. Morgana certainly preferred her human child on the ground as well.
"Vivi, be careful," she laughed, holding her swollen belly. "You be careful too, Thuse. You're much bigger than her."
"Yes, Mama!" Thuse said as she ran past her.
"Papa! Papa, where are you?" the little girl called.
"Morgana? Hey, where'd you go just then?" Merlin asked her.
"Sorry," she said, lost in thought. "Hey, Thuse, there's still a few hours until dawn, back to your bed now, okay?"
The sleepy dragon yawned and did as she was told.
"Let's not waste any more time sleeping," she said, kissing Merlin deeply and reaching for him under the sheets.