A/N: Sorry! I was meant to post this last week at some point and I totally forgot! Also, I apologise for any spelling mistakes and grammatical errors that have managed to slip through my net. Enjoy!

The moment I saw the fury in Uther's eyes I panicked and pulled myself away from Arthur and over to where Morgana was. She grabbed a tight hold of me, wrapping her arms around me tightly, shielding me, protecting me. From within her safe arms, I risked a glance at Arthur. There was blood on his face, coming from the deep scratches that I had caused.

As I breathed heavily, he started at me, eyes wide and full of fear. Good, he should be afraid of me after everything he put me through. He had just given me away to the man I was most terrified off, and he didn't even care. All he could do was deny it, but it would never change my mind, he had hurt me, and I was going to hurt him.

"Is it true, Arthur? Did you give Isabella to her uncle?" Morgana asked, afraid to know the truth, but needing to know it nonetheless.

He looked stunned that she would even ask such a thing, but I could see right through him now. "What? Of course not, Morgana. Do you really believe that I would do something like that?"

Before she had a chance to reply to him, Uther waw speaking. "I think someone had better explain to me what is going on." There was a very firm look on his face, and I could see that he wasn't impressed. He was going to take his son's side on this, I just knew it. I would be kicked out of Camelot, which really wasn't going to be that bad.

Uther looked at me, huddled up against Morgana, trying to make myself as small as possible. There was concern etched all over his weary face, until he looked at his son. With his eyes fixed upon Arthur, his face wore the expression that said 'you better be able to explain all of this'.

There seemed to be a bit of a standoff, Arthur watching me carefully, waiting for me to make eye contact, while his father was glaring daggers at him. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the arms that were around me, my safety blanket, Morgana. He soon realised that I wasn't going to give him my attention, and so left the room with a heavy sigh. His retreating footsteps were quickly followed by another, those of his father.

"Everything will be all right, Isabella." Morgana told me, trying to console me and comfort me. "Arthur will pay for what he has done to you." That surprised me, I thought that she would have believed him, that she would have taken his side.

"You… you believe me?" I asked her, trying not to sound as shocked as I really felt.

The woman nodded at me, a sad look in her eyes. "Of course I do, Isabella. What reason would you have to lie about something like this?" I gazed at her, trying to see if she was wearing a mask, if she was covering what she really thought. All I could see was honesty. "I don't know what happened, Isabella, and I'm not going to ask you about it. But I know that you would never just walk out of here on your own. You wouldn't go with someone that you didn't know or trust. You would not have left with your uncle." At least she knew that much, Morgana knew I would never go willingly.

But then, Arthur knew that as well, that was why he had tricked me. I suddenly pushed Morgana away from me as well. "You're working with them!" I shouted at her, backing away from the woman who I thought was a friend. "You're working with Arthur, trying to get rid of me, to satisfy my uncle."

The look of shock and confusion was so similar to that of Arthur. "Isabella, I promise you, I am not trying to send you anywhere. Please, you are my friend, I only want to help you." She protested, a pleading look in her eyes. "You have to trust me, Isabella."

I wanted to, I really did want to trust her, but how could I? There was no one left now that I could trust, well, no one except Merlin. Maybe. "Merlin. I want to speak to Merlin." I told her meekly, trying to keep it all together and not let her see how afraid I was really feeling.

She nodded at me and headed towards the door. I watched her as she muttered something to the guards that were standing outside of the door. A moment later and she closed the door, slowly taking a tentative step back towards me. "He has been sent for." She told me, not straying too far from the door.

My head nodded slightly, and for the first time I took the chance to really look around the room. I wasn't in Arthur's chamber, and I was grateful for that, but it was a room that I had been in before. "Why am I in your chamber, Morgana?" It was a surprise to realise that was where I was.

"Arthur was out with a group looking for you, so I had the knights bring you straight here where I could keep a closer eye on you." I could hear the honesty in her voice, she really had been worried about me. "I was so scared, Isabella."

There were so many things that I wanted to ask her, about what had happened, what she knew about the whole situation, how Arthur had acted, and why I was searched for in the first place. But I just couldn't bring myself to ask her. All of those questions that I had, I would find the answers to, when that person arrived.

Actually, I didn't have to wait long, as there came a knocking on the door and a voice calling through from the other side. Morgana swiftly opened the door and Merlin walked in, there was even a worried look on his face. "Princess Isabella, I'm glad that you're safe." Judging by the way that he was talking to me, he had seen what had happened to Arthur, what I had done to him.

"Morgana, can you give me a few minutes to speak with Merlin alone." She looked at me as if I was utterly bonkers. "Please, Morgana, there are questions I need to ask him, things I need to work out before I do anything else." My eyes were begging, pleading with her, to leave us alone. If there was one people who would tell me the truth, it would be Merlin, he wouldn't lie to me. At least, I hoped he wouldn't.

With a reluctant sigh, she nodded and walked out of her own chamber to give me some privacy with Arthur's servant. "Isabella, what happened? Are you alright?" My warlock friend asked me in a rush, walking over to me and sitting down beside me.

"Merlin, you need to tell me what happened." I told him sternly. "Something isn't right, and I don't know what it is. i know what happened to me, but Arthur was acting like I was telling him nothing but lies." An empty feeling suddenly threatened to overtake me. "I don't know what to do."

The look on his face told me that he was confused with my request. "You went missing, Isabella. I came in one morning and you just weren't there. Arthur had no idea where you were, he was panicking. We searched the castle, no one had seen you. A group of guards noticed one of the walls surrounding the castle was damage. It looked like someone had torn the wall apart to escape." I remember that wall, but it was Arthur who had taken me there, wasn't it? "That was when the search parties headed further out."

None of that made any sense, but then again, maybe it did. Arthur would have had plenty of time to return to Camelot after dropping me off, more than enough to make it back to the castle and head off to sleep. He could have made it look like he was worried, that he had no idea what had happened to me. But I ruined all of that, because I had managed to get back to Camelot. "Exactly how worried was he? Did he really seem that bothered about it to you?" I was trying to keep myself calm while speaking to him, but that voice was whispering in my head again, trying to talk some sense into me, apparently.

"I've never seen him more scared, Isabella. He literally tore his chamber apart looking for you, trying to find anything to could help him find you. He just wanted to find you, Isabella." I could tell that Merlin was telling me the truth, regardless of what the voice in my head was telling me. "What happened, Isabella?"

What happened? I wasn't so sure any more. I had been positive that Arthur had handed me off, but now I was doubting everything. "Arthur woke me in the middle of the night. He snuck me out of the castle, took me to my uncle, and left me there." I told him quickly, not wanting to keep thinking about it and going over it. "I managed to escape, but there was a bit of a fight, I wish I had stayed in the forest."

There was a skeptic look on my friends face as he looked at me. "Are you sure that's what happened, Isabella?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I wasn't asleep, I was wide awake. Arthur dragged me from my bed, told me it was too dangerous for me to be in Camelot. I didn't realise that he mean it was dangerous for Camelot!" I ended up shouting at him. "I don't even know why I thought you would understand, why you might believe me. No one believes me, except for my uncle, because he was there!"

"See, you would have been better off staying with me." My uncle was now gloating, glad to see that no one was going to believe a word that I said.

I couldn't deal with him as well as everything else. "Oh, get lost." I muttered out loud. "I'm better off on my own. On my own I'm safe. On my own, there is no one to trick me, to take advantage of me. On my own, no one else will have to care."

"You don't need to be alone, Isabella. I will look after you, I will protect you from those people, the ones who don't respect you." He just couldn't give it up, could he? He just couldn't leave me alone.

"Will you just shut up and go away!" I screamed in frustration, taking Merlin by utter surprise.

"Isabella? What… what's wrong?" After taking a deep breath, I looked up at my friend. I had always trusted him, like I had trusted Arthur, but he knew more about me.

Maybe I could trust him, maybe he could help me get away from Arthur and my uncle. But the words that escaped my lips were not what I was planning on saying. "He's in my head." I whispered to him. "He's in my head, and he's trying to… he won't shut up." Now I could feel the tears brimming in my eyes. It was all just getting too much for me, I felt like I was about to explode.

Obviously Merlin had no idea who I was talking about, because he just had to ask me. "Who? Who's in your head?"

"My uncle." My voice came out barely above a whisper. "We fought, he done something, a spell or incantation or something, and now he's in my head. And he won't get out. He's trying to make me do things, things I don't want to do." That was it, I lost it. The tears rapidly rolled down my cheeks.

"What things, Isabella?" I could tell that he was treading carefully, that Merlin didn't want to say the wrong thing and make matters worse.

I had to swallow the lump that was in my throat before I could even think about speaking. "He wants me to join him, Merlin, to be on his side. He'll only use me, like everyone else does." I always knew that there was no way I would ever team up with my uncle, and he must have realised that as well, that was why he was stuck in my head, taunting me, pressuring me. "He keeps trying to convince me to get revenge on Arthur, for handing me over to him, for fooling me into thinking that he actually cared about me."

"Isabella, Arthur does care about you." Merlin informed me, although I found it rather hard to believe. "And I can prove it to you." The next thing I knew he had yanked me off Morgana's bed and was dragging me out of the door. He mumbled something to Morgana, who then spoke to the guards.

I didn't know why he was pulling me around. "Merlin, where are you taking me?"

He didn't say anything, he just picked up the pace a little. Soon enough, we were standing outside of a very familiar door, the door to Arthur's chamber. "You have no idea the state he was in when we discovered you were missing. but maybe this will prove to you that he does care, Isabella." Merlin told me, before opening the door and pushing it open.

The sight before me made me gasp. The whole room had been trashed. The curtains around my bed had been torn down, the mattress thrown off as well. Arthur's bed wasn't really any better, it was broken in several places. The table had been toppled over, the wardrobes emptied out, their contents scattered all over the place, the doors were actually hanging by their hinges. "What happened in here?" It looked as if a hurricane had swept through there, nothing had been left untouched.

"Arthur." Merlin told me simply, as if it would explain everything. "You really don't understand how upset he was, Isabella. He really did tear this place apart looking for you. He didn't want to believe you were really gone, he kept hoping that you had just sneaked off to Morgana or was playing a little joke on him."

"But… he was the one who woke me up and dragged me out of here." I reminded him, wondering what exactly it was that I had missed. Something was nagging at me, and it wasn't my uncle. "Wasn't he?" I really didn't know what to believe, I was so lost.

I could tell that even he wasn't sure. "I don't know, Isabella, but I don't doubt what you say. I guess there is really only one way to really find out the truth." Straight away, I knew exactly what he was saying, and I let out a groan. "He is the only one that can help us, that can help you."

"Great, just what I wanted to do, see that stupid dragon." I grumbled, before storming out of Prince Arthur's chamber. Merlin was quick to catch up with me, and we rushed towards the dungeon. "What do you think really happened, Merlin?" I honestly wanted to know, because something was telling me not to trust my own memories.

He hesitated a moment before answering me. "I know what happened here, I saw it all." I instantly felt deflated, he still didn't believe me. "But, I know you wouldn't lie about this. I think… I think you're telling the truth." He thought I was telling the truth, he didn't believe me completely, there was still a part of him that thought I was lying. Great. "Honestly, I don't know what to think about all of this either."

"How do you think I feel?" I grumbled, while Merlin swiftly sent the guards to sleep with his magic. "I know what happened to me, but why would anyone believe me? It's my word against his. There is no way that Uther is going to believe me."

"No, he will believe his son." I had hoped that he would leave me alone for a while, to just shut up and disappear. Apparently I wasn't to be that lucky. "You will be thrown into one of those lovely cells, left in there to die, and rot."

I had really had enough of him now. "Seriously, he needs to shut up right now." I muttered, feeling myself getting angry. "I am so sick of his taunting, of everyone treating me like I'm useless."

Merlin looked at me and gave me a sad smile. I knew that he was trying to help me, and that maybe he didn't really think I was all that useless. "Whatever he's done, we will fix it. The dragon will know what to do about it, everything is going to be fine." He actually sounded like he believed that, and there was so much care and tenderness in his voice, it made me actually want to believe him as well.

"I hope you're right, Merlin. You have no idea how tiresome this is, I'm still trying to hold him back, to push him out of my head. Every time I try, he just keeps on pushing further in." I had not stopped trying to block him, to fight him and win back my mind, but I was failing. "He's going to win, and when he does, you have to promise me something."

There was a hint of confusion and worry spreading across his face now, and it really made me wonder how he was going to react to my request. "He isn't going to win, we're going to stop him. I promise."

I quickly shook my head at him, knowing that it wasn't going to be that simply. "If he wins, you need to get me locked up." The horror was there in Merlin's eyes now. "He will try to use me to hurt people, and I will not let that happen. You have to promise me, Merlin, that if he takes control of me, you will have me thrown in the dungeons."

"Isabella, I…"

"Merlin please, promise me, okay? Just promise that you will get me locked up, so that everyone is safe from me. Please." I was pleading with him now, because I didn't know what else I could do. I knew what my uncle planned, I knew that he was intent on gaining full control over me, turning me into his puppet. Once he had that, I was to destroy Camelot, and Arthur. Even after everything, I was not going to do that, I had to keep reminding myself that revenge didn't make things better.

The look on his face told me that he was seriously considering it, which I was grateful for. "Okay, I promise. But it will not come to that, Isabella. We're going to find a way to end this." I just nodded at him, and followed him down the path and into the cave where the great dragon was trapped, and waiting for us.

"It has been a long time since you have visited, Princess Isabella." Kilgarah's voice grumbled through the entire cave. "I am glad to see that you are well." There was a hidden message in his words. He already knew.

"Is there anything that can be done? Any way to get rid of him?" I asked him desperately. I didn't have any other hope, because I didn't know anything about magic, or what he had truly done. All I knew what that a traitor was stuck in my head, trying to take over my mind. I couldn't just give up.

I could see him studying me, and it felt as if he was trying to look right inside of me, to see where my uncle was, to see what the man was doing. "The only one that can get rid of him is you." Well, that was going to be of no help whatsoever. "You are stronger than you give yourself credit for, Isabella. You just need to believe in yourself."

I couldn't help but scoff at his words. "You are kidding, right? I'm useless! I've got magic that I still don't really know how to use, I couldn't defend myself when I was out there with him, it was pathetic. How can you say that I'm strong when all the evidence points to me being a stupid, weak, little girl?"

"Did you not use your magic to trap your uncle?" How the hell did he know about that? "Did you not use your magic to speak to nature, to ask for help?"

"So I spoke to a few trees, big deal. It does not change the fact that he is in my head and that he is going to eventually take over." I was getting even more frustrated now. none of them really knew what it felt like, they had no idea what I was going through, they couldn't even begin to imagine what was happening to me. "There is no way that I can beat him. It's over." Yes, I was now resigned to my fate. I knew that it was hopeless, I wasn't going to kid myself otherwise.

"You have more power within you than you realise, Isabella."

I really didn't want to listen to him anymore. I knew there was no hope for me now, I was done with it all. "It doesn't matter. Even if, by some strange miracle, I did managed to banish him from my head, it would never repair things between me and Arthur." There was no me and Arthur, everything that we might of had was gone. I had attacked him! I had jumped on him and tried to scratch his eyes out. "I'd still be chucked out of Camelot, if I wasn't locked up."

The look on the dragons face suddenly became very serious, and if I didn't know better, I'd have thought he was about to flamethrower me to death. "Listen well, young princess. The power you hold within yourself is stronger than any magic in all the lands. You have suffered many events during your young life, and each one has made you stronger. All that suffering from your past has given you strength." I was doing exactly as he told me, I was listening, but I wasn't believing. "You must believe in yourself, Isabella."

He was trying to give me strength, courage, to remind me that I could do anything if I really set my mind to it, but I just couldn't do it. "What is there to believe in? I've never been anything special, I've never even done anything special." I had been a slave to my uncle, that was all I was, a slave, a servant like Merlin.

"You have always been special, Isabella, especially in the eyes of the prince." He told me softly. I didn't know why he had to bring up Arthur, I didn't want to be reminded of Arthur.

I couldn't actually find my voice, and the emotions of everything was starting to get a little too much for me, my eyes beginning to water a little. I ended up shaking my head at him, wrapping my arms around myself tightly. What had really possessed me into attack Arthur like that? Had I really been that angry with him?

"Of course you were angry with him, Isabella. Think about everything he has done to you. Think about how much he has hurt you. He deserved that, he deserves to be hurt so much more. You deserve to have your revenge on him, to make him suffer like he made you suffer." For a moment I had forgotten about that voice in my head, the creepy uncle that was destroying my pathetic life.

My hand reached up and rubbed at my forehead. There was a pain there now, a throbbing, pushing on my skull. With the pain and the talking, I couldn't tell which way was up and which way was down. It felt as if everything was crushing me, the whole world around me pushing on all sides. I just wanted it to be over. I wanted an end.

"You must fight him, Isabella." The dragon called to me, breaking me out of my little pit. "You can do it, you just need a little push." The next thing I knew, he was breathing over me. I ended up closing my eyes and holding my breath as his own powerful breath washed over me. At least it was just air and not a great ball of fire. After a few more moments, the wind stopped and I opened my eyes, looking up at him. "You can defeat him, and you can make amends with Prince Arthur." He told me, before unfolding his gigantic wings and flapping them, taking off from his rock and disappearing somewhere above.

I couldn't help but let out a sigh. "Well that was pointless." I grumbled, turning to look at Merlin. "Pointless and hopeless." I was no closer now to defeating my uncle than I had been the moment he had broken through and into my head.

"You need to listen to him, Isabella." My warlock friend told me, beginning to lead us back up the stone tunnel and towards the light and warmth of the castle. "You can do it, you can beat him, but you have to try."

We walked back to Morgana's chamber in silence, passing a few guards and servants on the way. I couldn't help but notice the whispers and gasps as we past, and I was sure that they were all talking about me, about what I had done to Arthur. Now that I thought about it, I saw so much confusion and worry in his eyes, I realised I also saw fear. I had scared him.

When we entered Morgana's chamber, I wanted to turn and run. Uther was there, talking quietly to Morgana, and Arthur was standing by the window, gazing out of it. My own fear flooded through me, and I wanted to flee. "Your fate has been decided, Isabella." My uncle decided to tell me. "They are here to sentence you, to banish you from Camelot. This is your end, unless you let me help you."

"No. I'm going to stay and face whatever they throw at me. I am not a coward. I may not be strong, I may not have much courage, but I am not a coward." I warned him, knowing that there was no way that I could escape this fate without causing even more problems. Whatever Uther said to me, whatever punishment he gave me, I'd have to accept it.

The room suddenly went absolutely silent, and all eyes were on me. I saw the state of Arthur's face, the blood now gone but the scratches were definitely deep. The moment his eyes locked with mine, I looked away, finding a spot on the floor to focus on.

"She won't even look at me. Why will she not look at me?" The voice didn't belong to my uncle, oh no, far from it, the voice I heard in my head was that of Prince Arthur. "She looks so scared."

"Her uncle must be found, he must pay for everything he has done. The poor child has suffered enough, we must put an end to it." Another voice, and still not my uncle.

"Oh, Isabella… she looks so pale, so tired. There has to be something that I can do to help."

My eyes darted between the three people that were gazing at me. Their mouths were not moving, but I could hear them speaking. Uther was chatting away in my head about what he would do to my uncle, about how much more protection I needed. He was even going so far as to assign me several knights rather than guards for protection. But his mouth had remained closed the whole time.

Morgana was just fussing. Questioning what had happened to me, of how she could make it all better. I could hear her voice whispering about speaking with Gwen and getting some new dresses commissioned for me, of finding me perfect gifts to cheer me up and make me smile.

And then there was Arthur. I could hear Arthur and all of his worries. He couldn't understand why I had been so angry and upset with him, why I claimed that he was working with my uncle, why I blamed it all on him. From his thoughts I could tell that he wasn't angry at me for attacking him, that even though I had managed to cut his face with my nails, he didn't care about it. All he cared about was what had happened to me.

All of those voices were seriously making me head hurt. It had been bad enough when it was just the one person in there, but now there were three more, and the chattering was constant. I had no idea what that dragon had done, but he was to blame for the noise, I just knew he was. But it was all too much for me to bear, and the last thing I heard was someone calling my name, before my body hit the stone floor of Morgana's chamber.

A/N: I've got some of the next chapter already written, but not finished just yet. I've been trying to work on my Doctor Who story, which I am slowly getting there with.

Anyway, a missive thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave a review, you guys are totally awesome and I love you all so much! And I want to thank you all for sticking by me through all my weirdness and crazy, unreliable updating.

Well, that's all for now. Until the next time...

Pippa.