The morning would have been beautiful under most circumstances. Lancelot supposed that if they were going to ride to their doom with a dying man in tow, keeping their eyes grimly focused on the road ahead to avoid thinking about what they'd find when they ran out of horizon, it was just as well to do it on a fine day. A driving rain, or something equally unpleasant, would have been adding insult to injury.

After a few hours of hard riding and grim silence, they came to a small brook. Arthur signaled a stop, and the knights dismounted to let the tired horses drink and to refill their waterbags. By unspoken consensus, they left Merlin where he was, but Gwaine immediately went to him, carrying one of the freshly filled waterskins, and tried to coax him into drinking some of it. Most of the water ended up dribbling down the horse's side. Merlin tried to show willing, and he did manage a few mouthfuls, but most of his attention was taken up with forcing his heart to keep beating, primarily through pure bloody-minded stubbornness. Everything else had been flayed away. Even his magic was frozen, iced over and inaccessible, numbed and all but useless, if not gone entirely, which was several orders of magnitude more terrifying than even the paralyzed ruin of his body. There wasn't much left of him besides bloody-minded stubbornness, and he knew he would need every bit of it just to survive the journey. He didn't have the energy to spare for any task as herculean as drinking a cup of water.

Arthur watched for a moment. And a moment was about all he could stand.

"Sire?" said Lancelot in an undertone, when he was certain that the other knights weren't listening.

"What is it?"

"What did he mean about a sacrifice?"

Arthur kept his expression blank, cursing Lancelot's sharp ears. He'd really thought that the knights had been far enough away to prevent any eavesdropping, inadvertent or otherwise. "Since when does anything Merlin says make sense?" he said dismissively. "And being half-frozen can't be helping that pudding he calls a brain. Ignore him. He's talking nonsense. As usual."

Lancelot looked angry for a moment, but quickly mastered his expression. His voice stayed low. "Sire—we both know that's not true. Is he right? Does this quest require a death?"

"That's not your concern," Arthur said. "It's my burden to bear. Not yours. And certainly not his."

"If the answer was no, you wouldn't be avoiding the question," said Lancelot. "So he is right."

"No, he's not," Arthur said, then relented. Lancelot knew; there was no real point in lying anymore. It was almost a relief to be able to speak honestly. "Not if he thinks I'm going to throw his life away."

Lancelot nodded slowly. "Then who? Whose life do you intend to give?"

Arthur looked off into the distance. "It's my responsibility to protect my people. No matter the cost."

As if there had ever been a chance that he would say anything else, Lancelot thought with a flicker of black humor. He and Merlin deserved each other. He sighed. "Arthur… you know you can't do that."

"I'm the king. I don't have a choice."

"That's true. You are the king. And you don't have a choice. You would sacrifice your life for us because you're a good man. A good knight. But that isn't always the same as a good king. Camelot doesn't need you to be a heroic martyr. She needs you to take care of your people."

"I'm trying to take care of my people," Arthur said, somewhat defensively.

"I know. And you will. But not like this. The moment of crisis is going to be an ordeal, but it will at least be brief; the aftermath is going to be far worse, and it will go on for months. When the quest is ended, we will be returning to a country in chaos. Your people's lives have been thrown into utter turmoil. It's going to be up to you to hold things together while they rebuild. It's not going to be easy, and there's no one who can take your place. Not in Camelot. There is someone who can take your place on the Isle of the Blessed."

"So you think I should offer him up in my stead?" Arthur's voice was suddenly furious. "You think that's the sort of king Camelot needs? 'Right then, Merlin; go polish my armor, clean my chambers, see to my horse, and then lie down on this altar and let me cut your throat, there's a good fellow.'"

Lancelot gave him an even look. "No. He'd want you to, but I doubt he'll last the night. I was going to suggest myself." As he said it, the thought did occur to him that he might not have much of a leg to stand on when criticizing Arthur and Merlin for being a matched pair of selfless idiots, but he squelched it and continued. "I'm sworn to protect Camelot with my life, I have no family to care what becomes of me, and I'm not the only knight you have at your disposal. Whereas we only have one king. And gods know there's only one Merlin."

Ordinarily, Arthur's reflexive response would have been something on the order of 'and thank heaven for that' or possibly 'we can only hope,' but not today. "I'm not about to ask any of you to die for me."

Lancelot actually laughed at that, one sharp, humorless crack. "Arthur. Are you listening to yourself? You already do just that. Being a knight means rushing headlong into danger to protect everyone and everything but ourselves, and being a knight of Camelot means doing it while wearing a very noticeable bright red cloak, just in case the enemy wasn't quite sure where to aim. You ask for our lives every single day, and we're proud to give them. For Camelot. And for you." He cocked his head. "Do you know who told me that?"

Gwaine had finally given up on trying to get Merlin to drink, Arthur saw. He'd settled for taking off his cloak and was now wrapping it around Merlin's slumped shoulders for what little additional warmth it might provide. His very noticeable, bright red knight's cloak. "I can probably guess," said Arthur.

"You'd probably guess right. Don't misunderstand me, sire. I'm in no hurry to die. But I wouldn't have chosen this life if I didn't believe that there are things worth dying for," said Lancelot. "As your knight, I have a duty to protect you. And as our king, you have a duty to protect Camelot. You can't do that if you're dead."

If he closed his eyes, Arthur thought, he could almost imagine that it was Merlin delivering this little curtain lecture. It sounded like the sort of thing he'd say—half counsel, half encouragement, half kick in the pants, and if that made three halves, well, he hadn't kept Merlin around all this time for his arithmetic skills.

Merlin was the one who told him all the things he didn't want to hear—the harsh truths, the unpleasant realities, the nagging warnings. More than that, he was the one who told Arthur all the things he desperately needed to hear, good and bad alike. He encouraged Arthur when he faltered, advised him when he struggled, warned him when he was in danger, praised him when he doubted himself, criticized him when he was wrong, fought back when he was insufferable, argued with him when he was being foolish, needled him when he needed to smile, and followed him unquestioningly on whatever course Arthur chose, whether or not he agreed with it. Even when Arthur didn't want him to do any of those things.

Especially when Arthur didn't want him to, in fact.

And always, always, when things were at their worst, he was the one who told Arthur that he believed in him. And by some alchemy Arthur had never understood, he made Arthur believe, too.

It wasn't right. If anyone—anyone—was going to alternate between telling Arthur what a prize idiot he was and in the same breath telling him that he was the brightest gem in Albion's crown and would always do what was right, then damn it, Arthur wanted to hear it from arguably the worst servant in the Five Kingdoms.

He didn't want to be hearing this at all, but even more than that, he didn't want to be hearing it in Lancelot's voice. Lancelot was not the one who was supposed to tell Arthur the things he didn't want to hear. Arthur didn't want to think about the fact that, from now on, he might have to be.

"It's at least another day's ride to the Isle of the Blessed," Arthur said at last. "I'll tell the others tonight, after we've made camp. We'll discuss the matter then."

"Just so long as you're prepared to hear four more people volunteering to take your place," Lancelot said with a humorless smile. "You know we won't let you sacrifice yourself. Can't and won't. Not when you'd be taking the kingdom with you."

*.*.*.*

The camp they set up that evening wasn't much of an improvement on the one the night before. Percival eventually got a fire going, but the wood was damp, and it smoked abominably. Elyan, after a sharp look from Leon, saw to the horses. Lancelot cooked another meal that no one wanted to eat, Leon unpacked their gear, and everyone wondered who was going to be the first to break down and comment on the fact that it took four knights to do, badly, the taken-for-granted tasks Merlin usually handled alone. And, it had to be admitted, with scant thanks. Another thing to feel guilty about.

Gwaine looked down at his still mostly full bowl, stirred it with his spoon. The dishes would have to be washed, he thought, so that would probably be yet a fifth knight's job. With a sudden rush of distaste, he fought down the sudden impulse to throw the bowl, stew and all, as hard as he could into the distance. He felt helpless, and he hated it. He was a swordsman in a situation where steel was useless, and a fighter with no physical enemy to face. He was a wanderer who had been gifted a home because he'd picked the correct side in a tavern brawl, and he could feel it slipping out of his grasp. Merlin had convinced him that he deserved his place here—hell, had convinced him that he even wanted it. He didn't want to go back to his aimless ramble from fight to fight and alehouse to alehouse, he knew that much, but he didn't know what he did want, aside from making it so none of this had ever happened.

Arthur cleared his throat after a while. "Tomorrow, if all goes well, we'll arrive at the Isle of the Blessed," he said, unnecessarily, but he didn't know how else to begin. "I… haven't told you quite everything about the nature of our task once we arrive."

"You said that we had to seal the tear in the veil," Elyan said.

"Yes," said Arthur. "What I didn't tell you was how it had to be done."

"I noticed that," said Percival, sounding a little embarrassed. "I wondered. I suppose I just assumed that once we got there, it would be obvious."

"It is," said Arthur. "I consulted with Gaius before we left. He said that the gate between the worlds is guarded by someone he called the Cailleach. That only she can repair the damage, and that she cannot be forced to do so. Only petitioned."

Leon's brow furrowed. "And you think that she'll refuse to do it?"

"No," said Arthur. "She will, if asked. But she will demand a price, and that price must be paid."

Gwaine narrowed his eyes. He didn't like where this seemed to be going.

Arthur fought with himself for a moment, and lost. "A blood sacrifice," he said, his voice low. "She requires a blood sacrifice. Human blood."

No one said anything for a long moment.

"One of us," Percival said slowly. "One of us must be sacrificed?"

"No," said Arthur again. "Not one of you. I must. Make no mistake, this isn't a discussion; I only tell you so that you'll know what to expect."

That unleashed the predictable angry exclamations from the other knights, all jumbled up in an incomprehensible torrent of indignation. Arthur's expression didn't even change as he waited for them to stop.

It was Leon who finally waved the others to silence and cleared his throat. He was a man long accustomed to the hard jobs of leadership—the impossible dilemmas, the cruel no-win situations, the day-by-day decisions that decided, if indirectly, who would live or die. "Sire," he said formally. "I think I speak for all of us when I say that you cannot do this. I do not say this lightly, sire, and I apologize for my presumption in giving my king an order, but you must choose another. You must. Allowing yourself to be sacrificed wouldn't be suicide—it would be treason. Without you, Camelot will be lost—there is no one else to step into Uther's place." His eyes were anguished, but dry. "I am the First Knight of Camelot, sire. Allow me to fulfil the oaths I swore."

Lancelot's knowing eyes met Arthur's as the other three began to make what would probably have been very similar speeches. He cut them all off. "You know he's right," he said, and his voice was so low, so calm, that it easily overpowered the rest of them. "Giving your own life for Camelot would be easy by comparison, and there's not one of us who wouldn't do so without regrets. But the easy way won't do. Not this time. I'm sorry, Arthur; I wouldn't wish this choice on my worst enemy. But it has to be one of us, and it's a decision only you can make."

"No decision… at all," said Merlin, his voice noticeably fainter than it had been that morning. Every head turned, with some shock. They'd propped him up against a saddle, well-padded with blankets, because stretching him out on the ground seemed a little too apropos, but none of them had even been entirely certain that he was still conscious, let alone lucid. "Take me."

"No," Arthur said. He wasn't even really addressing Merlin anymore. He was trying to argue with fate.

"Kinder… to leave me… like this?" Merlin challenged. "Dying in pain?"

No one said anything.

"Not a prince… Not a knight…. Servant. Let me serve."

There was a long silence, broken only by Merlin's slow, ragged breaths, as the knights looked at their hands, or the fire, or their boots—anything but each other. Agreeing that what he was saying made sense felt wrong. Felt selfish and callous. Arguing the point felt, if anything, even more callous. No one could look at Merlin and doubt that he was in agony, or that, in his position, they wouldn't also have preferred a mercy stroke to the protracted death he faced.

And the tiny, treacherous voice inside each of them, the one that did not want to die if there was any way to avoid it, felt worst of all.

Arthur couldn't stop thinking about a long-ago angry conversation he'd had with his father, the first time Merlin had come close to dying in Arthur's place. Or was it the second? Third? He couldn't recall anymore. He'd snapped at his father, 'So his life is worthless, then?' And Uther had answered, 'No. It's just worth… less than yours.'

He'd disobeyed without a shred of remorse, then or after, had gone in search of the poison's antidote and gotten himself thrown in the dungeons for his trouble.

It wasn't fair that, after all that, he should find himself in Uther's position. Making Uther's choice. Hearing Merlin gasp out Uther's argument. Who was Arthur to decide whose life was worth more?

He was king, that was who.

And a king wouldn't force the burden of this sort of decision on anyone else. He couldn't let himself wait for someone to say, 'he's right' or 'it's the only way' or 'it's not your fault.' No soothing lies or self-justifications. No spreading the guilt around. This was his to carry. Alone. Forever.

He looked Merlin squarely in the eye, held his gaze for a moment, then nodded minutely. Merlin couldn't really move, not even enough to nod, but his frozen eyes filled with a sudden relief. Relief and determination.