Chapter 1: Powerless

When Freya was a girl, she lived on the borders of a lake, with mountains rising majestically and wildflowers everywhere, and milk cows in the fields. She had parents who loved her, an older brother and a baby sister, and never saw anyone else except the strange druids who occasionally dropped by. If she was lonely, she never thought about it for more than a few minutes. There were mountains to climb and wilds to explore, berries to pick and fields to wander in, and she and her brother Edwin would explore it all side by side. There were chores to be done on the farm and work to be done around the house, and she was a part of it all. Everyone in her family had druids' tattoos and gold flickered in and out of their eyes, and as far as Freya knew that was normal and safe and beautiful.

There came a day, however, when she and Edwin were scrambling down the side of a mountain in high summer, their lips and fingers stained red with berries, clothes and legs scratched from scrambling through the bracken, laughing together. Mother shook her head at them when they came back from expeditions like this nowadays and said they were both growing up and would need to learn what that actually looked like someday, but she said it with a smile, and Edwin and Freya were both carefree and young this particular afternoon.

They reached the ridge from which they could see their farm and paused to look down, as they always did. All Freya saw was the curl of smoke rising from the farmhouse before Edwin grabbed her arm and yanked her behind the crest of the ridge.

"Edwin!" Freya protested indignantly. He had nearly pulled her clean off her feet, and she would have gone on protesting, but he clapped one hand over his mouth. He had gone very white, and she had to look away from his eyes.

"Freya," he whispered, "the knights have found our home."

Freya felt the blood drain from her own face. As far back as she could remember, the knights had been the one thing she feared because everyone in her family feared it. But it had always been a nebulous, distant dread, as of something that would never happen.

"We have to help them," she whispered as soon as Edwin took his hand off her mouth. The thought of her father and mother and her helpless little sister who was even more hopeless at combative magic than Freya was herself down with the knights overwhelmed her.

"I have to help them," Edwin retorted, wrapping his hands around her upper arms. "You need to stay up here, Freya."

"Edwin!" Freya snapped.

"You can't use magic combatively," Edwin reminded her. "You can't even snap a twig with it. That's not a bad thing," he added hastily, because Freya was ashamed of this particular shortcoming and would have protested his bringing it up indignantly. "But if I take you down there with me now, you'll die. I can't take you down to die."

"You can't die either, Edwin!" Freya protested, her voice catching a bit. "None of you can."

"I'll do my best," Edwin promised. He suddenly tugged her into his arms and hugged her tightly. Freya clung to him with all the strength she had and didn't know how she'd ever let go.


The rest of that day, after Edwin left her safely on the back of the ridge and went down to try to help, was a complete blur to Freya.

She did remember kneeling in the ashes of what had once been her home, swept with fire and utterly unrecognizable now, sobbing uncontrollably in the light of a pale, uncaring moon.

She remembered leaving four graves, marked with small wooden crosses, behind her when she left.

Freya remembered feeling completely and utterly powerless.


"So you're the wretched creature who robbed me of my son."

Freya's breath was hitching every time she drew it in, in spite of her determination not to show fear. She was trapped in a tightly woven network of vines the sorceress had called out of the ground and wrapped around her.

The one time Freya had been able to call on combative magic – the one time she had desperately needed to call on it – it had left her a murderess in the hands of an enraged sorceress, so much more powerful than Freya was that Freya doubted she would have been able to get away even if she could have fought.

The sorceress stalked around Freya in a circle. She had obviously been beautiful once, but the years had left her hardened, her face lined with resentment and anger, and now furious with the grief of loss.

Freya understood that grief all too well.

"I'm sorry," she gasped out, willing her voice not to shake and nearly succeeding. "I didn't want to kill him, but he gave me no choice."

"No choice, is it?" the sorceress hissed. She stopped in front of Freya, drew herself to her full height, and let out a wild laugh. "No choice! I'll show you what it is to have no choice, little monster."

She drew her arms back, then flung her hands at Freya, and hissed out a long string of words that Freya had no chance of catching. Her eyes turned brilliant gold, and Freya felt as though she had been run through with a dozen spears. She gasped for breath and would have collapsed to her knees were it not for the vines holding her up.

"Wh-what have you done to me?" she demanded, the moment she had breath to speak at all.

The sorceress had collapsed to her own knees in the fading light of evening, a truly twisted smile turning her features cruel in the shadowed light.

"You wanted to kill so badly that you took my son from me," she said. "I've condemned you to kill forever. You claim you had no choice. Now you truly have none."

Freya's eyes went wide; this was the last, the absolute last thing she would ever have wanted. "You – you can't!" she cried. "I never wanted to kill – never! Please, please, don't –"

But even as she tried to form the words, the sunlight was leaking away, and Freya felt something moving under her skin, rippling as if it tried to shift into another form.

The sorceress, laughing mirthlessly under her breath, waved a hand at the vines, and they vanished into the ground.

"Do you think I care what you wanted to do?" she asked. "Foolish girl, I have made you a Bastet."

Freya fell to her hands and knees, crying out with pain as everything in her shifted and rearranged. Out of the dark corners of her mind where she threw them came hissing every doubt, every fear she had ever had.

They killed everyone you loved . . . they took everyone you had away from you . . . they made you afraid of the worst possible things happening to you . . . no one cares . . . you are an insignificant little druid girl . . . worthy of death . . . murderess . . . monster . . . kill . . . kill them all . . .

There was only one person in the clearing that the Bastet could kill.


Freya came back to herself miles away, in a different part of the forest, with only vague impressions of what had happened during the night. She curled up and wept uncontrollably.

Whatever the sorceress had done to her, Freya had not wanted her dead. But once again, she had had absolutely no control.

Through all the haze, the memory of the sorceress's face in her last moments came swimming back. She had looked relieved, at peace.

Freya pulled herself into a tighter ball and sobbed. How long? How long until life grew so weary that she, too, could imagine no peace outside death? How long until this strange curse that condemned her to kill wore away at her desire to live?

Freya lay there until she stopped shaking and found enough self-control to force herself to her feet.

"Whatever comes, I will not take my life," she said steadily, to the silence of the woods around her. "They will have to take it from me. That, at least, I can and will control."

Perhaps that was the only thing she would ever have power over, but at least it was one thing.


Curled in the depths of the musty straw in a cage, headed toward her death, Freya remembered her promise that she would never take her own life and wished rather bitterly that she had taken it already.

Anything would be better than being dragged, ragged and in chains, before the man who commanded the knights who had slain her family. Anything would be better than dying at that king's hands, for he would have no mercy. She was simply a bounty to the wretched, cruel bounty hunter driving the cart and another faceless death to his ruthless king.

Tearless, Freya curled up against the bars of the cage and wished she could turn into a Bastet at will, so she could tear Halig and the king to pieces. Then at least she wouldn't be powerless.


It was a dark and rainy night when they reached Camelot. Freya huddled in the corner of the cage and wished for the thousandth time that she could control what nights the Bastet appeared and what nights it didn't. The not knowing was sometimes the worst part of it all.

The bounty hunter parked his cage in front of the inn. He checked the locks, leered through the bars at her, and swaggered off, leaving Freya chained in the cold, driving rain. Freya huddled down in a little heap, shivering, and wondered why she had expected things to be any different. No one saw her as human now, not the druids, not the townsfolk she crept among when she could no longer survive on her own, certainly not a bounty hunter.

Freya let her mind drift back to the lake, to the mountains, to her home unruined, to skipping with Edwin over the hills. If she was about to die, she wanted to die with all her most precious memories around her.

Footsteps by her cage startled her so much that she sat up abruptly, clinging to the bars of the cage for balance.

It was only an old man and a youth, barely older than she was herself.

"Gaius!" he exclaimed, startled.

The older man turned. "She's fallen prey to a bounty hunter," he said. Not cruelly, not triumphantly, simply matter-of-fact.

"She's only a girl," the youth protested, and Freya's torn heart throbbed. It had been so long, so very long, since someone had spoken about her with compassion.

"She'll still fetch a good price, though," Gaius replied, and Freya looked away.

"Someone's going to pay for her?" the youth exclaimed, sounding horrified. Freya wished she could still be that ignorant about the ways of Camelot; she had learned long, long ago that the tattoo she had once been so proud of was worth good money in Camelot.

"Uther offers a handsome reward for anyone with magic," Gaius answered, and turned to go.

The youth, however, turned back to look at her.

"There must be something we can do," he protested, and Freya looked back up at him. So long, again, since someone, anyone, had cared.

Gaius turned back. "Merlin," he said in a low voice, "bounty hunters are dangerous men. They're not to be meddled with. You of all people should understand that."

He was speaking low, clearly not intending to be understood by anyone else, but Freya caught his words. So Merlin had magic? and lived in Camelot? and hadn't gotten killed yet? Strange.

She expected them both to leave then, but Merlin turned and looked at her again, and Freya couldn't look away. She felt very small and weak and beaten, huddling chained and cold before him, but there was kindness and concern in his eyes, and she couldn't look away.

At least, when she died, there might be one person still in this world who wished she had lived.


The rain had stopped.

Freya was still cold. She lost herself in memories of the old days beside the lake and tried not to think about it.

She noticed Merlin out of the corner of her eye, but his presence barely registered until he suddenly stepped up to the side of the cage, put his hands over the bars, and said in a low, earnest voice, "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you."

He wasn't the one she was worried about, Freya thought distantly.

Merlin hurried around to the back of the cage and hissed, "Tospringe!" Instantly the door flew open.

Freya stiffened suddenly. He couldn't dare – it couldn't mean –

He leapt up into the cage with her, and in spite of his words Freya pulled back as much as her chains would let her. A man in her space had not been a good thing ever since Edwin died, and Freya couldn't shake away the memories – cringing away, powerless, the magic she had never wanted to tap building up in her – in a moment.

Merlin knelt in front of her as she pulled away from him and reached out to touch her hands. His hand was warm against her cold fingers and very gentle. He met her eyes for a moment, his own direct and fearless, before he held his other hand over her chained wrists and whispered, "Unspene thas maegth!"

This time she saw the gold in his eyes. Gold eyes that had made her a monster, gold eyes that had surrounded her as a child and held love in them

But he caught her hands as the manacles fell, and his touch was still gentle. So when he caught her hand and pulled her out of the cage after him, she went willingly.

Freya jumped down from the cage and felt one layer of powerlessness peel away from her.

Merlin caught her as she jumped down, a quick act of thoughtfulness that she hadn't expected. His hands resting briefly on her waist didn't make her want to cringe. The door of the tavern swung open, letting out a wave of laughter and hearty voices into the night, and Merlin spun her behind the wheel of a cart, pulling them both down into a crouch just as Halig came out.

Freya froze, clinging to Merlin's hand with all she had. She couldn't take going back into the cage – she couldn't – not just now when she could taste a hint of freedom –

It took the bounty hunter a moment to notice that his bird had flown. Freya could tell the instant he understood, in the way he stopped short and whipped his favorite knife from his belt. He stepped up to the cart, catching at the loose chains in evident bewilderment.

Trying not to let her breath catch, Freya glanced sideways at Merlin. In all this abyss of fear, he was the only thing she could trust at the moment. He was staring at the bounty hunter intently, somehow not looking in the least afraid, but he must have felt her glance, for he tightened his grip around her cold fingers.

Halig was pacing around his cart. Freya glanced at Merlin again, feeling his heavy footfalls like blows and wishing Merlin could somehow take her miles away from here. Merlin rose slightly to look over the cart and whispered something Freya couldn't catch.

The next instant, the chain holding up the sign of the inn snapped, and the wooden sign slammed down on Halig's head.

Freya would have laughed hysterically in relief if she had had the chance.

The next instant, Merlin had scrambled to his feet beside her, and she leapt to her feet and followed him. He never let go of her hand as they darted through the streets. At first they nearly ran into guards and had to reverse their steps to duck into a side street, but after that Merlin never faltered as he led her, quick and unerring, through the citadel and into tunnels that must have led under the castle. He caught up a torch from the wall and told it "Byrne" with no hesitation.

Freya remembered the spell from her distant childhood as the torch burst into flames. In a distant, absent way, she wondered if she could still do it as Merlin led her deeper into the tunnels. After the one moment when he used both hands to light the torch, he still didn't let go of her hand, and Freya grounded herself by his touch.

At last they ducked around a corner into a small alcove, dirt-floored and safely small, and Merlin let go of her hand and took a step back. "They won't find you here," he said, breathless but firm.

Freya couldn't look at him. She wanted to say thank you, but she couldn't find the words. A small portion of her mind was still a million miles away, remembering the last time someone had held her hand, as she and Edwin scrambled down the mountainside, careless and young.

"Here," a strange voice said suddenly, and a man moved toward her.

Freya gasped and pulled back before she quite knew where she was, pulling up the torn shoulder of her red dress. A moment later she came back to herself and realized she was with Merlin, in a torch-lit tunnel underground, and he was holding out his jacket to her.

She expected him to, perhaps, throw it at her and storm off, or come closer again. But he backed away instead.

"Sorry," Merlin said quickly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you."

And he sounded sincere, too. Freya – Freya couldn't remember the last time someone had backed up when she had flinched.

"I just thought you might be cold," Merlin added, and it was true. Freya was cold. She couldn't help wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

But there were more important things. Such as why a complete stranger had cared for her, had openly risked his life to save her, when no one had cared a cent about her in years. What he might expect in return.

"Why did you do that?" she asked him, and wished her voice wasn't shaking.

"What?" Merlin asked, his shadowed face oddly gentle in the torchlight.

"Help me," Freya said.

"Well, I saw you, and –" Merlin began. He paused for a moment and looked away. Freya watched his face intently, waiting for the lie, waiting for the ulterior motive.

Merlin tilted his head a bit and met her eyes. "It could've been me," he said. "In that cage."

Freya felt her eyes widen, and looked away. First time. First time anyone had identified with her and decided to help her. And his face, his eyes, his voice were still so gentle. For the first time in years, Freya wondered if she could trust.

"You'll be safe down here," Merlin vowed again. "I'll come back in the morning with some food and candles." He hesitated, then asked with a bit of a smile, "Will you be alright till then?"

Freya made herself nod a bit. It was true, too. The Bastet clearly wasn't coming out tonight, and she'd slept in worse places with less of a promise for the morning before. And this little alcove in the tunnels with the hope of food in the morning was worlds better than the cold cage with the promise of death.

"I'm Merlin, by the way," he offered quietly.

Freya had actually remembered that from when the old man had used his name. But it was an offer of friendship, a door cracked ajar. And Freya was too desperate for the kindness he was offering not to nudge it open.

She couldn't help it – she trusted him.

"I'm Freya," she whispered without looking at him, and it had been so long since anyone had cared about her name that it sounded half-foreign on her lips.

"Freya," Merlin said – but oh, the way he said it! He said it as if it was one of the loveliest names he had ever heard.

She glanced up at him. He met her eyes and held out his jacket a little – a clear offering, giving her control of what she wanted to do.

And Freya did really want that jacket. He held it out, and she uncurled enough to take it from him. She wrapped herself in it at once. Ooh – it was warm, warm still with his body heat, and with a comforting smell of herbs and polish about it. Freya wrapped herself up deeply in it and felt better at once.

"I'll see you in the morning," Merlin told her, and somehow that was a wonderfully comforting promise. She'd never thought she'd meet a man she wanted to see again. "Freya," he added gently, and she thought she would never get tired of hearing him say her name.

He turned to go – stepped beyond the wall – before Freya could finally get her tongue to work. "Thank you," she called after him.

For rescuing her. For giving her the jacket. For saying her name that way. For being kind, so, so kind.

Merlin ducked back around the wall. He didn't say a word, just gave her a sweetly boyish smile and a quick nod.

And Freya thought in that moment, curled up tight in his coat, that maybe it wouldn't be such a horrible thing to trust the man who had given her a bit of control back, if only for now.


On the shores of the lake where she had spent her childhood, as drenched as the day she met Merlin but far warmer within, Freya slipped away, content and exhausted.

Merlin had carried her out of Camelot through the quiet rain, his arms strong and gentle around her. Freya rested her head on his shoulder and drifted away from the pain, to the home she had once had and to the last few days with Merlin.

When Merlin crouched down and lowered her into his arms, she opened her eyes.

Merlin was looking away over the landscape, and Freya followed his gaze.

The lake. Her lake. Mountains.

She was home.

"You remembered," she whispered. This was the loveliest thing anyone had ever done for her.

"Of course," Merlin said quickly, because of course it was unthinkable that he would do any less. "I'm so sorry for what that sorcerer did to you," he added, and she could tell he was trying not to cry.

"Merlin," Freya breathed, "you have nothing to be sorry for." Of all the people she had ever known, that was truest of him.

He was barely listening. "There must be something I can do," he protested, "some way to save you."

"You already saved me," Freya told him, willing him to listen and understand. "You made me feel loved."

It was worlds different, dying like this in his arms, knowing he cared, than it would have been being executed for the king's pleasure. Her only regret was that she was leaving Merlin behind. He was crying, and there was nothing she could do about it.

"I don't want you to go," he whispered, and Freya wished she could stay, if only for him. She wished she could comfort him.

"One day, Merlin, I will repay you," she told him, and though she had no idea where the words had come from she knew with one of the rare moments of foresight she had that it was absolutely true. "I promise."

She held his eyes for as long as she could, clinging to the heartbroken love there. "Freya," he whispered, and she still loved how he said her name, and wished she could tell him. But the world was growing dark and drifting away.

She believed in that moment that she was going to see her family, that she would finally go home, and she was alright with going this way. She had been loved for the first time since her family died, and that was worth worlds.


But whatever she had expected, it most definitely wasn't what happened.

There was a space of utter blackness that Freya never remembered anything from, and then she began slowly coming back to herself.

She was lying on something relatively soft, still wrapped in the gentle folds of the royal dress Merlin had helped her into – she could tell by the feel of the cloth. The wound was gone, and so was the pain. So much she could tell without opening her eyes.

What was spectacularly strange, however, was the sensation that her consciousness was spread throughout a large lake. She could sense, without being there, the waves lapping on the shores, the water chasing itself through endless chasms of rocks, a small amount of her water in a vial somewhere far else in the hand of an extremely elderly man ready to let go, a whole underwater world – all around her.

Freya gasped and sat up quickly. She was underwater indeed, and had been lying on the floor of a lake. Somehow, somehow she wasn't drowning, nor did she even feel wet. Far above her the sun glinted down in shining shafts from the surface of the lake.

This – this was too much. Freya scrambled to her feet and skittered backward until her back was against the rock rising from the bottom of the lake; she braced herself against it, gasping.

Was this what death was? Existence underneath a lake?

"Calm yourself," a curious, rasping voice ordered quite near her.

That was the opposite of the way to get her to calm down – Freya hadn't seen anyone near her.

"Who are you?" she demanded wildly. "Where am I? What happened?"

"I'm right in front of you," the voice retorted obnoxiously. "I'm making myself as obvious as I can, you puny creature. Can't you see me? I'm literally zipping back and forth."

Freya finally managed to see a tiny blue streak of light whirling wildly around in front of her. "Alright," she said breathlessly, "I see you."

"Finally," the creature complained. It came to a halt, and then Freya could see it was a tiny glowing blue man with extremely pointed ears. "Now, let's get down to business. I suppose you have no idea where you are?"

"Not in the least," Freya said quickly, desperate for answers.

"Typical for a human," the little thing grumbled, half to itself. "This is the lake of Avalon, home of the Sidhe. I am, of course, the Elder of the Sidhe."

"Is this where everyone goes when they die?" Freya demanded.

"Of course not," the Sidhe scoffed. "Why would we choke our lake with useless humans? No, you were brought here because you made a promise, and that may prove very useful."

"You mean to Merlin?" Freya faltered.

One day, Merlin, I will repay you. I promise.

Freya had no idea why she had said those words, except that in that moment as she was dying she had known them to be absolutely true.

"Finally she catches on!" the Sidhe exclaimed. "Now listen. There's going to be a lot that someone in Avalon has to do related to Merlin and that ridiculous Once and Future King, Arthur. We have far too much to do to bother with that, of course, so we decided it would be best if we had a Lady of the Lake to manage all of it for us. And of course when you made your promise with your magic to Merlin with his magic in the presence of the Lake with our magic, why, we saw an opportunity and took it."

"What am I meant to do?" Freya asked numbly. She wasn't at all sure she wanted to be at the beck and call of the Sidhe, but she doubted she had much of a choice.

"Well, to begin with, that fool Merlin tossed the most powerful sword in the Five Kingdoms into the lake a while ago," the Sidhe told her. "Why he thought that was a good place to keep it, I'm sure we'll never know, but he'll need it again at some point, of course. So it will be your duty to fish it out of the rocks and hand it up to him whenever he comes for it. I presume that vial of water the Fisher King stole from us will have significance at some point; you can deal with that. And most of all, it is prophesied that King Arthur will rest here between his Once, which is now, and his Future, whenever that is. We definitely can't be bothered with that, so you can receive him whenever he comes and send him back when his time arrives. Do you understand?"

Freya was, in fact, feeling rather overwhelmed. "And what happens to me?" she asked.

"You hang around until Arthur's Future comes, and then you're free to go on," the Sidhe answered snappishly. "Now I've got other things to do than talk to a useless human all day, even if you're not quite human anymore and a lot more useful."

"Will you be around?" Freya asked, thinking she could definitely use some direction in all of this.

"I very much doubt it," the Sidhe retorted. "We have our own space, quite different from what is now yours. Good luck, Lady of the Lake!" And with that he shot off and vanished.

Freya sank down in a little heap and buried her face in her arms. This was certainly not what she had thought death would be.

On the other hand, if she really could repay Merlin for his kindness this way, that would be worth something.


Over the next few days, Freya got used to the strangeness of being a lake and a girl at the same time, albeit a girl who didn't need to eat or sleep. She also realized that she was most definitely tied to Merlin, to the lake, and to Arthur with long threads of invisible magic, which she could sense now.

The Once and Future King was apparently the man who had killed her, just when in some ways she really wanted to live.

Freya – had a lot of conflicted thoughts about that. No matter. Hopefully it would be years before he would come to her and she'd have to deal with him.

She also realized that the underside of the surface of the lake could become her mirror to the world, showing her the world outside the lake.

It could flash everywhere at random, or she could direct it to show Merlin. Since she was tied to him by her promise and by magic, it wasn't hard to make the lake show her wherever he was.

She could probably have used her tie to Arthur to make it show her where he was, too. Freya didn't really care to do that. He showed up often enough when she was watching Merlin anyway.

The images came and went, and Freya couldn't keep them there all the time. Just often enough to have a very good sense of what was going on.

After a while, Freya adjusted to the fact that this was her life. It wasn't a bad one; she was safe at long last, and for the first time in years she didn't have to always be looking over her shoulder. She was very alone, except for the images on the surface of the lake, but that wasn't such a bad thing, especially since she could always watch Merlin.

And maybe, just maybe, she realized over time, she wasn't just a pawn of the Sidhe. Maybe she had a bit of control of the future too.


The first time Freya realized that she could do more than bring Arthur back was when Lancelot stepped through the veil.

Freya sincerely wished his death hadn't had to happen; out of all Arthur's knights, he most embodied chivalry, truth and honor, freedom and courtesy. She had liked the knight and thought he was a good friend to Merlin, and the moment he turned at the veil to smile at Merlin, accepting his death, Freya would have given anything to change what was about to happen.

The moment the veil snapped shut, though, something more snapped. There were threads, threads of magic and destiny, and Freya could suddenly sense them. She reached out, trying to find everyone they connected, and realized with a quick shock that it was everyone who had been present at the Round Table in the castle of the ancient kings. Merlin, Arthur, Gwen, Gaius, Leon, Gwaine, Percival, Elyan, and the loose, frayed ends reaching out where the veil had cut Lancelot off. And she was tied in because she was bound to Merlin and Arthur by magic.

A sudden, swelling determination flooded through Freya. She knew she was destined to receive Arthur after death and return him to life, and that was all she was meant to do. But Merlin had long since abandoned doing just what he was meant to do, and Freya felt like following in his footsteps. There would probably be more deaths before Arthur's, and if by any chance Freya could reach their souls cut adrift, she could collect them and bring them back to life too.

She wished she had realized this before Lancelot walked through the veil, because then, dangerous though it might have been, she would have tried to pull the bonds of magic tight and bring his soul to her.


It was once Freya had realized that she could probably mess with the futures of all those at the Round Table, not just Arthur, that she realized she should probably take a good hard look at what she was actually meant to do for Arthur.

Freya reached out to find the magic that connected Arthur to her. It wasn't hard to find the strands, and she flopped on her back on a rock, closed her eyes, and let herself explore them.

As Lady of the Lake, she was meant to bring Arthur to Avalon and send him back in the Future when he would be needed the most. She sensed that this was meant to be at some nebulous point long, long, long in the future.

By this time Freya had begun to figure out that being the Lady of the Lake had honed her ability to foresee things, and she did everything in her power to see down the long strands of magic and time to make out that future.

Most of what she could see was darkness. Arthur coming back, lost, bewildered, and with little idea how to deal with the darkness filling the world. Merlin the only familiar face from his own time, Merlin immortal through all the years struggling with the weight of his failure, Merlin a bit broken by the time Arthur came back and struggling to know how to guide him while also dealing with the enormous Arthur-shaped hole in his life being filled in a weird way that didn't heal all the jagged wounds.

Freya pulled herself back from seeing any more with a sharp jerk and sat up, eyes flying open.

No.

She was not going to let that happen. She was not going to sentence Merlin to long years of aching loneliness, Arthur to a future he was meant to solve with no idea how. She, Freya, little druid girl, monster, Lady of the Lake, was the one who had the control. There was enough leeway in what she was meant to do that she could change the future.

And she would.

For Merlin's sake, maybe even a little bit for Arthur's.

Freya steeled herself, lay back down, and started sorting out all the threads of magic connected to her and what she could do with them.

It would take a time of great peril to send Arthur back; she couldn't just go sending him back willy-nilly the moment he died, much as she would like to. She saw darkness creeping in, some of the knights falling – she couldn't tell which ones – and Merlin kneeling again and again on her shores, weeping silently.

But there was peril in the future – she couldn't tell when, but it wasn't the future thousands of years away. It was a near future, where Gwen ruled Camelot with a just hand and a heart temporarily repaired over old heartbreak, and there was – her child? – running around Camelot as well. It was a future where there was enough peril that she could justify sending Arthur back. Freya pulled the threads to her and tangled up all the threads from everyone at the Round Table with that peril as tightly as she could. For beyond the blackness of that peril, she could see light, brightness and healing and hope, if she could only send everyone back. And that was worth anything to bring to pass.

If whatever magic had made Arthur the Once and Future King wanted him to come again for a second Future at that distant dark point, they could. But Freya was in control of his first Future, and she would be bringing him and all the others back at the nearer point in the future.

Freya, druid girl, monster, Lady of the Lake, Merlin's beloved, had spoken, and it would be.


She realized later that at the Round Table, when everyone had sworn loyalty to Arthur and he had accepted it gratefully, he had shared a little of the magic wrapped around his soul with them. Arthur had been tied up with magic ever since he was born of it, and it was the magic wrapped up in his life that gave him the power to be the Once and Future King. At the Round Table, he had opened his soul in warm gratitude to those who had sworn their lives to him, and the magic wrapped around him had reached out and bound them all together. It probably hadn't hurt that they were doing it around the table of kings who had had sorcerers at their right hands, or that the most powerful warlock to live was standing by Arthur's side.

Whatever the cause, it meant Freya had the power to add to her inclination to meddle in multiple destinies, and that was enough to make her smile.

She knew that some who had been at the Round Table would die before their time, before the time they were meant to pass away. And she realized one day, chasing down the threads of magic, that she could bring them back for the rest of their natural lives. They would be invulnerable until the day they were meant to die, deathless as Merlin himself seemed to be.

She still regretted she hadn't thought to sort all this out before Lancelot was severed from the rest.


There came a day when Freya felt a tugging at the loose threads of magic Lancelot's passing through the veil had left, and horrified and delighted all at once, Freya swung her vision of the land of the living away from Camelot to see what was going on.

She had not wanted to find Morgana interfering.

Lancelot was scarcely alive, just a shade in Morgana's hands, but there was enough left of him that the threads of magic had snapped tight around him again, and Freya nearly danced with glee. She was pretty sure she could bring Lancelot back with the rest now.

When Merlin brought Lancelot's body to rest at Avalon, Freya's heart leapt; it would be so much easier here. She reached out quickly – and yes, there was still life here, a tiny sliver of it fighting to reclaim Lancelot's body, stuffed down and driven away by Morgana, tormented by all she had made him do, but still noble all the same. Freya fed all the magic she could through the boat up into him and felt her throat catch in relief when it was enough for him to meet Merlin's eyes one last time, enough for Merlin's spell to work so he could break free.

Then Merlin was pushing the boat out for burial, and Freya would have given anything to keep Avalon from being so full of death for Merlin, to keep him from having to say goodbye to a second person on its banks. She pushed all her love and tenderness out toward him, praying it was enough for a bit of it to slip past the waters to him. But the majority of her concentration was wrapped up in Lancelot; as his spirit fluttered free, leaving for its last journey, she reached out through the cords of magic and pulled.

And it worked – his soul came down toward her. As it slipped through the surface of the lake, it was suddenly re-embodied, and the next moment Lancelot stood on the bottom of the lake, much as he had been in life, blinking at her in confusion.

"I beg pardon, my lady," he said, "but where am I?"

It was terribly impolite, but all Freya could do in the moment was laugh. Because she had done it. She, the weak little Druid girl, unable to use combative magic, who had been forced into becoming a Bastet and a curse, had changed the paths of history. She had extended the grace given Arthur, and someday not only he but Lancelot would be restored to life and given a second chance. Merlin would weep over Lancelot no more.

"This is the lake of Avalon," she told him, "and this is your second chance."


Freya was waiting up, reading in bed by candlelight, when Merlin came in. Reading had been one thing she couldn't do in the lake – there were no books underwater – and she'd known how to read since her parents taught her as a little child. Reading was one way of grounding herself in the present, of knowing that she was actually back in Camelot and all her wildest dreams were coming true around her.

But even if her wildest dreams were coming true, that didn't mean her life was without its difficulties.

For instance, Merlin coming back to their chambers far too late after they should have been in bed, looking tired and worn.

Freya was used to seeing Merlin looking tired and worn. She'd seen him like that far too often on the surface of the lake, powerless to do anything about it.

She wasn't powerless now.

"Merlin," she said quietly, uncurling herself from the covers.

"Freya," he said, in that way only he had of saying her name that she would never tire of hearing. He smiled as he turned to face her, and looked as if decades had fallen off his shoulders. "You didn't have to wait up for me."

"But of course I did," Freya protested. She came up to him and framed his face very gently with her hands. "Love," she said, "you're taking too much on yourself."

Merlin wrapped his arms around her. "It's not usually like this, dear," he said. "I just took off a lot of time recently, what with Arthur's trip into the woods and the week we had after our wedding. And I don't regret any of that," he reassured her quickly, bending to give her a quick kiss on the forehead, "but it has put me very behind."

Freya took a moment, and just a moment, to let herself enjoy being held by Merlin. He was still the only man who could hold her like this, and she would relax into it. That was, she thought, as it should be.

"Merlin," she said quietly, "I love you, but don't you dare say that it's not usually like this. I watched you run yourself ragged for years for Arthur and then for Gwen. I know too much about you to believe this isn't all too common."

Merlin laughed, just a little, not a particularly happy laugh, and rested his forehead against her hair. "What am I meant to do differently, my love?" he asked. "There are duties I have and will always have. I promise I won't always be so late coming up to our chambers; I am behind just now."

"I know you are," Freya admitted. She broke gently out of his grip, took his hands, and pulled him to the bed so they could sit facing each other. He didn't let go of her hands, and Freya was glad; she would have taken them again if he'd tried to pull them away.

"What are all these important jobs that only you can do?" she asked. She brushed up against his mind in the new way they were only just starting to experiment with letting each other do, nudging all her worry and concern toward him and letting him know that the emphasis was on why only he could do them, not what his duties were.

Merlin drew in and let out a long breath. "There's being Court Sorcerer," he said.

"I'd never ask you to give that up," Freya interrupted him quickly. That was what he was meant to do, what he had always been meant to do – to stand by Arthur and Gwen and bring his people, his and Freya's, into the kingdom of Albion.

Merlin's lips twitched into a bit of a smile. "But it does entail a lot of work," he admitted. "The druids listen to me and me alone most of the time is a handful of its own."

Freya frowned and clung to his hands a little tighter at the mention of druids; she couldn't help it. Merlin moved on quickly.

"Then there's keeping an eye on some of the experimenting being done with magic nowadays, both to make sure I keep abreast of what's going on and that it's safe," he told her. "And there's the job of eliminating threats with magic. I can't really give up any of that."

Freya didn't argue with him. She had a different idea forming in her mind. "But you're also Spymaster," she said quietly.

For a long time, Merlin had been the one with his finger on the pulse of Camelot, discovering plots and secrets long before anyone else ever did and keeping the king safe in a thousand ways he never knew about. Servants were good at knowing secrets that no one else was meant to know, and the servants had been slipping secrets to Merlin for years.

The only difference now was that sometime in the early years of Gwen's reign, she'd realized what was going on and made Merlin officially Spymaster of Camelot, except that almost no one still knew about it. After all, the whole point of a Spymaster was to know the secrets that crept in the shadows.

Most of the servants knew, though, and some of the knights, and slipped him all the secrets they knew. Freya knew, because she had watched it all from the lake.

Merlin raised a brow at her. "What of it?" he asked.

"That takes a good deal of time and energy for you," Freya pointed out.

"No more than anything else," Merlin retorted, frowning.

Freya drew a little nearer him. "Merlin," she said gently, "I'm your wife, and I'm meant to help carry your burdens with you. Let me be Spymistress."

"You?" Merlin exclaimed, suddenly sharp. "Freya –"

"Hear me out," Freya cut him off. "I have magic; I'm a druid; I know how to sneak around in the shadows and not get caught just as well as you do. And if my being the Lady of the Lake has left me with anything, it's left me with a touch of the ability to See."

Merlin was still frowning at her, unconvinced.

"I'm not saying you have to make any major changes," she said. "Just let me read the notes that people slip you, and tell me the secrets people whisper to you, and let me help you organize them and think through them. Let me take part of that burden from you. What else am I meant to do, just now?"

Merlin scooted forward so that their knees were touching and rested their clasped hands on his knee. "It's not that I don't think you could do it, Freya," he said quietly. "It's – I don't want you to get hurt. And knowing Camelot's secrets – isn't necessarily safe."

"You think I enjoy knowing you could get hurt?" Freya demanded. "Let me share this with you, Merlin."

"Freya," Merlin said very quietly, "I held you as you died. There's a reason I don't want you to get hurt."

Freya turned sideways and curled up against him at that, wrapping her arms around his waist, and Merlin put his arms around her and held her close. They sat like that for a few minutes in silence, reassuring each other that they were together, and safe, and loved, and they had a second chance.

"Merlin," Freya said after a long moment, "you've been running yourself ragged for as long as I knew you. You're used to it now, but it isn't –" She paused and drew in a breath. "Let me help, Merlin. I know how to keep myself safe, more now than I did before, and I'll be careful."

Merlin sighed a little bit. "I really can't change your mind, can I?" he asked.

"No, you can't," Freya said cheerfully. "You'll find me in your office reading all Camelot's secrets, one way or another."

"Alright, Freya," Merlin said, and she could tell he was smiling a bit by his voice. He still said her name as though it was the loveliest name in the world. She still loved that.

Idly, Freya remembered wishing years ago on the bank of Avalon that she could tell him that. She loosened her grip on him enough to look up into his eyes. "I love how you say my name," she whispered.

Merlin's smile grew into the broad, delighted one she loved to see, and he rested one hand on the side of her face and kissed her.

Freya would never get tired of being kissed by Merlin, either.


They went to his office the next day, and Freya surprised Merlin for about the tenth time by obviously knowing her way around – watching Camelot for years was a very helpful tool for going back to live in it later. Merlin showed her what he was working on in some detail, and Freya settled in to organize his badly disorganized files on being Spymaster.

It was a quiet thing, the way Freya helped Merlin in Camelot. It wasn't just with the Spymaster things, of course; she helped him over the years with a great number of things related to magic as well. But over time, Freya took over more and more of the matters related to Camelot's secrets. She organized the whispered secrets, rewrote them in a coded form of the Old Language only she and Merlin could read and burned the other copies that everyone could, and bounced ideas back and forth with Merlin, solving the mysteries they stumbled across.

Over time, the whispers evidently circulated in Camelot that if you had a secret, you could give it to either Merlin or Freya, for over the years, Freya started getting the little hints whispered to her or notes handed. And there were places she could sneak into to watch and listen that the Court Sorcerer was too obvious now to enter.

Freya had been a cursed druid with magic for years. She knew the art of getting into places she wasn't necessarily wanted unnoticed. Merlin got better about not worrying himself to death about it over the years.

It remained a completely unofficial thing, but when Gwen called Freya the Spymistress of Camelot one night, it was for all intents and purposes true.

Freya, the powerless little druid girl, held the secrets and mysteries of the greatest kingdom of Albion in her hands, taking them out of love from her husband's hands.

She was anything but powerless.


A/N: This isn't my view of what the afterlife is like at all, but it's the fictional afterlife I'm giving Freya for this story. :) And as a heads up, the title of this story may change in the near future to "All the Lies We Believe" to fit with the chapter titles, since the chapters will be thematically focused on Freya recovering from the lies her difficult life has made her believe.

The ideas of Merlin being Camelot's unofficial Spymaster and the servants unofficial spies are from the wonderful Drag0nst0rm, who gave me permission to borrow those ideas; you can find the original ideas in Chapter 18: Spymaster and Chapter 95: Other Employment Opportunities (Remix) of "Merlin Headcanons." (And the little bit describing Lancelot's chivalry as "truth and honor, freedom and courtesy" is from Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. I had to read some of it for literature right about the time I was writing that.)

I'm excited to finally be writing about Freya; I love her character, and I've had ideas rattling around in my head for her since I started writing for Merlin again this summer. Next chapter next Monday: "Friendless."