Chapter Two: Forged from Iron

Kilgharrah sat deep in his cave, contemplating to himself as he eyed the still reflection in the pool before him. It showed an image of a clearing in the forest, where a boulder sat in the heart of its center. Buried deep in the rock was a sword, one whose legend was as well known to most as the stories of Albion.

But it was not time yet, and the Great Dragon also knew the sword would reveal itself when it was. For now, it would wait until its story began, until it found its way to King Arthur's side.

Exhaling smoke, the dragon dragged a claw across the pool, distorting the image of the sword in the stone.

Suddenly, the air cooled and the water began to boil.

Snarling, Kilgharrah half-rose when he saw the new images the pool reflected, of a slender, dark-haired witch who was all too familiar. She was smiling at another who Kilgharrah could not see, her expression coy, like a cat playing with a mouse.

By the gods, how did she return from the bowels of hell?

Then the sorceress looked over her companion's shoulder, right at Kilgharrah, and her smile became toothy, like a wolf's.

With a roar, Kilgharrah banished the image, knowing it was pointless now.

The sorceress Nimueh had returned.

Ooo0ooO

Merlin watched Kilgharrah with wide eyes as the dragon explained his visions. He had been summoned by the dragon's call in the middle of the night, when the moon was at its peak.

Before he could even speak, Iris was awake, her multicolored eyes unreadable. Merlin nearly asked her what was wrong, recognizing that look, the way she would withdraw from any thoughts or conversations about the future. Her future.

Now, she sat at the entrance to the cave, her head tilted back. Her skin was awash in the moonlight, which highlighted every freckle, every scar, new and old. She had not said a word since they arrived, but had merely greeted the great dragon in that quiet way of theirs before sitting on top of a smooth, low boulder.

"How dangerous is this sorceress?" Merlin asked, turning back to Kilgharrah.

The dragon exhaled deeply. "She is very old and very powerful. Nimueh is immersed in the oldest and darkest of magicks, long before the old ways were done away with. I believed that she perished when magic was purged from the lands, but it seems she has found a way to return or…"

"Or Mordred- Agravaine- found a way to bring her back."

For a moment, Iris's magic seemed to cloak her like a second skin, pulsing like a lone candle in the wind, before fading away. She still didn't speak.

"We did not see her in any of our visions," Merlin continued, his frown deepening. "We only saw Mordred."

Kilgharrah angled his head, his golden eyes sliding to Iris briefly. "There is only one place she could be, where she could cloak herself from being seen."

Iris finally looked at them. The pale light surrounding her highlighted the trinity of scars along her throat. Merlin knew where two had come from- the bandits and the hired sword Agravaine had recruited to kill Iris. But there was now a third, the largest of the three, that ran like a thick band across her pale, freckled skin.

That was perhaps the only secret she kept from him- where she had gotten that scar.

"The Isle of the Blessed," she said softly.

Kilgharrah nodded once. "And you know what must be done."

Merlin's eyes widened with alarm. "We will go there together-,"

Iris rose. The shadows around her seemed to press in close, like a thin veil. "No, Emrys," she told him. "This is not your fight. You will stay and protect Camelot and Arthur."

Merlin reached for her as she approached him. Her hand felt cold against his. Even her mind was like a wall of ice and snow, blocking him from her innermost thoughts.

Iris, he whispered to her, pleaded with her.

Her only response was a gentle caress of her knuckles down the slope of his cheek.

The sorceress and the great dragon exchanged one last look, before they inclined their heads to one another. Iris pulled up the hood of her cloak over her hair, then strode from the cave with Merlin trailing behind her, trying not to think about how that seemed like a final goodbye.

Ooo0ooO

She could feel it rising within her, as vast and depthless as the ocean she had only visited once in her life. It roared and writhed under her skin, like a dragon. Bound to her will, it would stay subdued for now.

Soon, she whispered to that yawning pit within herself. Soon.

For she knew when it was unleashed, it would be felt across the lands, from the vast forests of the east, the barren deserts of the west, the frozen fjords and tundras of the north and the endless rolling hills in the south.

Even now, the earth trembled slightly as she walked through a deep, quiet part of the forest near the boundary of Camelot.

If she listened, her head cocked like a wolf on the hunt, the echo that came from that misty island of old seemed to hiss in response.

Choosing to ignore it all, the hissed laughter and the beast lurking beneath the surface, Iris continued along her way. Her magic lit up the way through the darkness, embers of light that danced as she passed.

There was another she could feel, one that her magic responded to immediately. It was another behemoth, whose magic rivalled hers in every way. It slid along hers, like recognizing like.

Mine, her magic sang. Yours.

So when Iris emerged from the shadows, Merlin was already staring at her, frozen where he stood. The only sound came from Nimbus, who huffed at the sight of his mistress.

The sorcerer and sorceress stared at each other for a long time, with nothing but the shadows and the soft whispering of the woods around them.

Then Iris extended her hand towards him, the crystal on her ring glimmering like a beacon. "Come along, Emrys."

So he followed her out of the dark, back into the light of Camelot.

When they were back in their quarters, she went to pour some tea that had been brewing. She could feel the weight of his questions, his unspoken words hovering in the air between them.

"How did you know I was gone?" he finally asked, shattering that silence.

Iris turned, placing the tea in front of him. "Because I could feel your magic leaving the boundary of Camelot. Because I knew you had been leaving every night to look for the Druids since they disappeared."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Iris twisted her crystal ring around on her finger. "I understood why you wanted to find them," she said. "And because sometimes our paths will divert from each other."

Merlin stared at her, the way her ring caught the light. That terrible scar on her throat. "Iris… what Kilgharrah said about Nimeuh-,"

"Merlin, you must trust me when I say that I have to go to the Isle of the Blessed alone," Iris said, reaching out to grip his hand. Her eyes burned into his, green and blue and copper and gold.

"Will you not tell me why? Why have you begun to keep secrets from me as well?"

You are needed here with Arthur, she told him softly, through that connection they shared. Remember it is I who was blessed to protect you, Emrys. Let me do so, so you may protect Arthur from what may come.

And if you die? Merlin reached out, gently brushing his thumb along her neck. What then, Iris?

Something flickered within her, like lightning before it strikes down from the sky. In a moment, he saw her before him and then…

A long, dusty road was still there, still as familiar to him now as it was all of those years ago. His joints ached but he ignored it. The ruins that speared towards the sky before him made him smile, and yet a part of his soul ached. Next to him, a sorceress held his hand, her eyes still as vibrant as they were when they first met, even though long ago her hair had faded from fire to snow-white…

Iris smiled at Merlin then, the present and the future blending into one.

Ooo0ooO

Later that night, she dreamed of her throat being cut, like she had for many nights now.

Merlin was not the only one who was disappearing at night to find answers. Deep in the heart of the library, Iris had uncovered an ancient tome that spoke of blood magicks and how there had once been a coven of sorcerers who had mastered these spells to horde their power centuries before the purge.

Although nothing remained of that civilization, the yellowed maps indicated it had once sat in the cold mountains within Odin's kingdom. To get there would take days, days she did not have, unless she sought the help of another.

Kilgharrah arrived at the meadow outside of the castle's borders, staying in the shadows as Iris whispered her request. The dragon then lowered himself so she could sit just before his massive wings, before he lifted them into the skies.

The air had been bitterly cold, but Kilgharrah's scales were warm to the touch even as they landed.

"The land is cursed, or so the legends say," the dragon told her as they approached a massive clearing in the wood, a perfect circle carved into the land.

"The legends are correct," a shadow hissed at them, emerging from the blackness. A man stood before them, cloaked in black, his silver eyes gleaming.

Iris could all but smell the power coming from him. A survivor, a wraith that had hidden itself deep in the heart of a cursed land, half-mad with power and madness.

Drawing her sword, Iris said, "My name is Iris, sorceress of Camelot, and I have come to claim the blood magic that this land holds."

The ancient sorcerer had laughed. "I know why you are here, girl. I know who you seek to destroy. Many enemies have walked these lands and many have come to claim what is not theirs. And you believe that you can take it?"

Golden magic seeped from Iris, like the first rays of dawn. Her eyes glowed copper and gold. "I am blessed by the dragon. Leave now, sorcerer."

"Why would I want to leave, when you do not even know who your true enemies are? The veil rippled when that bastard lord took the body of the Druid boy, girl. Other things will rise because of it."

Then his hand shot out, holding a dagger she did not see him draw. He began chanting, circling her like a predator to prey.

Iris smiled, lowering her sword. She extended a hand towards the man.

The sorcerer froze as a golden mist flowed out from her hand, encompassing him entirely. His hand lifted on its own accord to his throat.

Iris whispered the words, then her prayers to the gods. She beseeched them, not sure if they would listen or if they would abandon her to the dark.

Then her thoughts briefly turned to Merlin as she allowed her love for him to fill her, to drown away the screams of the sorcerer who was in her grasp.

With him in her heart, she dragged the dagger across the man's throat.

The warmth of her blood seeping into her clothes, into the earth, smelled like salt and iron. The pain was there, but it was faint, like a fading memory.

The earth shook once, before it relinquished its power unto her, filling and burning its way through her veins, her body and soul. She might have started screaming, she was not sure. Her body was now a distant thing, thrashing in the dirt.

And when she opened her eyes, it pulsed inside her like a second heart.

"This kind of power will kill you if you do not master it," Kilgharrah told her hours later, when they had returned to the familiar lands of Camelot. He looked down at her, dirty and coated in blood. "I can offer you a small token, so you may hold it within you. When the time comes, you will know what to do."

So for the second time in her life, Iris closed her eyes as the dragon's breath flowed over her, forging a link inside her to leash that power until it was time to use it.

Ooo0ooO

Merlin dreamed of a dark, ancient forest, of a clearing carved into a perfect circle. He could smell the blood soaking the ground, feel the power that lingered like a fading fog.

"You must trust me, Emrys," Iris said, standing before him. Her throat was ruined, spilling blood down her chest and her dress.

Then her eyes began to glow and light seeped from her skin as though she was forged from fire. "Trust me, Emrys, for it is I who was blessed to protect you."

"Iris, stop!" he yelled, reaching for her. "You will die if you do this!"

Even in the blazing inferno, surrounded by a halo of light, he could see her smile. "My soul is your soul, your blood my blood. I will find you again. I will find you again."

"Iris-,"

Then she was gone, snuffed out like a candle, leaving behind nothing but darkness and shadow.

And when he opened his eyes, he knew she was already gone.

Ooo0ooO

Disclaimer: I do not own BBC's Merlin or its characters.

Author's Note: Please review!