Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.
Chapter Thirty Two
She showed up one day out of nowhere, several weeks after the visit to the druids. She asked for an audience with the king, claiming she brought warning of an attack on Camelot.
"Who is she?" Arthur asked Gwaine as they headed towards the throne room. "Where did she come from?"
"She refused to say. She said she would speak only to you or Emrys."
Merlin exchanged a worried look with Arthur. If she was asking for Emrys, this was undoubtedly related to magic.
"Perhaps you should stay here," Arthur muttered. "If she's a druid, she may recognize you on sight. It wouldn't do for someone to call you out as a sorcerer in the middle of court."
Merlin snorted. "And let you walk into a room with a potential sorcerer and no way to protect yourself?"
"I agree with Merlin."
"You always agree with Merlin," Arthur pointed out, rolling his eyes, and Gwaine just shrugged.
"Merlin is usually right."
Arthur took his throne, and Merlin stood in the crowd next to Gaius as usual. But the minute the doors opened, he stepped closer to Arthur, his magic ready.
He recognized it. That loose, wild magic that hummed around her.
He didn't recognize the dark-haired woman, but he had no doubt she was one of the Deilen.
Merlin caught Arthur's eye and gave him a warning look, and Arthur nodded almost imperceptibly. He caught Gwaine and Leon looking at him as well, and noticed that both of their hands casually moved to rest on their swords. The other members of the round table quickly followed suit.
If their sorcerer said to be cautious, they were cautious.
The woman knelt before Arthur, her eyes on the ground in front of her. "My lord, I come bearing information about a grave danger to yourself and to Camelot. But the issue I bring is of a sensitive nature. Would it not be possible for us to speak more privately?"
Arthur stared at her for a moment, then glanced quickly around the room.
"The round table may stay. Everyone else, please leave us."
"Be careful," Gaius murmured to Merlin before he joined the crowd filing out of the room.
Merlin wasn't a known member of the round table, but no one looked twice at him staying behind. After all, he was just a servant, and everyone knew he rarely left Arthur's side. As the others moved towards the door, Merlin moved closer to the throne. He understood why Arthur had granted the woman's request; if she attacked, Merlin would be far more capable of protecting him if they didn't have an audience.
Once the doors closed, the woman looked up at Arthur.
"Thank you, my lord," she said quietly. "Please believe me when I say I come in peace and I mean you no harm."
Merlin felt the warmth of magic before he heard her murmur the spell, and he raised his hand, prepared to defend against the attack. But though the woman's eyes flashed with sorcery, no attack came. Instead, she grew taller and rounder, and her dark hair turned blond. Even before the transformation was complete, Merlin recognized her.
The sorceress from the initial attack in the courtyard.
"I mean you no harm," she repeated. "Please forgive the deception. I knew I would be recognized if I did not come in disguise."
"Because you took the entire citadel hostage," Gwaine muttered, but he fell silent at a look from Arthur.
"Why are you here?" the king asked.
"My name is Rhian. I am – I was – a priestess of the Deilen, and sister to Maelor, the high priest. I was raised in the ways of the Deilen from the time I was a child. For as long as I can remember, I have awaited the day when Emrys would join us and save us from the persecution against magic." She looked away from Arthur then, searching the room until she found Merlin. "You were meant to abandon him, Emrys. That is what I was always taught."
"I will never abandon him." It wasn't a promise; merely a statement of fact.
Rhian smiled. "I know. The prophecy is wrong. And Maelor was wrong about you too, wasn't he?" she added, turning back to Arthur. "You know the truth, yet Emrys remains by your side, not in a dungeon or on the pyre. And the rumors say that while the laws have not changed, you no longer pursue or execute those with magic."
"Not unless they have committed other crimes," Arthur confirmed, watching the woman curiously. "Why are you here, Rhian?" he repeated.
"I no longer believe in the path of the Deilen," she said, her sorrow evident at that statement. "Now I must choose what path to follow instead. Tell me, King Arthur – did you speak the truth when you said you were sorry for what happened to my sister?"
Merlin saw the darkness in Arthur's eyes as he nodded. "I truly am. I give you my word, I am not my father."
She studied his face for a long moment, then nodded. "I believe you." She sat up straighter, her hesitancy vanishing. "Maelor is preparing an attack. I am not the only one who has left the Deilen since we last met, but he still has nearly three dozen priests who follow him, and he intends to lead the attack himself. He means to lure you out of Camelot and separate you from Emrys. He knows they cannot defeat him, but that is not his goal. He wishes only to distract Emrys long enough to kill you. He still believes once you are dead, Emrys will change his allegiance."
"That's stupid," Gwaine snorted. "If the Deilen harmed Arthur, they're the last people any of us would side with. Including…uh, Emrys."
"My brother's trust in the prophecy is absolute. In his mind, it overrules logic. You must be cautious, your majesty. They are watching you carefully. They are scheming, and they will be ready to act at the first opportunity."
"Why like this?" Merlin interjected. "Your first attack was just four people within the walls of Camelot, and Maelor wasn't even there."
Rhian grinned at him. "We underestimated you initially, and overestimated our own power. And we put too much faith in the prophecy. We thought you'd be easy to persuade, and that would make the king easy to kill. If we failed to persuade you, we thought four of us would be strong enough to overpower you and we'd still be able to kill the king. It wasn't until we saw your shields that we truly had any sense of the magnitude of your power." She shook her head then, her eyes unfocused as she remembered. "They were wondrous. It was the first time I really understood how magic could be used to protect without harming, not just for violence or force."
Merlin looked away, embarrassed, but he couldn't help being pleased by the praise.
"The second time," Rhian continued, "we weren't expecting you, but we thought we were ready in case you should find us. We thought our numbers would be sufficient. But it was one thing to say in theory that we would fight against Emrys, and another thing to actually stand our ground in the face of that kind of power."
Arthur snorted at that, and Merlin glared at him.
"What?" the king asked. "'That kind of power'? You could barely stand upright!"
"I had enough strength to do what needed to be done," Merlin muttered peevishly. Arthur laughed, but Rhian looked away nervously.
"I don't doubt it," she whispered, cutting Arthur's laughter short. "And we were, as a whole, unprepared for that. And truthfully, not all of us wanted to fight the man who was supposed to be our salvation. The king was meant to be our enemy, not Emrys. Maelor would have fought, but he could not do it alone."
"So Maelor is stepping up to handle it himself this time," Arthur murmured. "With the full force of his people with him."
"And they'll be ready. The ones who had doubts have left. The ones who remain with him will not flee again in the face of battle."
Arthur thought on that for a moment, staring into space, then redirected his attention to the woman in front of him. "Thank you for the warning, Rhian. It took courage for you to come here."
She lowered her head. "And will I be permitted to leave, your majesty?"
Merlin could see the indecision on Arthur's face. The woman had launched a large-scale magical attack on Camelot. She was guilty of treason.
"Yes," the king said finally. "I recognize the risk you took in delivering this warning. I will not penalize you for doing so. Leave immediately, and I give you my word that you will not be pursued."
It wasn't a pardon, but it was mercy.
"You know, Merlin," Arthur said once they had returned to his chambers, "you're the reason we have a warning about Maelor's plans."
"I am?" Merlin asked, perplexed.
"You spared Rhian's life that night in the courtyard. Even though she tried to kill me. There were only four of them – I know you easily could have killed them in return. But you showed mercy, and as a result, you sowed the seeds for an unlikely ally. You did well."
Merlin seemed startled by the praise. "Thank you," he murmured, looking both shy and pleased.
Arthur sat down to tackle a speech he'd been putting off, and Merlin picked up Arthur's armor and settled in front of the fireplace with a polishing rag. He appeared deep in thought as he worked, and Arthur would have loved to know what was running through his mind. But instinct told him to let him have his space.
"Arthur?" Merlin asked after several minutes.
"Yes?" he replied, looking up from his desk to find Merlin watching at him.
"You're a good friend," he said quietly. "Thank you."
Arthur blinked in surprise, taken aback.
"That's very kind of you," he said, unsure how else to respond.
Merlin shrugged awkwardly, and for a moment Arthur thought he might say something else. But instead he gave Arthur a brief smile and turned his attention back to the armor.
Arthur stared at him, fighting a smile of his own. Merlin had called him many things over the years – some highly complementary, and some of them decidedly not so. And Arthur was certain he'd told Merlin more than once that he considered him a good and loyal friend. But for Merlin to call him a good friend? He wasn't sure Merlin had ever said that before, at least not in so many words. And to his surprise, it filled him with just as much pride as when the man called him a good king.
"You are as well," he said, cringing as he realized he had waited just a moment too long for his reply to feel entirely natural. But he meant the words wholeheartedly. Merlin just looked up, meeting Arthur's gaze. And whatever he saw there made him smile again.
"You're also not entirely incompetent at speech writing," Arthur added, gesturing to the paper in front of him.
"That makes one of us."
Arthur reached for his goblet to throw at him, then reconsidered. He really did want Merlin's help on the speech. Then he saw the smirk on his friend's face, and he scowled as he realized Merlin knew he had the advantage.
"Come on. You know you enjoy writing my speeches. You get all smug about it when I use them."
Merlin sighed dramatically, but now it was Arthur's turn to smirk. Merlin wasn't fooling anyone.
"Fine."
Merlin's eyes burned gold, and the speech flew off of Arthur's desk and into his outstretched hand.
AN: The second part of this chapter served a purpose in the original version of this story, before I rewrote a good chunk of it. Now it's just good ol' tooth-rotting fluffy bromance, but I left it in anyway. Just because. :)
In other news…my computer tanked (on the first day of NaNoWriMo, naturally). Fortunately I have everything saved online, but until I get it fixed, I'm working on an older computer that has some major issues, so updates might slow down for a bit. Hopefully not for long!