Good morning! Finally, I'm back! Today I bring Chapter 28! I'm really sorry for not writing it before, but I had lots of exams and I wanted to do them well. So, here is the chapter. I said wrong the day that I was going to publish this: it was "Saturday" and not "Sunday", I'm sorry.

Well, I hope you like this chapter.

I'm not own from Merlin.

Morgana was literally dragged by Hilda, who held her arm with tremendous force as she ran as if her life was about it. Morgana didn't know what the problem was yet, but she just knew that something wrong was going, not knowing why. And so, not knowing what to do or what she should be doing. What she did know was that she had to desperately save Merlin from what happened to him.

They came out of the stone statue crypt and followed by more and more dark tunnels. Hilda did not seem to hesitate at all as if she knew exactly where to go. Did she know where Merlin was? Morgana couldn't be quite sure of it, but what she was absolutely sure of was that Hilda had a decision and strength typical of a bear that hadn't eaten for years.

They reached a dark corner where Hilda eventually stopped running and threw herself with Morgana into the dark stone chink.

Hilda, without hesitation, looked her in the eye and asked:

"What are you doing here, Morgana?"

Morgana hesitated to answer the old lady, but before she could think such, she was already answering quickly.

"I just followed Merlin through the depths until I finished, don't know exactly how, passed out on the ground."

Hilda looked at her with intensity, an intensity that even in the darkness of that chink could be perfectly appreciated. After staring at her, she simply mused as she settled gently.

"I understand. Do you remember what happened before you passed out?"

Morgana looked at her suspiciously, but decided, or rather her heart decided, to respond sincerely.

"I just remember seeing Merlin before, that's all."

Hilda simply nodded and, with the same force as before, grabbed her by the arm and carried her down the dark skirt of the caves. Morgana was not very used to being treated hard, as normally in the castle, being a lady, she was treated delicately as if she was a porcelain doll. And, unlike any lady, Morgana liked not to be treated gently as if she was going to break with simple contact.

They reached a wider straight cave in which in the background it could be seen a shy orange light forming black shadows on the stone. There was someone in there.

Morgana was going to ask, when Hilda cut it with a gesture, telling her a gap in the cave.

"Stay there, I'll be right back."

And she went down the cave, leaving Morgana planted in the corner, with a rabid, fiery fire being born in her stomach. Why couldn't she ever do anything? Why always "stay there"? She knew how to fight! She could help! She wanted to help!

And so, she gave up "staying there" and headed where Hilda's been seconds before. And it was to hear a kind of laughter followed by a freezing and inconsistent voice, as if it wasn't really there in that place, that made Morgana stand where she was. She stayed in the gap of the stone, just listening. She didn't know where Hilda had gone, but she felt like everything was under control, and for once she trusted her.

It was when she heard again that icy and inconsistent voice that put her ear to try to hear what that voice was saying, with some difficulty, for it seemed more like a murmur in those depths than a voice.

"You remind me of your father. So passionate and determined."

Morgana drew closer her ear from the gap so she could listen better, but it was a centimeter further to stand where she was when she heard a voice she recognized well.

"My father?"

Merlin. Merlin was there, but what was he doing? Who was Merlin talking to? And for what reason? No, that couldn't be Merlin. She had seen him perfectly before. There was something evil about everything that made the hair of her forearms stand on end.

And then there was another very important matter, and it was what they had just said. Merlin's father? It was true that Merlin had never spoken of him, nor had mentioned him as if he had never existed. In fact, in Ealdor, Hunith seemed to live alone, and they had never even seemed to refer to a father from Merlin. And she had never asked him, but now that she listened to it, she couldn't stop wondering who Merlin's father would be, a character as mysterious as strange.

So, she decided to get a little closer down the rock wall until she reached right in the corner that cut off the entrance with the cave, and put her ear well, careful not to make any noise.

"Yes. He came here like you, too. You look very similar."

A tense silence that bathed the cave as a cloak of shadows, as if whenever that ghostly voice spoke, a black force seized it all. She could hear Merlin moving from where he was.

"What do you know about him?"

She had never seen Merlin spitting out words with strength and energy, and all she could say at the time was that she didn't like it at all. Oh, where were you really, Merlin?

The sepulchral laughter of the cold, black voice, distant and from another world, flooded the cave again. Morgana waited for him to answer, for she was terribly curious about what he might say.

"I know who your father is. I know a lot about him, much more than you do. He was someone complicated, who didn't understand much about what was going on. But I did know what was wrong with him, and when he finally came here, like you, he did something that many would consider..."

The voice could not finish speaking, for before Morgana realized, she was hearing Hilda's decisive voice at the back of the room.

"Apparently, it's not enough for you to be dead to keep causing chaos in Albion, is it?"

Morgana listened as a spectral sound seemed to slip, and it was at that moment that she took the opportunity to look carefully around the corner. She slept a cry before this, for what was in the center of the room, on top of a large black stone slab, was nothing than blackness, forming an inconsistent figure, which had turned, showing his back to Morgana. Merlin stood just behind the shadow, rising after kneeling, and with an inscrutable look. And at the end of the room, where just the Shadow had turned, was Hilda, with a severe face, with all her wrinkles marked. Her height did not exactly intimidate, but her gaze did all the necessary work.

"Wow, Hilda, what a surprise. I see you much older and more... rotten," said the Shadow, following the words in another world.

"We'd better not talk about you." The old woman answered disgustedly.

The Shadow only did what Morgana believed he could have done only in the face of that answer: laughing like a coward. Laughing for not crying.

"It seems the years don't change you Hilda, and if they change you, they change you to worse. You didn't have enough to throw poisoned glances at me every time I was with your dear friend. What was his name? Tlaver, Tivar...?"

"His name is Telvar," answered Hilda in anger bathing her eyes and with fleshy lips shaking.

"It was, it's not anymore, remember Hilda? Telvar died, and well he deserved it, for he was a traitor, a murderer who killed his parents overnight."

"Telvar was your friend, too, remember? What happened in the depths that night, uh? Tell me if you don't have anything to hide."

"Nothing matters! Telvar's dead, and you cannot do anything!"

"You're wrong, I know what you did to him, and I know he's still alive."

The Shadow did not answer or react to it as if it had really impressed him. But Morgana knew that couldn't mean anything good.

"I know your secret, Cornelius Sigan, I know who you are."

At the time, it all happened so fast that what Morgana could see was a shadow bow felling upon Hilda. Morgana almost screamed when she saw it was Hilda's end, but before she could even open her lips, she could see a silver glow on Hilda's wrist that invaded the cave as the light of fate.

"Ic forwrece thone deáthscúan!" was the only thing Morgana heard in Hilda's words.

Seconds later, when the blinding light left, there was no darkness or shadow in the cave.

And that's it. The next days you will have one chapter per day or in two days. This week was an exception and it won't be like that always. Well, I know it's Halloween, it's true that here in Spain we don't celebrate it that much, but yes All Saints Day. About it, I was thinking about making a "special" chapter about Samhain of Merlin (Samhain, if someone doesn't know, is the origin of Halloween from the Celts) or something like that, but I don't know exactly what to do, so if I do something, I will tell you.

Thank you so much for everything and pass a nice weekend!

Next Chapter: Morgana's perspective. What is the importance of all this for Morgana?

LegolasHV