Arthur's eyes widened as he saw Morgana stumble back and hold her head in pain.
"Morgana?"
"My lady!"
"Morgana are you ok?" Mordred exclaimed, reaching for her hand. She gasped at Mordred's touch, looking up at them out of breath, but seemingly no longer in pain.
"I-I'm fine…" She said, looking confused as she said that. "I think…"
"Did you see a vision, my Lady?" Gaius asked. Morgana looked up and nodded.
Arthur's eyes widened. "Merlin? Did you see where he is?"
Morgana looked up at Arthur and cupped his cheek.
"Merlin is alive." She said. Arthur's eyes widened.
"Where is he?"
"All I saw is that he's definitely in our future." Morgana said. "But Arthur… we can't trust Merlin." She said.
Arthur stepped back, confused at her words.
oOoOoOo
Merlin allowed the hood to cover his face as the guards entered the inn and looked around at the diners. They were eating breakfast when the guards came looking for Merlin in the name of the king. Lancelot and Gwaine didn't glance at Merlin, focusing instead on their meal.
No one answered when the knights asked if anyone had seen the king's manservant called Merlin.
"They're gone." Gwaine said and looked at Merlin. "Are you alright, Merlin?"
Merlin looked up at the door and nodded. "Are you sure you want to go back?" Lancelot asked, concern in his voice.
Merlin nodded. "I need to go back to Arthur's side." He said.
"Merlin, why don't you return back to Ealdor?" Gwaine suggested. "Perhaps-"
"There is nothing left for me there." Merlin cut him off.
"But what about your mother?"
Merlin stood up, fixing the hood on properly. "She's dead."
Lancelot and Gwaine stood also, Gwaine placing his hand on his shoulder. "I'm not letting you go back alone until I know you'll be safe there." He said.
Merlin smiled faintly at that. "Thank you, Gwaine."
oOoOoOo
Arthur tried to ignore the headache haunting him, as the lords discussed the threat of Essetir and discussing Arthur's warnings about Morgause's alliance to their king.
He looked up as Leon returned and came to whisper his findings. "I'm afraid no such luck today, your majesty." Leon said. Arthur didn't show his disappointment to the lords in the meeting before him.
"We will continue tomorrow." As the lords bowed and left, Arthur sighed and turned to Gaius, the only advisor that remained. "What happened to that spell young Mordred was working on with my sister?" He asked.
"Lady Morgana and Mordred are trying their best but…"
"Still nothing but lost horses." Morgana huffed as she entered and dropped onto the chair.
Arthur sighed and watched Morgana. Was she really looking for Merlin? He trusted her, but she had said that Merlin was changed and dangerous. Maybe she was purposefully keeping him 'missing' to keep Arthur safe.
"Morgana, please keep trying. I'm going to retire for the day." The rumble of the skies and the shudder of the rain made it impossible to go look for Merlin.
He sighed as he entered his rooms. He made his way straight to his desk, where a pitcher of wine waited. He gulped down a cup as fast as he could before pouring half of a second one and sipping it slower.
"Merlin… where are you?"
Arthur closed his eyes, feeling that residual magic sitting in the pit of his stomach, trying to reach it, trying to get it to do anything that could point him in Merlin's direction, but as usual, nothing happened.
Instead, the vivid image of that burned corpse flashed in his mind and the feelings he'd felt, before Gaius said it wasn't Merlin, filled him with despair.
"AGH!" Arthur threw the half-empty goblet against the wall as if it were the physical representation of that memory. There, its contents stained the stone in red and clattered onto the ground loudly.
"Oi, it's not you that has to pick that up." Came Merlin's amused voice.
Arthur's heart stopped. He couldn't breathe. He slowly turned around and there was Merlin, hidden mostly under a dark cloak, his vivid blue eyes looking at him with tenderness.
"Merlin." He gasped but his voice didn't manifest. His vision began to blur and he blinked the tears away, afraid that if his vision blurred too much, Merlin would disappear.
Arthur stepped closer.
"Merlin?" He repeated, this time his voice was higher.
"Arthur." Merlin nodded. When Arthur realized it wasn't a vision, he advanced, pulling Merlin's warmth close to him, hugging him as if his life depended on it. He gasped as he struggled to contain the waves of emotion hitting him with every breath. He couldn't speak.
Merlin wrapped his arms around him in return and Arthur held him tight, taking in his warmth, his scent, the feel of Merlin's hair tangled in his fingers.
"God… I thought you were gone." Arthur whispered. Someone cleared their throats and Arthur turned to see two more figures in the room. It took him only a brief moment to remember their names. "Gwaine? Lancelot? Wait, how did any of you get in here without the guards alerting me?"
"Merlin got us in here with some kind of magic." Lancelot said and Arthur turned back to Merlin, who smiled. The smile nearly shattered Arthur, because it never reached his eyes. Instead, Merlin looked haunted.
"You broke free. The ring." Arthur said and Merlin flinched, stepping away from him. "Merlin, no, wait. I didn't know, you must believe me! Father… he…" But Merlin knew that. Arthur remembered that as Merlin got taken away he yelled at Uther, accusing him of some sort of enchantment. "You know that wasn't me."
A flicker of anger flashed in Merlin's eyes and Arthur could only hope it was directed at Uther. "Yes, of course, I trust you Arthur." Merlin said, but stayed at arm's length from him.
"I would still like to hear the explanation." Gwaine said, his voice low and dangerous.
"Gwaine!" Lancelot whispered.
"I don't care if he's king now. I want to know why I had to rescue my old friend from getting raped in a brothel no self-respecting person would spend money in!"
Arthur took a deep breath as he looked at Merlin, who looked away.
"Gwaine… it's alright, I'm safe now. And Uther is Arthur's father." Merlin was still defending that… that man.
"No. He may be my father, but what he did was treason. But more than that, he hurt you. I will never forgive him. I'll make him pay for what he did to you." Arthur said. Merlin looked at him for a long time before looking away.
"Merlin, you're tired. Why don't you go and rest?" Lancelot said then and Arthur had to agree. He wasn't completely sure what was still holding Merlin up. He could only assume it was his magic. Merlin agreed, and went straight for Arthur's bed, curling up over the covers.
Arthur wanted nothing more than to curl up next to him and hold him close, but Gwaine didn't look like he would leave without the full explanation and it was the least that they deserved after they saved Merlin. He could tell Gwaine believed him, his anger seemed more directed at Uther than at him, but it was only right to tell him what happened.
oOoOoOo
The moon had reached its zenith by the time he had finished telling them most of what had happened.
"Merlin did tell us that's how it began, but he was very confused about many things." Lancelot said.
Gwaine, calmer, now that sleep was nipping at his eyes and he was certain Arthur had done what he could to keep Merlin safe, even if it failed spectacularly in the end. But even he couldn't have foreseen that hypocrite of Uther running back to hide behind the skirts of dark magic the moment he ran into trouble.
"Do you know what… happened, at the brothel?" Arthur asked. Gwaine looked at Lancelot uncertain. "You do know."
"We… don't know the details. A friend of Gwaine's said a serving boy from the palace was being tortured by a witch in one of the rooms."
"We heard screaming. Of pain and fear." Gwaine saw Arthur's hand clench into a fist. "When we heard that, we immediately thought it was Merlin. We ran to look for him. There was a man trying to… use him." Gwaine said and had to look away, rage coursing through his veins at the memory.
"We got Merlin out of there. Outside he had me remove a ring that had been keeping his magic restrained." Lancelot said.
"Did you fight with Morgause? What started that fire?" Arthur asked.
Gwaine once more shared a look with Lancelot, as if daring the other to speak first.
"Merlin… brought the skies down on that building. He set it on fire." Lancelot finally said.
"Merlin is not well, Arthur. There's no way of knowing what that witch did to him… but the Merlin I've seen since I returned to Camelot…" Gwaine wasn't sure how to continue. Thankfully, Lancelot did.
"He's haunted by whatever happened there. Maybe… if he opens up to you, you'll know how to help him recover." Lancelot said.
Arthur didn't say anything else as he looked off to the side deep in thought, but at their final words, he gave them a nod.
oOoOoOo
Merlin felt the back of Arthur's fingers caress his cheek and he opened his eyes, smiling faintly at him.
"Arthur…"
"I'm sorry Merlin, I didn't mean to wake you." Arthur said.
"It's alright." He said and sat up, leaning in to kiss him. His hands reached up to undo Arthur's clothes.
"Merlin… no, you need to rest." Arthur said softly, stopping Merlin's hands.
"I have rested… I need you." Merlin said, shoving Arthur down onto the bed, straddling him. Arthur looked shocked for a second that Merlin so easily maneuvered them into this position.
"No, Merlin, we can't." Arthur tried to stand up but Merlin didn't let him. With one hand on his chest, Merlin shoved him back down. "Merlin?" Arthur asked confused. Something dark flickered in his eyes for a second and Arthur saw in those beautiful eyes the hate and killing intent that he'd been warned about.
If he hadn't been, he would have thought it was just too dark for him to see Merlin's eyes properly. The silver glint of the moon's reflection hit Merlin's blade and Arthur just barely stopped himself from reaching for his own from where he kept it hidden.
"I love you, Merlin." Arthur said and he saw the hurt in Merlin's eyes, as if Arthur's words had scalded him.
Merlin propped himself with both arms beside Arthur's face, the blade he thought he'd seen was nowhere to be seen. His head lowered to hide his face from Arthur's view.
"Can we sleep with the candles on?" Merlin whispered. Arthur cupped his cheek and made him look up, wiping away the tears that trailed down his cheeks.
"Of course." He whispered and gently pulled him down, kissing him tenderly.
He held onto Merlin for the rest of the night, guarding his dreams in the candle-lit room.
As he watched Merlin's troubled expression melt into the ease of sleep, he thought about Morgause, how she tricked his father to get her hands on Merlin, the most powerful warlock of all time. How she attempted to seal him away just as Camelot and Essetir hovered on the edge of war.
No doubt she took the opportunity to hit the Pendragon family and get rid of Camelot's main defense in one single swoop. But that didn't explain Morgana's vision. He needed to know exactly what Morgause had done to Merlin to even have a chance of erasing the hate he'd seen in Merlin's eyes.