A/N: Wow, you guys are great! I'm pretty sure I responded to all of the reviews for the last chapter; let me know if I missed you! Shout-out to all the people who followed and favorited as well; it means a lot to have your good wishes! For those of you in the US, Happy Late Thanksgiving! Um, also, sorry for the thing that happens at the end of this chapter. And also the thing that happens in the middle...and—well, maybe I should just let you read it. Soulmate Number Three, here we go!

Summary: The soulmate words were seemingly the one form of magic Uther Pendragon could not best. Merlin has never wanted hers; they are sure to be a great deal of trouble on top of being a warlock. After all, soulmarks are a type of magic, and she has eight.

Spoilers for BBC's Merlin, Seasons One-Five

Warnings: Slight Angst, Multiple Canonical/Non-canonical Character Deaths

Chapter 4:

"Arthur?" She knocks on the door to his chambers hesitantly. It's been almost a week since the dragon gave his advice, and she's made up her mind. Maybe Merlin can't tell him about her magic, but she can certainly minimize the damage fore when she does.

"Come," he calls from inside. Merlin opens the door to find him sitting at his desk, reviewing the papers for the supply of provisions to an outlying village.

The room is a mess, considering she just tidied it that morning. The bed has somehow been unmade, his wardrobe is flung wide open with clothes trailing out onto the floor, the bed curtains have been let loose to hand down, and shoes are scattered across the room.

"What did you do?" she almost shrieks.

"I couldn't find my favorite pair of boots," Arthur says absentmindedly, writing something down on one of his sheets of parchment. "Didn't know you put them out for me. I was in a hurry."

Merlin crosses her arms, pointing her death glare at him. "You asked me to just after breakfast!"

"Yes, but I didn't really expect it to happen," Arthur insists, finally looking up. "You are the most incompetent servant I've ever had. Honestly, Merlin, d'you blame me for not thinking you would?"

"I blame you for somehow uncleaning your room in the space of three hours, Sire," Merlin says sarcastically, taking a seat on the edge of his desk. "But that's not what I came to say. I…I have a couple of things to tell you, Arthur. I hope you won't be angry with me."

Arthur scoots back his chair just a bit, and spreads his arms out, looking almost relieved. "Finally! You've been quiet and, and diligent all week, and honestly, it's starting to concern me. It's not like you."

She gives a small nod in acknowledgement, twisting her hands in her lap. "I, well, how many soulmates do you have, Arthur? Just the one, right?"

He rolls his eyes condescendingly. "It's not like you don't know that, Merlin. You see me naked every time I take a bath. I wouldn't exactly be able to hide my soulmarks from you."

"Arthur!" Merlin squeaks, face flushing red. "Not helping!"

"Alright, fine. So what are you saying, then?"

"Well…I showed you your words, on my arm, you know? The first day I worked for you?"

"Yes…"

Merlin takes a deep breath. "And you know I've met two soulmates, right?"

Arthur's brow furrowed. "No, I hadn't, actually. Who's the other?"

"Gwen—Guinevere, Morgana's maid, have you met her?" Merlin asks, trying to get to her point.

"I know who you're talking about, yes, but I've never really spoken to her," Arthur admits, a pink blush creeping up the back of his neck.

It's Merlin's turn to roll her eyes. "Yes, well. I've only met two of my soulmates so far, and I really hope you're not annoyed, but, well…."

"Spit it out, Merlin!" He waves a hand in a hurry-it-up motion, looking back at his paperwork. "I've things to do."

"I've got eight!" She says hurriedly. "I've got eight soulmates."

The prince slowly turns back to look at her. "I'm sorry, Merlin, I must not have heard you right. Say that again."

Merlin swallows nervously. "I…I have eight soulmarks. Eight soulmates."

His blue eyes inspect her carefully, as though trying to discern where all her marks might be hiding. "I…see."

She has never heard Arthur sound more like Uther. "Please, Arthur, don't turn me in. I…I'm sorry, I shouldn't've told you…"

"No. No, it's alright." Arthur's scrutinizing gaze doesn't leave her. "I'm glad your trust in me extends to telling me of this."

"Thank you?" Merlin's voice tilts up, making her statement sound like a question.

"You're welcome," the prince decides, and turns back to his paperwork, possibly to process this new development.

"Arthur," she says again. "There's…something else."

"Oh? Some other secret you've been keeping from me?" Arthur says, a bit of ice creeping into his voice.

Merlin winces. "Well, yes. But I…I can't tell you about it yet. I want to, and you might hate me when I do, but I can't do it yet."

"Why ever not?" his voice actually sounds curious, hardly any bite in the words, Merlin reflects.

"Just can't." She looks down. "Not a very good excuse, I know, but something really bad will happen if I tell you now."

Arthur stands up from his chair and crosses to face her where she still sits on the edge of his desk, crossing his arms and regarding her the same way he had when they first met. "And just how long, Merlin, will I have to wait?"

"Well…until I find all of my soulmates, or…" she almost loses her voice, finishing in a whisper. "Until you become king."

His jaw tightens at that, just a bit. "I see."

"Are you going to turn me in now?" Merlin quietly whispers, waiting for any warmth in his eyes to vanish, for the inevitable word to come: Yes.

"Of course not." Arthur sounds vaguely surprised. "Is that really what you think of me? No, I shall wait until you can tell me your elusive secret. Of course," his voice turns a bit more affectionate, "it had better be something truly spectacular, Merlin, or I shall be unduly disappointed."

Merlin looks up to meet his eyes. "Thank you, Arthur. I won't forget this." She slides off the table, heading away and slipping out the door before he can so much as ask her to stay and clean up his mess.

Arthur sighs into the silence, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Paperwork isn't quite so interesting now. "I won't forget it either."

It's been almost four months since Merlin arrived in Camelot, and any apprehension the warlock has about potentially meeting another one of her soulmates slowly fades away.

After all, she thinks, it's not as though she'll get saddled with all eight at one time, right? She's only eighteen and has the rest of her life to meet them, warlock or not.

Then of, course, it happens again.

Merlin is out picking mushrooms. She had a dream about something good happening if she went out to pick mushrooms, and after the dream of being burnt alive if she told Arthur about her magic, well, excuse her if Merlin feels perfectly obligated to go and pick mushrooms the first chance she gets.

Suddenly, a huge monster, seemingly half eagle and half…well, Merlin is too busy panicking and fleeing for her life to tell. She trips over a tree root, cursing her damnable clumsiness and flipping over, trying to scoot away from the beast.

This, she thinks, does not count as something good.

Then a man, a handsome dark-haired man, bursts out in front of her with a sword. He tries in vain to wound it, his sword seemingly just bouncing off. Merlin doesn't dare try any sort of magic with the stranger there, even if he just saved her life.

The man abandons his attempt to kill it, hauling her up by the elbow and pulling her after him. "RUN!" He bellows, as if she's standing still. Merlin chooses to ignore the fact that he may or may not be one of her soulmates and goes into a dead sprint, joining him to hide behind a dead fallen tree.

They stay quiet, panting, hoping it's gone away. Finally, Merlin peeks over the tree to see nothing but forest and deems it safe to speak. "You saved my life! Thank you."

His hand falls away from his side, and she sees a wound, red with blood, coloring his shirt. He seems to be close to unconsciousness.

Merlin taps his face frantically, trying to keep him awake. "At least tell me your name?"

He stirs again for just a moment, eyes widening with recognition and understanding. "Lancelot. Nice to find you…finally."

The warlock smiles, shaking his trembling hand and trying not to think about the fact that oh, yes, they're definitely soulmates. "I'm Merlin."

Lancelot falls away, eyes rolling back into his head.

She sighs. Well, this might be something better than bad, if not good. "Nice to find you, too. I hope."

Merlin sits by his bed (it's really her bed, but whatever, he can have it, he's injured) until he wakes up. "So," she starts. "Lancelot. I'm not sure if you remember me telling you, but I'm—"

"Merlin?" Lancelot croaks.

"Yes, that's right." She hands him the glass of water waiting on the bedside table.

He takes it, downing most of it in one gulp. "Oh, that's better."

Merlin suppresses a chuckle. "I'm not sure if you remember, but I know exactly what you said to me, Lancelot, and, well, I can sort of see your words. Which happen to be the first words I said to you."

Lancelot's brow crinkles, and he looks down at his chest, where You saved my life! Thank you. At least tell me your name? is dark against his skin in Merlin's own handwriting. "That's right, I'd…I'd nearly forgotten. We're soulmates, aren't we?"

"Seems so," Merlin tells him. "I've seen yours…do you want me to….?"

"Hmm?" Lancelot frowns, distractedly staring at her. Then his brow clears in understanding. "Oh, right. If you don't mind, of course."

"No, of course not." The young warlock grins, and hastily rolls up her left sleeve to the elbow, showing him the single word emblazoned across the inside of her wrist in all capitals and an exclamation point to boot.

RUN!

"Oh." Lancelot has the grace to look sheepish. "Sorry about that. Must've been annoying to have something so, so…"

"Undescriptive? Nah, if you think about it, not really," Merlin says, waving a hand at him flippantly. He has no idea. "So, Lancelot, what brings you to Camelot?"

Gwen helps Lancelot and Merlin out in the blink of an eye. She can see that Lancelot is practically enamored with Merlin immediately, and she almost hopes that something will come of it, even though she has to admit that Lancelot is very handsome, herself.

"Thank you for doing this, Gwen," Lancelot says distractedly, looking down at Merlin. Gwen is measuring his chest width, and Merlin is helping by measuring his legs.

"Oh, don't thank me, thank Merlin," Gwen replies. "She'll do practically anything for anyone."

"Mmm," Lancelot agrees, staring absentmindedly at Merlin, who is apparently trying to decide whether or not Gwen might need a measure of his ankles. Gwen doesn't have the heart to tell Merlin that Lancelot is interested, she's so obviously un-reciprocal.

Poor things.

Merlin is furious about Lancelot's banishment.

"But you killed the griffin!"

"But I didn't…did I?" He counters, looking right into her eyes. Merlin knows that he knows, deep down. The question is what he will choose to do about it.

"I saw what you did," Lancelot continues, shaking his head.

"Oh, no," Merlin tries to reassure him. "That was…that was nothing, it wasn't…"

"Bregdan anweald gafeluc?" He says inquiringly, raising an eyebrow. "It was very brave of you, and I could never take the credit for what you did. That was magic, Merlin."

She flinches, blue eyes going wide. "Um, of course not, magic is illegal, I don't—"

Lancelot smiles wryly at her. "Don't worry, Merlin. Your secret is safe with me."

"Really?" Merlin breathes, looking for all the world as though he has just given her the moon. "You'd do that for me, Lancelot?"

"You're my friend." He replies. "And my soulmate, too."

Merlin can't help but grin when Lancelot puts the fact that they chose to be friends above the fact that Fate chose them to be a set of perfect complements.

Lancelot turns to go through the doors into the hall, and then pauses. He could just ask her…

"Merlin?"

"Yeah, Lancelot?"

"…Thank you. For everything."

Merlin grins at him in the way that only she can, as though she's never had a happier moment in her life, and all the way up through her too-bright blue eyes. She has obviously decided she won't cry. Lancelot's heart hurts just a little at the thought of leaving her.

If he stays, maybe one day he and Merlin…but that isn't possible.

Lancelot leaves.

Merlin knew she'd miss Lancelot, but maybe being his soulmate and being so far away makes it hurt more that it might have.

She can't help but wonder if she didn't drive him away. If she had done something wrong. Merlin wonders if she wasn't good enough for Lancelot to want to stay.

She wonders if the one friend she has who knows her secret truly thinks she is a monster. If he hates her. But even monsters have to live their lives, and Merlin ignores her dark thoughts and smiles brighter and laughs louder and doesn't know that ladies are jealous of the admiring looks men give her for the beauty that shines out from inside.

She tells Arthur a week after.

He looks at her wrist (RUN!) and listens to how Lancelot saved her life, and expresses his condolences. "I'm sorry, Merlin…but how could he just leave his soulmate like that?"

"I think he only wanted to protect me. He didn't want me banished, too." Or worse, she adds silently.

Merlin resolves not to find any more soulmates if she can help it. They might leave her, too, and she certainly won't go looking. By extension, she will have to wait for the big reveal until Arthur is King of Camelot.

Days pass, and dangers pass, and everyone Merlin knows nearly dies at least once a month. Merlin herself is in more scrapes and sticky spots than she cares to admit, even to herself. She dreams that she loses someone very dear to her, someone she hasn't seen in a while. In the dream, she doesn't know who it is, only that a fire is crackling as the body burns and smoke turns the sky gray.

Her thoughts go to her mother, but only a week later, Hunith shows up at Camelot, looking for help. She is perfectly fine, so Merlin dismisses the dream.

She goes back to Ealdor, to the place the adults hated her for being a child without a father and where the children hated her because their parents did, and where she'd had her only friend ever.

No matter the way they treated her, it was her mother's home. Merlin will help them, though it was never home to her. She looks forward to seeing Will again.

Their reunion does not go as expected.

"I loved you," Will says desperately, reaching for her arm. Merlin pulls back silently, brow furrowed in confusion. "I loved you, and you left without even saying goodbye, and now you come back with them—they are nobles and royalty and everything we always hated, Merlin! How could you?"

She can't answer, doesn't answer, wants to defend Arthur and Morgana and Gwen, but Will loved her, and she can't breathe because it doesn't make sense—"Arthur is different! You don't understand. I trust him. And the others. You give them no credit, Will."

He straightens up stiffly and suddenly. "You trust him, do you? You trust him—he knows, then? About the fact that you're a warlock?"

Merlin has to look away, and tries to pretend to herself it's only the dusty air that is making her tear up.

Will shakes his head, a dry smile with no humor. "Of course he doesn't. He's the prince of Camelot, Merlin. Soulmate—" his voice breaks, and Merlin thinks, he loved me, "—soulmate or not, if he knew, he wouldn't hesitate to run you through."

He dies in her arms.

"Merlin…I'm scared." Will is crying, and shaking, and almost convulsing. Blood coats his mouth and teeth.

"You're going to be alright, Will, I promise…" She strokes the sides of his face gently, oblivious to the grime and dirt and blood.

His hazel eyes are fixed on her own blue ones. "I wished…I wished, more than once…that we could be soulmates. You might've…" Will shudders, trying not to choke on his own blood. "…might've loved me then. Could you have loved me?"

Merlin tries to swallow through the huge painful lump in her throat. "I…you were my best friend, Will, my only friend. You stuck by me, always, and I'm so sorry I left, please just stay with me…stay with me, Will…"

"Merlin…." Will sighs, and breathes out. He stops shaking so violently, and looks almost peaceful in a way he never bothered or wanted to be when he was alive. His eyes stare past her unseeingly.

She remembers her dream, of losing someone dear…it was never her mother. Merlin holds him, and rocks back and forth whispering his name until his body grows cold.

Somehow, the tears don't come for her first friend, and so she doesn't cry.