Merlin immediately pushed the matter of his recent branding to the back of his mind and took a deep breath to compose himself and to banish the nausea.
"Welcome to the Sixty-first Hunger Games. May the odds be ever in your favor!" a phantom voice boomed, and all was quiet as the countdown began. Sixty seconds until the blood would begin to flow, but right now Merlin needed a plan.
Surveying his surroundings, Merlin realized with a scowl that they had been placed in a cobblestone courtyard of a towering castle. At least that part of his dreams made sense, but the surrounding walls would make escape extremely difficult. The only way out was to either run through the portcullis to his right or to flee into the castle; a deathtrap once the Careers inevitably commandeered it. Forty-five seconds.
Merlin's searching gaze found Gwen across the circle from him and Elyan three plates away to her left. His eyes met Gwen's, and she motioned toward the cornucopia, a questioning expression on her face. Thirty seconds.
He resisted the urge to groan as he saw that the supplies had been scattered around the courtyard to entice the tributes to participate in the bloodbath. But he knew that he, Gwen, and Elyan desperately needed the supplies and doubted that they would ever have another chance at the cornucopia once they fled the bloodbath due to the fact that the Careers would guard it fiercely. Glancing back up at Gwen, he nodded, and she passed it on to Elyan. Twenty seconds.
Merlin spotted a bright red backpack about ten yards in front of him and shifted into a ready stance, prepared to sprint over, grab it, and run for his life. Ten seconds.
To his left stood the blond girl from District Six and to his right stood Gwaine, who surveyed the scene with an eager grin on his face, obviously ready for the action to begin. He would doubtlessly plunge directly into the heart of the bloodbath. The girl, on the other hand, looked ready to dash from the area at the soonest opportunity. Merlin only wished he could follow her. Somehow his gaze met Arthur's, five plates to his left, the slight confusion in the blond boy's cerulean eyes hidden under a mask of determination, his jaw set. Then the buzzer went off and the link was broken.
Merlin pumped his arms and legs like a madman, swooping down next to the backpack, snatching it up, and sprinting for the exit. He chanced a glance behind him for Gwen and Elyan, but didn't see them anywhere. Panic seized him. Two unrecognizable bodies already littered the ground, blood pooling onto the flagstones.
Suddenly a strain of unearthly music floated eerily through the air, and Merlin noticed young Helen still standing on her plate, singing. Tributes were dropping like flies as the melody reached them, and Merlin frantically covered his ears. Helen had magic!
Cobwebs crept across the cornucopia and spread from the walls. It was as if the bloodbath was a statue garden, abandoned to nature's mercy for years and forgotten. Even the sun itself seemed to dim, and the colors of the courtyard faded. The song echoed from the silent marble parapets, and as it reached a climax, Merlin could only stand and watch in bewilderment as Helen stepped gingerly off her plate and strode forward, never breaking eye contact with something in front of her.
All the tributes now lay among the dead. Trying desperately to figure out what the young girl was doing, Merlin alighted upon a certain golden mop of hair. Helen was going to kill Arthur!
Some small part of him cheered her on, wanted him to go over and help her, even. That arrogant bully deserved what he got. But deep down, Merlin knew that he couldn't let Arthur die out of spite, for it would forsake the future the prophesy spoke of Arthur creating. The mark on his forearm burned with an icy fire, and any doubts he had melted away. Their destinies were intertwined, and Merlin could be damned if he didn't make the best of it.
Helen knelt slowly to pick up a dagger and wound up to throw it in a deadly arc into the blond boy's prone chest. Then all hell broke loose. A spear from across the ring rose silently into the air and launched itself into her back, and Helen fell with a choked cry that brought tears to Merlin's eyes. He'd just murdered a child! How was that the right thing to do? It wasn't. But he had to protect Arthur.
The spider webs began to disintegrate into dust as the rest of the tributes slowly awoke from their stupor and rose from their prone positions on the ground. Everyone stood, confused, with weapons grasped loosely in hands and eyes searching for an explanation.
Then he realized. There had never been a cannon signifying Helen's death as there should have been since the battle at the cornucopia was over for the most part. So the girl was alive! Turning to where he had last seen her, Merlin watched in horror as Helen summoned the last vestiges of strength she could muster in a last-ditch effort to complete her mission. From her position on the ground, the dagger flew, spinning and gleaming in the sunlight, spelling certain death for the tribute standing in its path.
Somehow he could taste Arthur's fear, bitter and metallic like the smell of blood, but worse was the overwhelming sense of resignation coming from the boy as he awaited his death. Merlin's eyes glowed molten gold, time slowed, and he launched himself at Arthur with unnatural speed, pulling him to the ground as the dagger flashed harmlessly over their heads, embedding itself in the soft gold of the cornucopia with a thump. Helen stared back at the two boys with dead eyes, slumping to the ground in defeat as her cannon sounded at last along with two others, signifying the casualties of the bloodbath.
The rest of the tributes had either made an alliance with the Careers or had already fled- all but Merlin, Elyan, and Gwen.
Arthur shoved Merlin off of him, staring at him in shock. "Why did you just save my life?" he demanded. When Merlin stubbornly refused to answer, he continued with a grimace. "I owe you a debt of gratitude." He paused, turning to face Elyan and Gwen. "You two are rather good with a sword. How would you like to join the Career pack?"
