"She had a knife," Merlin tells her quietly, staring at the leaping flames.

Morgana's remarkably unsurprised to come back to her chambers and find a budding warlock appropriating part of her floor for his grief. She locks the door behind her and seats herself with slow, deliberate movements, her dress pooling into a ring of fine velvet next to him. Her dress is accumulating dust and filth already, she can tell, but she can't bring herself to care. Instead, she joins him watching the flames flicker in their hearth, leaping toward the rocky ceiling with greedy claws. The sight of fire roaring in her chamber sends a frisson of fear through her, but she grits her teeth and tamps down on it.

"I'm sorry."

They both know it's grief more than lack of understanding that drives the words from her mouth, but Merlin repeats himself anyway. "A knife. A beautiful one, with a noble seal." He pauses, staring unblinkingly into the flames. "She never used it. Kept it tucked in her sleeve."

"Even to defend herself?"

"Even to defend herself," Merlin repeats tiredly. Morgana breaks from her contemplation of the flames to study Merlin's face.

If possible, he looks even worse than he did when he'd entered her chambers yesterday in a panic, asking for a dress. His face is pale and wan, cheeks flushed from crying, eyes lidded with grief and arms drawn tight around his knees. The firelight flickers off his eyes and the moisture screening them. "She never used it," he says, voice rising, "n-never. Not even to d-defend herself."

Morgana was right, then, to give to the Druid girl. A pang of loss flashes through her. Maybe, in another life, Freya would have been a valuable ally.

Merlin starts to shake. "Damn it, Morgana, why didn't she? Why d-didn't she run, or...or something? She could've...she could've..."

"She could've killed," Morgana completes his sentence for him. Merlin's trembling grows even more violent, the shaking of leaves before a wailing thunderstorm. "She could've driven her claws through Arthur's body. Or any of his Knights. But she didn't."

Merlin's face crumples at her words. Not allowing herself to feel awkward, Morgana lays a hand on his back and draws his face to her side, reaching her chin to rest on top of his head. At the touch of her hand, he breaks down into sobs, loud and heaving.

Morgana hurts for him. Empathy interferes with rational thought as she watches his shoulders shake under the pressure of everything he's lost - she can feel a pain of her own blooming in her chest.

He curses again, and again, cursing the Gods and magic and Halig and Uther and himself. Morgana starts to rock him, a little bit, until his furious words fade to nothing. A distant part of her wonders at how young Merlin really is, if he counts in the number of magical children she's taken under her wing.

Finally, Merlin gathers the strength to dry his tears, wiping his face and nose on his sleeve. Wordlessly, Morgana offers him a delicate handkerchief from her back pocket - she'd hand-sewn the pouch into the dress herself, irritated at the lack of practicality in courtly wear - and offers it to him. He accepts it without question.

"I'm sorry," she repeats gently, when his breathing stabilizes.

"There was nothing you could've done," he says, looking more drained than emotional. If it weren't for the inevitable gossip, Morgana would offer him part of her couch to sleep on. He looks a bit as though he could keel over dead from exhaustion, physical and emotional, at any moment.

"Still."

For several seconds, the pair of them do nothing but stare into the flames. Then Merlin extricates himself from Morgana, gritting his teeth. "Morgana," he says slowly. For the first time that evening, he turns to look at her, eyes still swollen. "That was the seal of Gorlois, on her knife."

Morgana's breathing catches. "Interesting," she replies neutrally.

But his tearstained eyes see right through her. Even as he begins to speak again, he reaches a hand into his pockets. "I don't need to know exactly what happened. Just...thank you, Morgana." He pulls out the knife and offers it to her, hilt-first. The symbol of Gorlois glistens in the firelight, causing a tremor of nostalgia to run down Morgana's spine. "I know how much your father means to you. I know what you risked, getting caught, just...just for Freya." Merlin sucks in a deep breath. Morgana watches him, eyes wide and tearing again. His face seems blurry through her eyes. "So thank you. I...cannot express how much it means."

Morgana watches him, studies his face, the tremor in his arms and the steel shining in his eyes - the same steel Freya had, the same steel embedded in the knife.

For the second time in as many weeks, Morgana comes to a decision. "No." She pushes on his hands, and surprise makes them unresisting. "Keep it."

Merlin looks at her, mouth opened slightly in astonishment. "But -"

"No buts," she tells him quietly, staring him straight in the eyes. "I want you to have it, Merlin. Use it well."

"Morgana..." he says quietly, holding the hilt in front of her. It weaves tantalizingly. "This is all you have of your father."

"I have his memory," she replies. "He is a part of me, yes. But the goodness that he was - that is not just for me. I entrust it to someone who will continue as he did, someone who gives their life for what they believe in." She's not sure who she's talking about, Merlin or Freya.

"Thank you," he says in an awestruck voice, wrapping his hands around the hilt again and tucking it back in his pocket. "Thank you so much."

Morgana lets the silence speak for her. Her father's seal flashes before her eyes, engraved lovingly in its hilt, and Morgana wonders what that says about the knife, that the symbol of power would face toward the user and not the edge. Perhaps the knife's was not meant to harm. Perhaps its power lay in the wielder, not the blade.

All the more fitting that Merlin, ever-loving Merlin, should keep it.