Hey, guys. In case you were wondering, I have not died or finally called it quits on this fic, just been super-busy getting ready for the holiday season, but now I'm back! Anyway, just wanted to assure you all that the story has not been abandoned.

Morgana's heart skipped a beat, then resumed pumping at twice its normal speed. "She's here? Already?" she croaked, barely getting the words out of her suddenly dry mouth.

"We thought it'd be best to get started before you blow up the castle or something."

"Ah. Quite reasonable."

Finally noticing that Morgana's voice was strangely raspy, Merlin asked, "Are you nervous?"

She swallowed hard and nodded. "Merlin…what if I can't learn to control my magic? What if I have no aptitude for it?"

"Don't worry, Nimueh will be able to help you. You can't possibly be a worse student than I was."

"This Nimueh taught you as well?" Morgana wondered why he'd engaged his own mentor to teach her - surely her powers weren't comparable to his. But then, if that were the case, he could have found someone else. Nimueh couldn't be the only person he knew who was skilled in magical education. The thought of wielding magic like Merlin's was somewhat frightening, but also…enticing? If I must be a sorceress, better to be an extraordinary one. Everyone like the Lady Sirenia who said she didn't belong in Dagon or by Merlin's side would have to eat their words then.

"Yeah, the High Priestess doesn't normally train boys, but she said the usual rules didn't seem to apply with me…and nobody else really wanted the job," he added a bit self-consciously. "A person's magic grows as they do, and by the time I was old enough for formal training, mine was almost too much for me to handle. Sometimes it felt like the magic had a life of its own, like it used me more than I used it."

That was exactly how Morgana's dreams made her feel - like she was a mere vessel for a force greater than herself.

"Nimueh was the only one who could tame it; I would've been lost without her. I owe her a greater debt than can ever be repaid."

Morgana frowned. Merlin spoke of her with a fervent admiration bordering on reverence, and as much as she wanted to believe that was due to nothing more than gratitude, part of her couldn't help questioning whether his feelings for his erstwhile instructor ran deeper. But he mentioned that she is the High Priestess, and becoming High Priestess of the Old Religion must take many years - decades, even - of study and hard work. With all the time required to attain such a position, Nimueh is probably a shriveled old crone by now.

Merlin led her to a spiral staircase that seemed to wind endlessly upward until finally, just when Morgana was about to demand a break from the dizzying climb, it ended at a plain, unmarked wooden door whose hinges were so old and rusted that he had to use magic to open it. "This is the tallest tower in the castle. Rumor has it that about seventy years ago the king at that time used this tower to imprison his cousin after he went mad - the cousin, I mean, not the king - but nobody's used it for anything since then. Most people think it's too much trouble to climb all the way up here, which means we're not likely to be disturbed."

Morgana doubted that confinement in the tower had been beneficial to the cousin's mental health; the room she and Merlin now stood in, while not really of claustrophobic proportions, was relatively small and depressingly bare apart from a single window. At least the window offered an extensive view - she could see the entire castle from her lofty vantage point, gleaming like an ice sculpture in the faint moonlight, and the fields and forests for miles around. What she did not see was Nimueh. She turned her back on the breathtaking panorama below and told Merlin, "Your friend doesn't appear to be here after all. Are you certain you told her where to meet us?"

"I do not need him to give me directions, child."

Morgana gasped as a shadow moved in the corner, only it wasn't a shadow, it was a figure hidden under a midnight-blue cloak. A pale hand emerged from the cloak's dark folds and pushed back the hood, revealing eyes the color of an icy lake in winter, perfectly formed lips painted deep crimson, and flawlessly clear skin framed by elaborately styled black hair. Then she unclasped her cloak and cast it aside, leaving her in only a rather revealing red dress that showed off her svelte physique.

If Morgana had still been fooling herself that there was any justice in the world, one look at Nimueh disillusioned her forever, because it really wasn't fair for every last one of Merlin's female friends to be so beautiful. Why doesn't he know any fat, old, ugly women?

"Greetings, Lady Morgana. I am Nimueh, High Priestess of the Old Religion."

"Pleased to meet you," Morgana lied, forcing her lips into a smile that felt more like a grimace.

"Likewise. Now," Nimueh commanded in a businesslike tone, "describe how your powers have manifested."

Taken aback by the High Priestess' efficiency - she'd thought a priestess would have more of an air of mysticism - Morgana opened and closed her mouth soundlessly and looked at Merlin, who took charge of the exposition. "So far she's demonstrated some skill with levitation, applying force to objects - she broke all the glass in her chambers night before last - and fire."

Nimueh raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "Impressive. And she's never had any training at all?"

"None." Merlin glanced at Morgana, who confirmed his assertion with a nod.

"That's not all. I have terrible nightmares, and sometimes…sometimes the things I see in my dreams come to pass."

"You never told me you were a seer."

She shot her fiancé an apologetic look. "I've told no one. I've been living with this secret for years, and I suppose the habit of concealing it has become rather entrenched. Once I realized I could see the future, it didn't take a vision to tell me what my future would hold if Uther learned the truth of my nightmares."

Merlin nodded sympathetically and gave her shoulder a supportive squeeze. Then Nimueh cleared her throat, and he quickly took his hand off her. "We shall begin our work with your visions, then, since the Sight seems to be the strongest element of your powers. Sit down."

Morgana wanted to protest that there were no chairs, but Merlin and Nimueh simply sat on the floor - chairs were apparently a luxury, not a necessity. She reluctantly joined them, folding her legs to the side and arranging her skirts around her.

Nimueh waited impatiently for Morgana to get situated, then continued, "The first step in gaining control of your powers is learning to call forth the magic inside you at will. Magic is the core of your being, your soul; you must block out all external distractions and seek it within yourself."

"How might I do that?"

"Close your eyes."

Morgana wasn't at all sure she wanted to close her eyes and leave herself blind and vulnerable in Nimueh's presence. She glanced sideways at Merlin, who offered her a reassuring smile that made her trepidation seem foolish; of course he wouldn't encourage her to obey Nimueh's directions if doing so would put her in danger.

"Close your eyes," Nimueh repeated more forcefully. Morgana took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. "Relax. Breathe out." Morgana expelled her breath in a rush of air, her chest deflating like a suddenly emptied waterskin. "Breathe in slowly, deeply - relax. Clear your mind of everything outside yourself. Some find it helpful to choose a single thing to focus on, a word or an image. Let yourself get lost in it…"

Morgana tried, but her thoughts raced off in every direction like a stampede of wild horses. How was she supposed to pick one thing to focus on? A word or an image, she said… She remembered becoming very absorbed in reading, so she decided to try a page from her favorite book…but which one? And she couldn't recall every single word on the page-

"Too complicated," Nimueh chided, making Morgana's eyes pop open. "The thing you focus on is only meant to aid you in clearing your mind, not to be an end in itself. You should not have to concentrate so hard on forming the picture in your mind. Choose something simpler."

Morgana looked at Merlin, hoping he might have a helpful suggestion or at least tell Nimueh to stop scolding her, but unlike her, he appeared to have succeeded in blocking out external distractions - his eyes were closed and he didn't seem to have heard anything Nimueh had just said. As she stared at the network of tiny veins lacing Merlin's eyelids and wished they would open, inspiration struck. Morgana had gotten lost in Merlin's eyes several times before, and they were much easier to call to mind than words on a page. She closed her eyes again, relaxed, regulated her breathing, and let the deep blue of Merlin's eyes fill her mind. She imagined sinking into that bottomless blue, falling deeper and deeper…

And then there was a bottom, something she'd just noticed but which felt as if it'd been there all along, a hint of something gold under all the blue. If the endless blue Morgana had let herself fall through was like an ocean - and her first thought when she saw Merlin's eyes was that they reminded her of the sea - maybe this was treasure from a sunken ship? Some distant part of Morgana's mind argued that there was something wrong with this metaphor, that she wasn't imagining an actual ocean and therefore sunken treasure had no place in it, but she refused to be distracted and pressed on toward the alluring golden light.

The light grew and brightened as she drew closer to it, until it felt as though she was standing right in front of it, within it, and it was no longer a soft, pretty glow; it was a towering wall of fire, a raging inferno that reached out, licking her with a thousand flaming gold tongues. Morgana screamed and jerked away, desperate to escape before the flames consumed her.

Her screams shattered the meditative atmosphere in the tower room; Merlin's eyes snapped open just in time for him to see Morgana throw herself backward onto the floor with her hands covering her face as if to ward off a blow. He pulled them away and pinned her arms at her sides, but she thrashed against his hold and kept screaming, her eyes still shut tightly, so he did the only thing he could think of to disrupt her fit: he transferred both of her wrists to one hand and used the other to slap her. "Morgana, open your eyes! Look at me!"

She stopped screaming and her eyes, wide with fright, shot open. "Merlin? Oh, Merlin, thank God you're here!" He pulled her off the floor, into his arms, and she clung to him, shaking like a leaf.

"Well, I think we've made excellent progress for just one night." Nimueh sounded highly satisfied.

By contrast, Merlin's voice was full of a blistering anger that made Morgana cringe even though it wasn't directed at her. "Progress? You call scaring her wits out of her progress?"

"Of course - although it took her some time, she found the magic inside her, something not many manage on their first try. Her reaction was unusually extreme, though; I've never seen anything like it. What did you see in your mind that frightened you so, child?"

Morgana shook her head and burrowed deeper into Merlin's chest, but after a lot of coaxing he and Nimueh finally got her to describe the mental manifestation of her magic.

"Hmm." Nimueh rocked back on her heels as she considered this. "Interesting that you choose to visualize your magic as something you fear. Incidentally, why are you so afraid of fire? Did you burn yourself while playing in the kitchens as a child?"

"That's none of your business." The trauma of witnessing her mother's horrific death was such that it had taken all of Morgana's inner strength to tell Merlin about it; she was not going to rip that wound open again for Nimueh. "And I did not choose to visualize anything! Why would I torment myself so?"

"That I cannot answer, but you seem very adept at tormenting yourself, Lady Morgana. Everything you saw was of your own making; neither Merlin nor I influenced it in any way. Perhaps you ought to work on making peace with yourself before we try again."

"No!" Morgana scrambled to her feet. "I will not attempt this again! I am done with magic!"

Nimueh laughed so hard she had to wipe a tear from her eye. "Say that all you like, child, but I believe magic is far from finished with you." Morgana gathered up her skirts and fled the tower. "Your fiancée is quite intractable," Nimueh said to Merlin as they listened to her footsteps descend the tightly winding spiral staircase. "I wish you luck with her - I fear you'll need it."

"I can handle Morgana; it's easier if you aren't mean to her," Merlin said pointedly.

"You knew when you engaged my services that it is not my way to coddle my students," Nimueh replied dismissively. "I never coddled you."

"I wasn't brought up to fear my gifts; I wanted to learn from you. Morgana has a lifetime of Uther's misguidance to overcome before she's ready to do that."

"That is your problem, not mine. I will train Morgana in our ways, but I am not her friend - her success or failure matters little to me, which is why you came to me rather than attempting to teach her yourself. Your feelings for her cloud your judgment, Merlin, but her feelings for you will let you do what I cannot and help her past whatever emotional hurdles stand in her way."

"Are you sure about that? What if…what if Uther's attitude toward magic is too much a part of her?" There was a long pause in which Merlin and Nimueh stared silently into each other's faces, and then he asked the question he really wanted - yet feared - the answer to. "What will happen to her if I can't convince her she needs to learn magic?"

"Her magic is too strong; she cannot continue to repress it. If she does not master it, it will manifest destructively as it has been doing, and I daresay it will eventually destroy her," Nimueh said with the same air of nonchalance she would show when discussing the weather.

Merlin was dismayed, worried for Morgana, and irritated. He hadn't expected Nimueh to like Morgana or even pretend to be her friend, but he thought she might at least care how it would affect him if Morgana's unrestrained magic hurt her. "Your compassion is really heartwarming, Nimueh, you know that?" Not giving her a chance to respond, he stalked out of the tower after Morgana.

So here we have Morgana's first magic lesson, and things are off to a rocky start. What a surprise, eh? If anyone's read the Sword of Truth series and thought Nimueh's advice on how to meditate and get in touch with your magic sounded a lot like what Sister Verna taught Richard in Stone of Tears, that's because it seemed to me like a perfectly good way to learn magic, so I kinda borrowed the idea.

I hope all of you have a very merry Christmas, or if you don't celebrate Christmas, then enjoy the holiday of your choice. Happy Holidays/New Year, everyone!