This chapter is entirely Gwen-centric, so no Merlin or Morgana here, sorry. On the plus side though, Arwen is now the official secondary pairing of this fic! I'll be changing the character/pairing tags to reflect that shortly.

Gwen rode hard on the horse she stole from Morgause's stables, the urgency of her quest pushing her beyond what she had previously thought to be the limits of her endurance. Warm days and cold nights blurred into each other around her, days and nights in which Morgause could be doing unimaginably awful things to Morgana and Merlin, and still Gwen rode on. She thought she may have crossed into Dagon from Escetia when it occurred to her in some dim corner of her mind that she had no idea where to find the Isle of the Blessed, but she couldn't worry about that yet; right now she was so tired it was all she could do to stay in her saddle.

Just as Gwen was resigning herself to stopping for a few hours' rest, she felt a sword slip under her chin, its point pricking her throat. "Halt," ordered a stern voice from somewhere off to the side. "Remove your hood and declare yourself."

Instantly wide awake, Gwen obeyed the familiar voice. "Isn't it a bit late for hunting, my lord?"

Arthur dropped his sword immediately upon seeing her face and pulled his horse up beside hers. "Guinevere! Where the hell have you been? We've been scouring the countryside for weeks!"

Gwen looked around but saw no one other than Arthur. "Who is 'we'?" she asked.

"Everyone. King Balinor's even got the dragons looking, but the three of you were gone without a trace. Tell me what happened - where are Morgana and Merlin?"

"Trapped in Escetia-"

"What? Escetia?" It was an isolated, secretive land Arthur knew almost nothing about, except that its king held no love for Camelot. There had never been any declarations of war or overt hostilities, though; over the last several years, Escetia's policies had grown ever more insular. As far as Arthur knew, the kingdom hadn't had dealings with other lands since before Camelot and Dagon first went to war. Uther had been relieved that Cenred hadn't seized the opportunity to attack on another side, thereby spreading Camelot's defenses too thin to mount an effective resistance, so he had never bothered to discover exactly what was going on in Escetia, declaring that Cenred could sit in his gloomy old castle and rot, provided that he did so quietly.

"Yes, Escetia, Queen Morgause has-"

"Who?"

"King Cenred's wife," Gwen said impatiently.

"Oh." Arthur had heard a rumor that Cenred had married, but he didn't know the lady's name as it had been a very private affair.

"She's a monster, a witch who has used her magic to usurp her husband's authority and reduce him to nothing more than her puppet, as well as capturing us and making us her prisoners. I was only able to escape because I'm not worth anything to her, so she didn't guard me very closely. Now I must get to the Isle of the Blessed to get something from the High Priestess of the Old Religion that will enable Morgana and Merlin to escape too, and I've only just realized I don't even know where it is!" Gwen burst into tears as the enormity of her task, which somehow seemed even greater now that she'd verbalized it, coupled with her exhaustion suddenly became too much to bear.

"Don't do that. I've never really known how to handle crying women; you want Merlin for this sort of thing, not me." Nevertheless, Arthur managed to reach across the space between them and give Gwen an awkward pat on the shoulder. "I don't know anything about spells for holding someone captive, but I saw this Isle of the Blessed on a map when we were coordinating our search, and I can take you there. I just need to tell the rest of my search party that I've found y-"

Gwen grabbed his arm. "No, don't! Morgana insisted I go straight to the Isle and return to her without letting anyone see me, in case they were spying for Morgause."

"You think this witch has spies here?"

"I know she had at least one, the Lady Sirenia, and she might have more. We can root them out once our friends are back home safe, but for now we can't trust anyone. Right now Morgana is pretending to be sympathetic to her, and if Morgause realizes she's being lied to, she'll kill her and Merlin!"

To her relief, Arthur agreed without a fuss. If their friends' situation was as precarious as Gwen seemed to think, he wasn't about to do anything that might put them at greater risk. "The search party is due to regroup and report on our progress tomorrow evening, so with any luck there'll be time to get you there before they miss me."

"Is the Isle that close?" Gwen asked hopefully.

"Close enough. Why don't I attach a lead to your horse so you can relax a bit?"

Gwen consented eagerly; while she didn't expect to get any sleep slumped over her horse's neck, handing the reins over to someone else for a while sounded very appealing.

###

It felt like almost no time passed before she felt the steady motion of her mount's smooth gait stop, yet when she opened her eyes she saw that the night sky had brightened to a hazy predawn gray. She must have dozed off after all.

"Here we are," Arthur announced when he noticed that she was awake. "According to the map, the Isle is somewhere in the middle of that." He motioned toward the vast lake ahead of them, its deep blue waters stretching out interminably to the distant horizon. It was a place of glorious natural beauty, but at the moment Gwen could only see the huge expanse of water as a barrier keeping her from her goal.

"I guess we'll have to cross it in that little boat there."

"But how are we supposed to go anywhere in it when there are no oars?" Arthur protested as he followed her to the lake's edge, leaving their horses to graze on the grassy banks.

"A boat that takes you to a magical island probably doesn't need oars," Gwen said with a shrug, and climbed in, daintily lifting her skirt to keep it out of the water. "Are you coming or not?"

Arthur thought she was being overly optimistic about the boat's capabilities, but one could never tell with magic, and if by some chance it did whisk her off to some unknown enclave of magical priestesses, he supposed he ought to go with her. Staying safely on the shore would look cowardly, and Arthur Pendragon was no coward. He got into the boat much less gracefully than Gwen had and took a seat at the opposite end. As soon as his backside touched the wood, the boat launched itself into the lake and floated sedately off on a self-charted course. Gwen was relieved that the boat seemed to know where it was going, but she wished it would go there faster.

"Trying to capsize us?" Arthur asked when her fidgeting started to rock the boat.

"I'm sorry; I don't want to dump us in the lake, but I can't sit still when I think of what that…woman could be doing to our friends right now. What if they die because this boat doesn't move fast enough?"

"Worrying yourself sick won't get us to the Isle of the Blessed any sooner, so maybe you should try thinking of something else."

Gwen looked at him like he'd lost his mind; his advice might be sound in principle, but there was no other topic that could command her attention while Morgana and her fiancé were imprisoned in enemy territory and possibly being tortured and killed by an evil witch. "Such as?"

"Well, there's the last time we saw each other - not just passing in the castle corridors, but the last time we spoke, just you and me, like this. We never did discuss that, and we probably should."

"You want to talk about that?" Gwen asked, flustered and incredulous. She'd thought they had made a tacit mutual agreement to pretend that night had never happened.

"Yes," Arthur fibbed, knowing the ensuing conversation was bound to be painfully awkward but willing to endure it to distract Gwen from her useless fretting.

"Well, I think it was for the best that we didn't go through with our plan to spy on Morgana. It really wasn't any business of ours if she did leave her chambers at night, and I wouldn't have felt right sneaking around after her."

Arthur frowned at that; he didn't share Gwen's qualms about invading Morgana's privacy, nor did he think her nightly activities were the salient point of this discourse. "We didn't follow her - if she actually went anywhere - because we forgot about watching her door and didn't notice her coming out. I don't know about you, but I can't remember noticing anything that night except…you."

"Me either," Gwen sheepishly admitted. She wouldn't have thought she would ever find Arthur's company so absorbing, yet for that one night he had dominated her mind completely. She had even forgotten her best friend, something she and Morgana had sworn they would never do for any man. That Arthur Pendragon of all people had affected her so confounded her.

"And at some point, I think I almost kissed you."

"Yes, and I almost let you."

"There's just one thing I can't figure out - why didn't I go through with it? Since we came to Dagon and I've gotten to know you as more than just Morgana's maid, I've realized I like you. I like you a lot."

"I like you too, now that I've seen there's more to you than the rude, arrogant prat who likes to order everyone around, but there can never be anything between us. You're the crown prince of Camelot, and however you see me, I am only a servant."

Arthur was saved the trouble of coming up with an argument - if there was any way to argue against that point - by the boat beaching itself on a shore of lush greenery and pristine white sand. Gwen clambered out and raced up the bank to where a barefoot, black-haired woman in red stood in the shade of a giant tree. "Are you the High Priestess Nimueh?" she asked breathlessly.

"Indeed I am, and you must be Guinevere, maidservant of the Lady Morgana. And that over-muscled ox clanking his way up from the lake in that ridiculous armor must be Arthur Pendragon."

Unfortunately, Arthur's armor wasn't clanking so loudly that he couldn't hear Nimueh. "Excuse me," he said heatedly, "I am not an ox!"

Nimueh tilted her head thoughtfully as she surveyed him. "No, you're right, I can see something of your father in you. It's really more of a mulish look."

"Do you have what I came for?" Gwen butted in before the tiff between prince and priestess could escalate into a full-blown argument.

"Oh…yes. Healing water from the Cauldron of Arianhrod." Nimueh held out her hand, revealing a vial of water in her palm.

Gwen couldn't suppress a slight feeling of disappointment as she took it; for this to be magic water, it didn't look very special. Still, if it broke Morgause's hold over Merlin, she supposed she shouldn't complain about it not looking any different from any other water in the world. "Thank you, my lady." She added a curtsy - when it came to extremely powerful sorceresses, it was probably better to be overly polite than risk offending them.

"When you give it to Morgana, remind her of my warning concerning its use."

"What warning, my lady?"

"She will know what I mean. Now, I think you'd best be on your way. Would you like my aid in returning to your mistress' side sooner?"

"You mean one of those spells that makes a person disappear and reappear somewhere else, like Morgause used when she took us?" Gwen swallowed nervously as she recalled the frightening sensations that accompanied travel by magic. "I don't suppose I have the time to ride all the way back into Escetia… All right then." She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the world to fall out from under her feet.

"I cannot send you into the castle itself; Morgause has fortified her home with enchantments I cannot break from this distance. I can however get you very near it in much less time than it would take you to reach it by more conventional means. Afterward, getting inside undetected will be your responsibility."

"I think I can do that."

"Wait!" Arthur piped up.

Both women turned and frowned at him. "What?" Nimueh asked impatiently.

Arthur ignored her and spoke only to Gwen. "Be careful, Guinevere. I know you would do anything for Morgana, but make sure you come back safely too."

"I'll do my best."

"You have to - I'm a prince. You can't disobey me."

Gwen smiled; even though the words sounded like something the old Arthur, the stubborn, arrogant one, would say, his tone and the look in his eyes made it clear that this was the new and improved Arthur, her friend, speaking. "Yes, sire."

"One more thing…" He suddenly moved forward, grasped her chin and gently tilted her face up, and kissed her.

Gwen's eyes popped open wide. She couldn't believe he had picked now of all times to do this, couldn't believe he was doing it at all…couldn't believe she didn't want him to stop. But then, he knew she was heading into a very dangerous situation - maybe he figured he might not get another chance. Which of course meant she wouldn't get another chance either. Realizing that, she threw herself wholeheartedly into the kiss, let herself get lost in the feel of Arthur's touch and his lips caressing hers and forget, just for a moment, what she still had to do and how much depended on her succeeding.

At last the need for air forced them apart although they still stood very close together, gazing into each other's eyes as they caught their breath…until the sound of a throat being cleared much louder than necessary reminded them that Nimueh was still present. Her lip was curled in disgust; from the mental images that had leaked from Morgana's mind when she mentioned her maid while projecting her consciousness to the High Priestess, Nimueh had gotten the impression that Gwen was a smart, sensible girl. Obviously Morgana's high opinion of her was unwarranted if this was the man she was attracted to. "Merlin and Morgana are waiting for you," she reminded the lovestruck nincompoop.

Gwen had the grace to look embarrassed. "Sorry, my lady. Please send me back to Escetia now."

"Gladly."

###

When the disorientation of being plucked off the face of the earth and set down again miles away from her previous location - though Nimueh had somehow done it much more gently than Morgause - cleared, Gwen found herself among the scraggly trees that encircled the blonde's forbidding fortress of a castle. They were dead and barren, their branches twisted into gnarled claws, as if Morgause's proximity had sapped all life from the very land around her. Beyond the last of them, the castle's wall reared toward the sky, so high that Gwen had crane her neck to see the ramparts at the top.

There was no chance of scaling its sheer face, nor was there much of a chance that, having escaped once, Gwen could use her servant's anonymity to slip in as easily as she had slipped out; that left the culvert where sewage emptied into the river as her only possible means of ingress. The stench was so strong it made her lightheaded, but she held her nose and forced herself not to back away. This was the only way she could get to her friends…the only way she could get back to Arthur. Gwen checked that the vial Nimueh had given her was tucked securely into her apron, took a deep breath, and plunged into the icy, filthy water.

…Yup, I just made Gwen take a dip in the sewer. And yes, Morgause sucks so badly that she dumps garbage into the water, which is why all the trees died.

Next chapter: the girls try to free Merlin.