Chapter 1

Merlin, do you hear me?

Dead.

Merlin, please respond.

Dead, Merlin. Your father is dead.

Present day, April 11th, 1912.

The black-haired, young man replaced the withered daisies for fresh, blood-red roses. They were the only things in the environment that were fully alive, if you left him out. He stood there for a while, with chattering teeth from the cold. It was begin April, but it felt like a snowy winter day in December.

He wiped some dust and dead leaves from the marble grave stone and repeated the words, which he knew by heart, in his head once again:

''Here lies Balinor Pendragon. Once a prince, always a prince.

March 2nd 1864 – October 14th 1903.''

The day of his father's death had been printed in his memory. He'd often relive the moment in his dreams where his mother had shaken his father roughly, and she was crying, begging him to wake up: but only Merlin did – bathing in sweat.

Merlin had been fourteen at the time. He hadn't cried, because he'd understood why his father had done what he'd done. It was a complicated story. Very, very complicated.

There had been a time of peace. Future king Uther and his little brother Balinor would play hide and seek in the enormous garden full of freshly mown grass and Balinor would tackle Uther with a quick whisper and win every round.

The two grew up together. As brothers they'd never looked alike (Uther being blonde and muscled, Balinor black-haired and more compact), neither did they ever agree about anything. Uther had always been fascinated and slightly jealous when his brother's eyes turned into an unusual colour for a split second and made a caterpillar turn into a butterfly. ''Why can't I do that?'' he asked. Then Balinor would shrug his shoulders and mutter: ''I don't know…''

''Nor father, nor mother is able to do what you do, but they don't seem to care. They're even proud of you.'' Uther raised one eyebrow, waiting for a hundred-page explanation that he would never get.

''It was given to me. Magic. It's a gift,'' was the answer.

Uther, the oldest of the two, but not as grown-up as Balinor when it came to the mind, claimed he was going to put it on his Christmas list.

Time went by and after both of them had gotten enough of the little pleasures now and then, they began to focus more on long-term relationships. Their father, King of Great-Britain, did Balinor a proposal to marry a young princess called Anne-Marie, but he refused. Uther did marry his Father's choice – Anne-Marie's sister Ygraine – and within a few years he would be crowned King and she his Queen.

Prince Balinor had never cared much for titles. He'd rather be spoken of as a wizard than as a prince. He chose another path, a path that crossed with another human being. He fell in love with her kind heart and the way she simply didn't care about his 'label'. Balinor knew Hunith was the woman he wanted to spend his life with from the moment she'd laid her blue eyes on him. He was relieved when father told him he didn't condemn the relationship. Uther was happy for him as well – at first. The older brother had always wanted to be in the spotlights and his wish was fulfilled when the King died at a fairly young age. But everywhere King Uther went from then on, camera's followed him – whereas Balinor could walk to the moon and back and no one would give a damn about it. The two brothers lost touch for a few years, but as soon as Hunith gave birth to a son, Prince Emrys Alexander Louis Pendragon, whose light blue eyes brightened Balinor's days from morning to midnight, Uther often came to visit them with his wife, Queen Ygraine. The situation was odd – Uther had avoided his little brother after he had become King, but now there was a son in the family, and he would cuddle little Emrys and kiss Hunith on the cheek, exclaiming how happy he was to see them again. Although, on one summer afternoon, things were different. He took Balinor apart and began to talk.

''It's been bothering me for a long time now, little brother.''

''What is?'' it was bounced back.

Uther made a gesture with his head, and thus made Balinor look across the garden at Uther's wife Ygraine. ''No matter how we try... I'm... I'm afraid Ygraine is infertile.'' He whispered the last word and his voice cracked.

Balinor shook his head and placed a comforting hand on Uther's shoulder. ''She can't be. You have a beautiful daughter, Morgan. She's healthy, she's happy, and she is yours.''

Uther hesitated before he said: ''That is different.''

''Do you think something has happened after Morgan's birth?'' Balinor frowned, twisting his lips a little.

His brother closed his eyes when he more or less confessed: ''I said... Morgan is different.''

''What are you saying? Are you saying...''

''She isn't ours.'' There. The naked truth.

Balinor's hand fell off Uther's shoulder in shock. How could his brother have kept such a secret from him?

Morgan was an exquisite young girl of two years old at the time. Her deep brown hair fell in curls around her small face with its dark, expressive eyebrows. She knew all the colours that existed and even created her own with the little paint tubes that she'd found in Buckingham Palace. All the letters the alphabet contained were familiar to her, as well as the words that were formed with these letters. Her ability of speaking was formidable, and she surprised Uther and Ygraine with that every day. But still, she was no child of theirs. Morgan was an orphan. Her father, Uther's grandnephew George Howard, and her mother Catherina died during a flight in a hot air balloon. The balloon went down way too fast and couldn't be stopped, its air-speed way too high. It crashed and burned and there were no survivors, except for a little girl who was playing in a garden somewhere far far away from the terrible accident. Since Catherina and George lived in a remote place somewhere in Scotland, no-one barely knew them, and since Ygraine never really went out because she was afraid of the camera's, it had been easier than Uther had thought to pretend the child was theirs. All Kings and Queens deserved a little privacy – and Uther had no problems with lying. It would set the country, that expected a male heir, a bit at ease. Rumours about Ygraine being a barren wife had already been spreading then. Problem was, after hearing them so often, Uther could no longer deny them now. Maybe they were true.

Balinor listened to Uther's explanation carefully, not missing a single detail. His conclusion wasn't the one Uther had hoped for: ''You've been bloody stupid, Uther! What I'd like to know is what in the name of God you thought you were doing?'' He spat out the words, angry so much had been hidden from him the last few years.

''I thought I was doing the right thing,'' Uther answered without a hint of emotion. ''But then you wouldn't understand. You have no idea what it's like to be King. I have a duty to this country, to my people.''

''Do you have any idea how the people will respond when they find out your blood doesn't flow through Morgan's veins?''

''They won't. I'm telling you this now, but you have to take this secret to the grave.''

Balinor took a few angry steps, wanting to stop this conversation immediately. But Uther wasn't done yet. ''Don't you walk away, brother!''

''What do you want from me? Is Emrys the reason you suddenly think I'm interesting enough to talk to again? You leave him out of this, d'you understand?! He's done nothing to you!''

Uther looked fondly at the little, innocent boy who was pulling at Morgan's curls, and admitted without shame: ''I'm jealous. I've always been jealous of you, Balinor, but that doesn't mean I think you don't deserve what you have. I just wish I had the same.''

''You should have told father you didn't want to marry Ygraine.''

''I've never regretted accepting father's proposal. I've grown to love her, you see. But now I'm scared she can't receive, and it's eating me from the inside, Balinor. What am I to do?''

Balinor sighed, rubbed his temples with his fingers and closed his eyes, thinking. ''There is,'' he said after a while, ''only one way I know of.''

''Tell me.''

''It's magic,'' he answered in a low voice.