The guards followed Liam out the door and locked it with a loud click which seemed to taunt the two boys. Arthur had ripped the sleeve off his shirt and quickly pressed it to Merlin's foot to try and stop the bleeding, making Merlin gasp with pain.
"Sorry," Arthur said automatically, focusing on stemming the bleeding. Merlin was shaking, probably with a mixture of pain and shock, but managed to stammer,
"You've been saying that a lot recently, haven't you?" before throwing up onto the stone floor. Arthur grimaced and Merlin misinterpreted it as disgust.
"Sorry, I'll clean it up," he promised.
"Stop trying to beat me Merlin. I will say sorry far more often than you," Arthur joked, accomplishing a weak smile from Merlin. After a small while the bleeding had slowed and Arthur clumsily managed to bandage Merlin's stump with his ripped sleeve.
"What do think Liam's going to do when he realises you lied?" Merlin asked tentatively, cautious to bring the subject back around to Emrys, to himself. Arthur's face darkened when he thought about the fact that he may have just placed all of his knights in mortal danger.
"Well, if we are where I think we are, Nadir is a good two days ride so we have about four days until he returns. Until then, hopefully we are able to recover a little bit and devise an escape plan," Arthur tried to sound calm, not wanting to alarm Merlin or appear scared. Merlin looked around the room, from the locked cage they were in, across to the small bolted window opposite, to the locked exit and gave Arthur a look that was close to pitying.
"I think that might take a small miracle," that was when a light suddenly came on in Merlin's head. Without Liam and his anti-magic shield, Merlin might finally be able to get them out of their prison. Silently he focused on the door of their cell and willed it to come off its hinges. He could feel his magic starting to build inside of him and then suddenly a shock of pain radiated through his entire body, making him convulse and scream in pain.
Arthur's eyes grew wide with shock and worry as he pushed both his hands onto Merlin's shoulders, trying to stop his convulsions.
"Merlin! What's wrong? What's happening?" Merlin wasn't capable of responding. Finally, Merlin's body stilled, his eyes watering and unfocused, his breaths coming in shuddering gasps.
"Merlin?" Arthur cautiously asked. Merlin didn't respond. He was awake, but he wasn't responding to anything Arthur said or did. Arthur carefully picked Merlin up off the cold stone floor and carried him over to the far wall, away from Merlin's vomit. As night fell, Arthur just cradled Merlin in his arms as, without guards to light the fire, they were plunged into pitch darkness.
Merlin's brain was a complete mess. He tried with all his energy to think clearly but his thoughts were all a confused jumble of nonsensical flashes as they chased each other through his mind before he had time to figure out what each one was. Triangles, Arthurs, curtains, Liams. Nothing which Merlin could make sense of or hold onto. He was so caught up in his overcrowded head he couldn't even consider where he was or what was happening.
The complete, almost tangible, blackness which surrounded Arthur felt as though it was suffocating his eyes. He could feel Merlin in his arms, hear his laboured breathing, but that was all. There was no light, no colour, no other sounds or stimuli of any kind. He tried to force his eyes open wider, hoping it would somehow help him to see but it was to no effect. There was no moon out tonight and Arthur felt strange, as though his brain was starving. To help fill the void Arthur started to hum, the noise sounded so loud and foreign he stopped instantly. Finally finding sleep, Arthur managed to escape his own brand of torture and slip into a land of his own, with colours and sound.
About midday the next day, Merlin finally stirred from his comatose like state. Arthur had carefully laid Merlin on the ground and, taking advantage of the daylight, was trying to decide how best to clean up Merlin's sick without wasting too much of their precious water. Merlin suddenly shot up, making himself cry out in pain, forgetting his injured rib. His eyes frantically darted around him, never settling anywhere. He quickly shuffled backwards and cowered against the wall, shutting his eyes again and rocking backwards and forwards.
"Merlin?" Arthur said cautiously. Merlin stopped rocking and slowly raised his head to look at Arthur, fear and uncertainty etched on his every feature. Seeing Merlin so confused and scared, echoing how Arthur himself was feeling, and not knowing why or how to help affected Arthur to his very core.
"Merlin, it's me, Arthur," he said quietly as he slowly started to inch towards Merlin. Merlin suddenly flinched backwards when Arthur got too near,
"It's okay," Arthur coaxed, "I want to help you," recognition suddenly dawned across Merlin's features as his face fell into a smile.
"Arthur!" Arthur's face also lit up as he beamed at his friend who had suddenly regained his senses.
"What happened to you?" Arthur asked confusedly as he moved faster towards his friend and sat next to him.
"You can never trust the door. The door is full of lies, lies, lies," Merlin quickly muttered, his head going round in circles as the repeated the last word. Arthur froze at Merlin's response, watching as his friend's head continued to roll in circles, a huge smile plastered on his face.
"Are you okay? What's wrong?" Arthur asked, fear lacing every word. Merlin looked over at Arthur and, seeing the worried look on Arthur's face, started to cry in earnest. Wails echoed off the walls and Merlin stamped his feet, his face in his hands. Arthur, at a complete loss as to why Merlin was suddenly acting like an escapee from an insane asylum, simply wrapped him arms around Merlin until he stopped crying and abruptly fell straight to sleep.
Arthur would never admit to anyone that while Merlin slept he let himself cry. Merlin seemed to have gone mad and he didn't even know why. It wasn't the torture; he had been fine after that. It was something else, whatever it was that had made him go into convulsions. Arthur felt so alone. Sure, Merlin was still there, but it wasn't really him and it was all his fault. He went over all the ways he could have avoided placing Merlin in this cell with him, and over all the things which Merlin had been put through because of him, and he cried until there were no more tears.
When Merlin awoke it was to a very apprehensive Arthur.
"Merlin?" he asked, not knowing what to expect. Merlin was confused and in pain.
"What happened?" He asked, sitting up carefully so as to not agitate his injuries. The last thing he remembered was trying to use his magic and the searing pain which followed.
"I was hoping you could tell me," Arthur breathed through his sigh of relief at having his friend back to normal.
"I don't know, I just felt pain and that was it," Merlin replied, conveniently leaving out the part where he had tried to use magic. Arthur puzzled this over while Merlin did his own puzzling.
He couldn't understand why he had reacted to trying to use magic like that. He thought that perhaps Liam was still too near when he had attempted it, but when he tried to do magic before there was no pain. Merlin considered for a brief moment attempting magic again to see what would happen, but he wasn't willing to rick it. He would rather get another toe cut off then go through that again.
As Merlin thought his situation over, his mind was gradually starting to lose focus. That same feeling of not being able to hold down a thought started to build again. Merlin fought against it but the harder he tried to hold onto a thought, the faster it slipped away.
Merlin started to hum tunelessly, swaying side to side. Snapped out of his reverie Arthur looked over at Merlin and felt his stomach drop. Sighing in defeat, Arthur just sat and watched Merlin, missing his friend every moment.
The next few days passed in a blur of caring for Merlin when he was insane, hiding from the real Merlin that he had actually gone mad and trying to not go insane like Merlin through the dark nights. Merlin was mostly calm, rocking backwards and forwards, but he sometimes got animated, even violent. At one point Merlin had started jumping up and down in one spot, making his stump start to bleed profusely. Arthur had tried to stop him but Merlin had punched Arthur in the face with surprising strength. Arthur had had to just let him go until he stopped and had trouble explaining to a sane Merlin why his injury had suddenly grown so much worse while he was just 'sleeping'.
Arthur hated to admit it, but he actually wanted Liam to come back. He thought that he might have some answers, but if not at least he might get some food. They wouldn't last much longer if they didn't get something to eat and he knew Liam didn't want him dead.
Thankfully, four days after leaving, Liam returned. Merlin was in one of his states of rocking backwards and forwards harmlessly when two of Liam's men came in and lit the fire. Forgetting what it felt like to be warm, Arthur relished the novel feeling of slowly warming up. One of the men threw two soft old apples into the cage, one of which Arthur ate with relish, the other he saved to give to Merlin when he came back to him. An hour later, Liam strolled through the door with a jeering smile on his face, which was specially meant for Arthur.
"Your men are dead," he said with pleasure, taking in every moment of Arthur's pain as though it were a drug.
"That's right. About twenty Camelot knights were killed in a tragic accident where Morgana slaughtered very single one of them," Arthur could hear his blood pounding through his ears as he took in the news, waiting for it all to be too much, but it wasn't. Not realising he could take anymore tragedy; it was a small victory to find that he could.
"You will pay for this," Arthur threatened with ferocity. Liam pretended to look offended, mocking the king.
"You brought this upon yourself little king. If you hadn't lied to me to save Merlin here, I needn't have told Morgana about your little friends." At the mention of Merlin Liam had looked over to the boy cowering in the corner. A look of confusion danced across his face for a second, before joy settled on his features.
"I see your friend doesn't stand up to torture too well. Broken already, how sad," he gloated, clearly proud of what he had done.
"No, this isn't because of the torture." Arthur piped up, wanting to defend Merlin's dignity. "He was fine after that, this happened because of something else. He went into convulsions, I think he had some sort of fit," Arthur explained, wanting to wipe the self-satisfied smirk off Liam's face. Liam hadn't done this. At the news Liam's face fell into a picture of complete shock, his eyes wide and his mouth agape.
"He has magic," he stated, causing Arthur to remember his conclusion that Liam was completely insane. Maybe there was something in the water? Arthur looked over at their bucket of water with the deepest suspicion.
"Neal!" Liam barked, never once taking his eyes of the rocking Merlin, "I want to take one of our prisoners out of the cage." Neal clumsily hurried over, loading the crossbow. Once he had it trained on Merlin, and Arthur had stood out of the way, Liam unlocked the cage and dragged Merlin out. When he had grabbed Merlin, Merlin had started to yell in fear as though he had no idea where he was or what was happening. Liam dragged Merlin over to where some chains were dangling from the roof and clasped them around Merlin's wrists. The chains were so high that Merlin's toes barely scraped the floor as he hung by his wrists, writhing in confusion and, undoubtedly, pain.
"You have magic," Liam restated, making Merlin stop wriggling to look up at him. His eyes couldn't seem to focus as his head unsteadily swayed on his straining shoulders. Arthur thought that the last thing a confused Merlin needed were these insane lies being thrown about.
"Please," Arthur requested, not really begging because surely anyone would agree with him, "he has been my servant for six years, I think I would know if he were a sorcerer."
While Arthur talked, Merlin started to wake-up. He quickly took in the fact that Liam was back and that he was hanging by his wrists.
"You're wrong," Liam countered, staring at Merlin like he was the greatest treasure known to man. "Merlin has magic and he is going to lead us straight to Emrys," Merlin suddenly wished he hadn't woken up at all.
Yes, another cliffhanger. I know, I'm evil but hope you like it! Thank you all again for all of the amazing reviews and for favouriting and following. Keeps me smiling which keeps me writing :)