A/N: Sorry this one is even more late than the last few. My favorite relatives whom I haven't seen for years came by for Christmas and I spent the whole time hanging out with them. Totally forgot to upload. But here it is! And to all those who might wonder: no, I did not forget any page breaks (haven't forgotten a single one this whole story, look at me go), the flashbacks are supposed to be embedded like this. Now here you go!
Kara kept a tight hold on Mordred's arm as the transportation spell dropped them at the edge of the woods within sight of Camelot's gates, the howling winds kicking up the fallen leaves all around them before they ebbed. She didn't let go even as she turned to stare into the trees, eyes wide and inscrutable.
"I haven't set foot in this kingdom since I was ten years old," she said. "The trees are different in Amata than they are here. They didn't have any of the blue flowers that I always liked."
Mordred held out a blue flower and she took it from him, smiling as she breathed in its scent. It couldn't be part of their daisy chain, but it would look lovely in her hair. He tucked it behind her ear and she blushed.
Mordred smiled at Kara and squeezed her hand. "We can come back and pick some later," he said, relishing the idea. "A whole bouquet of them, if you like."
"I wonder if they still grow in that meadow," she said. "The one that we used to play in. Do you remember?"
He was running through a grassy field, hair whipping into his face. He passed Kara by and she shouted for him to wait. He did, and she tackled him to the ground. They rolled, laughing, and Mordred had never felt so happy.
"I remember," he said, putting an arm around Kara's shoulders and pulling her close. "We had so much fun there."
"The knights probably burned it down," Kara said, "like they did our camp."
Flames licked up the familiar red cloth and it crumbled to the ground, blackened and charred. Mordred coughed as the acrid smoke invaded his lungs, even more pervasive than the smell of blood. The clashing of swords was loud in his ears and he wanted to cover them, to block out the sound, but he didn't dare let go of Kara's hand.
She said that they needed to fight and fear made his heart pound in his chest and his palms sweat. People were dying, people that he knew and cared about. They were dropping like flies all around him, but he couldn't move. Even when a knight in a red cloak brought the hilt of his sword down on Kara's head and sent her crashing to the ground, Mordred couldn't bring himself to fight.
That fear came to him again, worse for the lack of a true threat. He held onto Kara more tightly, terrified that he would lose her again, that she would fall and he wouldn't be able to save her. They were in Camelot, after all, and there was no place more dangerous for people like them to be. There were knights just past the tree line at the gates, patrolling through the woods, searching for them, hunting them down like they always were.
A helpless anger flooded Mordred and he clenched his free hand around the hilt of his own sword. The knights of Camelot had gone on so many raids just like that one, had caused so much harm to so many people. They had slaughtered innocent men and women, had held children under the water until they stopped thrashing, and all without a second's hesitation. They had robbed Mordred of his childhood home, of his family and his friends, and had destroyed the life that he should have led. It was their fault that Mordred and Kara had been torn apart, that they had lived their lives alone and in constant fear.
"I bet there's nothing of it left," Kara said, still looking off into the woods that used to be their home. "It's probably all gone forever."
Mordred didn't cry until two days after the attack, camped for the night in the hollow beneath a fallen tree. His father wrapped a cloak tight around his shoulders and pulled him close but he shivered anyway, silent tears tracing their way down his cheeks as it finally hit him that he could never go home again. There was nothing left to go back to, just ashes and bones and the memories that he was certain he was already forgetting.
Even Kara was gone, dead on the ground, and it was his fault. He had let her stay behind to fight all by herself. They were supposed to stay together always, that was what they had said, but he had broken that promise. And now he would always be alone without her by his side. It felt like some great beast had gnawed a hole in his chest where his heart was supposed to be and even his magic could not warm him as it usually did. His father shushed him, whispering that it would be alright, but it wouldn't be. It would never be alright again.
Mordred pressed a kiss to the top of Kara's head, grateful beyond measure that she was there with him. He had already lost everything else that he cared about; if he ever lost her—
Mordred was knocked back by a rock that came flying out of the ground toward him seemingly of its own accord and hit him in the gut. His coughing fit was interspersed with appreciative laughter and he took the hand that was offered to him gladly, letting Cecily pull him to his feet.
"You've got to be quicker than that if you want to beat me," she said with a very satisfied grin on her face. "You can't rely on your strength alone, you know."
Mordred rubbed at his sore stomach, smiling. "So I'm learning," he said. "I'll get one up on you eventually."
Cecily laughed, her head thrown back and her blonde hair flashing like gold in the bright sunlight. Mordred's breath, already scarce, caught in his throat. "Dream on," she said, and Mordred knew then that she would be in his dreams tonight and every night after.
Mordred let go of Kara. Something about having her in his arms didn't feel right; she was too short, too slim. Her hair wasn't the right shade. Kara turned to look at him and he was disappointed to find dark eyes instead of light ones.
Kara frowned at him. "What is it?" she asked.
Mordred put a hand to his head, suddenly confused, and the bracelet that Kara had given him jangled loosely around his wrist, the metal cold on his skin. It had been a token of her affections, so that he would never forget how much she cared about him. As if he could ever have forgotten that, forgotten her. She was his oldest and best friend, the person that he had always cared about more than anyone else in the world. She meant everything to him and always would.
When Kara held out a hand to him, Mordred took it gladly and without reservation.
"Come on. You have a job to do," she said. "We have to find Arthur."
Arthur dropped a thick stack of parchment into Mordred's arms with a smile and said, "There you go."
Mordred stared down at them in disbelief. "What the hell is all of this?" he asked. "How many questions do you expect us to answer in one night?"
"I need to know everything, Mordred," Arthur said earnestly, his eyes bright and his jaw set. "If I am to do right by magic users, then I need to understand them and their craft. I have spent my entire life being ignorant and hurting people because of it. And I can't do that anymore. I want to do better, to be better. For their sake. For yours and Merlin's and everyone else's."
Mordred would have hugged Arthur if his hands hadn't been full. An upsurge of pride and admiration threatened to make his eyes well with tears, but he just smiled at Arthur so widely that it made his cheeks hurt. Arthur smiled back, small but undeniably genuine.
Mordred couldn't stop the grin that spread across his face, eager to find Arthur and help him in his latest endeavour. He was doing so much good in Camelot now, working so hard to make amends to the people he had harmed on his father's orders and of his own will. He was a great man, and one of rare integrity, and Mordred had been proud to wear his red, if only for a short time.
He led the way toward the city gates, still holding Kara's hand in his. The knights stationed at the city gates greeted him by name and waved him through without protest, though one or two of the more conservative of them still eyed him mistrustfully. He waved back at them jovially. None of them gave Kara more than a curious glance as she stuck close by his side.
People on the streets greeted him as he passed by and he called back to them, glad for the chance to see the friends that he had left behind when he had relocated to Carthis, even if a few of them were a bit wary of him with his secret now exposed. They didn't hate him, though, like he had thought they would. The citizens of Camelot had proven his pessimism wrong and he could not have been more pleased by it.
The sun was just beginning to sink behind the castle turrets as they passed through the courtyard, throwing ever-lengthening shadows across the cobblestones and sending people scurrying back home to their suppers. The guards at the palace doors confirmed that the talks for the day had been concluded and the monarchs had dispersed, but none of them knew where Arthur had chosen to take his evening meal and so Mordred headed toward his chambers with Kara in tow.
Arthur's chambers were empty when they reached them, everything perfectly neat and tidy now that Merlin wasn't the one in charge of cleaning them. Kara looked around with her lip curled in disgust.
"So much wealth and finery," she said, running her fingers over the plush red velvet of the hangings on Arthur's four-poster bed. "All of this for one man while the rest of us live in rags, grubbing in the dirt."
Even through the haze of pain from the wound in his arm Mordred couldn't help but notice how grand his surroundings were. The Lady Morgana's chambers were filled with silks and velvets, everything bright and colorful and pristine. He had never seen so many fine and glittering things in one place before, not in his entire life. He had only ever known the earth, simple tools, course fabrics whose colors had been dulled with time and repeated washings in cold water that he fetched himself from the stream.
The Lady Morgana's hands were gentle as they brushed over his sweaty face, her palms soft and uncalloused. She had never worked a day in her life, had done nothing to earn everything that she had been given. None of them had, these spoiled royals and noblemen sitting up in their castles and sending knights out to burn down what little his people had managed to eke out for themselves.
Mordred tried to push Morgana away, to knock her hand aside, but he was too weak and his eyes were closing as darkness crept in to drag him down.
"He's probably off feasting in some banquet hall or other," Mordred sneered, resentment flaring up in his breast. "Impressing his guests by stuffing them like pigs while the townspeople feed their children scraps."
Kara looked pleased with that assertion. "Let's go find him then," she said eagerly. "Let's make him pay for his greed and his selfishness. For everything that he's done to the people that he claims to protect and defend."
Yes, that was a good idea. They could make him pay. They could avenge all the people left starving in the streets, all the Druids left to languish in the wilderness, all the sorcerers cut down where they stood or burned alive while they screamed for mercy.
Uther Pendragon's voice was loud in his ears, condemning everything that he was, offering up death as the only salvation for the supposed crime of his existence. The axe fell with a horrifying thump, and Morgana's mirror shattered as Mordred's magic unleashed his grief in the only way that it could.
The Pendragons had murdered his father. They had hunted down an innocent man and ended his life just because he was different, because he had a power that they didn't understand. Well Mordred had that power too, and far more besides. He had magic that swelled inside him and burned in his fingertips, ready to be released, to rage and storm the way it had wanted to back then and hadn't been given the chance.
Kara pulled Mordred out into the corridor, smiling at him as if she had never been happier than in this moment. Mordred took the lead, heading toward the main banquet hall in the hopes that Arthur and his esteemed guests—each and every one of them a murderer in their own right, slaughtering their citizens out of fear and ignorance and expecting to get away with it—would be gathered there. They could hear the sounds of laughter and cutlery on plates when someone called Mordred's name.
He turned to see Sirs Gwaine, Percival, and Elyan coming toward him, each of them smiling widely at him. They were probably straight off the training field, still dressed in the chainmail that marked them as the agents of Camelot, pawns of the king who had ordered his kind eliminated.
"Hey, my little magic friend," Gwaine said as they drew even with them. "Good to see you back in town! And with a beautiful lady on your arm," he added with a nod to Kara, eyebrow waggling suggestively. Mordred pulled her a step behind him, all senses on alert for any sign of a threat from these men, these knights of Camelot.
They didn't seem to notice his wariness.
"What about that other girl?" Elyan asked, frowning at the two of them. "That mage you were courting. What was her name...Cecily?"
Cecily's fingers twined through his, warm and firm as she tugged him insistently toward the stables.
"Come on, Mordred, we've been training all day," she wheedled. "It's time for a break, and you haven't seen the waterfall yet!"
"There's a waterfall?" he asked.
"See? You haven't seen hardly anything of this kingdom!" she declared. "So we are going to go for a ride and I'm going to show you everything you need to see to be a true citizen of Carthis."
Mordred couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm, at the way her eyes sparkled when the sunlight hit them just right, at the way her nose scrunched up when she squinted in the brightness.
"Cecily," Mordred said, his hand going slack in Kara's. "She's in Carthis."
Wasn't she? They had run into her yesterday. At least, he thought they had. He found that he couldn't quite remember what they had talked about, if they had talked at all. But she had been there, he was sure of that. She had not smiled, though. He would definitely have remembered it if she had smiled at him.
"You're here for Arthur, right?" Percival asked, snapping Mordred out of his sudden daze. "To see if he has new questions for Ellison?"
"Yes," Mordred said. He had a job to do, an admittedly boring but also very important job that would help Arthur bring magic back to all the kingdoms of Albion. Arthur was changing the laws, he was learning about magic and trying to teach others. He was fighting for their right to live freely and Mordred was proud to be a part of that fight. "Yes, do you know where he is? He wasn't in his chambers."
"I haven't been keeping track of the princess," Gwaine said with a flip of his hair. "Have you?" he asked the others. Percival shrugged.
"I think he's having dinner with Sarrum," Elyan said. "I passed servants bringing their dinner up to that solar in the west wing, the one no one ever uses."
"He's with Sarrum?" Kara asked sharply. "Sarrum of Amata?"
The knights looked at her strangely, but Mordred understood. Kara had lived in Amata, had spent years under Sarrum's tyrannical rule, just as bad as Uther Pendragon's if not worse; she had every reason to be afraid of the man.
Only she didn't sound afraid. She sounded angry. Her hands were clenched into fists by her side and her mouth was pressed into a tight line. She had a right to be angry too, Mordred supposed, after a lifetime of living in hiding just to survive. Sarrum hunted their kind down like animals, just like Uther had. Camelot was not so different from Amata, both of them hostile and intolerant, dangerous.
"Mordred, are you alri—?"
Gwaine's hand came down on Mordred's shoulder.
Flames rising toward the sky, his home on fire. Screams and swords clashing. Red cloaks and red blood and the glint of sun on a blade as it fell.
Gwaine was blasted back, colliding hard with the stone wall with a shout. He slid to its base and slumped there, unmoving. Percival and Elyan stared at him, too stunned to comprehend what they had just witnessed. Percival regained his senses first, drawing his sword even though the look on his face said that he couldn't believe he was doing it.
"Mordred," he said cautiously. "What are you doing?"
"No, put the sword down," Elyan said, getting between them and holding his hands up. "We're on the same side, we don't need to fight! Mordred, what is this?"
Mordred didn't bother to answer, fear and loathing pulsing through him in equal measure and his magic churning in the pit of his stomach. Another blast sent both of them crashing into the wall as well, falling down to lie limp and motionless on the floor.
The hilt of the sword crashed down and Kara fell, sticky red welling up to darken her hair as she hit the ground. Mordred couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't—
Kara took his hand and began dragging him down the corridor, pulling harder when he stumbled, and he shook his head to clear it.
"Come on, Mordred," she urged him. "We need to get to Pendragon, remember? We need to make him pay."
Yes, Pendragon was responsible for everything and he needed to pay for it. He deserved to suffer for all the suffering that he had caused, for all the camps that he had destroyed and the lives that he had ended. Mordred took off running toward the west wing with Kara hot on his heels.
The door to the solar was closed when they reached it but that didn't deter them. Mordred wrenched it open and found Arthur seated at a long table with Sarrum sitting opposite, a platter heavily laden with rich foods laid out between them.
Arthur stood up when they entered. "Mordred!" he said. "You're early. I wasn't expecting you for another hour at least. I haven't had a chance to write out—"
"Kill him," Kara hissed in his ear. "You were a coward before, but you can do better this time. You can right all the wrongs from back then if you just kill him now."
Mordred threw out a wave of barely-controlled magic, his rage making him clumsy. Arthur's sharply honed reflexes overrode any shock he must have felt; he flung himself to the side and the magic impacted with a tall vase on a plinth, which toppled to the ground and shattered. He rolled back to his feet, his hand going to his belt on instinct, but he wasn't wearing his sword.
"Mordred, what are you doing?" he demanded.
"Something that I should have done a long time ago," Mordred said. "I am bringing justice to all the magic users you have persecuted."
Arthur shook his head, horrified, and opened his mouth to respond but Sarrum spoke first.
"Kara?" he asked, his wide face reddening as he heaved himself to his feet. "What on earth are you doing here? You're supposed to be in Carthis!"
"I am fulfilling my Lady's noble work," Kara said boldly, stepping forward to stand by Mordred's side.
"Your Lady?" Sarrum growled. "Who the hell is—"
"The Lady Morgana," Kara said, a manic grin spreading across her face. "The true champion of my people, cut down by one of her own. He may have betrayed his own kind, but I will not do so any longer."
"You traitorous little bitch," Sarrum snarled, pulling a knife from a sheath strapped to his thigh. He threw it with deadly speed and accuracy, but it was neither quick enough nor strong enough to to get past the shield Mordred conjured.
"Mordred," Arthur called, still crouched low and positioned so as to use the table as a shield in itself. "Why are you doing this? This isn't you! You never agreed with Morgana's doctrine."
"I don't want to be brave," Morgana said, her face pale and exhausted shadows under her eyes. She tried to smile. "I just want to be myself."
"She strove to create a world where people like me could be free," Mordred said. "How could I not agree with that?"
"What she strove to do was usurp my throne and take over my kingdom," Arthur said. "And she used violence and treachery to do it. You don't condone that, you never have! "
"KILL HIM," Morgana screamed, her hair a dark halo of wild curls around her once-beautiful face now contorted in fury. "That's all they had to do!"
Mordred watched her with a dull ache in his chest. This was not the same person that he remembered. How far she had fallen from the compassionate young woman she had been so many years ago.
"I want his annihilation, Mordred," she said with all the fervor of a fanatic. "I want to put his head on a spike and watch as the crows feast on his eyes!"
A thrill of fear went down Mordred's spine and he knew that he could never be a part of this madness.
Mordred's raised hands fell to his side and he stumbled back a step, his shield flickering out of existence. Kara reached out to steady him, looking back and forth between him and Arthur in consternation.
"Do it, Mordred," she said. "Kill him! He's the one responsible for the destruction of our camp, the murder of our people, remember?"
Knights of Camelot storming through the ramshackle tents, slicing the worn fabric to ribbons. Blood pooling on the ground around corpses left to rot where they fell.
Mordred surged forward again, letting loose a plume of fire. Arthur ducked behind the table again and Sarrum followed his lead this time, both of them cowering like the frightened children they always were in the face of a power they could never dream of comprehending.
"Mordred, please!" Arthur cried when the flames stopped roaring. "You don't need to do this! I'm your friend!"
"Don't bother, Pendragon," Sarrum barked. "There's no reasoning with animals like these."
A fist slammed into Mordred's gut and he doubled over, wheezing. A boot caught him in the side and sent him sprawling on the ground, his head slamming hard into the sturdy wall of the tavern that he had been trying to take refuge in. The man loomed over him, grinning with rotten teeth and turning back over his shoulder to laugh with his friend.
Mordred tried to swing a fist at the man, but he was only thirteen and he didn't have the muscle mass to cause any damage. His magic swirled inside him, desperate to get out, but Mercia's laws were as clear as Camelot's were and his life would be forfeit. The man landed another kick to his chest and there was nothing that Mordred could do about it.
"See?" his attacker said as another man showed up at his shoulder, cracking his knuckles. "Filthy animals, these Druids. You just gotta put 'em in their place."
Mordred saw red and his next spell blasted the sturdy table into pieces, sending shrapnel flying through the air in every direction. Kara put up a shield, smaller and dimmer than his own had been, but enough to protect them from the worst of it. Arthur and Sarrum were not so lucky, both of them peppered with splinters. One whole table leg collided with Sarrum's head and he went down hard, knocked out.
A considerable chunk of wood lodged itself in Arthur's shoulder left and he cried out in pain, collapsing back against the far wall. Kara dropped her shield and advanced on him, picking her way through the debris. Mordred followed, glaring down at him with all the hatred he had ever felt.
"Do it," Kara said. "Do it, Mordred. You want him dead, you know you do. You want revenge for every wrong the Pendragons have ever done you and this is how you get it. Do it!"
Mordred raised his hand.
