A/N: Another warning for slightly OOC Morgana.

Fires leapt up in front of Arthur. Lines of prisoners trailed through the courtyard, the executioner slicing off head after head. Wails and screams rose up.

"Help me! Someone, help me!" several voices cried.

"You have been found guilty of magic and enchantments," Father declared, his fingers digging into Arthur's shoulder. "Go, Arthur."

Arthur drew his sword and stalked forward, taking the place of the executioner. He lifted his sword above his head and chopped. Slice. Slice.

Blood gushed over his boots. He gasped and tried to run, but his boots were fused to the ground. The courtyard transformed into a forest. The knights charged druid women and children.

"Stop!" Arthur tried to shout. His voice wouldn't come out. He gathered all his strength and screamed. "Stop!"

He bolted awake, chest heaving, covered in sweat. Shaking gripped him. His hair was plastered to his forehead.

Magic. Every time Father had told him to combat sorcerers, he had done it. When told to kill, he had done it. He had murdered on his father's command. The blood of so many innocent people stained his hands. True, many of the sorcerers had been attacking him or Camelot. But not all of them. And that druid camp… He had tried to save the innocents, but the children…oh, their faces as Arthur's knights lost control and he froze.

Their faces, their screams, had already haunted him. Now that he knew for certain magic did not turn one evil, how much more would those innocents haunt him?

Arthur buried his face in his pillow and sobbed.


Morgana slipped down the darkened hall. With Arthur gone, Morgause had advocated Morgana kill Uther and steal the throne. But somehow, Morgana hadn't been able to kill Uther when he might be the only way to get the young man who was basically a brother to her back.

Now that he was back, she was beginning to wonder why she'd bothered. Not like Arthur would ever change things when he became king. He was too much like his father.

So instead of blowing off Morgause and ignoring her like Morgana had been doing for months on end, she had responded to Morgause's latest message and would meet with her again in the woods.

A dark, strong figure loomed in one of the hallway windows, staring down at the courtyard.

Morgana froze. Who could be up and about at this hour besides the guards?

The lines of the man became clear to her, someone she knew almost as well as she knew herself. Arthur. He had just been allowed by Gaius to start walking yesterday.

She threw herself behind a nearby stone pillar. He couldn't see her! If he did, he'd alert the guards, and the game would be up.

"I know you're there, Morgana." Arthur's voice was weary, wearier perhaps than she'd ever heard it before.

Well, if he knew, then there was no point hiding any longer. She stepped out from behind the pillar. "Can't sleep?" She still had trouble looking at his bruised face, hollowed out due to starvation and far too pale. His bruises were fading, but still, they shouldn't affect her so. Practically family or not, she wasn't supposed to care about him anymore.

Arthur shook his head and turned back to the window. "I suppose that's something you're no stranger to. Can't sleep either?"

Morgana shook her head, though she hadn't had many dreams of late due to Morgause's healing bracelet. "Nightmares of what happened to you?"

"No," Arthur said. "Well, in a way." He was silent for a good long while, and when he did speak, it was as if he had forgotten she was there. "Their faces…they haunt my dreams. Father may have been the deluded one who started it all, but I went along with it even though I wasn't sure it was right. I did it just to please him. I tried to keep the ones that hadn't attacked Camelot from being persecuted too harshly, but…"

He shook his head. "In some ways I think mine is the greater fault, for obeying even when I wasn't sure he was right. And now I know he's wrong and…" He turned to Morgana, his blue eyes glinting in the moonlight. Moonbeams bounced off glimmering tears in his eyes. "How am I supposed to live with this?"

"With what? Arthur, what's wrong?" Morgana stepped forward until she was at his side, falling too easily in the role of comforting sister she had always played. Why was she acting like she cared? Besides, he was talking nonsense.

"It's nothing." Arthur hunched in on himself, as if to keep her from laying the hand on his shoulder she was already half reaching out to give him.

"It's clearly something if it's keeping you up like this," Morgana said. Maybe…maybe it was the naïve girl she used to be reaching out to the surrogate brother she knew would hate her if he knew the truth. Pretending that he might still care about her. That she might still have people she loved left.

Arthur sighed. "Have you ever wondered if…perhaps something you always thought was true…wasn't true? You even began to strongly suspect the people you trusted were wrong, but you acted as if they were right because the consequences were too terrible if they weren't? But then you found out that they were wrong and you've done terrible things in their name…killed people that shouldn't have been killed. People that were just people, that weren't corrupted by any sort of…"

"Magic," Morgana finished, the pieces finally putting themselves together. Or really just guessing. Hoping. "You don't believe it's evil anymore. You know the truth now."

Instead of contradicting her, blowing up about how evil magic is, Arthur said, "It's tearing me apart." The tears in his eyes threatened to spill over. "I can't kill Uther. Murdering a man doesn't bring justice, even if he has done vile deeds. But how can I live with him, knowing what he's done? How can I live with myself, knowing what I've done for him? How do I walk the line between obeying him to the point I kill innocent people for him and fighting him to the point where he locks me in the dungeons and throws away the key? When I was a teenager, if I so much as sneezed wrong, I'd be locked in a cell to teach me a lesson. But we can't just kill him, and…he's still my father. He's still the man that held me until I fell asleep when I was scared of the dark and sang to me when my nurse got sick and told stories of wild adventures in the forest. He's still the man who knocked me out so he could take my place and die for me and who was willing to fight a war to get me back. How can I turn on him when he's been one of the only things that's kept me going after everything that happened? But how can I stay by his side when he actively hunts down and kills the innocent? What am I to do, Morgana? Please, tell me, because I am completely lost."

"I've plotted to kill him," Morgana said, the words leaping out of her mouth without her permission. What was she doing? Hadn't all the talks Morgause had browbeaten into her made sure that she would never come clean to Arthur, never seek his help, never try and win him over? Never try and seek his understanding and compassion? "Multiple times, but I…I haven't been able to do it. It's been getting easier to do it though. He doesn't deserve to live…" She trailed off, not entirely sure where she was going with that sentence.

"But to murder him would make us no better than he is," Arthur finished. "I almost killed him once, in a fury. Now that I know what I do, I've wondered if I shouldn't have held back after all. But Camelot wouldn't survive a transition of power like that. Camelot is the most important thing. And…" He dropped his head in his hands. "God forgive me, but I don't want to kill my own father. Despite all he's done, I don't want to see him die."

Morgana did want to see him die. But, staring at Arthur, who on the side of magic and still was unable to condone killing Uther, she saw a reflection of herself, one she didn't like. She saw the girl she'd been a few years ago, when that Merlin had just come to Camelot. The girl she'd been had been kindhearted, on the side of the innocents, and yet she would be horrified to know Morgana had not only contemplated, but attempted murder multiple times. "I don't want to be like him. But I think I might be."

Arthur gathered Morgana in a hug, something rarer than Uther properly praising Arthur. "I promise you that when I am king, things will be different."

All Morgana's maybe, maybe, maybes to Morgause flooded her mind, all the arguments she had had with her on why Arthur didn't need to die, why his safety should be important, why she should reach out to him, trust him. She had pleaded and begged for her brother's life. Morgause had been adamant. He was the son of a Pendragon and therefore he must die, and anyway, he wouldn't be on the side of magic no matter what. He was too brainwashed. But he was on their side. He was on the side of magic, of saving the lives of innocent people who had never merited execution just by having powers. Morgana had been right the first time, after all.

"My nightmares…they're prophetic visions," Morgana said. "I have magic, Arthur. I couldn't choose it, it just came. And I hated myself for it. Then, when I found out magic wasn't evil after all, I hated Uther."

"It's all right, Morgana," Arthur said. "I understand. I wish I didn't, but I do. Your magic is not corrupting. Your fear is a different matter. But you needn't fear forever. I promise you that." He wiggled out of her arms like a fish desperate for the water. Sibling bonding time was apparently over.

"If we can't kill Uther, what do we do?" Morgana asked.

"I don't know," Arthur said. "But we'll figure it out. Together." He yawned. "And in the morning, I think you, me, and Merlin should have a nice, long talk."

"You should get some sleep," Morgana said. "And you know, Arthur…it's not your fault. You didn't know. And no one was brave enough to tell you. You were just a child trying to do what was best with faulty information."

"I should have known," Arthur said. "I should have asked more questions, I should have been braver and stood up to Father when I didn't believe in what I was doing—"

"I opposed it stronger than you and I was rarely willing to do more than talk," Morgana said. "You saw all the executions. You were thrown in the dungeons for daring to speak up for the commoners or challenge his majesty on any number of petty issues. He even imprisoned you for a week for daring to save the life of a man who'd risked his for yours several times over, even after admitting you were right and he was wrong." Though she hated to praise Merlin like this. "You were a scared child and you had every right to be."

"It doesn't make it right," Arthur said quietly.

"No, it doesn't," Morgana said. "But neither is assassinating the prince because the king killed your magical family members. And yet attempts for that seem to happen monthly. There's more than enough blame to go around. Just blame Uther for the awful mess he created and be done with it."

"Maybe," Arthur said.

"Just get some sleep," Morgana said.

"You too." Arthur turned and limped down the hall in the direction of his room.

Morgana stood and watched him leave, then returned to her own rooms.

Morgause could go hang for all she cared.