Chapter Text
“I wanted to believe I could trust you.”
It’s not for us to discern who says this. It’s not our place to pick and choose whose voice best matches the hurt. It’s not a decision we were asked to make.
But the sorcerer— the man cloaked in shadows with years of spells tempting his tongue— takes it upon himself to answer the statement anyway.
Trust is a fragile thing and this man, this enemy with eyes only on the king and his small servant, knows how fragile things break. He knows how sharp those edges are.
A twisting of old powerful words. A dance of gold within his pale green eyes.
This is not how a story should start.
No, of course not.
A story, a legend, should begin with sunshine warming the day, of goofy grins and banter fluttering through the air like so many delicate butterfly wings. It can start with two hearts pounding to the same beat without realization from either party, the king teasing his servant with a hand ruffling dark hair.
It should start with smiles. It should start with the promise that these smiles hold something more— care, affection, wanting.
Secrets.
And this story could start there, in the air of the morning as these two stood in the sun with their faces towards the great blue sky. It could start with the way the servant laughs at the king’s newest insult. It could start with the way the king turns his eyes towards the servant, teasing giving way to fondness.
It could start there. It could start with smiles.
But, like trust and broken promises, this is not for us to decide.
“I wanted to believe I could trust you.”
This story starts with blue eyes burning gold, a servant casting away a curse meant for a king. It starts with the heat of battle fading into the ice of realization, the sudden knowing that a servant is not all he seems.
“You’ve been lying to me! All this time!”
“Please, I wanted to tell you, I—”
“I don’t want to hear it—”
“It’s only for you, I use it for—”
“I should have you executed.”
Words are cruel as curses; another sorcerer watches, forgotten by the two he’d been fighting. Turned towards each other, the king and servant wage a war of their own.
And it’s in this war that the words are spoken.
“I wanted to believe I could trust you.”
A sorcerer knows a wish when he hears it, and dark magic delights in his chest when he sees the way both faces fall. They’re too distracted by their rage and pain to note the way he raises his hand. They’re too caught up in each others’ eyes to see the way his melt into a fiery gold.
Old words fill his mouth. Light fills his palm.
The servant and the king turn— much too late.
Trust breaks like glass. The sharpened edges find their places in the world around them, tearing reality’s seams.
“I see now who has been defending this king. I see now why every sorcerer before has failed.” A voice like thunder, over the cries of servant and king alike. “But now your brokenness will help me to create— to create a world where no protector ever comes to Camelot. A world where the king is nothing but a ghost. A world where I may have my perfect revenge.”
It starts when the sorcerer completes his spell, his fist closing around the light in his palm and shutting the world away in darkness.
It starts when he promises a new reality, a place where a servant never left his home. A place where a king never met his greatest ally.
And, as darkness sinks into the world around them, painting it all in shades of twisted magic, a small cut appears on the king’s chest. The beginnings of an injury he should have received long ago— a forgotten dagger slowly cutting in with a sorceress's song still weaving through his mind.
Through it all, the sorcerer’s words remain.
“With this curse, I change the past. I rewrite what destiny has written. No servant ever walks through the palace doors. No man ever saves you from the hundred deaths you’ve already died.” Darkness melts into skin; shadows bind eyes shut. “You are already dead.”
The king screams as the wound deepens.
Somewhere, in the distance, a servant calls his name.
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But in the darkness, there’s a light. A soft blue orb, enough to allow the king to open his eyes.
“Destiny,” it whispers into his mind without words, “cannot be so easily forgotten. You have turned your back on fate and, so, fate has turned its back on you. But fear not— the other half will not turn away so easily.
“The sorcerer’s curse has changed the past but destiny offers you a chance to change it back,” it says. “Find the one whom this trust has wounded. Regain what has been lost. Only then will fate accept you back into its arms.”
“And if I fail?” The king asks, alarmed at the frailty of his own voice.
The light shimmers, bristling.
“Then it will be as the sorcerer said,” it tells him. “You will learn of the debts you owe as they make their marks on your skin. And your life will be forfeit to the fate you left behind.”
“How do I do this?” The king questions, his mind throbbing as something pulls him away from these shadows— as something yearns to place him back on a ground he knows he will not recognize.
“Find your destiny and you will understand,” the light promises, fading slowly with each word. “But know this— until destiny has been regained, you are no longer the man you were. You are no longer a Pendragon. ”
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“Merlin?” Hunith asks, standing in the doorway of a bedroom that hasn’t been used in years. “What are— What are you doing here?”
Blue eyes open, the pupils still dilated as if anticipating a threat. Sweaty palms and a heart that threatens to break against his ribs, bursting as he turns to face his mother.
“It’s Arthur,” he says, eyes tearing across the room. The last thing he remembers is the darkness coming in around him, choking him as he tried to grasp for a spell to stop this. He remembers Arthur’s cry, the sudden scent of blood. He remembers running, eyes shut, into the shadows.
But when he opened his eyes and the numbness of the darkness faded away, he found himself here.
“A sorcerer attacked Camelot,” he continues, grabbing hold of his mother’s shoulders. “I believe Arthur—”
And then, like a stone into a raging sea, it all slips away.
As Merlin pulls back, hands falling to his sides, something in the air ripples, pulling through his mind and distorting his thoughts. His words fade into the back of his mind— fade into insignificance, until they’re nothing more than gibberish caught in the weak remnants of a dream.
Outside, Ealdor begins to wake.
“Arthur?” Hunith asks, eyebrows pinching together. “Darling, who’s Arthur?”
“I—” It tastes like something sour in the back of his throat, like over-ripened berry pressing to his tongue. It’s a slow wonder that fills his chest when he answers. “I’m not sure. I just felt that—”
He pauses when Hunith presses the back of her hand to his forehead. “Not a fever, so it must have been a dream. You know how wild those get when you’re out with Will all night.”
Will. His best friend. Merlin’s chest pangs but he can’t quite say why.
“Right,” he says. “Sorry.”
Hunith smiles patiently, as if waiting for Merlin to continue with a silly smile or a joke about whatever shenanigans he got into the night before.
But, instead, Merlin draws back into his mind. He chases after the words lingering near the edges of his skull, the names he’s never said. Softly, he runs after them— until reaching a wall in the back of his memory, repelling him away until his vision dims.
A dream— a strange dream. It’s all it was. He tells himself that this is the only thing that makes sense.
Because, of course, it does make sense. How could he dream of castle towers if he’s never gone more than a few villages outside of his home? How could he imagine such magical powers if he’s never had the chance to learn, always hiding his gifts from sight?
And how could he know Arthur Pendragon like a friend when the prince was murdered years ago?
A dream— the strangest of dreams.
And, like all dreams, the details blur. The edges fade.
His mother fixes his neckerchief, smoothing out the meaningless wrinkles with a gentle smile on her face.
Merlin remembers nothing other than this.
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Merlin lives his life like repetition, the windows into his dreams shut tight each morning in order to keep from straying too far from the cycle. Waking and washing and meeting Will outside. Helping his mother around the house and then helping other villagers with the fields. It’s a simple life. It’s the only life he knows.
Everything moves in curious scheduled patterns. Everyone is the same as they were the day before.
And each day passes with the same strange sensation that Merlin’s forgetting something.
Like when he’s seated for breakfast but then feels a tug of urgency, a certainty he’s meant to be somewhere else, preparing someone else’s food. Or when he’s muttering complaints to himself and turns his head to the side, expecting some cocky grin to respond.
Or when he wakes at night with a name on his lips— a name he can never quite remember when the sun rises to wash it all away.
It’s during a moment like this, a moment early in the morning as Merlin’s putting away the breakfast dishes with forgotten vowels stuck to his tongue, that something new finally happens.
Will bursts in without knocking, Hunith sighing fondly. There’s a brief apology, a quick good morning, but then Will’s looking at Merlin.
“Someone’s moving into that house in the forest,” Will says, breathless. “There’s a newcomer in Ealdor.”
A newcomer— it’s practically unheard of. No one comes to Ealdor unless they’re passing through, or unless they’ve come to start trouble like Kanen’s men once did. Merlin thinks back to the fight, to the near exposure of his magic and the way Will had been at his side throughout the battles. He thinks of the villagers lost, the provisions stolen.
Merlin will not let that happen again.
“No one’s ever lived in the forest home since the last owner. They say it’s cursed or haunted,” Merlin says, tugging his jacket on and following Will out the door. “Are you certain you saw somebody?”
Will rolls his eyes and pulls Merlin’s arm, the two of them running past children and animals. The village doesn’t quite disappear behind them but it does grow smaller, a speck of stone homes and fields caught in the space between trees. They’re not in the forest, not really, but it’s far enough that Merlin’s stomach twists.
Before him, the house in the forest is no longer alone.
It’s larger than the other homes in Ealdor, built for a Lord to rule over the land until Ealdor was freed from such control. Made of cool grey stone and thick wooden doors, it’s become one with the nature around it. Vines curl around the edges, embracing and caressing the walls before fading around into the shadows. Gardens and gates keep from too much being seen but Merlin and Will stand before it anyway, hidden behind the few trees at the edge of the forest.
For a moment, they watch only the two horses tied to one of the posts near the front, the bags at their feet and strapped upon their saddles. Merlin watches the way the tree branches bend towards the tip of the house, the way the sky leers down at it.
First, he hears a twig snapping. Then, his eyes are drawn down and he sees a man approaching.
He’s in a deep blue cloak, the hood pulled up over his head. He walks slowly, cautiously, a stranger to this place as he wanders closer to the door. The horses snort and kick their feet.
The man turns back, a hushing noise on his lips.
“Can you get a good look at him?” Will asks, nudging Merlin with his elbow. “You think he’ll come to start trouble like the others?”
Merlin doesn’t answer, his mouth dry.
It’s only for a moment, only for one stuttered heartbeat, but he swears he knows those eyes.
He swears that this man, this stranger, is looking right back at him.