Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was an act of appalling, ghastly cruelty that, had Arthur not been so horribly in love with him, he might never have noticed Merlin was a sorcerer.

He didn’t like to think about Merlin in such terms; it was annoying and heart-achy and it made his palms itch. He didn’t even like to ascribe the word ‘love’ to it, though that was undoubtedly what it was, because nothing else would account for the feelings that Merlin seemed to constantly stir up. These were, namely, an intense need for attention, a certain unbefitting giddiness, and also (alarmingly) the desire to just sort of look at him, at any and all hours.

It was the last one that was his undoing.

Arthur was looking at him, like usual, even though he was meant to be scraping mud off his shoes. He had one ankle propped on his opposite knee and a sturdy twig in hand, and he was distracted looking at Merlin looking at the horses. He couldn’t even properly see Merlin, just the chicken-wing of his elbow flapping about below his horse’s head, and even that single spindly joint was enough to have Arthur’s heart sighing dreamily below his ribs. It was dreadful.

Merlin’s head poked out from behind the horse, and Arthur busied himself hastily with his boot.

When he looked back up, Merlin was feeding the horse an apple. It was winter.

Arthur narrowed his eyes. He looked at the apple nestled red and shiny in between Merlin’s fingers, and he noted that it was indeed an apple, and he noted again that it was winter. The feeling this stirred up was also dreadful, but in rather too literal a sense.

Merlin looked at him again, and his eyes went wide and guilty when he noticed Arthur looking back. He stepped in front of the horse, tucking his arm quickly behind his back, and the question stuck in Arthur’s throat.

“What?” he said instead, and Merlin shrugged.

“Nothing,” he said.

Arthur’s heart hurt, but he swiped off the last of the mud anyway.

“Get on with it, then,” he said, which didn’t really make sense, but he heard Merlin shuffling about a bit more while he stared keenly at the ground, so it was alright. Arthur’s ears were buzzing, but it was just an apple, and, well— still. It didn’t have to mean anything.

It was just that after that, Arthur couldn’t stop looking.

He watched Merlin constantly, which was awful, because he was looking for evidence of treason and all he got in return was Merlin’s tiny little smile and his hands knotting Arthur’s drawstrings and once, terribly, a bit of snow clinging to Merlin’s eyelash. He watched Merlin trip over his boots and walk into tables and scratch at his head and he watched Merlin roll his eyes and tug on his ears and pick seeds out of his teeth. He even sat in the alcove of his chambers and watched Merlin run around in the courtyard below, all the while nursing the sore spot above his heart, fingers digging into the skin above the muscle.

Arthur couldn’t catch him at it, was the thing, and that was— a relief, certainly, but it also conjured a sense of sickly foreboding that he couldn’t shake.

On the fifth day, Arthur sent Merlin on a late-night quest for pickled eggs, and while he was gone he swapped out the prepared dry logs on the hearth for three that were sopping wet, and he sat back in his chair and he waited.

“Ta da,” said Merlin, waltzing back in with the goods in hand. He plonked them down in front of Arthur, heedless of the very important document Arthur was currently amending.  

“Thank you, Merlin,” Arthur said, and moved them away. Merlin’s fringe was doing what it always did, and was hanging down all stringy atop his forehead.

“Welcome,” said Merlin, and rubbed his arms fervently. “It’s cold in here, isn’t it?”

Arthur nodded.

“Do you want me to do something about that, then?” asked Merlin, and Arthur looked up at him, at Merlin looking down all guileless and pink in the cheeks, and thought he would probably be sick.

“That is your job,” said Arthur slowly, and Merlin rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, alright,” said Merlin, and Arthur watched him walk over to the fire, his shoulders set the same way as always, his gangly gait no different to usual. Merlin never wore chainmail, so Arthur had never had to learn the subtleties of his movements in order to distinguish him from the other knights, but that hadn’t stopped him. He knew Merlin as well as he knew himself, as well as he knew his sword. Merlin was his friend and his companion, his confidante and eternal bane. Arthur knew everything he cared to know about Merlin, and he cared to know it all.

Merlin squatted down by the fire rather than kneeling, because the cold stone was hard on his knees. He didn’t even pick up the flint; it stayed solitary and damning on the edge of the hearth. Arthur watched his coat bunch across the curve of his spine.

“Get on with it, Merlin,” Arthur wanted to say, but he didn’t, because his throat hurt. It was dry and he could feel where his lips pressed together, and he could feel his pulse beating behind his ears.

Merlin put his hands on his knees and stood up, making a loud oofing sound as he did, and cracked his neck side to side. The flames flickered happily in his wake, and Arthur didn’t do anything. He looked at the parchment on his desk and he looked at his thumb and forefinger on the quill, and by the time he looked up at Merlin again, Merlin was folding the laundry and singing.

Arthur’s first quantifiable thought was: He’s going to get himself killed.

Arthur’s second thought was: Merlin is not even remotely this stupid.

Merlin was, of course, many things, including bumbling and insolent and brave to an absolute fault, but his wits, when they were about him, were quick. He was clever and could solve riddles and he kept his mouth shut tight when magic came up, and while Merlin might have been an idiot, he was not so much of an idiot as to learn magic just to light fires and feed out of season fruit to horses. It would be bigger than that, because it had to be.

Arthur looked at him.

“Merlin,” he said slowly, not really knowing how he was going to finish it. Merlin had his chin tucked against his chest, holding one of Arthur’s tunics there so he could fold it, but he made a noise to indicate that he’d heard. “Did you get my sword sharpened?”

“No, I forgot about it,” said Merlin, in a tone of great flippancy. “You only mentioned it twenty thousand times.”

“It’s important,” Arthur said, and Merlin nodded sagely, the tunic now folded neatly on the bed.

“Of course,” said Merlin. “No point waving it about if it’s not all swordy, is there?”

Arthur smiled, only a bit weakly. “I suppose not. That’ll be all, Merlin. Go and have an early night.”

Merlin blinked at him. “But I’ve still got to put out the torches, and do this—”

“It’s fine.” Arthur was very tired, suddenly. “You can finish it in the morning.”

“Alright,” said Merlin after a moment, those stupid eyebrows of his drawing together, like he was concerned about Arthur but didn’t really want to show it, which was one of his many contradictions, but one Arthur knew about because he knew Merlin, upside down and backwards and every way in-between. “Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight,” said Arthur, and he got up and bolted the door after Merlin had left.

This was fine. This was going to be fine. Merlin was a sorcerer, but that was alright. Merlin had, clearly, been doing magic for quite a while, if he didn’t even get jumpy about doing it under Arthur’s nose. He was only going to find himself corrupted and turned evil and eventually forced to raise his hand against Arthur, but that was fine.

Arthur, of course, would then have no choice but to kill him, or perhaps to lay down and die if the being-in-love-with him thing turned out the better of him.

Arthur uncurled his fists with a very deep, very measured breath. He stomped over to the window and drew the curtains because Merlin hadn’t, because he was useless and rubbish and using magic and he was going to die, and Arthur was abruptly so angry—

He sat down on the bed and started at the beginning.

Merlin was a sorcerer. That was a fact, and it was nothing worth going back on now. Arthur had looked and Arthur had prodded, and he’d tested Merlin and come out victorious. Whatever life he had been living before he no longer was, and there was no choice but to accept it and move forward. This was, obviously, easier said than done, but it was going to have to happen at some point.

He put the laundry away and then hovered by the fireplace, the usual pitcher of drinking water clasped in his left hand, just hovering.

Merlin had made the fire, and Merlin would never hurt him.

But, also: magic had made the fire, and magic had hurt him lots.

He’d made a fist again by accident, like his muscles were lamenting the lack of weapon, and he frowned at it. This was awful. This was worse than falling in love, actually, and that had been plenty bad enough. 

He wished Morgana were with him, or his mother, or Gwen, or someone who could tell him what to do. Merlin was such an idiot, dangling the guillotine over his own head, dancing with the sticks they’d light the pyre with. Why would he learn it, when he knew what it could do? How could he be so flippant with his life? It was moronic, it was beyond what Arthur thought him capable of, and he’d done it on his own, without even the decency to ask Arthur’s blessing—

Arthur doused the fire.

“This is stupid,” said Arthur, in the sudden low-light. He grumpily snuffed out all the candles. “Damned idiot of a fool—”

He walked back to bed and thrust himself under the covers, drawing them tight around his neck and then, in a fit of frustration, batting them away again. He folded his arms atop them, but it was chilly and his skin goose-bumped unpleasantly, so he swore and rolled onto his side. He was going to kill him, he decided. He was going to strangle Merlin first thing tomorrow, was going to pick him up by the scruff of his neck and hammer at least one damn ounce of sense into him, and he would do it again every morning until it stuck. The nerve of him, the cheek! To make Arthur feel this way, and to clearly not care in the world for it, was unthinkable!

Arthur swallowed and pressed his face into the pillow, his head spinning. His hands and legs trembled, and he clutched again at that soreness above his heart, palm pressed to his chest.

Merlin was dead, was the crux of it. Not today and perhaps not tomorrow, but next week or the week after, or perhaps even next summer if Arthur was lucky—

He wiped at his wet face, and collected himself. He would make it better in the morning, he resolved. He would do what he always did, and fix the blasted mess Merlin had dragged them both into if it killed him.

*

Merlin clearly did not know any useful types of sorcery, reflected Arthur, or else he would have come up with some spell or enchantment to alert him when his secret was revealed. That’s what Arthur himself would have arranged for, had he been properly consulted on the matter. There was no other excuse for why Merlin arrived in his chambers as brightly and as chipper as usual, apparently unaware of Arthur’s sleepless night.

“You’re dressed,” said Merlin, and Arthur was. He had given up on rest at some time before dawn, and dressed himself in his usual attire. Merlin made a start on extinguishing the candles Arthur had lit, and then turned his attention to the fireplace, since it was still freezing.

Arthur didn’t watch, this time. He busied himself deliberately with his book, hiding his nose in it as well as he could, so that he could at least claim ignorance if questioned. Not, Arthur was sure, that there would be a small supply of witnesses. Surely everyone and their mother must have noticed by now, if Merlin was as careless as he appeared. The lead-weight feeling re-established itself in Arthur’s stomach.

Breakfast was brought up at the usual time and Merlin chattered on, ignoring the fact that Arthur barely responded. He couldn’t even muster up the usual insults, and the smell of cooked meat was making him queasy. He pushed the plate towards Merlin instead, as had become custom, and Merlin pinched one of the sausages.

“You could at least sit down,” said Arthur, disgusted, as Merlin wolfed the offending thing down in three bites.

“Can’t, I’ve got things to do,” said Merlin, unintelligibly. Only the following syllables actually escaped his mouth: “Kahn—fff—go’—fing—fa—whoo.”

“Be that as it may,” said Arthur, following perfectly, “You won’t be fit for any of it if you meet your end like this. What am I supposed to tell your mother? That you died choking on a sausage?”

“Wha’ a way ‘uh go, ‘oh,” said Merlin, and Arthur wrinkled his nose. Merlin swallowed and beamed that stupid grin of his, his cheeks a little pink and his eyes shiny with mirth.

“Shut up, Merlin,” said Arthur, and felt abruptly like he was going to cry. He busied himself with his boiled egg, cutting it into slices. Something occurred to him.

“Do you actually hate boiled eggs?” he demanded, and Merlin blinked at him.

“What?”

“Do you actually—” Arthur faltered. “You told me once that you hated them.”

“You remember that?”

Of course, Arthur didn’t say. He shrugged, and stabbed at half the egg with his knife. “It has been brought to my attention that people say things they do not mean. That people are not always honest with me.”

“It’s a bit late in life to discover the concept of lying,” teased Merlin, but his eyebrows were wriggling again and he licked his lips and he looked, damn it all, nervous.

“Just answer the question, Merlin.”

Merlin sat down in the other chair. “Yes,” he said, hands tugging down his sleeves. “They’re disgusting. Yolks aren’t meant to be crumbly.”

Arthur nodded, and peeled the shell off another one. “Would you eat it if I told you to?”

Merlin cocked his head. “If this is some new kind of punishment…”

It wasn’t meant to be, but Arthur wanted to know, now. The sunlight streaming through the windows hit Merlin’s face sharply on the corner of his eye, his right nostril, and the cleft of his chin. It made him look rather ethereal, like something of old. Arthur had thought that was a side-effect of fancying him so very awfully, but now he wondered about it.

“Would you eat it,” repeated Arthur slowly, as he held out the offender, “if I told you to?”

Merlin looked at the egg and then at his face, and he reached out and plucked it carefully from Arthur’s fingers. He took the tension with him, sitting back in his chair and turning the egg over in his hand.

“What’s going on, Arthur?” he asked, and Arthur sighed.

“Nothing,” said Arthur, and looked away. “Eat the egg, Merlin.”

“Piss off,” said Merlin, and lobbed it at him. Arthur caught it against his chest, and looked down in dismay.

“I suppose you wouldn’t, would you?” he asked, and Merlin said something else, but Arthur had stopped listening.

*

It was just that, well— it was Merlin.

Merlin and magic should have been unthinkable, or at the very least limited to an idiom of the night-and-day, black-and-white sort. The idea that Merlin could be a sorcerer, and could possess commonalities with those ruthless, calculating bastards that kept mucking up Arthur’s tourneys and feasts was almost laughable.

Arthur had laughed at it, even, though the laughter had been of the hysterical sort. Twice now Merlin had had the label of sorcerer dangled over his head, and twice now Arthur had defended him from the accusation. The knowledge that he had been wrong should have sat poorly, but, in honesty, Arthur knew there was no point in feeling it. A knight could accuse Merlin of sorcery tomorrow and Arthur knew he would still be there, a hand on Merlin’s neck as he dragged him from the fire.

He lifted his head from his hands, the stone cold and unforgiving beneath his elbows. It was one thing to convince Uther that an accusation meant nothing. It was another thing entirely to argue for a reduced sentence. The king had not been persuaded in the case of Guinevere, oh so very long ago, and Merlin’s magic was being used in at least equal acts of kindness. Arthur felt vaguely sick.

Far away a blacksmith struck his anvil, and it made its way to Arthur’s ears, though he stood high above the town. There were no guards on this landing, for which he was grateful. He paced up and then down and then back again, thinking with each turn of his heel that he was going to stomp his way to Gaius’ chambers, and deciding against it at the last second.

Arthur wasn’t an idiot, and he wasn’t his father, either. Whatever perils magic had wrought in the time before his birth, Arthur hadn’t seen them, and he wasn’t so foolish as to believe the matter simple. In the early years of Uther’s reign the kingdom had been cracked, undoubtedly, full of chaos and calamity, but these things didn’t exist in isolation. To act as though magic had been the sole instigator would be a misstep, not least because the same cracks existed today, also, when magic had been all but eradicated.

What good was knowing this, though? It told him only that Merlin was not responsible for the kingdom’s decline, but he had known that already. As if Merlin could have affected something so wholly beyond his scope. As if Merlin had the power to topple it.

Arthur turned the band on his finger, uneasy. It didn’t matter what Arthur believed. The use of magic was not permitted, and if his father found out—

He clasped his hand into a fist and forced himself to lay roots, laying his hands again on the stone ledge that stopped him from plummeting off the castle. There were moving pieces, was all. A lit fire and an apple (and undented armour and a supposed lucky catch and appearing right when Arthur needed him, and, and, and) did not acts of evil make, no matter how much Arthur might have scrutinised them. He had made up his mind quite firmly that the punishment he eventually doled out should fit Merlin’s crime, but as it was, Arthur couldn’t find it much worse than his usual insolence.

Still, something had to be done. Arthur could not, without knowing when Merlin began to practice, yet judge how much corruption had taken place. He didn’t know how long these sorts of things took (though he imagined it would take longer with Merlin, what with him having so little brains between his ears), but two years was surely a decent head start.

In the city below, Arthur watched smoke rise from the chimneys and curl in the cold air, watched the grey little people bustle about amongst the lower town. He had stood here, in this spot, when Merlin had told him he was going back to Ealdor. He had stood here when he decided to follow him, too, scarcely moments after Merlin’s departure, when his father’s ire and potential war ceased in their meaning.

God, this was awful. God damn the incessant bane of Arthur’s life, and God damn that he’d ever fallen in love with it.

Arthur turned from his view of Camelot and started back to the council chambers, recognising by the shadows that it must almost be noon, and that it was time to stop moping. Was Merlin even capable of being corrupted? Arthur had seen many men tempted by gold, by legacy, by the promise of power, but those seemed to hold little value to Merlin. If he was indifferent to it to begin with, could the corruption take hold? Could Merlin hold it off?

Should Arthur be giving him a raise?

He was distracted, giving only half his ear to the lords and ladies of the court. It was inconsequential that Merlin hadn’t told him; of course he hadn’t. How could he have, when a mere two days’ worth of knowledge had Arthur’s stomach in knots? To live with this fear, this constant threat of persecution… Arthur couldn’t imagine it. He wouldn’t have placed Merlin’s life in his hands either.

He scratched a mark in his parchment with his quill, and nodded contemplatively at Lord Bayron’s most recent comment. He wanted to talk to Morgana. She always had interesting things to say on magic, had been by his side when they went to bat for Gwen, but he wasn’t willing to risk it. Probably she would have nothing to say but to call him a twat, but even that held a certain appeal.

He went to Gaius’ chambers once the meeting was done, but neither he nor Merlin were there. The workroom was clearly in use, though, with something bubbling away in the cauldron over the fire, and a pleasant sort of smell about. Arthur stopped in the middle of the room.

He swallowed. It was loud in the silence.

He checked behind the door, and then he strode quite determinedly over to Merlin's door, and rapped on it hard with his knuckles.

“Merlin,” said Arthur gruffly, in pretence, and pushed it open. “Where the bloody hell are you?”

He’d never properly seen Merlin’s room except when searching it. The first few times he hadn’t looked more than he needed to fire off a few jabs about Merlin’s cleanliness, and the latter few times had been the definition of half-hearted. Even after the goblin mix up only a few weeks ago, Arthur had cared more about finding evidence of Merlin’s allegations than doing a proper exam.

He looked around the room now, one hand on the doorframe, and grit his jaw. Merlin really was appallingly messy. Arthur sometimes forgot that it wasn’t an act to deliberately rile him up. There were blankets half-draped across the bed, books piled on the floor, and dirty rags from where Merlin had started cleaning and then obviously abandoned it.

Arthur tightened his hand on the doorframe.

It smelled like Merlin, too. People had smells, even when they all lived in the same castle and probably should have all smelled the same. Morgana always smelt like her expensive incenses, and Gwen usually had a flowery scent about her, and Arthur’s men smelt like sweat and hard work.

Merlin, Arthur noted with disdain, was sporting the same fragrance Arthur associated with the safety and comfort of home.

“This is ridiculous,” said Arthur, and looked up at the ceiling. His mouth curled in on itself, twisting so that it wouldn’t devolve into blubber. “He probably did this on purpose, and everything.”

The truth stared him in the face: it was no good being cross, because in order not to be cross Merlin would have had to have told him about the magic immediately, and if Merlin had told him about the magic immediately, then they could never have been friends.

He glared at the beams holding up the roof, a treacherous wobbling sensation overtaking his face and jaw. Was this how Morgana had felt, trying to defend Gwen? Arthur didn’t think he’d be nearly so composed. And he was going to have to figure it out, find some way to give Merlin an iron-clad defence, perhaps somebody who owed Arthur a favour and could swear Merlin was with them the next time magic was used inside the castle. Bribery might have to be involved.

Arthur took one final sweep of Merlin’s rooms, looking at the physicians books and the flowers from Gwen and the comfortable leather boots Arthur had handed down to him but Merlin refused to wear, because he said they didn’t have enough buckles. As if Merlin wasn’t wearing his own tatty boots to pieces. They’d probably put him on the pyre in them.

Arthur closed the door behind him. Something had to be done.

*

He was going to have to tell him.

Arthur had let another week go past, and had just about managed to stop twitching when doors opened. He was getting better at falling asleep rather than listening for the clanging of the warning bell, and had mostly succeeded when it came to keeping all of his stupid and embarrassing thoughts to himself. He didn’t insist Merlin attach them both at the wrist, and he thought that was mighty good of him.

But Arthur was still going to have to tell him.

He understood, now, a little more about why Merlin hadn’t. It required so much planning, and so much more thought than Arthur had suspected it to need, and it unnerved him that he couldn’t for the life of him predict how Merlin would respond. He turned it over and over in his head, imagining what Merlin might be thinking, or might be wanting, and adjusting his own words accordingly. He rehearsed a lot of it to his bed hangings.

It wasn’t going to be terrible, though. Merlin was probably going to fall over his feet in gratitude, assuming that he was (as Arthur uncharitably hoped) in complete and total gut-wrenching agony over his deception. He wasn’t worried about his own self— if Merlin had failed to kill him during any of the numerous opportunities he had had so far, then it stood to reason that Merlin had no business in killing him at all.

He couldn’t decide if it was better to do it in the castle or out in the forest, and wished again that he had someone to talk to. His floor was getting tired of all the pacing, and his thoughts, with no outlet, were starting to circle. He was too afraid to put pen to paper, and the one person who usually sorted his thoughts from left and right (and his clothes from light and dark) was hardly a viable option.

He wanted to ask Merlin what to do. He wanted to know what was right, if Merlin wanted his secret to be known or would rather keep it to himself. Arthur knowing would complicate things, had complicated things, and it would be better for them both, probably, if Arthur could just put it out of his mind and forget he’d ever noticed.

But he couldn’t.

He wanted to, sometimes. It was shameful and wretched; he wanted to forget because he wanted it to be easy, and he wanted to pretend because he wanted Merlin to taste his own medicine. It seemed frightfully unfair, that Arthur should have given him everything and gotten so little in return, when Merlin claimed to be an open book.

Arthur snorted. An open book, perhaps, but so wily and distracting that Arthur had not realised it was code.

Of course he could not ignore it, because it was a matter of honour. He couldn’t have Merlin walking around thinking Arthur might execute him, and he couldn’t deny Merlin any relief that might be gained from knowing that Arthur knew. It wasn’t fair, and Arthur loved him, and that was that.

Still, though. A man had to have a certain way of going about things.

He chewed on his thumbnail a moment longer before discarding the book he’d been pretending to read. It fell with a smack onto his desk, but Merlin didn’t even have the courtesy to look around.

“I’ve been thinking,” Arthur said.

“Uh oh,” said Merlin.

“We should do something. Together. Tomorrow. You and me.”

Merlin’s eyebrows twitched and he pulled a face, and only after he’d had this little conversation with himself did he look over at Arthur. Arthur looked quickly at the ceiling.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked slowly.

Arthur shrugged. “Hell if I know.” He picked up his knife, and rocked it back and forth in a previously-made groove on the desk. “We could go hunting?”

Merlin pulled a face. “No thanks.”

Arthur shifted, and twirled the knife in his hand. Merlin didn’t look scared. Could he stop it in the air if Arthur threw it? He’d worked out that Merlin could at least make branches fall from their trees, but he didn’t know if the same applied elsewhere. “There must be other things to do in the forest. Doesn’t Gaius need his herbs stocked up, or something?”

“Probably?” said Merlin, closing one eye and his voice going all high at the end. “It doesn’t usually hurt.”

“Alright, then,” said Arthur, the matter settled. “We’ll do that.”

Merlin stared at him a few moments longer, the sort of expression on his face that usually meant he thought Arthur was being weird. Arthur pulled a face back and Merlin laughed. It was nauseatingly attractive.

“Is everything alright?” asked Merlin. “You’re being stranger than normal.”

“No I’m not,” said Arthur.

“Yes, you are.”

“Merlin,” said Arthur, and swung his feet off his table and stood. He slipped the knife back into his boot. “You don’t know this, because you’re a bumpkin, but every now and again a prince needs to get out of his castle and get his boots dirty. It’s good for him.”

“Right,” said Merlin, long and drawn out. “You were in the forest today, though.”

Arthur pursed his lips.

“Without his regiment,” he added, eventually. “It builds character. And it’s fun. Stop complaining.”

“I’m not complaining!” protested Merlin, and he sat down on Arthur’s bed because he was an absolute menace.

“Yes you are,” parroted Arthur. “Keep it up and I’ll think you don’t want to go.”

Merlin was sitting on the bed, which had been where Arthur was moving to, and now he was stuck, hovering, in the space between the desk and the object of his extremely annoying affections. He decided in the end to face-plant onto the bed. Merlin shifted to accommodate him.

“I guess it might be nice to leave the castle,” he said, and Arthur said “exactly” to his bedsheets. “Just you and me?”

Arthur coloured. He rolled onto his side, very pointedly not meeting Merlin’s eye, and shrugged. He saw Merlin’s mouth twitch, and remembered why he didn’t suggest that they did nice things together. It was almost unbearable.

“The knights’d probably just muck it up,” he said casually. “They’re a bit thick.”

Merlin said, “You do know that I’m not dying, don’t you?”

Arthur rocketed up. “What?” he demanded. “Of course you’re not. Did someone tell you you were dying? Who threatened you?”

“Arthur,” said Merlin, and pried Arthur’s hands from where he was once again reaching for his knife and preparing to attack. He was laughing. “God, you are thick. I just meant because you’re being, you know. So nice to me.”

“I’m always nice to you,” said Arthur petulantly, and Merlin snickered a bit more.

“Of course, sire,” he said. “And I’m a perfectly model servant.”

“You’re alright,” said Arthur, more honestly than he’d meant to, and the concerned crease reappeared in Merlin’s brow.

“Like that,” he said. “You’re being weird. You’ve been being weird for ages. You’re not dying, are you?”

Arthur hit him. Merlin kicked back, and they scuffled a bit. Then Arthur remembered the calamitous conversation he had signed himself up for, and removed himself to lean against a bedpost.

“I’m not dying,” he said, and swallowed. “I’ve just been thinking.”

“About your father?” guessed Merlin, and Arthur was forced to concede to it with his expression.

“A bit,” he said truthfully. He propped one elbow up on his knee, and twirled his ring around on his forefinger. It gave him something to look at that wasn’t Merlin, which was agreeable. He sighed. “I’ve been thinking about what kind of king I shall be. About whether I do my people a disservice by feeling so differently to my father.”

Merlin looked surprised, and he twisted to mirror Arthur, leaning against a post. His knee nearly touched Arthur’s outstretched leg.

“I didn’t know you did,” he said slowly. “You always agree with him.”

Arthur flinched.

“That’s not—” he began, but he couldn’t say it. He re-evaluated himself. “It’s my duty,” he settled on, “to abide by my king’s word. I swore it, the day I became a knight.”

He fidgeted some more with his ring, wondering how to explain it to Merlin, who had never seemed to give a damn about any of it, except what was right. He was like Morgana, in that respect.

“He is not always my father,” said Arthur, turning his mother’s ring again and again so that it glinted in the daylight. “And when he isn’t, I can’t— I have to— There are things. Things I cannot do, or say. Especially in public. But I do— feel differently. In private. On a great many things.”

Merlin tilted his head. “You don’t discredit your people by thinking differently,” he said, and Arthur was forced to scratch at his head to hide his face.

“Don’t I? What if I steer them wrong? What if they are being steered wrong, and I do nothing?

He dragged his hand down his face. “When I am king,” he said, but he didn’t really know how to finish that sentence, either. “When I am king, things will be different.”

“I believe you,” said Merlin, and Arthur wondered, for the first time, if he really did.

*

They went into the forest and did a terrifically good job of pretending they were doing something important.

“What’s that one?” asked Arthur, and Merlin said, “Basil.”

Arthur sat down in the dirt. “What does that do?”

“It’s used mainly for stomach problems.”

“Huh,” said Arthur, and then, a bit later: “What’s that one?”

“Dill.”

“What’s that for?”

“Also stomachs. And haemorrhoids.”

“Charming,” said Arthur. He stood around for a bit, sword hanging loosely on his belt, and paced backwards and forth while Merlin took his sweet time fondling the leaves. He sighed loudly and drummed his fingers on his sword’s hilt. The nerves were making him antsy.

“What’re you doing now?” asked Arthur.

Merlin said, “I’m making myself a treatment for Arthur-itis.”

Arthur pushed him over. Merlin told him a deeply boring and excruciatingly long story about some castle gossip he’d just gotten off Gwen, for which Arthur didn’t care at all and was absolutely uninterested in.

“He did not,” cried Arthur, aghast, and Merlin nodded ferociously.

“He did!” said Merlin. “Gwen said he was diddling the cauliflowers!”

Arthur covered his ears, scandalised. “Guinevere did not say that.”

“Well, no, not exactly—”

“Aha!” said Arthur, and Merlin said, “But it was very much implied! And she said that Sarah said that Susan heard—”

“Merlin, enough,” said Arthur, but he was laughing. His cheeks felt hot and flushed. “If you want me to look any of my staff in the eye again—”

Merlin laughed too. The cold winter sun was bathing him in light fit for the finest painter, and Arthur had almost forgotten what they were supposed to be doing. He had told Merlin to expect camping, and as the sky turned to dusk he made them set up for it, planting his sword in the earth and making a fire to sit around. It would be dark soon, and the clock was ticking.

They ate the sandwiches Cook had prepared for them for dinner, cheese and ham and pickled egg, which Arthur didn’t cry over even though he knew Merlin had asked for them specially, because they were Arthur’s favourite, and Merlin hated hard boiled eggs and all they stood for.

They sat facing each other by the fire, on a few sturdy logs Merlin had just happened to find freshly fallen, and Arthur could tell Merlin was waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

“You ought to get this, Merlin,” said Arthur for the thousandth time, drawing once again a crescent infantry formation for Merlin to study. He carved it into the dirt between his feet with a nice and lengthy stick that he’d found. “It’s important.”

“Arthur,” said Merlin seriously, after he’d let Arthur prattle on about battle tactics for much longer than Arthur had expected him to. “Why are we really out here?”

Arthur sighed, and looked at the fire.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said.

“About what?”

Merlin’s voice was terribly soft, and Arthur knew it was because he had noticed how sullen and agonised Arthur had been, and that made him feel even worse.

“About the sorcery business.”

Merlin went very still. His body tensed, and he didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at Arthur, his eyes stayed perfectly trained on where they had already been resting, as though he was unwilling to move even the smallest of his muscles. It was a fear response Arthur had seen hundreds of times, but usually just when it was him and a deer on opposite sides of a crossbow.

“It’s alright,” he said, around the rattling of his own chest. “You’re not in trouble. I’m not—I’m not going to hurt you.”

Merlin’s eyes moved, snapping to look at him, and Arthur didn’t know what to do.

“Merlin,” he said, and to his horror, his voice broke on the word. “You can tell me."

His eyes roved over Arthur’s face, then towards the castle and back again. Arthur made himself stay still, his shoulders as far away from his ears as he could make them, his hands resting empty and obviously between his knees.

“How did you find out?” asked Merlin, and Arthur wanted nothing more than for that look to disappear from his face, so he said:

“You’re not very subtle, Merlin. I’d have a harder time not noticing.”

Merlin’s laugh was not much more than breath, and was equally unconvincing.

“I’m not angry,” said Arthur, because it seemed important. “You’ve clearly had this ability for some time, since before you came to Camelot.”

Merlin nodded, and so did Arthur.

“I guessed as much,” he said. “Magic isn’t outlawed in Cenred’s kingdom, so you could have learned and practiced it there as a boy. Why you would then choose to come here, I’ve no idea, but then I suppose you always have been rather stupid.”

“Thanks,” said Merlin weakly. His eyes were bright and his mouth was wobbly, and Arthur stabbed at the dirt with his stick.

“I wasn’t—,” he began, and then changed his mind. He drew a large cross with the stick, tracing it over and over again so he wouldn’t have to look at Merlin. He spoke very quietly. “I was angry, at first. Not that you lied to me, exactly, but because I’ve always thought that you and I could have been friends. I’ve always felt that we were friends. And, loathe though I am to admit it, it was— distressing. To think that you did not find me worthy of your trust.”

Arthur stopped drawing in the dirt, and pressed his lips together. He didn’t much want to go on, but thought he better ought to, because he wanted Merlin to know: “You know all there is to know about me. I’ve never once hidden myself from you, not in essentials, and I—foolishly— thought I knew everything there was to know about you.”

He swallowed. “I suppose I haven’t been looking hard enough,” he said. The smoke was getting in his eyes, but he made himself look at Merlin anyway.

“Merlin,” he said, and here it was: “I owe you an apology.”

Merlin stared at him, his eyes very wide and shiny in the firelight. Arthur went on.

“I understand why you did not tell me,” he admitted, and even the bitter sting of it had lessened somewhat over the two weeks, replaced by his sense of guilt. “And I wish— I wish that you had known that I would not harm you, that I would never—"

Arthur broke off, and collected himself. “But that is my failing, not yours. You mean more to me than almost anyone, and so— I wish that I could have known, so that I could have proven myself to you. So that you might have trusted me.”

“Arthur,” said Merlin, in a horribly choked voice. His hands were clenched tightly where they rested on his knees, his knuckles white around his sleeves. “I do trust you. You’re my friend. I trust you with my life.”

“But not with this,” said Arthur, and Merlin’s face twisted. He said, very quietly:

“No.”

Arthur nodded.

“Quite right, too.” He looked at the ground again and sniffed, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “In fact, that might be the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say about it. Honestly, Merlin, anyone would think you wanted to be caught. I watched you conjure apples and dry logs and knock out bandits and heat my bathwater, it’s like you don’t even care who knows it.”

Merlin dried his eyes on his sleeves, shifting on his log. Arthur thought maybe he shifted a bit closer, but it was hard to tell, because he was refusing to look directly at him again.

“That’s not true,” said Merlin. “You’ve got no idea what it’s been like. Of course I care.”

“Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it,” complained Arthur. “I don’t know how you’ve survived this long, careless as you are. I haven’t slept in a fortnight for thinking about it, and we both know your constitution’s far more delicate than mine.”

“You haven’t been sleeping?”

Arthur flushed, and folded his arms. The stick got trapped between them.

“Not much, no.”

“Because of…?”

Arthur pulled a face, hoping very much that it adequately conveyed what he was thinking, which was “fuck off”. Merlin’s eyebrows crinkled together, looking touched and awed all at the same time.

“You were worried about me,” he said, like he hadn’t listened to a word Arthur had been saying.

“Of course not,” retorted Arthur, but it was no good. His mood sobered again, and his voice came out as honest as it were hoarse. “Of course I was,” he said quietly. “I am. Merlin, you have got to be more careful, I’m begging you. If you won’t give it up entirely, then at least stop bandying it about.”

“I don’t bandy it about!”

“Camelot’s felled forests would beg to differ.”

Merlin scowled, and crossed his arms. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” Arthur uncrossed his own, just to be contrary. “Look, I don’t suppose it’s any good asking you to stop, is it? To just give it up entirely?”

“Give up doing magic?” said Merlin, aghast, and Arthur nodded.

“Yeah.”

Merlin shook his head. “No. That isn’t how it works.”

“But—” Arthur knew it was delicate, and re-evaluated his words. “Now, look, don’t get in a huff. I’ve thought about this. You can’t have been practicing for very long, and as far as I know you aren’t secretly looking to lob off my head and claim the throne, so I want you to try and stop, alright? I’ve seen what the thrall of magic can do, how it can twist men’s hearts, and I don’t want—I couldn’t watch—I just don’t want you to do it anymore, alright?”

“I can’t do that,” said Merlin, and Arthur growled.

“Why not,” he demanded, and Merlin cried:

“Because! Because magic isn’t some tool like a sword, it’s part of me, it’s—you’ve only ever seen magic used to hurt people, but it can do so much good, Arthur, I swear—”

He broke off, and Arthur saw his throat bob as he swallowed, eyes still shining in the firelight. He sounded so earnest, so desperate, and Arthur had never heard him like that, not once, and it scared him. He clutched his stick.

“Go on, then,” he said eventually, and even managed to make it come out rather even. “Show me.”

Merlin stared at him. “Show you?”

Arthur nodded. “You said it could be used for good. Prove it to me, right now, and I’ll believe you.”

Merlin looked at him a few seconds more, searching Arthur’s face, and then he shook his head. “You’re kidding,” he said. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, Merlin, you’re the sorcerer.”

Merlin gulped again. “Okay,” he said. “I—here.”

Arthur stiffened as he outstretched his hand, and regretted it instantly when Merlin’s eyes flew to him. He had watched Merlin do magic before, several times, but not with such purpose. Not without plausible deniability. He nodded sharply, and Merlin looked at the fire.

He said something, in a language that sounded a bit like Latin were it not so guttural, and twisted his hand slowly at the wrist. Arthur wasn’t sure what he was meant to be looking at, but then several sparks broke off from the fire, and rearranged themselves in the air into a dragon.

It was very pretty, but, still.

“That’s it?” said Arthur, feeling disappointed. He didn’t know what good light shows would do to help people, and it certainly wouldn’t convince his father. “I should have known you’d be a girl about this.”

The dragon evaporated in the air, and Merlin crossed his arms tight against his chest. “Well, if you don’t want to see it,” he snapped, and Arthur winced.

“Hang on,” he said, but Merlin ignored him.

“No, forget it,” he said, and got to his feet. He wouldn’t look at Arthur, but Arthur recognised that curl of his mouth, and knew he’d upset him. “It doesn’t matter, I’ll stop doing it. Let’s just go home.”

He stalked off, and Arthur hurried to stand and follow him.

“I—Merlin,” he said, and jogged forward a bit. “Hang on, alright, I’m sorry.” He grabbed Merlin’s arm, and tugged him to a stop. “I shouldn’t have made fun of your lights.”

Merlin scowled. He had allowed Arthur to stop him, but still wouldn’t meet his eye. He looked angry and tense and like he’d very much like to hit Arthur, and for a moment Arthur contemplated letting him.

Still looking to the side, Merlin said: “Magic isn’t— it doesn’t just come from nowhere. My magic is— me. And I’ve used it to save your life at least a dozen times now, actually, so you should be more grateful.”

“I’m sorry,” said Arthur again. He thought, inexplicably, of the time Merlin had found Arthur’s shoddy attempts at poetry, and the way Merlin had clearly wanted to mock him but hadn’t, because he was a good friend. He squeezed Merlin’s arm. “Show me again.”

Merlin narrowed his eyes at him, and Arthur waited. Finally his mouth twitched.

“Fine,” he said, and spoke in that language again, and Arthur yelped when a flame erupted in the centre of Merlin’s palm.

“It’s alright,” said Merlin, in a voice that shook between reassuring and frightful. “It won’t hurt you.”

Arthur watched it dance, and raised a hand. He passed his fingers across it and felt the heat, and admired the way it seemed to move at Merlin’s direction.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, and Merlin shook his head. He looked a little more at ease, the firelight shining under his chin like a buttercup.

“It tingles,” he said. “But that’s the magic, not the fire.”

Arthur looked up. “You can feel it?”

“I told you, it’s part of me.”

“Yes, but—” He had thought Merlin meant it figuratively, the same as Arthur’s sword was an extension of himself in battle. He frowned. “Could I feel it?”

Merlin’s head snapped up. “You want to?”

He shrugged, the back of his neck hot. “Maybe.”

“I don’t know if you can,” said Merlin, and looked at the flame again. “I wish you could.”

Arthur’s hand stayed hovering. “What does it feel like?”

Merlin shrugged. A very, very tiny smile had wormed its way onto his face. “Spring?” he suggested. “I don’t know. It’s just nice. Shouldn’t you be freaking out a bit more?”

“I already did,” said Arthur, a little absently. “I told you, I’ve known for a while. I’ve adjusted.”

Merlin squinted at him. “Wait,” he said. “Is this what you were talking about yesterday?”

Arthur shrugged, the flame flickering around his fingers. It hurt a bit, but he could move them out of the way easily. “Sort of,” he said, and dropped his hand. “You can’t seriously expect I’d see you hanged.”

He was close enough, and the fire was bright enough, to see the muscle in Merlin’s jaw jump. The queasy feeling reared its head again.

“I don’t know,” said Merlin, with poor joviality. “Sorcerers are evil, remember?”

“You’re not evil,” said Arthur.

“I still have magic.”

“I know that,” said Arthur, and looked at him. Merlin was looking back fiercely, a mixture of determination and fear and defiance written into his features.

“I’m not different,” he said, and it sounded like a warning. “I mean it, Arthur, I’m not an exception, or an anomaly, or anything else. You can’t give me a free pass just because I’m on your side. You have to— I need you to mean it, Arthur. Please.”

“Merlin,” said Arthur, and tried to clap him on the shoulder, but decided at the last second to place his hand near the base of Merlin’s neck instead, which was dangerous. Merlin’s skin was cold under his hand. “I know that. You’ve singlehandedly changed my mind on the subject. Congratulations.”

He said it so flippantly because he meant it so awfully. He had known for a while that not all magic users could be evil, at least not inherently, but he had never known it as well as he had when reconciling the idea with Merlin. Merlin’s face wobbled.

He wanted to carry on, to try and explain that just because Merlin himself wasn’t evil the magic might still corrupt him, but Merlin looked so thrilled and easy and hopeful that Arthur couldn’t. He just looked at him, and hoped Merlin understood.

Merlin nodded, and Arthur gave in to an incredibly frightening urge, and bowed his head to press it against Merlin’s. It was a gesture he usually reserved for knights dying on the battlefield, and it felt entirely different here, in the forest and the dark and Merlin’s warm light.

Merlin pressed back, and clutched at Arthur’s arm. Arthur’s thumb was on Merlin’s neck.

“We’ll figure it out,” said Arthur when he’d drawn away, and realised Merlin’s fire had since gone out. “Just. Don’t be an idiot about it.”

“I’ll try,” said Merlin, and that was the best Arthur could really hope for.

Chapter Text

He dropped Merlin back at Gaius’ door in what had to be, he imagined, the end of the world’s worst date ever. He had planned on them camping for the night, had taken the tents along to prove it, but as they had walked back to the fire and their bedrolls it had become plain that he simply couldn’t face lying down next to Merlin as if nothing was wrong, and that Merlin couldn’t either.

So they’d come home. They dumped their gear in the stables and Merlin put up a token protest about the poor sod who’d have to tidy it up tomorrow, and Arthur made a token jab about how it would probably be Merlin, and they danced around each other the entire way up through the Citadel.

“I’ll walk you to your room,” said Arthur, which was wrong, because he should have dragged Merlin back to his own chambers to help him ready for bed, but it turned out he couldn’t face that yet either. Merlin swallowed.

“That’s very chivalrous of you,” he said, hands in his pockets.

“Shut up, Merlin,” said Arthur, and shoved him forward. “It’s a comment on what a girl you are.”

Merlin sighed. They traipsed up the stairs in silence, and when they got to the door Arthur realised that he was still going to have to say something, and also that he didn’t know what to. He cleared his throat.

“I’ll expect to see you at work tomorrow,” he said, and Merlin looked at him with big, round eyes. The gold had yet to fade from them, though that could have been the torchlight.

“Bright and early,” he agreed, and something eased in Arthur’s chest.

“Good,” he said. “Merlin—”

He stopped. Arthur had tried, with much admirable and valiant effort, not to hug Merlin too much. He had deflected and avoided it for three years, lest he become too comfortable with it. The closest they had last come to it had been when Merlin was pulling him up after they had conquered the dragon, and Arthur had fallen into him a bit on purpose.

He made a gesture now in the hope that Merlin would understand it, which he did, though he looked a bit sceptical. Arthur supposed that was probably due to all the times Arthur had shouted at him about it. They had certainly never hugged like this, with Merlin’s arms around Arthur’s shoulders and no place for Arthur’s hands to go but Merlin’s back, and they had never hugged each other after such a conversation, or after such a torturous two weeks.

He held Merlin close and thought again of the pyre, of Merlin hanged or cut down by a sword, and made a vow.

“Right,” said Arthur, swallowing and clapping Merlin once more firmly on the back. “Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight, sire,” said Merlin, and Arthur watched him slip through the door and into darkness, leaving him standing alone and wearied in the corridor. It could have been worse. If one ignored the awkwardness and the gentle thing that had irreparably shattered between them, then Arthur was almost minded to call it a success.

He walked back to his rooms in silence, keeping his footfalls light so as to avoid attracting attention. He thought it was probably getting into the early hours of the morning, but it could have been the Witching hour for how uneasy he felt. He comforted himself with the thought that if it had been, then Morgana would have been out here wandering pale and wraithlike in her nightgown too.

One thing he knew was that it was all far from over, and had in all likelihood only just begun. There were still questions to answer, and he still needed to know how long Merlin had practiced and how much trouble he was in, and Arthur was starting to get a dreadfully anxious feeling that he might have just made it all worse. He had seen the relief on Merlin’s face, and he worried at what sort of joyous abandon it might bring, and how much Arthur would be forced to conceal.

*

The morning brought something Arthur had not expected, but certainly should have considered.

Merlin slipped into his rooms while Arthur was just waking, moving quietly and swiftly across the room. He picked up Arthur’s discarded things and laid them on the table, smiling fondly at them, and then he moved to draw back the curtains, bathing the room in light. Arthur rolled over in bed and looked at him, and Merlin smiled shyly back.

“You’re here,” Arthur said, and Merlin nodded. Arthur rubbed his eyes. “I thought you’d do what was sensible and run for the hills.”

Merlin rolled his eyes and sat on the sill. “You told me to come to work.”

“Which should explain why I’m surprised.” He tilted his head, warm and comfortable in a way he should not have been, especially since when he glanced at the fireplace it was still cold and empty, and when frost was pushing at the windows. He squinted at Merlin. “Are you doing something?”

“No,” said Merlin, with convincing innocence. He picked at his sleeves, tugging them down over his hands the way he did sometimes, and Arthur’s heart clenched painfully. At the rate it was going, he’d be in Gaius’s rooms for a nerve tonic within the hour. “You look better.”

Arthur took stock of himself. It was true that he had slept more soundly last night than he had been of late, but he thought he could attribute that to sheer exhaustion. Merlin looked him over.

“Still not grand, mind,” he said, the words undercut by a softness that had not been there yesterday. “But, you know. Not totally repulsive.”

Arthur flushed. “What a winning review,” he grumbled, and Merlin grinned. It was a cracked thing, hopeless and hopeful and everything else in-between, and Arthur shortened the tonic timeline considerably. He sat up properly, rubbing at his chest, and waited for Merlin to say something.

“Merlin,” said Arthur, a bit exasperated. “My clothes?”

“Oh, right,” said Merlin, and jumped up. Arthur watched him busy himself with the cupboard, rummaging about Arthur’s things and throwing the chosen articles over his shoulder. At one point he lifted up Arthur’s doublet, recoiled, and then sniffed at it in a way that looked like it was meant to be sneaky before he dropped it stealthily in the laundry basket. His hair was all flat at the back from sleep.

“Here,” said Merlin, and chucked the selected garments at him. Arthur had swung his legs out of bed by now, and his bare feet were freezing. He tugged his shirt over his head and retreated into familiarity.

“Merlin,” he said, “Did you know that before he died, my father’s servant served him for almost two decades?”

Merlin threw Arthur’s socks at him, and caught the sleepshirt in return. “I wasn’t aware the king was dead,” he said, and Arthur rolled his eyes, but elected to ignore it while he tugged on his tunic.

“Two decades,” he said meaningfully. “That’s not just a career, Merlin, that’s a man’s life.”

With his feet now properly socked, he was brave enough to forego the bed for the floor. Merlin passed him his belt.

“My father offered to let Geoffrey go, of course. The man had suffered an injury and lost sight in one eye, and he had been loyal. But he never wavered in his duties, not once. Do you know what he said about it when asked, Merlin?”

“I’ve got a feeling I’m about to,” muttered Merlin.

“He called it an honour,” said Arthur, with great condescension. “And do you know what that means for you, Merlin?”

“No.”

“It means,” said Arthur, and unexpectedly faltered. “That I’m glad you’re here, Merlin.”

Merlin blinked. “Arthur?”

He swallowed and shrugged, the memory of Merlin’s flame dancing around his person, how wide and scared and brave his eyes had been. He shouldered his coat. “Don’t think too highly of it,” he said. “It doesn’t change that you’re the worst servant in all the kingdoms combined. But you’re a good friend and I’m— I’m glad you’re here.”

Surprise flickered in Merlin’s face, alongside something else, something serious and loyal and steadfast. He didn’t need Merlin to say it, in the same way that he had never needed Merlin to say it, but Merlin tipped his chin anyway, nodding just slightly, and the quirk of his mouth was soft and lovely.

“Course,” said Merlin, and cleared his throat. “Of course, Arthur.”

Arthur nodded. The he sniffed rather haughtily.

“Mind you,” he said, looking at himself in the looking glass, “I had hoped you’d learned to make me presentable, by now.”

“You look the same as usual, sire,” said Merlin, and tugged Arthur towards him by the belt. He rethreaded the belt loop without looking, because Arthur had put it through the wrong hole. Arthur whacked him on the back of his head.

“I look a mess.”

“Yeah,” said Merlin, and he laughed as he ducked out from Arthur’s arm and the attempted headlock.

“You know, if Geoffrey were here—”

“Alright, alright,” grumbled Merlin. “What was he, George’s father? Come here.”

He grabbed Arthur’s shoulder and steadied him, whipping a comb out from somewhere and dragging it over Arthur’s head.

“Much better,” said Arthur, head tilted obediently forward. He focused on looking at Merlin’s horrible ratty boots, and had a sudden burst of nausea as he once more considered the pyre. “If I had any hope at all, I’d say next time you won’t even need the reminder.”

“You royals are so fussy,” said Merlin, dragging the comb once more through Arthur’s fringe. “You’d really rather tomorrow I just fixed it, instead of telling you it looks like a baby duck exploded?”

Arthur looked up to glare, which was ruined by all the hair in the way, and the manner in which it snagged the comb.

“Yes,” he said, and Merlin grinned.

“Stand still,” he ordered. He pocketed the comb and started pushing Arthur’s hair about with his fingers, which was all together meaningless but for how soft his touch was, and for how close he stood to do it.

“Satisfied?” asked Arthur grimly when he was done, and Merlin turned that awful softness on him again, appraising his work.

“You’ll do,” he said finally, and Arthur stood rooted, and that thing leapt up into the air again. It was coming from Merlin in droves, warming Arthur’s toes and belly and fingers, not like a hot bath but more a summer’s breeze, the kind that made everything feel good and right and safe.

Merlin was happy. He was happy because of their horrible conversation, and happy because all was normal, and happy, also, because of whatever relief it had all brought him. Arthur shoved him.

“Go and light the fire, Merlin,” he said, and the flash of Merlin’s grin was bright and lovely. Arthur watched him go, looking with a terrible fondness at his gangly gait, at the way he squatted beside the fire like always. He watched him hesitate, fingers half-reaching for the flint before faltering in mid-air, and he was ready for it when Merlin looked over his shoulder at him.

Arthur lifted his shoulders, knowing very well that he shouldn’t. “If you like,” he said.

Merlin looked at him a while longer. His cheek twitched and he turned back to the fire, and then it roared to life in the grate. He stood and looked at Arthur.

“Handy,” Arthur said, and Merlin melted out again. He looked strange and weightless, and it was only in its absence that he realised the tension Merlin had been holding, there between his shoulders every day.

“Fetch me my new boots, would you?” asked Arthur, as he put the usual rings on his fingers and double checked his reflection. He smoothed out a tiny piece of his fringe. Something nudged his foot.

Glancing down, Arthur saw not Merlin but one of his nice leather shoes, toeing insistently at him before it settled, ready and waiting to be put on. He looked at Merlin.

Merlin looked back, face suspiciously and carefully blank, and Arthur reached down to pick up the boot. Merlin was still by the fire, at least ten feet away, and Arthur’s boots, it seemed, had walked themselves to be at his side. They felt the same as always; the leather was still soft, they still pinched until he wiggled his heels just so, and yet they had changed ominously in his eyes.

Arthur pressed his tongue to his teeth, and gestured weakly at the bed. “The bedclothes need changing.”

At once they stripped themselves, flying into the air and folding themselves into neat squares that floated down onto the foot of the bed. The hangings tied themselves to the posts, and the pillows re-fluffed themselves with a gentle puff of air, and through it all there was Merlin, standing with his golden eyes glowing, nervous glee on his face.

Arthur swallowed. “Do you do anything yourself?” he asked, and Merlin shrugged. He looked pleased.

“That is doing it myself,” he said.

“In a third the time,” grumbled Arthur. He stowed his knife in his boot, and walked to the dresser for a necklace. He hadn’t worn it in an age, but he couldn’t very well stand still while Merlin did his treason, and he refused to pace aimlessly. He made to whack Merlin’s head on the way back, and instead ruffled his hair.

“Come on, we’ll be late for breakfast,” he said, and Merlin pushed him happily to the side on his way past, and Arthur tripped him. Merlin laughed.

This was awful. This was the worst thing Arthur had ever done, and he wished more than anything that he wished he hadn’t. It was as if they were accompanied by the world’s most delightful bard, singing songs of happiness and jolly in their ears. Merlin kept grinning at statues and bricks and his own fingernails, and Arthur kept noticing, kept being buoyed along by the lightness of mood.

It was almost as if—

But Arthur couldn’t think that.

Even during the breakfast with the king Merlin still smiled, quiet, hidden ones that Arthur coveted and despised in equal measure. He slipped extra raspberries onto Arthur’s plate with a sleight of hand that Arthur had never seen, and looked at the back of Arthur’s head with such sickening adoration that Arthur felt it. Every time Merlin filled his jug their bodies would touch, and this was normal, this was ordinary, but it felt more than ever as if they had a secret. Arthur supposed, somewhat glumly, that they did.

*

He was rather glad to get away from him at the end of it. He took himself down to the training fields after telling Merlin to pay his attentions to Gaius, knowing, now, that a slew of chores could hardly keep him busy for long. The weight of the sword was familiar and comforting in his hand, and the training dummy, as opposed to his men, took all the brunt of his uncertainty.

“What’s got your knickers in a twist?” asked Morgana, and Arthur looked up to see her approaching gaily from the castle. Her hair was tied back and her face mischievous, and she didn’t seem to care at all that she was dredging her dress and cloak through melted sludge.

“Morgana,” greeted Arthur, ignoring the jibe. “What brings you here?”

“Just came to see how you were getting on,” she said, arms folded. She came and stood close to him. “Someone pissed you off, did they?”

They looked together at the helmet currently serving as the training dummy’s head, that not even Gwen would be able to fix. Arthur had cleaved it in two.

“Of a sort,” said Arthur.

“And here I thought you looked positively overjoyed this morning, if a little queasy. Some complex issue taking root in your brain, no doubt.”

Arthur turned his frustrations on her. “Have you got anything useful to say, or are you just here to irritate?”

She soured; her mouth turned down at the corners and she narrowed her eyes a little, just for a moment. He pulled himself up, prepared for and almost relishing the opportunity to duel with her, when her expression changed. It melted into something soft and warm, the way she often did since her return from abduction. She put her hand on his arm.

“Arthur,” she said gently. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

And, thought Arthur recklessly, why shouldn’t he? He looked at her hand on his forearm, her pale, ungloved fingers, and longed to spill it all: Merlin’s secret, Arthur’s turmoil, the fact that he felt he had now done abundantly worse in letting Merlin relax his fears.

He wanted to tell her his newfound fear that Arthur had offered Merlin nothing but a false-sense of security, about his realisation that it wasn’t the hiding, wasn’t the secrecy or the fear of discovery at all that seemed to have kept Merlin subdued, but that it was Arthur not knowing that had been the worst of it.

He opened his mouth to say all this, and then realised he couldn’t.

“It’s nothing,” he said, covering Morgana’s hand with his own. Her fingers were cold even through his own gloves. “I’m sorry to have worried you.”

She looked disappointed. “If you say so,” she said dubiously. “But you know you can talk to me about anything, don’t you?”

He squeezed her hand. “I do.”

She smiled at him, and didn’t protest when he suggested she make her way back to the castle. He watched her go, an inky blot against the pale grounds, and thought how very glad he was to have her home.

He turned back to the training dummy and found he had lost his fight. He returned to the armoury, and since he was still in the clothes Merlin had dressed him in, it took only a moment to return his sword and slip into his long coat. It left only the question of where he wanted to go, and of who he wished to avoid more: Merlin or his father.

Arthur turned away from the castle, and set himself on the path to the lower town. He was sure, after some racking of his brain, that Gwen had mentioned a few of her roof’s shingles needing fixing. How hard could that be?

*

“I didn’t mean you,” said Gwen nervously, looking up at him. From his position on the roof, Arthur could see that she was wringing her hands together. She caught his expression. “Oh! Not that I mean it shouldn’t be you, although really, it shouldn’t be, I just mean—I didn’t say it to make you feel, erm, obligated. To help, that is. It’s really fine. Merlin was going to come round tomorrow.”

Arthur involuntarily clutched the chisel harder. “Don’t be stupid,” said Arthur, as he hefted up the hammer. “I’m the prince, you’re a citizen, it’s my duty to help you.”

Gwen flushed rather prettily. Arthur surveyed the roof. It was simple enough, he thought. Just get the split bit of wood out from under the others.

“Oh, god,” said Gwen, and when he looked down again she was hiding her gaze behind her fingers.

“I’m perfectly fine,” said Arthur, and then his knee went through the roof. Gwen gasped.

“It’s fine,” said Arthur again. He’d dropped the hammer in his haste to steady himself, and it was now in the sludge at the foot of the ladder. He shifted over to the left, so he was more steadily resting on the beam. He inspected the shingle he’d broken. “I think the wood’s rotting.”

Gwen looked up from behind her hand again. Arthur chose to believe that her hand’s positioning conveyed fear rather than exasperation. “You’re really not going to come down, are you?”

“No,” said Arthur cheerfully, and Gwen sighed.

“Give me a minute,” she said, and then she disappeared into the house. She returned with a new handful of planks that she rested against the house, and then hoisted her skirt into one hand. She picked up the hammer and started to climb the ladder.

“Guinevere,” protested Arthur, but she ignored him. When she was a decent way up, high enough that her head and shoulders were above the roof but not the rest of her, she stopped and passed him the hammer. She looked dubiously at the shingles.

“Arthur, they’re covered in frost.”

“It’s alright,” he said, and had to bite back his next instinctual sentence. He didn’t think Gwen would like being called a girl. “You sound like Merlin.”

He hit the broken shingle with the chisel, and was satisfied when it broke away.

“Aha!” he said, delighted, and Gwen grinned as well. She took the plank from him and dropped it to the ground, and Arthur heaved the new one into place. He hit it hard with the hammer until it sat snugly under the others, and Gwen watched nervously as her house shook with it. He fished the nails out of his pocket and hammered them into place.

“There,” said Arthur, and looked at her. “Pass me another and I’ll fix the rotted one, too.”

Gwen did as she was asked, but this time climbed down again at the end. She vanished into the house.

Arthur repeated the process with the second shingle, inordinately pleased with himself. No, he’d never done this before, and no, no one had taught him, but he’d managed it alright, hadn’t he? He could be a carpenter if the king business fell through. That was the sort of thing Merlin would have said, and Arthur’s next stroke of the hammer was extra forceful.

Gwen re-emerged with two steaming cups of tea, and looked newly sick at Arthur’s height. He finished off the last nail.

“Done,” declared Arthur, grinning at her. Gwen grinned weakly back.

“Well done, sire,” she said. “Now would you please come down.”

Arthur obliged, slipping off the wet roof with rather less finesse than he would’ve liked, but managed down the ladder without incident. Gwen handed him one of the cups, which he took gratefully.

“You’re the strangest man I’ve ever known,” she said, shaking her head. “Truly. You will be a very good king, Arthur, but you are also mad.”

He shrugged. “Nonsense,” he said. “It was the least I could do.”

He kicked at a bit of snow that was taking longer than usual to melt. “Honestly, you did me a favour. I found I didn’t want to be in the castle today.”

Gwen stood a little closer, shivering, and Arthur took a sip of tea to be polite, and promptly burnt his tongue.

“Merlin said you’d been off,” said Gwen hesitatingly, after he’d been silent a minute. Arthur’s desire to confide in her soured considerably, kind heart and all.

“Talk about me a lot, do you?” he snapped, and she flushed.

“No! No, I just meant— I didn’t mean—” She chewed on her lip. “He cares about you, that’s all. We all do. We’re behind you, Arthur.”

They stood awkwardly another minute.

“Do you want to talk about armour?” asked Arthur finally, and she closed her eyes with relief.

“God, yes,” she said, and in that way they passed the afternoon very pleasantly.

*

The castle was cold and empty when Arthur finally returned to it, despite the thick tapestries and hangings that covered the walls for the season. More than one guard nodded so stiffly at him as for Arthur to worry they’d all frozen solid, and he resolved to bring it up at the next council meeting, to see what could be done.

He was also, he was glad, spared from Merlin’s company a little longer by virtue of dinner with his father and Morgana, and he managed to draw it out even longer by stirring up a good-natured debate with the latter. She traded witticisms back and forth with him while Uther looked on in amusement, and the cold Winter air did not seem to penetrate the hall.

Back in Arthur’s chambers, Merlin was sitting nervously at the table and making three apples juggle themselves in mid-air, that all fell damningly around him as Arthur entered.

“My god, Merlin,” said Arthur, in despair, and closed the door. “Are you sure you don’t wish me dead?”

“Sorry,” said Merlin guiltily, and gave Arthur a lopsided sort of smile. “I got bored waiting.”

Arthur pinched his brow, even though the idea of Merlin sitting around for him warmed him up more than it rightly should. “It’s a miracle you’ve survived this long,” he muttered. He looked into Merlin’s horrible, eager face, and sighed. “Oh, fine,” he grumbled. “Show me something else.”

Merlin grinned and got up from the chair. He came and lent on the edge of the table so that they were very near. The air around Arthur seemed to get warmer and more Spring-like, and what was most wretched was the thought that it had nothing to do with the magic at all.

“As you wish, sire,” said Merlin cheerfully, and he cupped his hands in front of him. Ready for it this time, Arthur watched as gold flared in his eyes, engulfing his usual colour entirely. Regrettably, the change was not unpleasant.

A whispered word, and a huge, delicate butterfly freed itself from Merlin’s hands. It was brilliant blue in colour, and fluttered happily about their heads. It didn’t seem to care that it’d been conjured from nothing and would likely disappear sooner or later. It was content to just be.

It landed briefly on Arthur’s arm before moving on, but Arthur found he didn’t much care to watch it. He was captivated more by Merlin’s expression, and that lent itself to the horrible realisation that he was well and truly fucked, and probably would be the rest of his life.

Merlin beamed and reached up his hand. The butterfly danced around his fingers, and the sheer joy and Merlin-ness of it all was awful. It made Arthur want to reach out and touch Merlin’s smile, to pull him back into the crook of Arthur’s neck and keep him, and Arthur could do neither.

“I need to talk to you,” Arthur said.

The butterfly abruptly vanished. Merlin’s face, when he could stomach to look at it, was unreadable and slightly guarded, more so than Arthur felt he deserved. He wished he didn’t have to, but if Merlin wasn’t going to look out for himself then Arthur really had no other choice, and he felt also that he was owed the full story, if he was going to be risking his own life for it.

“About what?”

“The cost of silk, Merlin, what do you think? The magic.”

Merlin swallowed. His stupid throat bobbed underneath his neckerchief. Arthur loathed him.

“Alright,” said Merlin.

Arthur felt vaguely sick. “You don’t need to look so frightened,” he said, and picked up the wine pitcher and cups he had asked for from the table. “I’m not going to go back on any of it now, I just— want to hear about it. About you. That’s all.”

“Oh,” said Merlin. Arthur sat himself in one of the chairs by the fire, and dispensed of the drinks on the little table between them. He had set the whole thing up before dinner, but did not plan on telling Merlin so. He poked the fire and it roared instantly, warming the room significantly more than it should, and he was not surprised to find Merlin’s eyes gold when he turned back around.

Arthur nudged the other chair with his foot.

“Go on,” he said.

Merlin sat hesitantly in it, and Arthur poured them both a copious amount of wine in each goblet. He passed one to Merlin, whose fingers carefully (and unacceptably) did not brush against Arthur’s. “First, the obvious. How long have you been practicing?”

Merlin took the offered drink and sat back in his seat, though his shoulders were a little hunched.

“A while,” he said, and Arthur narrowed his eyes.

“Since before or after you came to Camelot?” he asked, and thought Merlin looked entirely too glum at the question, considering Arthur’s extreme mercy and liberty.

“Before,” he admitted, and Arthur stilled. He thought Merlin had admitted to the same the night before, and it was, of course, the most logical answer to the question, for surely there was no one in Camelot who would be willing to teach him. And—Arthur remembered with sudden clarity—there was his friend Will to consider, who had also practiced magic, and spoke therefore of possible shared tutelage.

“Who taught it to you?” he asked, thinking back to his time in Ealdor. He could have met them.

“No one,” said Merlin, and when Arthur levelled another look at him, relented; “Some of it came from a book.”

Arthur scoffed. “And you just happen to have a book of spells lying about, do you?”

“It’s not… lying about,” said Merlin shiftily. Arthur’s eye twitched.

“Merlin.”

“It’s in the cupboard!” defended Merlin. He scratched uncomfortably at his neck. “You gave me the idea, actually, that time you searched my rooms. You said it was a place I could put things.”

“Not illegal spell books,” snapped Arthur, pinching his brow. “God, have mercy. At least tell me you’ve disguised it.”

Merlin sank a bit lower in his chair.

“Right,” said Arthur, and drank his wine. “Of course not. Where’s it from, then?”

Merlin hesitated. “It was a gift.”

“From who?”

He watched Merlin close his mouth, and rolled his eyes. He leant forward in his chair, impatient and ill-humoured, and all the worse for wishing he wasn’t. “For God’s sake, Merlin, I’ve already told you I’m not going to hand you over. That extends to your—compatriots.”

“Does it?” challenged Merlin. His face was determined. “Even if you didn’t know them? If you couldn’t verify their loyalty the way you can mine?”

He swallowed. Merlin looked satisfied.

“The book is one of few that survived the Great Purge,” he said, rather too choosily for Arthur’s tastes. “And it’s very helpful, actually. It’s saved your life a few times.”

“Gaius,” guessed Arthur then, and Merlin didn’t deny it. That could make a certain sense, he supposed; it had become a bit of an open secret that Gaius had used to practice, ever since the witchfinder had revealed it last Autumn. Arthur still did not know what it was about him that had stayed his father’s hand, but perhaps it was the same as what stayed Arthur’s now; perhaps Gaius had simply been too good of a friend. “I should have known. It was he that taught you.”

“No one taught me,” said Merlin, and Arthur felt a snap of irritation.

“Don’t lie to me, Merlin.”

“I’m not lying!”

“If you’re not going to give me a straight answer,” he began, but Merlin interrupted immediately, gesturing a little with his goblet so that wine slipped out over the edge. Arthur tried not to notice how it slunk back in.

“No one had to teach me,” he corrected. “I was born with magic. I never studied it because I never had to.”

Arthur blinked. “That’s not possible,” he said, and Merlin smiled, but not particularly nicely.

“Just because you’ve never heard of it doesn’t make it less true.”

They watched each other a long moment as the full implications of what Merlin had said set in. It was true that Arthur had never heard of such a thing, but it was also true that his education on the matter was considerably lacking.

“But,” said Arthur, “you’re talking as if you didn’t have a choice.”

“Because I didn’t,” said Merlin. He drank from his cup, and wiped at the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t choose it, Arthur. It chose me.”

“The magic chose you?”

“Yeah, or whatever you want to call it— fate, destiny. How did you think the druids came about?”

Arthur hadn’t, really. “I suppose I assumed they all trained in it,” he said, and Merlin looked abruptly very sad. “What?”

“It’s just,” said Merlin, “There’s so much you don’t know. There’s so much I don’t know, and that I never will. I don’t just have magic, Arthur, I— a whole generation was wiped out. I wasn’t taught because there was no one to teach me. I’ve had to make do with what little survived, and I have had to, Arthur. Not learning was never an option.”

He contemplated his cup again and Arthur watched, fascinated, as Merlin spoke in the low, assured tones of their few serious conversations. Occasional though they were, and followed often by battle or near-death, they did tend to give the appearance of wisdom. Arthur wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that Merlin apparently spoke only so assuredly on two subjects: magic, and Arthur himself.

“Gaius knew I had magic within about ten seconds of meeting me,” said Merlin. He shifted, a slight frown appearing in his brow. “I startled him when I went into his rooms. He was up on that ledge, you know the really high one? The railing broke behind him and he fell. And I didn’t— I didn’t think about it, I didn’t even really mean to, but between one second and the next his bed had moved fifteen feet to break his fall. It just happened.”

He shook his head.

“I wouldn’t have lasted a week,” he continued. “Not as I was. I was using it reflexively, instinctively… I hadn’t learnt to control it. And I had to, or I would’ve, er. Y’know.”

He shrugged, and Arthur swallowed against his dry mouth.

“But,” said Arthur finally, “I don’t understand how that’s possible. Magic isn’t… It’s like handling a sword, or painting or smithing. It isn’t like— having hair.”

Merlin quickly grinned. “It kind of is, though,” he said. “Everyone’s got magic somewhere, even you. It’s in everything— the plants, the sky, the people. It’s just— normal. Natural.”

“But sorcery requires study, you said so yourself. It needs training, and practice.”

“Ye-es,” said Merlin, “But also no? Think of it like… potential. Everyone has the potential to learn, and some people, like the druids, have more so than others. I guess you could call it a— a talent.”

“Well, now I know you’re lying,” said Arthur, with an attempt at levity. “You’ve never been talented at anything.”

But he had. It hung in the air between them when Merlin wouldn’t smile back, when he just looked back at Arthur with those big, sad, unknowable eyes.

“Right,” said Arthur, and massaged his chest again. He ran his hand over his eyes, feeling a headache coming on, and tried to quell it with alcohol. “And I suppose you’re just so naturally gifted that you couldn’t help it if you tried?”

“Um,” said Merlin. “Basically, yeah.”

“It would be you,” he said. “Alright, then. If it is true, and you’re not just blabbering on about nonsense as usual, then I don’t understand why somebody born with magic would come to Camelot, let alone stay here. Is heating my bath water truly that important?”

“Are you going to kick me if I say no?” asked Merlin, and Arthur did (lightly). “I don’t know, alright? I’d started to get… noticed, I guess. I wasn’t exactly subtle. I didn’t mean to be, I just couldn’t control it. Mother thought Gaius could help. I didn’t— she didn’t know what it was like. She thought Uther would’ve tempered, I guess. It’s not like she knew the first thing I’d see was an execution.”

He trailed off, looking past Arthur into the fire. It had started to die down, and at the same moment that Arthur noticed it, two logs lifted themselves from the rack and joined those already there. Arthur opened his mouth to reproach him but couldn’t do it, not when he was looking at Merlin like he was, tired and contemplative and safe in Arthur’s chambers.

The fire cast his features into sharp relief, lit up the edges in gold and bathed the rest of him in shadow, an image not dissimilar to Merlin himself.

Arthur glared at his goblet, sure it was to blame for the thought, and placed it back on the table.

“Many men would’ve turned back the way they came,” he said quietly, and Merlin huffed. He pulled himself out of his mood and drank what remained of his cup with renewed fervour, wine catching at the corner of his mouth. Arthur didn’t think anything about the fact. The goblet echoed when he put it back on the table.

“Yeah. Lucky for me, I ran into you before I could.”

Arthur looked at him sharply.

“What does that mean?” he asked, and Merlin didn’t answer. He just stared at his empty goblet. “Merlin.”

He looked off to the side, shifty as anything, and Arthur watched him pull his bottom lip between his teeth, fiddling ferociously with his sleeves. He was very lovely. Arthur had to stop drinking.

“Merlin,” said Arthur again, more softly. “Tell me.”

Merlin sighed. “It’s not that,” he said. “It’s just that you still don’t know. I mean, I don’t know why I expected you to. There’s the magic, and then there’s— the rest of it.”

“The rest of what?” demanded Arthur, and Merlin said seriously:

“Arthur, I’ve been saving your life for three years.”

“I know that,” said Arthur, but before he could continue Merlin went on, a new sharpness in his tone.

“No, you don’t. You think I’m an idiot, but all this time I’ve been by your side, protecting you.”

Arthur stared at him. “You’ve said that to me before,” he said, thinking back to the various fireside declarations. Arthur had dismissed them at the time, too embarrassed over what they really meant to him and at how he cradled them secretly in his heart, but perhaps that was wrong. “All your speeches about protecting me, you mean to say that you’ve been using magic all this time, to save me without my knowledge?”

Merlin made a weak surprise gesture. “You’d be surprised at how many people want you dead.”

“Merlin,” said Arthur, and thought back to the times he could decisively attribute to him, beginning, of course, with— “Lady Helen?” demanded Arthur, sitting forward in his chair. “You used magic to save me from Lady Helen?”

Merlin nodded, and Arthur kicked him hard in the shin.

“Merlin! My father was right there!”

Merlin rubbed at his leg, scowling. Arthur clutched at his goblet and downed it desperately. It dribbled down his chin a bit. Of all the stupid, foolish, reckless acts of idiocy Merlin had done. “You didn’t even like me!” he accused.

“Still don’t,” muttered Merlin, unconvincingly. “I wasn’t just going to let you die.”

“What else, then,” demanded Arthur, and Merlin shifted again.

“Um,” he said. “Just, you know. Little things, here and there.”

“Merlin,” said Arthur for the millionth time, and realised that it was getting less effective each time he said it. “I told you already, I know about the branches.”

Merlin huffed. “Believe me, Arthur, that is the least of what I’ve been up to.”

But what else could it have been? Merlin could light fires and fell branches, could conjure apples and trip people up, but he couldn’t very well kill people. It was true that Arthur had had some lucky escapes over the years; the Questing Beast came immediately to mind, and he thought it was clear enough now that Merlin must have helped make the potion that revived him, perhaps having infused it with magic.

And there’d been the love potion business with Lady Vivian, too, and now that Arthur thought about it, he was sure he remembered a very unconvincing story about Merlin knocking him out after his failed elopement with Lady Sophia. The idea that Merlin used his talents to break Arthur up from his prospective brides cheered him enormously.

He waited for Merlin to say any of this, but he didn’t.

“You don’t want to tell me,” realised Arthur, and Merlin winced slightly.

“It’s not that,” he said. “Some of it I really don’t think you’ll want to know.”

“I do.”

“You don’t,” said Merlin. His voice cracked, it was awful. “And you’re right, I don’t want to tell you. And it’s stupid, because all I’ve ever wanted was for you to know, but I thought—”

He struggled a moment. “I didn’t think you’d be like this,” he said finally. “I didn’t think you’d listen, or ask questions, and I didn’t think we’d still— still be friends, after. I don’t want to ruin it.”

“What could you have possibly done?” asked Arthur, and the look in Merlin’s eyes scared him.

“I’ve been trying to keep you safe,” he said simply. “Everything— everything I’ve ever done has been to keep you safe. You must— if nothing else, Arthur, you must believe that. I’ll swear to it a thousand times over, I promise.”

“I do,” said Arthur. He reached out and took Merlin’s wrist. “Merlin, I believe you.”

And he did. He had known that Merlin liked him well enough, that his loyalty went far beyond that earned by an employer. His rare but various confessions of loyalty had not gone unnoticed, and Arthur had held that knowledge deep within his heart, somewhere where it was not to be spoken of, that he loved Merlin deeply and Merlin loved him back.

But, and this scared him, he also knew far better than most what it was to love one’s king. He knew the atrocities that could be excused in service of it, and he knew, also, that Merlin’s loyalty had never been to his father, not in the way that it was to Arthur. So he did believe Merlin, but that didn’t make it simple.

Merlin put his other hand on Arthur’s.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I really, really am.”

His eyes were wide and earnest, and he fidgeted with his hands once he withdrew them from Arthur’s. He bore the loss with considerable valour. “I can’t tell you the worst of it,” Merlin said. “It—some of it isn’t mine to tell, Arthur, truly. But I can— well. I can tell you something, I suppose.”

Arthur refused to say his name again, so he sat back in his chair and waited, that uneasy dread back in his stomach.

“You remember the Knights of Medhir,” said Merlin.

“Bit hard to forget.”

Merlin twisted his sleeves. “The enchantment Morgause had upon the city, it was huge. More powerful than anything I could undo. I couldn’t break it, I couldn’t even fight it. I tried—everything I could. But she was coming, and I was failing, and I didn’t know what to do. It’s not like I’m some— some mystical all-knowing hero. I needed help. And there was only one— only one person I knew who could help me.”

“Who?”

Merlin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he met Arthur’s gaze again, his expression was both steady and resigned. “The dragon.”

“The—”

“I asked him for help,” said Merlin, “and he told me what to do to break the charm.”

“You stopped them,” said Arthur, mouth dry. He remembered the fight, how the Knights had taken blow after blow without falling until they didn’t. He opened his mouth to speak, but the awe gave itself away quickly to what he knew must follow, at memory of what had.

“Yes,” said Merlin, and the single syllable told Arthur that Merlin knew he had guessed. “It told me what to do, and I did it. But in return— in return it asked something of me. And I gave it my word, Arthur. I would’ve— Camelot was falling, I would’ve agreed to— to anything— and it knew that, and after it was done—"

“You had to free him,” finished Arthur, feeling sick. “Merlin, you didn’t—”

“I had to save you,” said Merlin miserably.

“You wouldn’t,” said Arthur, shaking his head. “I know you, you would’ve— found something else, a way out. You would’ve come to me—”

But, as was increasingly clear, Merlin would not have. Arthur’s vision swam.

“All those people,” he said, and Merlin looked away.

“I know.”

“Women and children, Merlin. My knights. The commoners—”

“I know.”

Arthur shook his head again. The fact would not make sense to him. Merlin had released the dragon. Merlin had, whatever his intentions, unleashed that force upon Camelot. Was it truly the lesser of a dozen immortal knights? The enchantment over the castle had at least been peaceful— it had only caused sleep, not death. Of course, there was no telling what might have happened had Morgause succeeded. But the dragon—

“And they’re on your head,” he said finally, and Merlin flinched. “All those lives, all those deaths.” He looked at Merlin, looked as if trying to recall his very person, because the person in front of him certainly could not have been his manservant. His voice came out rather colder than he meant it to. “Maybe you are a sorcerer after all.”

Merlin hung his head.

“I can’t believe this of you,” said Arthur, when a few moments of horrible, tortured silence had passed. “I can’t, Merlin, I won’t.”

“Arthur,” said Merlin, heart-breaking, and Arthur shook his head.

“No. You’re not an idiot, Merlin, you’re not stupid. How could you not have foreseen the consequences? You must’ve known— you must’ve known what it would bring.”

“I had to save you,” said Merlin.

“Not at the cost of my people!” cried Arthur, and Merlin looked up at him with something unnameable, something Arthur had never seen.

“Yes, at that cost,” he said, and there was steel in his voice, fire in his eyes. “That is the price of protecting you, Arthur. It isn’t nice, it isn’t—isn’t noble. It is a thankless, endless task. I lost more than you know as a result of that choice, but it is the choice that I made, and I have had no choice but to live with it.”

“And still you rode out with me,” said Arthur, wonder and ill-ease rising in him. “I thought at the time—” He searched Merlin’s face. “Were you protected, by your magic? Or was it as much a risk for you as for all of us?”

“I knew we might die,” said Merlin. “And I knew I would be by your side if we did.”

Arthur closed his eyes a long time. It was inadvisable, he knew, but he almost welcomed the invitation. If Merlin attacked him, at least it would make some of his feelings simple. Blanket betrayal would be easier to parse than this mess. He pressed his fingers to his brow bone, and looked wearily out at Merlin.

“You said there was worse,” he said, hating himself. “You said there was something you couldn’t speak. What could possibly be worse than this?”

Merlin looked at the ceiling, composing himself or gathering courage, Arthur couldn’t tell, but he met Arthur’s gaze when he spoke. “I betrayed you,” he said. “And I know you’ll never forgive me for it.”

It lingered. “Merlin—”

“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t, not without breaking my word to someone else.”

“Damn your word,” demanded Arthur, really furious. “Tell me.”

“I won’t.”

Arthur stared at him.

“I thought I knew you,” he said. Merlin lowered his head again, and Arthur shook his own. Merlin was not going to tell him. Whoever it was that had his word— they evidently meant more to him than Arthur.

“I want you to come back tomorrow,” he said at length, though his voice still tremored with the desire to shout, and the knowledge that he couldn’t. “Not at breakfast, I want you to come in the afternoon. I’ll— I’ll think on what we’re to do. How we’re to— move forward, after this.”

Slowly, Merlin nodded. “If that’s what you want,” he said.

“It is.”

Arthur looked at him, at the features he knew so well, at the face of the boy he had long considered his first proper friend. He found himself selfishly glad he’d never told Merlin this, in light of everything, but it didn’t follow that Merlin hadn’t known.

“I don’t know what to do with this, Merlin,” he said finally, quietly. “How do I reconcile this with what I know of you? Did I ever?”

Last night Arthur had put his hand on Merlin’s neck.

“I’ll ready myself for the night,” Arthur said, and Merlin nodded. He took the dismissal for what it was and stood, though he tidied the goblets and pitcher before he went. Arthur had the stray thought that apparently all it took for Merlin to act his station was the real and proper threat of losing him.

Merlin hesitated as he passed Arthur, his hand twitching like he wanted to brush Arthur’s shoulder, but in the end he kept his hands to himself. He looked back at Arthur as he left, lingering in the doorway and the torchlight. Arthur knew the gist of what he was going to say before he said it, and that made it all the more awful.

“It’s all for you, Arthur,” Merlin said. “All of it.”

And with one last, heavy look, Merlin left the room, leaving Arthur to contemplate how that was exactly the problem.

Chapter Text

Arthur was going to start docking Merlin’s pay for sleepless nights.

Grumbling awfully inside his head, he let the servant dress him in his chainmail without fanfare, and definitely without conversation. His head hurt and his mouth tasted awful, and not even the knowledge that Merlin’s usual hangover cure was probably illegal on pain of death, could persuade him from wishing he had some.

He stomped off to Morgana’s rooms and banged ungraciously on the door. She opened it in her dressing gown, looking (to Arthur’s displeasure) well-rested and happy enough to be up, and immediately furrowed her brow in alarm.

“I wondered if you would like to join me for training,” said Arthur stiffly. It was a bit more than he dared to hope that she’d come without comment, but he hoped she’d at least consider coming, on the basis of all the times she’d complained about being excluded as a child.

Morgana considered him, cocking her head to the side. “Alright,” she said shortly. She turned her head – “Gwen, fetch my gambeson?” – and closed the door right in his face.

Right then, thought Arthur, nodding to himself. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet, glancing nervously at the guards stationed a short while away. They probably hadn’t heard, and he reminded himself that even if they had, they surely wouldn’t speak of it. Where the hell she had got a gambeson from, he didn’t know, but it wasn’t difficult to imagine Camelot’s best seamstress might have had something to do with it.

She reappeared in a time that made Arthur envy Gwen’s obvious skill at buckling armour.

“Well?” demanded Morgana, with a horrid little self-satisfied smirk. “Come on, then.”

They walked side-by-side down to the courtyard, which had been adorned by a fresh layer of snow overnight. It was quiet and grey out, barely just gone first light, and the chill prickled Arthur’s exposed skin. Morgana didn’t try and talk to him until they were out on the grounds and out of earshot, but when she did, it was with far too gay an air for Arthur to answer truthfully.

“So, go on,” said Morgana, as she laid her cloak over the fence. “What’s made you renege on eleven years of whinging?”

Arthur planted his sword in the snow. “I thought you might like the opportunity to try and beat me,” he said, and, taking off, added: “How’s your running coming along?”

Morgana swore, clinking like a bag of bottles as she came after him. It made him smile, and he admired her determined perseverance in keeping up with him even though he knew she rarely ran. It was a lot harder in mail, too, and on snow that had yet seen enough light to melt.

There was little opportunity to talk; he liked that about it, too.

After two laps of the grounds Arthur slowed to a walk to let her catch up, and he knew she had when she pushed him, frightfully hard, to the side.

“Now, be nice,” he said, regaining his footing. “There’s a code about this sort of thing, you know.”

“Damn your code,” grumbled Morgana, panting. She put her hands on her knees and looked up at him. “Is this your plan for all your opponents? Tire them out so you’ve a better chance at winning?”

He grinned, and after a second she did too. She wiped her forehead and stood up, pink in the face. They glanced simultaneously at the swords, and Morgana smirked. She picked up her own and tossed his to him.

 “I warn you,” said Arthur, twirling his sword a few times to show off, “I’m not going to go easy on you because you’re a girl."

“Don’t make me laugh,” said Morgana, as she did the same. Arthur narrowed his eyes. She jerked her head. “Go on.”

He swung, she blocked and parried. He stepped out of the way and she advanced.

Morgana was, Arthur realised quite quickly, rather a lot better at this than he’d thought. She was lighter and smaller and knew how to use it to her advantage, darting about from one foot to the other. Arthur had seen her fight in Ealdor, but it didn’t account for where she was now, and nor did their shared lessons in their youth. Arthur had followed his up with years of diligent practice, and Morgana had been relegated to the household.

She snickered as she circled him, and Arthur lashed out with his sword, driving her backwards. She shouldn’t be this bloody good.

There was room for improvement, obviously; her footwork wasn’t bad, but like Uther she tended to shuffle her steps a bit, and to favour her right arm. And there was a familiarity in her style that Arthur couldn’t place. They had scuffled across the field and back again, not quite evenly matched, but Morgana good enough at retaining space that he never quite got the chance to finish her off. He decided it was because he liked seeing her smile too much to force it to end, but that might not have been true.

With renewed vigour, Arthur cornered her against the fence and their swords struck together. He lifted his own to strike, and in the next second she had rolled out from the blow; his sword struck the fence, she kicked him hard in the knee, and Arthur fell backwards into the snow.

“Ha!” said Morgana, and dropped her sword from his chest.

“That was luck,” grumbled Arthur, and held his hand out to her. She grabbed it and made to pull him up, but he instead he pulled her down enough to chuck a handful of snow into her face. She shrieked.

Scuffling, Arthur laughed as she tried and failed to return the favour, and pushed her into the snow. She kicked him and made a run for it, but he pelted snow at her back, only for to throw herself behind a shield and lob snow back at him. He laughed again, bright and loud, and forgot everything he had left in the castle. He gathered up another handful as one hit him in the back of his neck, dripping cold and wet beneath his collar.

Eventually they tired of the fight and collapsed in the snow on their backs, red-cheeked and panting. The cold seeped in under Arthur’s chainmail but he didn’t mind; he felt spontaneous and honest, and when Morgana turned her head to him, the grin on her face was wide and bright. She looked healthier than ever and a quiet settled over them, all sounds dampened by the snow.

“What’s really wrong, Arthur?” she asked, with none of the softness of yesterday. She sounded like her usual self, her old self, and Arthur looked up at the sky.

“Do you ever think about the druid boy?” Arthur asked, and heard her clinking as she shifted in the snow. He knew from her pause that he’d surprised her, the way the silence hung for a beat too long.

“Mordred?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes,” she said. He heard her swallow. “Why?”

Arthur sighed and folded his hands atop his stomach. “I was thinking about him last night. About how quickly you convinced me to help you, when there must have been others who deserved the same. Why was the boy special?”

“He was a child,” said Morgana. “He hadn’t done anything wrong.”

“I know,” said Arthur. “I know that, I do. That’s my point. I swore I would not betray my father, but I took the law into my own hands anyway when you asked. I chose to spare him.”

“Are you trying to tell me you regret it?”

“No,” said Arthur, and closed his eyes. The snow was cold against his head when he shook it, and it crunched under his ears. “No, nothing like that. Only… only that I should have done better. If I could make allowances for one boy, then why not the rest?”

He chewed on his lip. Long, long ago, he had told his father of the Camelot he wished to rule, where the punishments were made to fit the crime. He had ensured that the boy’s did, but there had been others. People who Arthur couldn’t save, whose fates he had resigned himself to when a talk with his father hadn’t been enough to spare them. There would be more people, he was certain of it, and it was only a matter of time before Arthur had to decide who his loyalty was stronger to: his king or his people.

He watched the clouds part above their heads.

“I’ve been a fool, Morgana,” he said finally. “I’ve let my own feelings come in the way of what I owe to my people. I’ve done just what my father has.”

She didn’t say anything, and her silence welcomed his confidence even more, though he still refused to look at her. He kept his words carefully measured.

“You told me once,” he said, “that I had to do what I thought was right, and damn the consequences. I’ve always thought that would be easy once I was king. But I think I might have to start now.”

Morgana sat up and looked sharply at him, her eyes dark and a little afraid. “You shouldn’t talk like this,” she said, and got to her feet. He held out his hand and she pulled him up. She seemed to hesitate another moment, and then added: “You’d be much better off doing something.”

She walked off before Arthur could respond, gathered her cloak without looking back, and Arthur realised she was right.

*

The thing was— the thing was.

Merlin had broken the law.

There was the magic, of course, which Arthur now found unpleasantly detestable. It was all the more so for knowing that he couldn’t very well put the blame on it, not entirely. He’d seen Merlin’s stupid blue butterfly and felt that repulsive springtime feeling, and heard how Merlin had been born with it with no choice in the matter. Arthur didn’t go about blaming King Cenred’s horribleness on his stupidly becoming nose, and apparently that was the kind of trait magic was.

He threw a ball against the wall.

So he’d let the magic slide. He’d done so with the druid boy and been prepared to do so with Gwen, and while he very much would have liked to blame Merlin’s actions on corruption via a supernatural force, he couldn’t find it suitably convincing, and instead found himself with no choice but to blame Merlin.

The ball bounced back to him.

Now Merlin was, of course, a complete and total idiot. He had broken the law before, and he’d made more than one comment about the king that Arthur had pretended not to hear, lest he be strung up by his insides. Arthur had always taken Merlin’s law-breaking in stride, and written it off on Merlin’s country bumpkin manners. After all, it had been Merlin. Merlin, complete and total idiot though he was, was good.

But now there was the dragon. Arthur couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid; they’d never figured out what caused its escape, and after it was dealt with there hadn’t seemed much point in investigating, because there’d been too much to do. There’d been houses to mend and injuries to treat, knights to mourn and crumbled castles to remake. He just hadn’t questioned it.

Arthur threw the ball again, and it smacked against the stone.

He hadn’t questioned a lot, clearly. He could still smell smoke if he tried to, could still feel the heat of the dragon’s breath as it burned against the castle. He could see the infirmary now behind his eyes, Gaius run off his feet and the smell of roasted meat clinging in the air. Never mind Merlin’s intentions, not when Arthur had never been given a free pass for his. He carried the guilt over that stupid unicorn with him even now, and he felt the consequences of that fairly comparable.

The ball bounced again.

He could turn a blind eye to the dragon. He could pretend Merlin hadn’t told him, like he’d wanted to pretend Merlin didn’t have magic, and they could never speak of it again and Arthur would be under no obligation to act. Merlin would probably let him; he certainly hadn’t wanted to tell Arthur.

Arthur looked at the ball in his palm, at his mother’s ring on his forefinger, and knew it was an option he couldn’t take. Honour, duty, all of it forbade him from wilful ignorance. He knew and he had to do something. It wasn’t in his nature not to.

The druid boy flittered across his mind again, so small and unprotected. He remembered Morgana’s white hand on the boy’s shoulders, remembered the weight of the boy as Arthur hoisted him onto the horse. They had made the right choice there, he was certain of it. He would do it again without hesitation. But if Arthur resolved not to let people be punished unjustly, then it followed that he could neither pardon them so.

Which brought him back to Merlin.

*

Merlin came in the afternoon, after lunch. He was paler than usual, his mouth very pink where he had been chewing on his bottom lip. He fidgeted with his sleeves as he came in and Arthur wondered how they hadn’t all yet been reduced to rags. Still, he dropped his shoulders and met Arthur’s gaze levelly when he came to face him, ready to face judgement. It was fitting.

“Sit down,” Arthur said. He gestured at the dining table, at the chair down the end of it. Merlin looked at the chair, then at Arthur stood away beside the bed, and pulled a face.

“Um,” he said. “I can stand.”

A muscle twitched in Arthur’s jaw. “Fine,” he said, and crossed his arms again. He’d been standing a while, waiting for Merlin, and launched now into his prepared speech. Merlin, who knew him far better than Arthur wished to currently credit him for, seemed to have foreseen this and listened with an unusual expression of deference.

“I wanted to tell you that I thought about what you said last night,” said Arthur, careful to keep his tone even and unaccusatory. It was not particularly easy, but he knew he had to get through it. “About the magic, and being born with it, and everything. I want you to know that I can’t fault you for it. I realise now that you didn’t have a choice.”

Arthur ran his tongue over his teeth. “When I said that I’d changed my mind about magic being evil, I still mean that, I think. I can accept the argument of it being similar to a tool. And I— I saw how you were with it, yesterday. I saw no evil there.”

Merlin softened and took a step closer, hand lifting a little. His expression was so grateful that Arthur wanted to run from it. “Arthur,” he said.

“But,” said Arthur, and Merlin stopped. “I think I also understand better than ever what my father has said about the way magic corrupts. I used to think it was the magic itself, but it’s not, is it? It’s the power. In the same way that my knights must prove their worth to carry a sword, so to must a sorcerer prove their ability to act with responsibility and control.”

He stood up a little straighter, and nodded to himself. Merlin looked on warily. “I’ve thought a lot about what you said about the dragon. I know you were doing what you thought was right, and I respect the circumstances you made your choice in. But the point is, Merlin, is that it wasn’t and never should have been your choice. It should never have been on your head. You took it upon yourself when you shouldn’t have, and you must know that I have to do something.”

He looked down at his hand and twisted the ring on his finger. Morgana had told him to damn the consequences and he had resolved to, but he wished, childishly, that it could be easier.

“I know the laws on magic are unfair, I’ve clashed with my father on it often. And in deciding what to do about your interference, I’ve thought not only about Camelot’s laws as they are now, but about what they might be in future, in the Camelot that I wish to build. Which,” Arthur added, “I think has already begun, thanks to you.”

Merlin looked torn between suspicion and outright hope. He moved a little closer, his hand resting lightly on the table, his fingers just shy of drumming out a melody. Arthur dropped his folded arms and clasped them instead behind his back, and watched Merlin’s eyes narrow as he followed the motion.

“Alright,” said Merlin slowly.

“I am not going to tell the king,” said Arthur, and Merlin closed his eyes, tension draining. Arthur felt sick. “Because I will not see you dead. But I want you to understand that if I am to change my mind about sorcery, I will not give it, or you, any kind of special allowance. An act of treason is still an act of treason regardless of the methods used. Do you understand that? You’ve still broken the law, and I have a— a duty, to uphold it.”

Merlin opened his eyes again, alert. He licked his lips. “What are you saying?” he asked, and Arthur drew himself up as tall as he possibly could, which was not nearly tall enough.

“I’m saying you’re to endure a spell in the stocks,” he said. “I’ll obfuscate the true reason of it, but you’re to do it all the same. And the next time you decide to take matters into your own hands, you will tell me, so that I may allow it.”

Merlin stared at him. “You’re putting me in the stocks,” he said finally, in disbelief. “For breaking the law.”

Arthur nodded. Merlin looked very much like he wanted to say something, or at the very least call Arthur something frightful, but couldn’t determine what. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, his arms and hands hiking upwards in erratic half-movements. “What? Arthur, my entire existence breaks the law!”

Arthur swallowed. “I know that—”

“You don’t,” said Merlin, voice cracking. “God, Arthur, you don’t. Every day I get up and run after you, and I act the fool and let you all believe it, and every day I’m surprised to get into my bed at the end of it, and it’s not even my fault. I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t do it on purpose, all I’ve ever done is look after you, and I know the dragon was, you know, a bit of a mess, but—”

“You killed fifty-nine people, Merlin!” said Arthur, his careful composure broken by Merlin’s outburst. “I can’t just turn a blind eye—"

“I saved Camelot!” cried Merlin, and the vase on the table wobbled ominously. “And I won’t just stand here and let you make me feel bad about it, either, I’ve done enough of that myself! The kingdom is still standing when it bloody well wouldn’t’ve been if I hadn’t done it, and for that reason alone I know that had it been you with me in that cave, you would’ve agreed to the same!”

“Perhaps,” snapped Arthur, “But we’ll never know, will we, seeing as you didn’t see fit to tell me! Only enough to have me clean up your messes—”

“You didn’t clean up anything,” yelled Merlin, and then he clamped his mouth shut more tightly than Arthur had ever seen.

“What,” Arthur said, “does that mean?”

Merlin gulped. Arthur stared at him. The vase quivered again.

“The dragon,” Arthur said. “You told me I dealt it a mortal blow— you told me I defeated it, that I vanquished it from the land. Was that true?”

Merlin closed his eyes. Arthur clenched and unclenched his right hand.

“It was you,” he said. “It was you who killed it, while I was unconscious. You let me believe—”

And, suddenly, Merlin took on a new light.

“Get out of my sight,” Arthur said. “I don’t want to see you the rest of the week, I mean it.”

“Arthur,” said Merlin weakly, but Arthur had turned away.

“Go,” he said, and he listened to Merlin’s footsteps echo out of the room.

*

Uther’s chambers were unfamiliar to Arthur. He went in there every now and again, of course, but mostly his father was to be found in the throne room or the council chambers, and if not in there, then the dining room.

Having been unsuccessful in all of these places, however, led Arthur to knock on the door of his private room, and to be beckoned in without ceremony.

His father was sitting at his writing desk, penning a letter. Arthur closed the door behind him and lingered there, his hands still upon the door handle. His father glanced up.

“Arthur,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

Arthur could say it. He could say it, right now, and Merlin would be finished. Arthur had held the fates of men in his hands before, but never had it felt quite so fragile.

“I just wondered where you were,” said Arthur at last, and let go of the handle. He went further into the room, where the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the scratch of his father’s quill, and the pounding of his heart seemed to settle at the familiarity of it, lulled into a quieter drum. It was nice here. It was safe.

He sat on the edge of the bed and examined the room with all the plain curiosity of a child, his eyes roaming but never settling, and Uther marked out another few lines of his letter. He did not have his crown on, and he wore one of his simpler doublets, the dark black one that Morgana had once called slimming, and had subsequently vanished from his wardrobe for a year. Apparently it was back now. Arthur looked for signs of the kingdom in his hunched shoulders and the scar on his face, and considered exactly what it might have cost to conquer Camelot.

He flopped back onto the bed, his feet hanging off the end. The sound of the quill abated.

“It’s not a woman again, is it?” asked Uther, and Arthur huffed out a laugh in spite of himself. If only.

“No, it’s not a woman,” said Arthur. “I just— didn’t have anything to do.”

Uther resumed writing. “I’m sure we can think of something. What have you already done today?”

Arthur sighed, looking at the velvet bed-hangings. They were purple, which made him think of Merlin, because Merlin had no purple tunics but Arthur had often thought about getting him one. “Sparred with Morgana.”

“Did she win?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur, and Uther laughed. “I asked if she wanted to dine with me but she said she’d had enough of me for one day. I thought absence was meant to make the heart grow fonder.”

There was the sound of the quill going into the inkpot, and of his father blowing gently on the letter. “You can’t expect too much of her,” he said. “After the ordeal she went through, I’m thankful every day that her spirit survived.”

Arthur thought about joking that her captors must have had constitutions of steel to put up with her for a year, but he didn’t think he had the best audience. “Me too,” he said instead. Uther rolled up the letter.

“If you really must have a companion, you can dine with me for supper. It’s been a while since it was just you and I.”

That was true enough. The dinners they had shared in Morgana’s absence could not truly be counted as dining together, because they’d been such an unfathomably bleak affair, as the two of them scoured lead after lead after lead on her whereabouts. Now that she was back they all ate together more often, more than they ever had in the past, but there were some things Arthur didn’t feel like talking about with Morgana near, and tonight was one such occasion.

He helped his father by reading over the letter, deciding that it was appropriate enough for its cause, and then went through a report of the petitions made that day that could not be immediately attended to. The bridge at Brekfer River had collapsed and needed fixing, and some men were being dispatched to deal with low-level bandits in the outer villages.

Arthur scanned the list for anything his father might suspect as having a magical cause, but there was nothing. He could live in ignorance a little longer.

By the time it came for dinner, the sting of Merlin’s betrayal had started to ebb a little. He wanted to be angry, and he was, but he found that as the time went on his desire to punch Merlin in the face paled against the horrifically sad feeling that had seeped into his limbs. It had been one thing when Merlin was hiding his magic to keep his head attached to his shoulders — it was another entirely to find out that Merlin was lying to him still.

Dinner was as fine an affair as always, even if Arthur privately preferred the meals he had in his rooms. There was a roast pig and wine and grapes and all of his father’s favourite things, and Uther was in high spirits, but Arthur couldn’t match them. All he could think about was Merlin’s scared eyes and guilty countenance, as he pushed his mashed potatoes around in his gravy.

“You seem troubled,” said Uther finally, when Arthur didn’t laugh at his rehashed anecdote. Arthur shook his head, but didn’t lift his eyes from his meal – he just kept pushing around the potatoes. He knew even as he did the action that it wouldn’t be satisfactory, and was proved right when he heard his father shift. He was morose enough to admit that he had done it on purpose.

“Arthur,” said Uther, and put down his goblet. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” said Arthur, ashamed of sparing even that much information, and his father frowned.

“Earlier today, in my chambers. You seemed uncertain then, too. Are you looking for advice?”

He shook his head again, and Uther put down his cutlery. They clinked against the plate.

“Arthur,” he said. “Don’t trifle with me. I know I am your king, but you are also my son. Something is bothering you, I’d be a fool not to see it, and so I ask you now not as your king, but as your father— what is the matter?”

Arthur flicked his eyes up to meet his gaze, and then had to look away. He felt, rather horrifically, that he might cry.

“I’ve had a fight with Merlin,” Arthur said, before he could stop himself. It was a stupid thing to say on all accounts, not only because it brought his father closer to the truth, but because by rights Merlin should have never been giving Arthur anything to fight with him about.

“Your servant,” said Uther after a moment, and Arthur nodded, bracing himself for a reprimand or a suggestion of the stocks. Neither came. His father pursed his lips and frowned, and spoke carefully.

“You have always been close to the boy,” he said, and Arthur had to blink both suddenly and in quick succession, “ever since his appointment to you. And he, too, has shown you loyalty beyond the line of duty. It is— natural, that quarrels would arise between friends. Was it a grievous offence?”

Arthur looked very hard at his mashed potatoes. “I don’t want to punish him,” he said thickly, before his father could get hold of the idea. “I’m not even sure he ought to be punished. The matter is— personal. And some of it— some of it is my fault.”

“That makes it harder, I would imagine,” said his father gently. “When the boundaries of servant and master are tampered with. I note that you do not dismiss him as your friend.”

Arthur swallowed. “No.”

His father grasped his shoulder in comfort, and it stung Arthur’s eyes. “Good,” he said. Arthur looked up.

“I thought you’d be angry.”

Uther frowned. “Life as king,” he said, “is difficult. You must always be alert, consider that any friend may one day turn foe. It is not a life I would wish for you if we had not been born to it. But I think we may safely say that the boy will never be particularly great, or even indeed noticeable aside from his simplicity, and so I am glad that he is there— that you have someone who cares for you not because of who or what you are, but simply because he does. That is a great gift, Arthur.”

His father did him the dignity of pretending not to notice Arthur’s tight grip on the cutlery, or the way he turned his face to wipe it discreetly on his napkin.

“This disagreement you had,” he continued, “do you wish to speak of particulars?”

Arthur shook his head, and Uther sighed. “Then I can offer you only general advice, though I see that it pains you.”

“I am not,” began Uther, and then broke off shakily. “I am not your mother,” he continued, and Arthur’s head snapped up, regardless of dignity or shame. It was his father who now did not meet his eye. “I do not have the talent of uttering the right words exactly when you need to hear them. But I have not seen you yet face a foe you could not overcome, and I see no reason for this to be any different.”

Arthur was quiet for a while. “Thank you, father,” he said quietly, and his father nodded.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Now eat your dinner.”

Arthur did.

*

As promised, Merlin stayed out of Arthur’s way for a week. Arthur watched him run about the courtyard from the alcove in his bedroom, furious that Merlin hadn’t taken himself to the stocks and furious that Arthur himself hadn’t gone ahead and ordered it. In all the glimpses Arthur had of him he appeared appropriately penitent, but this did not quite stop Arthur from glaring daggers at him anyway. He thought, rather unjustly, that Merlin deserved a little penitence.  

Once, he walked in on Merlin and Gwen wrapped up very tight in one another, doing what could only be described as canoodling over a mop bucket and sponges, and was so angry that he made sure to walk his muddy footsteps all over the newly cleaned floors.

He didn’t think there was anything going on, but it brought to mind an issue that Arthur had yet to consider, which was: did other people know? Were they all having a big laugh at Arthur’s expense, or even worse, had they all been just as afraid of him as Merlin? Surely Arthur couldn’t be that bad. He’d always prided himself on being someone others could come to, but if even Merlin had been scared of him…

In an maddening case of Merlin actually following Arthur’s orders, he avoided him for a week and no longer, and on Thursday morning he was back in Arthur’s chambers, the clothes for the day selected and laid out before Arthur could so much as roll over.

Arthur knew he was there before he opened his eyes; he could sense him. He resolved to keep his eyes closed until Merlin went away, never mind that it was Thursday and Merlin was technically allowed to be there. He had no desire to look upon Merlin’s lying, treacherous face, and was convinced that it had even lost some of its handsomeness in the process.

It was not particularly becoming of him, but as the grudge against Merlin’s lie had started to slip ever so slightly, it had been taken up instead by an unflattering resentment towards him. Merlin had saved them all from the dragon but Arthur refused to feel grateful for it, seeing as it was Merlin’s own stupid fault that the thing got out anyway, and instead he thought angrily of Merlin’s great, beaming face as he told Arthur the blow he’d dealt had been mortal, and thought angrily of all the congratulations Arthur had received, and thought most angrily of his father clapping him on the shoulder at the end of it.

Arthur had been quite proud of slaying a dragon.

He was, he knew, far too tense to feign sleep any longer, and so he pushed off the covers with a huff. Merlin stood slightly straighter. Arthur got out of bed.

Merlin dressed him in complete and utter silence, so deferential that a month ago Arthur would have thought he had money riding on his performance. His fingers did not linger on Arthur’s laces, and the fixing of his collar was strictly perfunctory. Arthur turned and moved as required and Merlin dressed him, and the whole thing was dreadfully upsetting.

Merlin pulled out his comb and swept it through Arthur’s fringe with none of the usual banter, though it was in a frightful state. The comb snagged more than once, and eventually Merlin gave up and used his fingers, prying apart a particularly stubborn knot. He tutted and tucked a bit of hair behind Arthur’s ear.

Arthur closed his eyes.

Merlin inhaled.

His fingers stayed curled around Arthur’s ear.

“Arthur,” said Merlin, ever so softly. If life had been kinder to him, Arthur thought he wouldn’t have been able to hear everything unsaid in it, and wouldn’t have been moved by it quite so much. After all, it wasn’t Arthur’s fault that he knew Merlin better than anyone else in the world, or that Merlin had somehow wormed his way into being one of the most important people of Arthur’s life. Why did Arthur have to be punished for it?

Merlin’s hand trembled where it hovered over Arthur’s face and Arthur wished that Merlin would press it to his cheek, even though they were in a fight and Arthur hated him and everything he stood for. Then Merlin did.

It was nice and it was warm. That was all. He wanted the relief of it, he wanted to think they were alright again, and he wanted Merlin to apologise and mean it and never, ever lie to him again. He allowed himself to press into the warmth of it for a moment, and then he sighed.

“You didn’t go to the stocks,” Arthur said, and Merlin took his hand away.

“You didn’t order me arrested.”

Arthur rolled his eyes beneath his lids. Typical.

“Can’t do anything for yourself, can you?” he muttered, and Merlin’s hand fluttered about near his collar again, in an action that was anything but perfunctory.

“Nope,” said Merlin. “Just for you.”

His thumb was against Arthur’s neck, and he tugged slightly on Arthur’s shirt as if to justify its presence.

“Can you at least understand why I asked?” said Arthur, and Merlin’s hand fell away. When Arthur opened his eyes again, Merlin had paced away from him and was scratching at his head, face scrunched up.

“Yeah,” he said, not looking at Arthur. “I mean, I still think it’s stupid.” He levelled Arthur with a glare. “But it’s stupidly noble, and that’s just you all over, isn’t it? Can you understand why I didn’t tell you about the dragon?”

“Not really,” said Arthur, and Merlin sat down on the bed, his hands hanging loosely between his knees. Arthur watched him for some time, looking at his hunched shoulders. The weight on them was not that of lying to a friend, and Arthur thought back to his initial feelings on the matter, before he had gotten distracted by the particulars: Merlin was not even remotely this stupid.

He sat down next to Merlin, bumping his knee with his own. “You’re not just any old two-bit sorcerer, are you?” he asked glumly, and Merlin shook his head. “I figure killing a dragon must be a bit of a stretch even with magic.”

Merlin shifted a little, and his mouth pinched together.

“It’s not that I was trying to lie to you,” he said finally. “It was just, you know, the whole releasing it thing seemed like the bigger deal.” He pressed his lips together and looked at the ceiling. “I have done so much,” he said, voice wobbling. “I have done so much for you, and I don’t—”

Carefully, very carefully, not even really sure if he was going to go through with it, Arthur put his hand on Merlin’s knee. Merlin unfortunately did not seem to notice.

“I don’t know where to start,” said Merlin, shaking. “I don’t know how to make you understand what it’s been like.”

“Merlin.” Arthur sighed. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’ve tried to understand, I’ve thought myself in circles over this. Whatever it is, I promise— I swear to you that I will try to consider it justly. I know you might not like it, but I have to consider what you tell me as part of a broader picture. You’ve made it so I have to choose, Merlin. And my actions must reflect what is best for my people.”

Merlin inhaled deeply, tipping his head up to the ceiling, his pulse beating so violently that Arthur could see it in his neck.

“You want magic to be governed by the law,” Merlin said, and Arthur squeezed his knee before remembering who and where he was. He took his hands back to himself.

“That’s not a bad thing,” Arthur said. “I don’t want it the way it is now, the way my father does it. I want Camelot to be a place where the punishment fits the crime, I always have. That’s why I asked—” He faltered. “I mean, I thought that’s what you’d want. To have magic treated like— like everything else.”

Merlin dropped his head down, his face screwed up tight. He looked so anguished that Arthur didn’t know what to do. He’d only seen Merlin cry once before, when he’d seen a man die. At the time, Arthur’s response had been to give Merlin the best tools he had, but he didn’t think it was helpful here— Merlin looked like he was in pain.

“Merlin,” Arthur said, at a loss, and he did the only thing he could think to do, the only thing that he sometimes found himself wishing shamefully for. He put his arm around Merlin’s shoulder and pulled him awkwardly close, and hooked his chin over the top of Merlin’s head. Merlin shuddered. He smelt like Gaius’ workshop.

Arthur squeezed Merlin’s shoulders, then released and pushed him away in one fell swoop. It wouldn’t do to be obvious, after all. Merlin swayed a little with the motion, but he seemed to gain strength with it.

“You’re going to hate me,” Merlin said, and Arthur rolled his eyes.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are.”

He didn’t sound upset. He sounded resigned and regretful, and there was something else hidden in his voice— Arthur didn’t want to call it superior, but he didn’t know what else he ought to. It sounded like Merlin knew an awful lot more than Arthur did, and he found he didn’t like the feeling.

“Look,” said Arthur, with forced levity. “Just promise not to lie to me, or to— to leave anything out, like, you know, killing a dragon, and it’ll be fine.”

When Merlin still hesitated, Arthur said: “For God’s sake, Merlin. I’ve ignored the magic and the lying and all the rest of it, just trust me.”

Merlin looked at him a long time. “Alright,” he said, and Arthur wished he didn’t sound quite so like he was accepting a death sentence. “I promise I won’t lie.” He met Arthur’s eye. “What do you want to know?”

A sudden thrill rushed through Arthur. It was the satisfaction of prevailing upon Merlin, mingled with the promise of answers, and sweetened at the thought that after this, whatever it was, they might actually get back to normal.

“Start with the dragon,” said Arthur, deciding they might as well keep to the path they’d started on. “I want to know everything that happened with the Knights of Medhir, and what led to its release. You think you were justified in it, and I want to know why.”

Merlin studied him another moment, and Arthur truly didn’t know if he was going to refuse. His face was guarded and cautious, his eyes betraying the same determined resolve he’d had when refusing to break his word, to the extent that Arthur wondered if the two were linked. But he’d promised Arthur, now. He’d said he wouldn’t lie. “Okay. Hit me.”

Arthur nodded, and shifted on the bed so he could lean against a bedpost. It was a little like it was a few days ago, except for Merlin’s cloudy temperament. It was also a bit too serious a conversation to be having in such a position, but Arthur had already started it, now. “How did you know it was an enchantment?” he asked, and Merlin lifted his shoulders slightly.

“It was obvious,” he said. “Everyone was asleep, remember?”

“Morgana wasn’t.”

Merlin licked his lips. “No.”

“What did you expect would happen?”

Merlin shrugged. Arthur poked him with his foot, and Merlin sighed.

“I didn’t know,” he said, and wriggled so he could face Arthur better. He pulled one of his legs up onto the bed, ankle resting on his knee. “I mean, I knew it wasn’t going to be anything good, obviously. I expected— I expected that I would be alright. That my magic would make me immune from the spell.”

Arthur cast his mind back, but he didn’t think Merlin was a good enough actor to fake it. He couldn’t fake sweat, surely. “But it didn’t,” Arthur tested, and Merlin shook his head. “You were falling asleep the same as I was.”

“Yes.”

“So then what?”

“Then…” Merlin shifted his weight again, dropping his hands into his lap. He began to twist a stray thread in his fingers, staring down at it. “I had to find the source of the enchantment. I had to make sure I could get rid of it before I fell asleep.”

“So you went to the dragon,” said Arthur, and Merlin nodded.

“Yes,” he said. He seemed, Arthur noted, determined to tell the story with as little actual telling as possible. “He told me what kind of spell it was.”

“And what did he say?”

Merlin rubbed his brow, wincing and refusing to look at Arthur.

“The spell was, um—” He hesitated. “It was cast by Morgause. But a spell that powerful, it couldn’t sustain itself without help. She had to tie it to a living person to give it strength.”

“I see,” said Arthur, though he didn’t. Merlin pressed his lips together.

“The dragon told me who it was. If that person died, or was close to death, then the spell would fail, and the enchantment would lift.”

Like before, an unpleasant sort of knowledge started to curl within him, and Arthur dug his palm into his chest. The spell had failed, the enchantment had lifted. He inspected Merlin’s face. “And you found such a person, did you?”

Merlin had gone pale and pinched. Reluctantly, he said: “Yes.”

Arthur thought back; it was long ago, but he had ruminated on it since. There had been moments when he and Merlin and Morgana had been separated, but not many. At least one must have been used to visit the dragon. When the hell had he had the time?

“And?”

“I poisoned them,” said Merlin. It hurt no less for knowing it was coming. He went on. “Morgause felt the enchantment weaken and came to their aid. I bargained with her. She removed the enchantment in exchange for knowing what poison had been used.”

Relief washed over him. “Good thinking,” Arthur said, but Merlin didn’t seem to appreciate the compliment. He was so relieved at Merlin not being a cold-blooded killer that it took him a moment to piece together the obvious, and when he did the sick feeling returned.

“This person,” he said, staring at Merlin hard, “whose life she valued. They must have been in the castle.”

“Yes,” said Merlin.

“But they would have been allies,” said Arthur.

“That— that is what I thought most likely, yeah.”

Arthur sank back against the post. “So there was a traitor at court,” he said, and pressed his fingers to his brow, dragging them back and forth. “God, Merlin.”

“Yeah,” said Merlin. “I mean—"

He sighed again. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve thought back on it a thousand times, I have. At the time I thought they were working with Morgause willingly, but in hindsight… In hindsight I think they were just as scared as I was. I don’t think they knew what Morgause had done to them.”

Arthur looked at him a long time, trying to make sense of it. There was a picture that Merlin was building, but it wasn’t that that nagged at him; it was what Merlin refused to say.

“This person,” Arthur said. “I presume they would be unaffected by the spell? If their purpose was to sustain it.”

There was another long, long silence. Merlin nodded.

“It’s not possible.”

“I’m sorry,” said Merlin. “Arthur, I am so, so sorry.”

Arthur shook his head. “You said she’d been given a potion.”

“Yeah.”

“You lied.”

“Yeah.”

Arthur stood up. He walked over to the fireplace and back again, and then stood in front of the bed, looking into Merlin’s upturned face.

“I don’t—” Arthur said. “You lied for her? Because you suspected--?

“No,” said Merlin. “No, I didn’t— I thought. I thought something else kept her awake.”

Arthur latched onto it, stepping forward eagerly and towering over Merlin, desperation in his voice. “Then you could be wrong. You could be mistaken—"

“No,” said Merlin. He didn’t blink. “No, Arthur.”

Arthur sank back against the table, letting it take his weight. “It can’t be,” he said. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. “What did you give her?”

“Hemlock. From Gaius’ supplies.”

“Did you know Morgause would heal her?”

Merlin shook his head. Arthur tried to picture it; Merlin with a little vial of Gaius’, telling her it would help keep her awake, or slipping it into a waterskin. He thought of the way rabbits sometimes looked in their traps, how wide and scared their eyes got when they knew it was time to die.

“I see,” said Arthur quietly. “I wondered why you were no longer so close.”

“I held her,” said Merlin, and his eyes were wet. “As she was— when I— I did try—"

“Stop. I don’t— I don’t know who I’m more angry with. She was your friend—"

“I know,” said Merlin.

“If I believe you now,” said Arthur, and Merlin flinched, “then that would imply that her absence, also, was not what we suspected.”

Merlin bit his lip. “I don’t think so. It was her who planted the mandrake root under your father’s bed, to make him lose his mind. And you knew there was a traitor in the castle—"

“She stopped the army—"

“That was me,” said Merlin. “That was— that was me. I fought her.”

Arthur scoffed. “So she knows, then? About your— inclinations?”

Merlin shook his head. “You mustn’t tell her. You mustn’t, Arthur, she could—"

“I don’t think you’re in any position to tell me what to do.”

“But I am,” said Merlin, and then paled almost immediately at this resolve, possibly in response to Arthur’s face. He continued on a bit more gently. “Arthur, whatever you’re feeling right now, I am the only one who knows how many times people try to kill you. And if Morgana— if Morgause finds out about me, she’ll want to get rid of me, and I am not being funny when I say that I do not have time to worry about my own life on top of yours, alright? She can’t know.”

He looked at Arthur with such seriousness, such unwavering constancy, that Arthur felt really sick. His eyes had started to burn, but he made himself look at Merlin.

“I don’t know you,” he said. “You’re not— how can you lie to me and betray me and still look at me— how do I still trust you after this?”

Merlin’s eyes were similarly wet, but he must have heard what Arthur was asking, that it was a question not for Merlin but for himself, and Arthur felt also that of course Merlin would hear it, because it was Merlin.

“Because,” said Merlin, with a slight, helpless lilt of his shoulders. “It’s you and me. It’s us.”

Arthur put his head in his hands. He was acutely aware of them, could feel how his arms folded at the elbows to press forearms against biceps, could sense the early morning sun streaming in through the window. Arthur hadn’t even had breakfast yet.

He dragged his hands down his face, pulled his bottom lip between his teeth.

“And this is the worst of it, is it?” he asked. “Your crowning glory?”

“No,” said Merlin miserably. “No, this isn’t the worst.”

A breath passed between Arthur’s lips.

“I do not see how that’s possible,” he said, and Merlin bowed his head.

“I thought it was,” he said at length. “I knew how you’d feel about it. But then I— then I remembered—”

“When Morgause showed you the image of your mother,” Merlin said, and Arthur felt the direction of it immediately, the icy-cold hands that curled around his insides and squeezed. An hour ago he wouldn’t have thought it possible, but as Merlin had just proved, the Arthur of an hour ago was a fool. “And you attacked your father. I told you— I told you that she’d lied, and that it hadn’t been your mother at all. But the truth of it is that I don’t know. I don’t know whether it was or not. I just wanted— I wanted to stop you doing something you’d regret. I thought I could—”

He faltered and looked down at his lap. “I thought I could keep you safe from a broken heart as well as dragons and witches.”

The sunlight was hitting Merlin’s face in three places: on the corner of his eye, on his nostril, and on the cleft of his chin. He didn’t look like Arthur’s manservant. He didn’t even look human.

Arthur raised his hand to his chest, searching out the pain that had long been lingering there, but it had gone. “And to think,” he said, “that I thought there was nothing you could be worse at than being a servant.”

Merlin’s face creased in half. Arthur looked away.

“That will be all,” he said. Merlin licked his lips.

“Do you want— do you want me to come back tomorrow, or—?”

“No, Merlin,” said Arthur. “That will be all.”

Chapter Text

Arthur sat at his table a long time, looking at his bed and his window and his little windchime without really seeing any of it, feeling the new truths take shape around him. Merlin had been one thing, but Morgana?

It made even less sense than Merlin did, because Morgana was family. She might not have been his sister by blood, but she was in everything else. They had grown up together, had fought with and against each other together, had shared their wounds and victories and dreams and terrors. Arthur had once walked in on Morgana practicing kissing with one of her pillows— she would not betray him, not like this.

(Well, alright, maybe for the pillow thing. But surely not at this magnitude).

And yes, Morgana was annoying and irritating and overwhelmingly stubborn. Yes, sometimes Arthur disliked her so much that he wanted to dump her in a lake, and yes, she called him obnoxious and foolish and all manner of other things twice a week, but that was because she loved him. He knew she did. One didn’t spend the better part of their childhood together and not come out of it with some affection.

He put his hand on his chest, surprised to find that his heart didn’t hurt anymore. It had finally collapsed under the weight of it all, given up the ghost at the same time as Merlin had left his chambers. Arthur assumed he’d left, at least— he hadn’t checked. He’d definitely heard a door.

Arthur put his head in his hands. Everything ached and his hands were cold, his bones trying to sink through the castle and return to the earth. He looked up and blinked in the face of the sunbeam streaming through the window, squinting awfully at it, and wiped at his wet cheeks, and what else was there to do? He was a prince. He had a job. He had to carry on.

Arthur got up.

He pushed his chair into place under the table and dragged his sleeve over his face again, skin stinging in its wake. A half-hearted look at himself in the looking glass revealed a man haggard and worn, and the features he’d inherited from his father looked more pronounced than ever. He pinched his cheeks until pink bloomed in them, and nodded.

It was still morning; most of the nobles wouldn’t have risen yet, and Arthur’s knights would be dispersed amongst the training fields. He avoided the gazes of the guards and took the passages he thought would be least occupied, having no desire to talk to anyone. His sword was a heavy weight on his belt and his mother’s ring clinked against the handle with each step, and Morgana had gone with Merlin to Ealdor and saved Arthur’s life. Arthur had scoured the five kingdoms for her for a year. He would not accept this without argument.

The room Arthur was working towards was not one he had ever been in. It was high up and out of the way, and although Arthur had long known about it, he had never been able to bring himself to visit. He didn’t know if he was trying to feel worse or if he simply knew he’d never be better prepared for it, but his skeleton key opened it easily enough. It was very dusty inside.

Many of the old portraits had been burned; Arthur had figured this out years ago when they’d installed a new portrait of Lord Godfrey and his daughter. He’d wanted to know why the paintings were spaced so erratically in the gallery, and Gaius had filled him in with a careful word or two that allowed Arthur to draw his own conclusions. He assumed the missing paintings were of sorcerers, or of lords and ladies whose families had ties to magic, and had since had their relationship to Camelot severed. Sometimes he wondered if the spaces had been left on purpose.

All that was downstairs under the council rooms, but this one was much smaller and nothing hung on the walls. Instead there were three large paintings propped against the far wall, each covered by a sheet, and Arthur’s heart kicked into life beneath his breast, beating for the first time since Merlin had opened his mouth.

He closed the door and reattached the keys to his belt. The sheet covering the first painting fluttered a little from the fresh air, and dust kicked up in the sunlight. There was a dirty film on the cloth when Arthur tugged on it. His fingers came away grey, and his mother looked back at him.

Arthur dropped to his knees. He’d known it would be her, of course he had. It would have been pointless to have walked up all those stairs, otherwise, but he had also known it would be her. That her hair would be blonde like his, that her eyes would be blue, that her chin would be pointed. That she would, in short, look exactly like the spirit Morgause had shown him.

He looked at her face a long while, unable to settle on anything but her eyes, how they tilted up at the corners. It was him. He had long hoped his mother existed in him, but had never thought to consider that he’d existed in her.

The second portrait was of his mother and father, stood side by side. His father’s face was younger and adorned by a lightness that now rarely graced his features. His mother was as beautiful as she had been in the other, but there was a wrongness, almost, in seeing them together, the evidence that at one time they had not yet been pulled apart.

Swallowing, Arthur moved that portrait too and set it up next to the first. There was too much to look at; her eyelashes, the brushstroke around her jaw, the way her ear curled around just so. There were comparisons to be made; the lift of her smile, was that similar to his too? Had his face ever looked so lovely, so open? He didn’t think so. But maybe it had.

Arthur pulled off the sheet covering the last portrait, and although he’d thought it impossible for him to feel worse, he did, and he wished Merlin were with him.

“Mother,” said Arthur, too loud, and his tongue stuck fast in his mouth. His shoulder felt bereft of someone’s steadying touch, the space beside him cold from their absence. It was possible he forgave Morgana that instant.

Arthur steeled himself, falling back from his knees onto the stone. The portrait had never been finished: while her mother sat on her throne, his father behind her, from her shoulders she faded out into nothing but a sketch, of two arms curled around a babe who had yet to be born.

Arthur looked so long he could see it behind his eyes when they closed, and he reached out and touched the canvas, thinking that this one, at least, contained something he could recognise. Could he really blame Morgana? It felt harder than ever, and part of him thought he was running from the betrayal, determined to make it his failing rather than hers, but there were no paintings of her in this room, and nor were there anywhere else. And Arthur understood this picture, the king of Camelot and a wife and son who weren’t really there. He knew what it was to be a child in this castle.

Morgana had tried to prevent Merlin stopping Cenred’s army. That’s what Merlin had said, but it wasn’t like she’d conjured the damn thing. At most she’d seized an opportunity, and when Arthur’s feelings towards the king were so conflicted, was it foolish to have thought hers anything less? If Morgana thought she was right— well. There were a lot of things Morgana might do.

Standing again, Arthur carefully wrapped his mother in her shrouds and stood the pictures back against the wall, turning his back. Then he locked the door and started for Morgana’s chambers.

*

“Arthur!” said Gwen, grinning, when she opened the heavy door. She blushed almost instantly at the address, pink colouring her cheeks, and hid a little, stammering over herself. Arthur would’ve been endeared if he’d a thought to spare to it. “I mean, sire. Obviously. Um. What can I do for you?”

Arthur panicked. “How’s the roof?”  

“Oh!” said Gwen, with a face of polite surprise. Her mouth fell open enough that he could see her tongue between her teeth, which he noted clinically, and then tried to pay more interested attention. Looking at Gwen, he was sure, would not end with finding out she was a sorceress.

“It’s… fine?” continued Gwen, and rested her temple against the door. She really was pretty, and Arthur despised whatever god had sent him in the direction of Merlin. “Thank you.”

Arthur shrugged. “Of course.”

He hovered in the doorway, fidgeting with his hands behind his back, and watched her eyebrows draw together. She’d always been good to him, beyond the line of duty, and then there was also that time she’d said nice things to him while he was injured. Her hand slipped a little lower on the door.

“Are you alright?” asked Gwen, and took half a step forward. Arthur stepped back and she faltered. He refused to take pity.

“Is Morgana about?”

“No,” said Gwen, after a moment. “She’s breakfasting with the king. Sire, you don’t look well.”

“I’m fine,” said Arthur, with a nod. “Will you tell her I want to see her?”

“You know I will,” she said, still with that terrible crease in her brow. He tried not to look at her, failed abysmally, and felt her concern pierce his heart despite best efforts. She was awful. “You really look as though something is wrong.”

“It’s nothing,” said Arthur, and ignored how his voice cracked. “Or, well, I— I would speak with you, actually. May I?”

Her eyebrows rose, and she took a flustered step back when he gestured at Morgana’s rooms. “Certainly.”

She closed the door behind them, and Arthur looked over the room as he composed himself, fiddling once more with his ring. Morgana had left her nightgown hanging over the dressing screen, and there was a bowl of plums sitting on the table beside her bed, at just the right distance for her not to need to get up to reach them. When they were very small, perhaps only a month or two after she’d come to the castle, he’d hidden under her bed in a game of sardines, and been joined by her when she finally found him. They’d stayed there two hours and given the nursemaid a fit.

Something wrapped its claws around Arthur’s chest and squeezed. Her room had always been safe, had always been a good place to skirt off his duties, had always been a good place to have a shoe chucked at his head. Morgana had consoled him through his first heartbreak in this room and through his second, and she’d hidden a druid boy behind the screen and made Arthur save his life. She was better than him.

“Forgive me,” said Arthur, a little choked. Traitors didn’t have favourite fruits and they didn’t tell stories to little boys. “It’s about Morgana.”

Gwen’s countenance changed in a moment. She stiffened slightly and her eyes darted to his face, a wary intensity hiding in her expression, and a new consideration struck Arthur— for why not Gwen, as well? Why not Leon, why not his other knights? If Merlin and Morgana could, then no one was safe.

“Have you noticed—” began Arthur, and then changed his mind. He didn’t want Morgana to know from anyone but himself. “That is, has Morgana seemed different to you, since she returned from her kidnapping? Has her behaviour or temper changed at all?”

Gwen looked quickly down at her hands. “Different, sire?”

“She’s been softer,” explained Arthur, looking over the top of Gwen’s head. “Even towards my father, in a way she never was before.”

“I couldn’t say,” said Gwen, without smiling. Her mouth twitched a bit, but it was strained. “She’s a little different, I suppose, but that’s natural after what she must have been through.”

Arthur hummed, but there was something in Gwen’s voice that told him to push the topic. Morgana’s room seemed suddenly very small, as though something was pushing in on them, and his words came out slow and serious, the kind of voice he used in court, and he felt vaguely sick.

“I’m not… I’m sorry, I’m not asking you to betray her confidence, of course, but— if you have noticed anything, I’d be grateful if you could speak it. I only want to help her.”

Gwen pursed her lips. “There’s no confidence I can betray,” she admitted, and plucked at her skirts, lip pulled between her teeth. “We are not as close as we were before, but I suppose— after an absence, and as I cannot share her experience…”

She looked away, and the sorrow on her face was startling. But there was something else, something to the tone of her voice, that made him narrow his eyes. He liked to think that he knew Guinevere fairly well, that they were friends. She had never had a problem telling him of her thoughts before.

“Guinevere,” said Arthur, “will you tell what you’re refusing to say?”

Gwen gave him a sad smile. “I can’t, sire. I’m sorry.” She lifted her shoulders. “She’s my lady.”

Arthur looked away, frustrated with himself for understanding, because how many times had he said the same of Merlin, this past week? But her answer left him dissatisfied and anxious, for he felt sure that Gwen would have assured him, had she no doubts about Morgana’s behaviour, and that she had not suggested only that she did. He was prepared to credit Gwen with knowing Morgana better than anyone, even him, and if she felt something was amiss—

Say Morgana was a traitor, considered Arthur, then. Say she had turned towards Morgause, and away from his father. Arthur could imagine nothing that would have led her to it but for her feelings on magic. She had always been vocal about the injustice of his father’s rule, had always pushed him on it, often further and more directly than Arthur had been able to stomach. And surely— surely, there had been a falling out just before her disappearance. It had been overshadowed immediately, but Arthur thought he remembered an argument, a coldness that had sprung between them. It had been after the revolutionary had escaped, and Morgana had helped to free druids before.

Arthur put his head in his hands again, feeling an idea take shape in his mind. It was, as always, because of the magic. Everything in the world these days seemed to come down to it, creating more trouble than it was worth. He couldn’t imagine how she had come to know Morgause, but perhaps when she had visited Camelot—

His mind turned to Merlin’s other revelation, one on which he could scarcely look upon without fear of what he might find. He had become comfortable with the belief of Morgause’s deception, had allowed himself to think on it no longer, but with the uncertainty around it re-established, he was forced to cast his mind back and consider. Morgause was a sorceress, yes, but Arthur had been ready to believe in her intentions. Hadn’t he defended her to Merlin at the time? He’d been blinded by her supposed connection to his mother, but she had not actually harmed him. She’d only said she wished to help.

He turned the ring on his finger, over and over. It would rest, then, on his mother’s spirit. On whether she was ghost or ghoul, the way so many things now were. There was only one way to find out.

*

Arthur took two days to gather his thoughts, during which Merlin scurried about in his eyesight and Arthur didn’t speak to him, and then he cajoled Morgana into joining him for a picnic. She wasn’t particularly enthused, but he thought he could see a glimmer of curiosity in her eyes, an eagerness to finally find out what was bothering him.

“Very well,” said Morgana, with a put-upon sigh. “Shall I need my sword again, or do you plan to have me beat you in horse-racing?”

“The latter, if you can manage it,” said Arthur, and she squinted at him. A small crease appeared between her brows.“You look unwell,” said Morgana, reaching for him. Her hand fell away before she made contact. “Are you sleeping?”

“Just get ready, will you?” said Arthur, and slapped himself round the face as soon as she’d turned away, hoping it’d do the trick.

They rode out with only a few pleasantries. Morgana asked again how he was feeling, but it was as if Merlin had altered Arthur’s ears, because where before he would have thought her concerned, he now found her intrusive, and couldn’t help wondering if she asked only to carry his answer to Morgause. He hated himself for it, even more so because he wanted to believe so very badly that she was genuine, and couldn’t quite manage to.

It was a difficult thing, to trust. Arthur had always been rather good at it, sometimes too good at it, and it had slapped him in the face many times before. A part of him told him to stop trying so very hard to, but the other part, that was swayed by more feelings, could only insist that it was his fault Merlin and Morgana had turned from him. It was Arthur who had preached beliefs he had never dissected, Arthur who had allowed injustice to occur on his watch. If Morgana had looked to place her loyalty elsewhere, then it was Arthur’s job to prove he was worthy of it.

They set up on a grassy knoll that was hidden from the city, so that even though they were raised they could only see the trees and sky spreading out before them. Arthur had got them out of Camelot without even a guard, by virtue of not mentioning they were going out. He’d deal with the consequences later.

Morgana uncorked the wine and poured them both a helping, but held his cup out of reach when he went to take it.

“Now,” she said archly, “are you going to tell me what we’re doing, or are you keeping me in suspense a while longer?”

Arthur looked away, muscles twitching.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said, “away from the castle and my father.”

Morgana raised an eyebrow, and allowed him to take the cup. The wine was sweet, but she set her own down on the grass without tasting it. He frowned before he realised what was wrong: she would have assumed Merlin prepared it.

Queasiness forced him to abandon his own cup as well.

“Is everything alright?” she said, and Arthur curled his nails into his palm where she couldn’t see. Her voice was gentle and sweet, soft in its new way, and for the first time Arthur allowed himself to admit that it was unsettling. She was different. Every time Merlin had tried to discuss her changed behaviour with him, Arthur had stuck adamantly to the fact that it was natural for her to be a little changed, and dismissed it. Now her voice struck his hairs on end.

Fiddling with their food so he would not have to look at her, Arthur loaded up some figs onto a plate and shoved it in her direction. She took it without seeming to care that he hadn’t put much effort into their lunch, but then he hadn’t thought she would.

“I need your advice,” he said. “It’s— delicate.”

Morgana’s gaze changed, becoming sharper. She had always been able to see through him in a way that he often resented, but now he was grateful for it; it would make this conversation easier.

“It’s about Gwen, isn’t it,” she said, and Arthur dropped his plate.

“What?” said Arthur. “No. What about Guinevere?”

“About your feelings for her,” said Morgana, matter-of-factly, and Arthur gaped.

“I don’t have feelings for Gwen,” he said. “What on Earth made you think that?”

She rolled her eyes and picked at her figs, turning them over and arranging them on her plate. “Don’t be coy. A blind man could see you’re in love with her, I know all about it. Helping fix her roof, running into her in my chambers. I think it’s sweet.”

Arthur blinked, all thoughts of treason forgotten. “Morgana,” he said, mouth dry, “Guinevere is—I’m not denying her as beautiful, or that I would be— honoured, by her affection, but I’m not— I mean, I don’t plan to— she does not have my heart,” he eventually settled on, flushing a bit. He liked Merlin a lot, and all, but he did also have eyes. He frowned suddenly. “Also, I don’t have hers.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Morgana, watching him carefully. “She’s always smiling after she talks to you.”

“Because we’re friends,” said Arthur. Morgana scrutinised him another moment.

“Oh,” she said, and swallowed. “Well, good. I would have been loath to part with her for you.”

“I know that,” said Arthur, and then Morgana smiled down at her hands, a delicate and tentative little thing. Arthur only just caught it, because soon it was gone and her face was its usual blunt expression once more. But there was a relaxation to her manner when she next turned to him, a cheerfulness to her voice that he didn’t think was faked. It buoyed him; he had not lost her entirely.

“What is it you want my advice on, then, if not matters of the heart?”

“In a way it still is,” muttered Arthur, with extreme derision. He spoke clearly: “I wanted to talk to you about magic.”

Morgana went very still. Arthur turned his ring. He’d prepared a rather good speech.

“My father,” he said, launching into it, “is a good man.” This was important—he had to make sure she understood. “He rescued Camelot when he conquered it, brought it from the brink of destruction to a pinnacle of strength. We’re one of the best kingdoms to live in, you know this as well as I do. We’ve got better food, better protections, the people live longer— he is a good king, Morgana. It wasn’t easy when he arrived here, and he did his best for it. I know this.”

“As do I,” said Morgana, and then laughed as if she wanted to deflect. “I’ve listened to enough of his drunken stories to know this, Arthur. What’s your point?”

“I,” said Arthur, and resisted the urge to fidget by clasping his hands together. “I was thinking about the Camelot he arrived in. The destruction, and the greed, and the magic. And I understand that the choices my father made were borne of the Camelot he found himself in, but that Camelot doesn’t exist anymore. So—”

He took a breath, latched onto the next bit of the speech.

“Gaius has said that before the purge, magic corrupted the people of Camelot. It was too easy to turn to magic for answers, for all answers, and too few could exercise the proper moderation in it. But that’s not how it is now, is it? People aren’t magicking things about simply because they can’t be bothered to walk five paces, they’ve only ever turned to magic for help.”

Or to kill him, added Arthur quietly, even though it wouldn’t do any good. Helping out in acts of vengeance was, unfortunately, still helping..

“I heard, recently, that magic isn’t everything we’ve been led to believe,” continued Arthur, looking at his hands, and his ring. “I’ve always thought of it like a sword, as something to be both taken up and cast away, but some people— some of its followers, they say that it’s— natural. As natural as breathing.”

He chanced a look at her still form, which was as poised and dangerous as a serpent. “And then I thought, I have never seen so many instances of magic in my life as I have the last few years. Perhaps like a sword, or like anger, it needs to be— exercised. Else it bottles up.”

“What are you trying to say?” asked Morgana quietly, when he did not speak further. “Arthur. You can’t possibly mean—”

“Do you think that could be it?” asked Arthur desperately. “Do you think my father could be wrong? Have we harmed Camelot’s people through doing this?”

Morgana tried to smile, but her eyes were wide and frightened. “Arthur, you can’t— you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I do,” said Arthur. “I do, and I think you agree with me. You always used to argue this with him, before last year. What do you think?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” said Morgana. She pulled away, shifting as if to get up. “Have you ever truly thought about this? The instant you so much as suggest your thinking, he’ll have you thrown in the dungeon.”

“I’m not going to tell him,” snapped Arthur. “I don’t have a death wish. But I— I can’t— I can’t keep going on the way I am. None of us are innocent, but I’ve always thought… I’ve always thought that what we did, we did in service of the people. I thought that made it right.”

He searched her face. “But I’ve been wrong, haven’t I?” he asked. He must have been, to turn her from them. “It’s not right at all.”

Morgana looked well and truly frightened.

“Morgana,” he said. “Please, tell me what you think.”

“I don’t— I don’t know,” she said, hands shaking. “What’s brought this on?”

“Merlin,” said Arthur, and Morgana lost the little colour she had left. “He gave me a— a talking to, I suppose. His friend Will, you know. But I hate to think that I’ve harmed the people through this, I hate to think that I’ve harmed anyone. I— Morgana. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise to me,” said Morgana. “I don’t know why you’re talking to me at all.”

“Because!” said Arthur. “You’ve always fought for this, you’ve always been able to see past your prejudice, to know what was right no matter the consequences. I won’t carry on with this, and I won’t do it alone, either. Not if— not if you feel the same.”

“Arthur,” said Morgana faintly. Her shoulders had begun to tremble. “Do you really mean this?”

“I do. I swear it.”

They looked at each other a very long time, and Arthur thought he saw some of his own hope reflected in her, some of the same fire that had taken root within him stirring up behind her eyes. Her eyes darted away and then back again, and Arthur knew he had won.

“What do you want from me?”

“Only your counsel,” he assured her. “My hope is that you and I together may be able to persuade my father to lessen his temper when need arises. But for the future—”

He lifted his shoulders. “One day, I will be king, and my feelings alone will not be enough to sway the law. The general opinion of magic is so decided that I would risk losing the kingdom itself. This issue must be worked at slowly, and I see no reason not to start now.”

He glanced at her again. “I have some ideas,” he said. “I thought about contacting the druids, perhaps those whom we left the boy with. And Gaius has connections, I’m sure. If I could— if I could only speak to people, to assure them that we share the same cause, perhaps we could lessen the attacks on the kingdom. Without those, we may have more receptiveness in showing the ways magic can be used for good.”

Morgana looked carefully at him. “And when you can’t prevent these attacks? What then?”

“Then you and I may once more have to take the law in our hands,” he said, and she stared at him. “I won’t have people executed unjustly, not anymore. Those who are unfairly accused of magic will be spared, and those who have broken the law must have their punishment fit their crime.”

“And when you are king,” said Morgana, “What do you imagine?”

Arthur lifted his shoulders. “I don’t know. I haven’t any idea what it was like when magic reigned, that’s what I wanted to ask you. You must have some idea what to do about it.”

“I don’t know,” stammered Morgana. There were stars in her eyes, and she looked dizzy. “I’ve never— I’ve never thought that far.”

“But Morgause must have,” he said, and she froze. “She must have some plan, it can’t all be ploys to overthrow him. I’ve thought about this, Morgana. I’ve done nothing but think on it.

“When she attacked with the Knights of Medhir,” said Arthur, “She didn’t harm us. I know my father was her target, I know she would have spilled his blood. But the enchantment itself was designed to spare everyone else. She could have killed us all, but she didn’t. And—”

He broke off. “I never told you. When Morgause visited us the first time, she had me go to her in the days following. She showed me an image of my mother.” He swallowed and looked away. “I was ready to believe her. In all her actions, she was— good. Noble, even. She upheld the Knight’s Code as well as my own do. It’s not that I believe… but if you trust her—”

Morgana’s eyes were very wide, and her hand hovered over the butter knife, where it had been since Morgause’s first mention. Arthur knew it was dull, but he still didn’t fancy it becoming acquainted with his eye socket, so he pushed on.

“You must ask her to come to me,” he said, nodding. “I want to speak with her, to hear what she thinks of my theories, and to know— to know, one way or the other, what was the truth of that night. And I want you to ally with me, and to fight him as you once did. I don’t want you— I don’t want anyone to live in fear, and certainly not of me, but I know that I have not— that I have not given much reason for people not to. I wish to change that, and I want you to help me. Please.”

It didn’t come out quite like he had practiced, and he could hear the desperation in his voice. Morgana’s fingers twitched on the knife.

“You’re really serious,” she said, wondering, and Arthur nodded.

“On my honour,” said he, and tried to smile. He thought of Merlin and Merlin’s worries, how light he had been once Arthur knew, as if it hadn’t really been about the magic at all. “I know you spent time with her last year,” he said, in case she thought it was conditional. “I know you tried to— to eliminate my father from Camelot’s rule, and I— obviously I don’t— he’s still my father, but I— I understand. I really— I’m really trying to, Morgana, I am. I can— I can turn a blind eye, in this. For you. And I am trying to do better. So. Will you help me?”

He held out his hand, and she put out her trembling hand and clasped his arm. Then she burst into tears.

“Oh,” said Arthur, fumbling hastily for a handkerchief or a napkin. “Is that— er— there, there?”

He patted her shoulder. Morgana hiccupped into her hand, and hit him away when he tried to give her a cloth. “Don’t look at me,” she snapped, and Arthur obeyed, becoming very quickly interested in the surrounding forest. She hiccupped again, and said: “It’s just— I thought you’d loathe me.”

“Whatever for?”

“For the magic, of course,” she said. “And if not that, then Uther. But you— you don’t care? I drove him mad! He’s your father!”

“Had it coming,” said Arthur weakly, and she hit him again.

“I’m tired,” said Arthur, too quietly. “Perhaps— had I found out another way. But as it is, there’ve been too many other revelations for me the past month. I’d do anything not to lose another friend.”

Morgana wiped at her eyes, shaky breaths falling from her with each exhalation. “I thought you already had,” she said, with a wet noise. “I thought— I never thought you’d still want me, if you knew. I didn’t ask for it, I swear I didn’t, and I knew Uther would never be persuaded. But then everyone I turned to for help I got killed! And Morgause was so kind, so understanding, and then— and then—"

Something twisted on her features, and Arthur knew what she was thinking of, because by now he knew the sting of betrayal acutely, but it coincided with a belayed realisation.

“You’re practicing magic,” said Arthur, and she glared at him.

“I have magic,” she corrected, rather snappishly. “Don’t try to pretend you didn’t know. I expect Merlin told you everything he could.”

“No,” said Arthur, as the holder of Merlin’s word finally revealed itself to him. “No, he didn’t tell me.”

She huffed, and another part of Merlin’s web untangled around Arthur. No wonder he’d been so reluctant to share it, thought Arthur, and though he knew he should be angry, he found that instead it did the opposite. He had the horrible desire to hug him.

He reached for Morgana instead, surprised when she allowed herself to be pulled towards him, when she hooked her arms over her shoulders. “I’m not sorry,” she said, hiccupping again. “Or— I am, but I’m right, Arthur, I swear I’m right—”

“I know,” said Arthur, and held her tight. “I know, I forgive you, it’s alright.”

She sighed against his neck, her cheek damp on his skin, and squeezed his shoulders.

“I was so alone,” she said, and drew back. “You understand that, don’t you? Everyone—Gaius told me I was mad, that all they were was bad dreams. But you really want to help?”

Arthur nodded, and her face nearly broke with the smile on it. The same freedom he’d seen take hold of Merlin had etched itself into her countenance, and she looked like she could’ve taken flight and never come down.

“Oh, Arthur,” she said, and clasped his hands. “Morgause will understand. She— she knows so much. Everything she’s taught me, it’s been— more than you can imagine. I haven't been— alone.”

She smiled again. “Of course you must come to her,” she said, and squeezed. “When she sees— when she realises—" She grinned suddenly, rolling her eyes with such familiarity, such bone-dry exasperation, that it was as if she were suddenly back, and had been only a mirage these past few weeks.

“I suppose I should have known you’d prove me wrong,” she said, still holding onto him. “You always have been so terribly stubborn.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t do it for you,” said Arthur, with an attempt at normalcy. “I just felt sorry for Morgause having to put up with you.”

“Tch,” said Morgana. “You’re going to have to do better than that now.”

“Yes, well,” said Arthur, and steered the conversation elsewhere. Morgana complied, and he thought they were both relieved to turn to castle gossip and pretend the conversation hadn’t happened, at least for the moment.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to keep talking about it. But it had become real, now, and he was aware that now they had started they wouldn’t ever be able to stop. He was walking a dangerous balancing act, allying himself with Morgana without outright denouncing his father, but what else could be done? Perhaps after he had spoken with Morgause… but then Arthur didn’t really want the answer to that, either.

He tried to think about Merlin, and tried harder than ever to be furious with him. He’d still hurt Morgana— no wonder she spat his name with such vitriol— but he’d been walking the same sort of line, hadn’t he? And he didn’t know Morgana as well as Arthur did. He hadn’t known what to do.

Arthur sighed, and turned his mind to other things. Merlin’s loyalty was messy and imprecise, and at that moment Arthur felt all the complexities of it.

*

The castle had not changed when he returned. Nobody arrested them at the gates, nobody hauled them off to the dungeons. No one suspected them of anything other than a nice, leisurely ride.

Well. Almost no one.

It was a good thing, maybe, that Merlin burst into his chambers the way he did, because Arthur certainly hadn’t felt inclined to seek him out. He took one look at Arthur and collapsed into a shaky breath, holding himself up with the back of a chair.

“Oh, thank god,” said Merlin, one hand on his stomach as he swayed. “You’re alright.”

Arthur sharpened his knife pointedly. “As you see.”

Merlin really did look worried; his face was white and gaunt, and Arthur suspected his cheek would be clammy. “I didn’t know,” he said, gesturing weakly at Arthur. “Gwen said you’d gone with Morgana, and I thought— I thought—”

“We only talked,” said Arthur, and struck the blade again. Perhaps eventually it would be sharp enough to cut the nooses from their necks. Merlin jerked his head up, new alertness in his eyes.

“About what?”

Arthur shrugged. “I don’t see that it’s any of your business, Merlin.”

A look of horror climbed over Merlin’s features. He looked rapidly between Arthur and the knife, his knuckles going white around the chair. Arthur very pointedly didn’t care. “You told her.”

“Not about you,” sneered Arthur. “But about the rest of it, yeah.”

Merlin looked as if he was going to be sick. Something hot and sticky ran through Arthur’s veins, trickling from head to toe like bath water. He jumped. “What was that?”

“You’re not enchanted,” said Merlin.

“You used magic on me?”

Merlin flapped his hands.

“You went and met with Morgana!” he said, as if this justified it. “And not on you, not really, it’s just a— a detection sort of thing. It was getting too hard trying to figure out if you were really falling in love with all those princesses.”

Arthur pulled a face at him, and wondered if Merlin could successfully dodge the knife.

“Yes, if you’re really so concerned,” he said. “I spoke with her, and I asked her not to do anything overly treasonous for the time being. Nothing more than what I’m doing, at least.”

Merlin looked stricken. “And— she agreed?”

Arthur shrugged.

Merlin put his head in his hands. Arthur took vindictive pleasure in it.

“She also—” He hesitated, hated himself for it, and pushed on. “—agreed to assist me in meeting with Morgause.”

There was a thunk. Merlin, who had been leaning on the chair, had now dropped it back to the floor.

“Oh my god,” said Merlin, clutching at his head. “Oh, god, Arthur, you didn’t—”

“Don’t look like that. I just said I wanted to meet her, to hear about her ideas for managing magic.”

“I am right—here—” said Merlin, gesturing wildly. “Why would you ask her?”

“So far she has yet to lie to me,” snapped Arthur, and Merlin shut up. “Anyway. You seemed determined that Morgana had betrayed us, and I thought that unlikely. She’s going to help, by the way. Why didn’t you tell her you had magic?”

“I— what?”

“Morgana. She has magic as well, and I can only assume that you knew. She is the keeper of your word, is she not?”

Merlin nodded.

“I thought so. She told me, you see. About her dreams, and the fire, and how scared she’s been. It was all awfully familiar.” He levelled Merlin with a look, something curling at the back of his throat. “Why didn’t you help her?”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Too bad.”

Merlin looked down, and his jaw clenched. When he looked back up, there was a deceptive sort of calm in his posture, betrayed only by the storm swirling in his eyes.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve answered every question you’ve asked of me. I’ve told you about the dragon, I’ve told you about your mother, I’ve put myself at your mercy time and time again, and I’m sick of it! I know I lied to you, I’m sorry. But I’m sick of trying to make you understand when you so clearly don’t want to.”

Arthur put the knife down with a thunk. Of all the—

“What, exactly,” demanded Arthur, “about the last three weeks makes you think that I don’t want to? This hasn’t been easy on me, Merlin, I’ve thought of nothing else for almost a month!"

“But you don’t understand!” cried Merlin. “You can’t, not without having magic yourself. Morgana is— is— she has magic. And she was so scared, and Gaius said— Gaius said it was better if she didn’t know, and I wanted to tell her, I did, but— I was scared too. I didn’t know if I could trust her, and not—

“It’s not like I thought she’d tell you,” said Merlin, and licked his lips. “But Morgana isn’t—she isn’t always rational. I’m not trying to be mean. She acts before she thinks, and I thought— I’m not Uther’s ward. If she— if she dragged me into something, I didn’t know if I’d be able to get out of it.”

He shrugged, eyes flicking about guiltily, and Arthur’s first instinct was to dismiss the excuse as cowardly. But there was a truth in Merlin’s words, and Morgana could be rash. She tended to— to do things, things like hiding druid boys and running off to Ealdor and partnering up with sorcerers and yelling at his father, and always found herself surprised to be clapped in irons at the end of it. Arthur didn’t like to think it of her, but there was all the chance that Merlin’s fate might have been to become one of the consequences she damned in pursuit of justice. And that— that grated.

“I did the best I could,” said Merlin. “I tried to find other people who could help her, it wasn’t like I just let her fend for herself. She’s my— she has magic. We’re the same. And that’s— that’s all this comes down to, really. There’s you, and then there’s— sorcerers. And yeah, some of them make mistakes, but at the end of the day, they’re— they’re my kin. Even the—even the sodding dragon, he’s like me. And every day I have to walk the line between betraying them and betraying you, and— and failing both every time.”

There was a long pause as Arthur digested this.

“So,” said Arthur slowly. “What you’re saying, is that in order to understand what it’s been like for you, I should have to find my loyalty divided between my family and my friend?”

Merlin flushed. “Um,” he said. “Yeah.”

Arthur sighed. “Come here, Merlin.”

He kicked out the chair beside him, and Merlin sat down.

“This is like a tournament,” said Merlin, a bit weakly. “You know, Arthur versus Merlin’s magic, Arthur versus Merlin’s lies…”

“Shut up, Merlin,” said Arthur, and folded his arms. “We’re not fighting.”

Merlin scoffed. Arthur looked at him, the stupid habit that had got him into this in the first place, and wondered what could possibly be worth it, because it certainly wasn’t Arthur.

“Why are you even here?” he asked, and Merlin sighed.

“I told you, I didn’t know if you were alright—"

“Not that. I mean, why are you here. In Camelot, in my chambers, with me.”

Merlin wrung his hands together. “Oh,” he said, and started to babble. “Well, I’m in Camelot because of what I told you, about Gaius and my mother, and I’m in your chambers because— Right. Not what you meant.”

He opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Do you really want to know? Because last time you said—”

“I really want to know,” said Arthur, and Merlin looked bleakly at the floor.

“Right,” he said, and dug his fingers into his eyes. “So, the thing is. I mean, before the dragon escaped, it sort of— helped me? Sometimes. With magic. Finding the right spells and things, that sort of stuff. And it. Well. It sort of likes to… prophesise. A bit.”

“…It what?”

“Just a bit!” said Merlin, as though this was Arthur’s point of concern. “And, well, it’s got this whole idea in its head. About, er. You and me. And Camelot.”

“When you say it has,” said Arthur, “you mean it did, before you killed it, right?”

“Um,” said Merlin. “Technically, yeah.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes. Merlin powered on.

“It’s just. I don’t know. It says that you’re, you know, destined to be this really great king, and restore magic to Albion, and I’m meant to help, and, well. Yeah. It sounded better when he said it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Arthur, and Merlin groaned.

“It’s just!” said Merlin again. “You’re mad at me. And I— I don’t want you to be mad at me when I tell you.”

“I’m not mad.”

“Bullshit,” said Merlin. “I would be, too.”

“I—” Arthur hesitated. “Fine,” he said. “Yes, I am angry. I’m so furious I don’t know where to begin. But I— it hasn’t exactly made a difference, Merlin.”

Merlin looked up, stars in his eyes. Arthur looked very pointedly out the window, and sunk down churlishly in his chair. He kicked Merlin in the leg. “Get on with it, will you?”

“Arthur,” said Merlin, and Arthur wasn’t going to spout poetry about how he said it, because he was sick of talking about Merlin, and he’d said all he needed to anyway, but it was a very breathy sort of Arthur. Merlin pressed his lips together, leant forward in his seat.

“One day, you’re going to be a great king,” he said, all earnest and sparkling and proud, even though Arthur was being literally terrible to him. “You’ll be— you’ll be fair, and just, and everything that is right. And when you are— I’m going to be there. I’m going to be right by your side, protecting you. For the rest of time.”

Arthur blinked, heat crawling up his neck and into his cheeks. He looked askance at Merlin. “What’s that got to do with the dragon?” he said. “What about your prophecy?”

“Oh,” Merlin flushed. “Um, that’s it.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows. “That’s it?”

Merlin shrugged. Arthur pulled a face.

“What the hell does that prove?” he said, indignant. “That’s not a prophecy, you tell me that once a year!”

Merlin went pink again.

“Oh,” said Arthur. Frustration rapidly gave way to hurt, and Arthur was going to fire him, he was, he was so absolutely sick of feeling like this about another person. “That doesn’t actually make me feel better, Merlin,” he said, lip curling. “You’re telling me you’re here out of— out of duty?”

Merlin shrugged again, which was somehow worse than anything else he could've done. Arthur couldn’t believe it. They were meant to be— this was meant to be fixing it, not making it worse. And, and, what did that prove? That Merlin didn’t care about Arthur at all, just what some dragon had to say about it? Merlin was always going on about Arthur, and what a good king he’d be, and how he was wise and true and just had to trust in himself, and Arthur had thought—

It wasn’t like his father said these things. He clapped Arthur on the shoulder, sometimes, and he told Arthur he was proud of him, but the only time Arthur had been a good king was when he was doing what Uther would do, and sometimes Arthur had thought that was wrong. And when he had thought it was wrong, it was Merlin who told him otherwise, and Arthur— Arthur had believed him, because it was Merlin, and because Merlin said all these things because— because—

“So, what?” said Arthur, and made sure to sound furious rather than wobbly, because this was the biggest betrayal, somehow, this was worse than any of it. “That’s what this is? Everything we’ve done, everything you’ve said, all of it was because of what some dragon says I’m someday meant to be? Have you— haven’t you any faith in me at all?”

“Of course I do,” said Merlin, stricken, and Arthur shook his head.

“How can I believe that?” he demanded, and now he was rolling down the hill, and all of it was coming back up, all the asides and little reveals that Arthur had been stringing into a tapestry that he was only now able to step back and see, “When nothing I’ve ever done has been on my own merit? You tell me I’ve slain a dragon, and later I find it was you! What of the other foes we’ve faced? The Questing Beast, what of that? Was it truly I that killed it?”

Merlin’s face said it all. Arthur gestured.

“I’ve nothing!” he said wildly. “I thought—I thought we were—”

“We are,” said Merlin, and pushed himself off the chair. He fell onto his knees and it was awful. “I never— I only ever helped when it was necessary, I swear, when you would have otherwise been killed—”

“And perhaps I should have been!” cried Arthur. “How can a man learn if he never knows his mistakes? You were the one person I— you—"

Arthur turned away even as Merlin grabbed him, elbows on Arthur’s thighs as he clutched at his hand. Arthur had been hurt so many times in his life, he’d gotten so good at carrying the sting of it, he'd even now had practice at weathering it from Merlin. And there were times when he thought there would be nothing better than to rage at his father, to make him understand how deep the wounds had been felt, but to do that now with Merlin— it was too much to bear. The reveal it required was too much.

“I know,” said Merlin, wretched. “I know, Arthur.”

Maybe he did. That Merlin was meant to be the one person who had stuck by Arthur for every reason other than duty; that even when Arthur was annoying and brutish and frankly downright unpleasant, Merlin still liked him enough to stay anyway. He’d fought a dragon with him. No other man could say that, certainly no one who wasn’t a knight, and Arthur had never expected him to, would never have asked him to, and still Merlin had done it anyway.

I’m not going to sit here and watch, he’d said, and that was all of it, really. That Merlin should have been perpetually watching but had come with him anyway, because he had Arthur’s back. Because they were mates.

“Is this why you didn’t tell me?” asked Arthur, “because you— was it easier to pretend we were friends?”

“We are,” said Merlin, and Arthur scoffed, this little wet noise. Merlin was still holding his hand, still kneeling in front of him like Arthur really was his king, and this was awful.

“You said you trusted me,” said Arthur. “That was another lie?”

Merlin looked up at him, eyes big and wide in his face, a helpless desperation written into him. Arthur’s voice trembled.

“Why are you still lying?” he said. “Even now, after everything, why won’t you just talk to me? Have I failed you? Have I not proven myself worthy? I’m working against my king for you! Why won’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know how,” said Merlin, shaking, and Arthur wanted to hit him more than he had ever wanted to before, and also possibly to never see him again. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” said Merlin, all wet and horrible. “Because it— because I—”

He shrugged, jerky, and then looked at Arthur. Really, really looked, and Arthur could feel it in his soul, and then Merlin put his hand on Arthur’s neck. He moved his head and Arthur thought yeah, sure, why not, but Merlin didn’t kiss him. He put their foreheads together.

“This,” said Merlin, his hands cold near Arthur’s ears, and Arthur could feel the springtime again. “This is why.”

And Arthur, most unfortunately, understood. He also, most unfortunately, was crying a bit, and Merlin kissed his wet cheek before he pulled away. Arthur hated him more than anyone in the world.

But Merlin was in love with him, so that was nice.

“Is this it?” asked Arthur, rather feebly, when his voice came back from wherever it had gone. “Is it over now?”

“This is it,” said Merlin, and Arthur nodded. He closed his eyes, holding tight onto Merlin’s hand, and he could feel his heartbeat low in his belly, could feel the pain in his heart again. Merlin was here because a dragon had told him to be, and Merlin loved him. Arthur wondered if dead dragons took fruit baskets.

“Go draw me a bath,” said Arthur at last, and Merlin squeezed his fingers, his hand cold and iron-like and loving.

“Yes, sire,” he said quietly, and Arthur got it.

Chapter Text

Arthur woke up with a headache and sore eyes and a really, really strong desire to roll over and go back to sleep. He deserved a day off, he thought. He’d never had one before.

Arthur rolled over, and saw Merlin standing nervously at the foot of his bed, watching him like an absolute creep. He had a jar of pickled eggs that he held in front of him like a shield.

“What?” said Arthur, as he pushed himself up onto an elbow. Merlin held the eggs a little higher.

“I left something out,” he said.

“I hate you,” said Arthur. He threw himself back onto the bed, staring morosely at the bedcurtains. “I actually hate you, Merlin.”

His feelings must have shown in his voice, because Merlin had the gall to say: “No, you don’t.”

Arthur pushed his hands up and over his face, threading them into his hair, and laced his fingers at the crown of his head. The bed-hangings, which had by now heard just about all of Arthur’s woes and then some, were exactly as helpful as they had been so far (which was to say, not at all). “I haven’t even had breakfast.”

“I’ve got breakfast!” said Merlin brightly. “I’ve got eggs and hot mead and a platter of fruit, and I even asked Gwen for honey cakes! The bacon’s still warm!”

Arthur looked slyly out of one eye, in the direction of the bacon that he highly suspected had been magically interfered with. Merlin was not generally prompt.

“Fine,” said Arthur, and there was a clunk as Merlin set down the eggs. He tossed off his quilt and swung his legs onto the floor, and then Merlin’s horrible hand was curling around his elbow and assisting Arthur to his feet. He smiled at him. Arthur pushed his face away with his hand.

“I ought to get compensation for this,” muttered Arthur, as he sat down in his chair. “You mother should have pinned a warning note to your shirt before she sent you off.”

Merlin grinned and loaded up Arthur’s plate. He gave Arthur three sausages and Arthur rolled his eyes, spearing one with his fork and handing it back to Merlin. He shrugged. “You’re going to have it anyway. Might as well head off the disappointment.”

Merlin took the fork, his fingers settling over Arthur’s. “Thanks,” he said, and Arthur flushed. Merlin looked rather pleased, for a lying traitor who had been ruining Arthur’s life for weeks, but Arthur supposed he understood. There was something nice about knowing that not even the worst thing in the world would ever stop them from being friends. He imagined friendship like that was rather rare.

“Don’t make a fuss,” he said.

Merlin sat down in the chair opposite, which they were getting really rather good at doing. Arthur was privately hoping they’d never have to have another conversation ever again, but he didn’t want to seem presumptuous by saying so. The evening before had been almost normal, after all the crying and the forehead-touching and the bath, and Arthur was determined to cling to it. He gestured with his fork.

“I fixed Gwen’s roof,” he said, and Merlin grinned down at his hands like he knew Arthur was boasting but didn’t mind indulging it. The hands were white and clean and had neat square nails.

“Oh?”

“Mm-hm,” said Arthur, around his food. “Figured it out myself and everything. I’m a man of many talents.”

“Indeed, sire,” said Merlin. Arthur raised his eyebrow.

“Doubting me?”

“As if. More… attempting to be reasonable.”

Arthur rolled his eyes, and watched the smile on Merlin’s face start to slip, watched his hand make its treacherous path towards his ragged sleeve. Then Merlin opened his mouth, and Arthur knew he was going to say something horrible and loathsome, and he realised he didn’t care a whit for it.

“Look,” said Arthur, before he could start, “can you just… not? Right now, that is. Whatever it is, let’s leave it awhile. Do something fun.”

“Oh,” said Merlin, but not in a bad way. “Okay. What did you want to do?”

Arthur pursed his lips, fiddling with his breakfast as he considered it. Sticking around anywhere his father or Morgana could find him was out, and he didn’t want to go anywhere without a purpose, just in case anyone asked about it. Which really only left: “I want to go hunting.”

“Oh, so you are still mad,” said Merlin, and a smile tugged at Arthur’s stupid face.

“Shut up,” he said. “I just— I want to get out of the castle. Out of this room.”

Merlin looked as if he understood, and he nudged Arthur’s foot with his own under the table. Arthur thought about Merlin putting their foreheads together the night before, how that made it twice in as many weeks. Merlin’s hands had been cold. His neck had been warm.

God, this was awful.

Still, Merlin did everything that he needed to. He got out Arthur’s hunting gear and chucked Arthur’s clothes at him, and Arthur threw his sleepshirt in Merlin’s face. He felt so cheerful that he even tossed his arm over Merlin’s shoulders on the way down, which Merlin pretended was a bother but Arthur was sure he really relished, but it also meant that he felt Merlin stiffen when Morgana came into their sights.

Ah. He knew he’d forgotten something.

She was staring at them, something stricken on her features, and Arthur drew his arm guiltily back to his own side. It did not do anything to help her face. “Morgana,” he said, nodding at her, and something sick climbed into his insides. Merlin had poisoned her, after all.

Arthur was trying not to think about that.

“Arthur,” she said, a bit sharply. She looked skittish, her eyes going from Merlin to Arthur and back again, and Arthur really had not thought this through at all. They hadn’t talked about Merlin, how Merlin had known but not told, nor how Merlin had tried to kill her. “Going somewhere?”

“Just for a ride,” he said. “Getting out of the castle for a bit, you know.”

Her eyebrows drew close. Arthur pulled himself up as high as he could and pretended his only feelings towards Merlin were those of despair and extreme irritation. He’d had a lot of practice at it, so he felt it should have been more convincing than it was. She pursed her lips, but he could see a wry little twist to them.

“Sooner or later Uther’s going to start asking, you know,” she said. “You’ve been going on a lot of trips. You’re not up to something, are you?”

“I’ve been hunting,” said Arthur, and she raised her eyebrows delicately. She was very annoying.

“I don’t see any game,” she said innocently, and Arthur blustered a few protests. He put his hands on Merlin’s shoulders and pushed him out of the way.

“Bye, Morgana,” he said, and ignored the way that pushing Merlin felt like pushing a plank of wood. He was doing a splendid job of not thinking about it, because not thinking about it meant Arthur could live in ignorance a little longer, and he’d had a hell of a few weeks. He could sort out their tiff later.

“What,” said Merlin, once they were out of earshot, “was that.”

“What was what?”

“That!” said Merlin, gesturing back at her. “With the— with Morgana, and the niceties! What’ve you promised her?”

“I haven’t promised her anything,” said Arthur, bewildered, and motioned for Merlin to saddle the horses. This he did without looking, in favour of staring sceptically at Arthur. “Aside from, you know, meeting with our mutual… friend.”

He did not particularly relish calling Morgause such a thing. It had finally occurred to him, last night and in conversation with the bed hangings, that if Morgana was right and Morgause was right, then he was going to have to take up his sword again and admit to something he really did not want to admit to. He wasn’t sure he could do it. That was undoubtedly going to cause problems.

Hence the ignorance.

“And repealing the ban, I suppose,” added Arthur thoughtfully, since it was more actionable and therefore more agreeable, “but I was going to do that anyway.”

His gear fell against the horse with a thunk when Merlin dropped it. Arthur looked up in time to see Merlin’s wide eyes.

“What?” said Arthur, and then, feeling actually and truly concerned for Merlin’s wellbeing; “What?”

Merlin opened and closed his mouth. “Um,” he said, with the most god-awful expression Arthur had ever seen. His eyes were like stars, and Arthur wished he had never met him. It certainly would have been easier. His lip started to wobble, and Arthur thought he knew what Merlin was getting at, and felt himself getting annoyed again.

“Well, what did you expect me to do?” he demanded. “Honestly, Merlin, you tell me you’re a— a you know what, and what did you think, that I was going to make you keep it a secret the rest of your life? Give me some credit.”

“Um,” said Merlin again. Arthur wanted to shake him, possibly to kiss him, and was both frustrated and horrifically grateful that they were still in the courtyard and Arthur could do neither. Or, well. Almost neither.

Arthur shoved him rather roughly. “Come on, Merlin,” he said. “Or do I have to put you on the horse for you, too?”

“I can get on the horse,” said Merlin quietly. Arthur looked at him and his face and thought about Merlin on his knees, calling Arthur his destiny and his king. He thought about this one time Merlin had walked directly into a tree and bounced off it, and Arthur had laughed heartily about it the whole way home. Arthur didn’t change the world for just anyone.

“Merlin,” he said, throat thick.

“I know.”

He reached out and his pale fingers brushed Arthur’s wrist.

“Come on,” said Arthur. They got on their horses and kicked off; he hadn’t planned anything, not this time, and all Arthur really cared about was making sure they got away from the guards and the soldiers. He wanted to see Merlin in the forest again, fondling leaves and telling Arthur outrageous bursts of castle gossip, wanted to see the sunlight dance across his skin.

God, thought Arthur, lamenting himself. This must be what it was like to be a girl.

They rode for less than an hour; it was less hunting and more taking the horses for a walk. He hadn’t even brought his sword, and he took a moment to wonder at that, that he would walk into the forest with only Merlin at his side, even knowing all that he now did. Somewhere or other the roots between them had grown very long and very deep. At least the sun was out.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Merlin, after a bit.

“Grain reports.”

“You look constipated.”

“They’ll do that.”

Merlin turned his head away, tucking a smile into his shoulder. It made Arthur smile too, and he took less care than usual to make sure Merlin didn’t see it, because he didn’t want them to hide anything from each other ever again. “Seriously, though.”

Arthur sighed. “Morgana,” he admitted. “I think I’ve fallen into the very traps I sought to avoid.”

Sometimes, in rare moments, Merlin displayed a sense of wisdom. It was one of Arthur’s least favourite things about him, because he almost always managed to say whatever Arthur needed to hear, or to give Arthur whatever it was he needed, and the knowledge that Merlin could know him that well made something uncomfortable squirm in Arthur’s gut. Merlin did it again now, by staying silent.

“I just— it’s Morgana,” said Arthur. “She’s the closest thing I have to a sister, in ways you couldn’t ever understand. You never— you never knew me. Not as I was before you. But Morgana and I, we grew up together. I trust her with my life, even now, even when I know—but it’s Morgana. I know her, and she’s kind, and she’s gentle, and she’s always been braver than me. She’s always pushed my father to do what was right, and for her to— to look elsewhere, it means that I failed her. I wasn’t enough. So I have to forgive her. I have to, Merlin. I owe it to her.”

Merlin was quiet. “It’s not your fault,” he said finally. “This isn’t on you, Arthur.”

“Isn’t it? He’s my father. I can’t— I can hardly blame her. You haven’t seen— but—"

“But?”

“But,” Arthur swallowed, “it’s hardly fair.”

“Arthur…”

“You didn’t tell me she had magic,” he said. He felt a bit like he’d been punched in the nose. “I didn’t know anything, just… what you said. She brought soldiers into my kingdom, Merlin. Right into the city gates. Do you know how many men I lost? How many children? And I just— forgot it. And now—”

He pulled his horse to a stop. “It’s my father,” he said again. “All of it, every sodding bit, all of it comes back to him and my mother, do you see? Everything hinges on it. Morgana, Morgause, even justice is reliant on the truth of it, on that— that mirage, that woman, and I—”

He looked helplessly about the forest. “Merlin, I don’t— I don’t know if I can face it. I don’t know if I want to.”

Merlin’s face went all horrible and creased. His hands twitched on his reigns, pulling the leather nervously between his fingers. “You can,” he said, loyally. “Arthur, you can.”

“I made you go in the stocks,” said Arthur. “I gave you a whole speech. I meant to, to better myself, to better Camelot, and now I make the same mistakes—”

“I didn’t actually go.”

“It’s the principle of it,” snapped Arthur. “Don’t you see that I’ve already begun? I can’t fix this, Merlin.”

Merlin’s hands twitched on the reigns again, and he looked so horribly young and pitying that Arthur felt his shoulders starting to hitch up, going cross again. Stupid, unrelenting Merlin. Arthur wished he’d never met him.

“Let’s sit down,” suggested Merlin. “Yeah? I made sandwiches, ham and cheese. My mother always says problems seem smaller when looked at with a full stomach.”

Arthur wanted very much to say something mean about Merlin’s mother, which wouldn’t have been very fair, and he forced himself to remember that Merlin could probably turn him into a toad now if he really wanted to, and that was a horrible thought. They couldn’t possibly lose this as well.

They found a nice snowy patch atop a hill that had started to melt under the sun, and Merlin spread a blanket over it that Arthur sat down on. Merlin sat down too. Their elbows touched.

“You know,” said Arthur, “sometimes I have this dream. I don’t know if you’d call it a dream. I think about leaving Camelot and finding a bit of land somewhere, maybe becoming a farmer.”

Merlin grinned. “Really?”

“Why’s that funny?”

“Just, you know. You. Working.”

“Well, obviously I’d take you with me,” said Arthur. “You can do all the hard bits.”

Merlin’s grin burned brighter than ever. He attempted to hide it by ducking his chin down to his chest, but it wasn’t very successful. Arthur felt a little warm. “No change there, then.”

“No,” said Arthur, a bit too late. Merlin kept smiling down at the grass, his mouth going soft, and with it so did Arthur’s feelings, not that that had ever really been the problem. He was forced to remember why all this had begun; because he was too fond of Merlin to know better.

“So, go on,” said Arthur, kicking out his legs and lying back. Best to get it over with, and all. “What else did you have to tell me?”

Merlin scrunched up his face. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah. So, last night, when I said that the dragon was dead…”

“Yes?”

“It sort of, er. Isn’t. Quite.”

Arthur squinted at him. “No?”

“No.”

“No. Of course it isn’t.”

Merlin pressed his lips together. “I thought you’d be mad.”

Arthur puffed out his cheeks and scrubbed half-heartedly at his face. The grass was cold even through the blanket and the sun was now only half-out, but Arthur felt the warm springtime feeling anyway, and he knew it wasn’t because of the magic. He hadn’t yet decided if that was better or worse.

“Honestly, I think you’ve exhausted my capacity for feeling anything. Is it going to come back and eat us?”

Merlin shook his head.

“Alright, then. Merlin the sorcerer and his giant pet dragon.”

Merlin shoved him. Arthur batted him away, kicked futilely at his legs, and finally dragged Merlin down into the frost beside him (they’d scuffled off the blanket). He shoved a handful of snow down Merlin’s scarf.

“Get off!” said Merlin, and Arthur grinned, and then Merlin was laughing too. He slapped some more snow onto Merlin’s face and held up his hands in surrender before Merlin could retaliate, in the hope that Merlin wouldn’t go for an unarmed man. He was kind like that. Merlin shook his head and a bit of snow fell out of his fringe.

“How’d you manage it, then?” continued Arthur, as if nothing had happened. “Getting rid of it, I mean.”

“Oh. I asked him to go away, and he did.”

“What?”

Merlin shrugged. “He was upset!” he said, and scrunched up his nose. It had gone slightly pink. “I think he just had to get it out of his system.”

Arthur felt suddenly sober, the weight settling back over him, and couldn’t believe that mere seconds ago they’d been laughing. Was this what it was going to be like, now?

“Fifty-nine people,” Arthur said again, and Merlin winced. He put his face in his hands and dug at his eyes, and his cheeks came back pink.

“Yeah,” he said, in a very old voice. “Yeah, I know.”

He toed at a bit of grass, making a mark with his boot, and Arthur watched him do it. “It wasn’t as easy as it sounds,” said Merlin. “I had to order him to do it.”

Arthur frowned, sitting up a little more and angling closer. “I thought only dragonlords could do that,” he said. “Why on Earth did we track down Balinor if you could have sent him off at any time?”

“Oh,” said Merlin. “Well, I couldn’t have. But after he died, I sort of, er. Became a dragonlord.”

“…What?” said Arthur.

“Yeah,” said Merlin.

“How?”

Merlin puffed out his cheeks. “You remember how I told you about my father? How he left my mother when I was a baby?”

“Ye-es,” said Arthur, not really sure where it was going.

“Well.” He shrugged, looked off to the side. He pulled his hands into his lap and started to fiddle with his sleeves, dropping his knees down. “Um. A dragonlord’s powers are passed down from father to son when the father dies. So.”

Arthur blinked. His mouth half-opened, the words I don’t understand rising up easily to fall off his tongue, but there was so much grief written into Merlin’s shoulders as he said it. And he was so young, he was younger than Arthur, and yet— he looked older. He looked far, far older.

“Merlin,” said Arthur softly. “I’m sorry.”

Merlin shrugged, but his eyes had gone wet. He put his hand on Merlin’s shoulder and squeezed. “Yeah.”

His shoulder was cold under Arthur’s touch. Arthur’s own voice came out very quiet. “I don’t know you at all, do I?”

“Not really,” said Merlin, and laid his head on his knees, face to the ground. He twisted so Arthur could a sliver of his eye. “Sorry.”

Arthur sighed. “And you’re just— you’re just alright with the dragon again, is that it?”

Merlin shrugged, looking guilty. “No. I don’t know. He saved my life the other week, I feel like I owe him.”

“How’d he do that? How did I miss that?”

“Oh, no, I mean— before. Before you knew.”

This was not the comfort Merlin seemed to think it was. “When?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“I swear to God,” said Arthur, preparing to grab a fistful of hair and make him, but Merlin started waving him off before he could, like he knew what Arthur was thinking.

“No, I mean, it might— endanger the peace talks. With Morgana.”

Arthur blinked. “What does that mean?”

Merlin groaned and buried his face in his knees some more. Arthur, now used to being on the backfoot and getting a little faster at catching up, thought about Merlin and Morgana with her sword, and how scared Merlin had been when he came to see Arthur yesterday evening. He put out his hand. It landed on Merlin’s back.

“Alright?” asked Arthur quietly, and Merlin nodded.

“Alright,” he said in agreement, and then: “They tied me up and left me in the forest.”

“They what?” bellowed Arthur, and over Merlin’s face spread this weird sort of wonderment that Arthur would be circling back to later and feeling bad about.

“I deserved it,” he said.

“Like hell—”

“Arthur.” Merlin put his hand on his arm. “Hemlock, remember?”

Arthur hesitated. “Oh,” he said. “Well, still. They were trying to invade.”

Merlin grinned at him, fond as anything, which Arthur did not really feel was painting a very flattering portrait of him. He shifted, doing his best to hold all of his loyalties in an arrangement that could still be maintained. He had a feeling it wasn’t going to last very long. “Are you alright?”

Merlin looked at him.

“Merlin?”

“I—” said Merlin, looking genuinely bewildered. “I don’t know.”

And, well, hell, if that didn’t send Arthur right back to that godforsaken spot in the forest, looking at Merlin massacre his sleeves by the firelight with his eyes as wide as the deer’s. Arthur really was an idiot and a fool, and all the other things Merlin had ever called him.

“I’m going to fix it,” he said then, with all the idealistic naivety he possessed, and Merlin looked back at him as though he believed it.

“I know,” he said.

Arthur looked at him, mouth twisting up. He drew a line in the snow, and sighed. “So, go on. What’s the deal with Morgana?”

Merlin puffed out his cheeks. “It’s a really, really long story. The dragon’s involved again.”

“Of course it is. Have you ever actually done anything else, or did you just have a really busy week?”

“Har har,” said Merlin, “It’s just, what I said about the prophecy, there’s sort of… more. Camelot can flourish, but only if its enemies are defeated. The dragon thinks Morgana is one of them.”

“Destiny,” repeated Arthur, and Merlin’s mouth quirked.

“Yeah.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and dusted snow off his sandwich to take a bite. “Before this week, I guess I believed it. But— I don’t know. I just don’t know, Arthur.”

Arthur chewed this over. “Morgana’s favourite fruit is the plum,” he said finally. “Did you know that? And when Gwen’s father was arrested, it was Morgana who argued for him. She’s the reason I went to get you that damned flower, I’d never have had the courage if not for her. So I— I don’t give a damn about what the dragon says. I want to— to judge her on what she does.”

“I mean,” said Merlin, “she did try to topple Camelot.”

Arthur put his head in his hands and groaned. Merlin laughed, breathless and hysterical.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry.”

Arthur closed his eyes. He breathed in deep and the cold stung his nose. “I did want to ask you,” he said, “Did you— I mean, did you really think I’d kill you? Before I knew. Did you think—?”

“No,” said Merlin, instantly. “I mean, I sort of did, but deep down I knew you wouldn’t. It just— it wasn’t always easy, to believe it. I don’t know if that explains it.”

“Not really,” said Arthur, and Merlin sighed. He shifted a little closer, and Arthur watched his horse bend down to nose at the grass, because it was easier than looking at Merlin. Merlin was doing the same, but his elbow was still pressed hard against Arthur’s, and that was nice.

“It’s just,” Merlin said. “I didn’t want you to have to suffer this. I didn’t want you to have to make a choice, to choose me, especially when I was pretty sure you would. I knew it would be awful and I just didn’t want to, Arthur. And I— I didn’t want you to know any of this, either, because I couldn’t— I can’t bear to lose you. I just can’t.”

Merlin swallowed, all pink cheeks and dark hair against the snow. He shook his head a little, still not looking at Arthur.

“And I know it’s embarrassing,” he said. “I know you’ll lord it over me in a week, but it’s true. There was a good chance you would’ve banished me or sent me away and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave you, I never will. And worse than that—”

His breath hitched, and he scrubbed at his face with his hand. “I didn’t want it to be like this,” he said. “Or, okay, not this, but yesterday, and the day before, and— and all of the last few weeks. I didn’t want to lose your friendship or your trust, and I knew that I would. And that— Arthur, you are worth more to me than anything. If nothing else, you have to— you have to know that.”

Arthur stared at him. His throat was very dry.

“I don’t,” he started. “Merlin. Your life, your happiness? What if I’d never noticed? You would’ve, what? Gone on like this forever? It’s killing you.”

Merlin shrugged.

“I know it’s silly,” he said, “but I can’t help it. You’re my king.”

Arthur’s heart beat very loudly against his chest. He thought again about what Merlin had said, about destiny and all his faith being because somebody somewhere had said so. Merlin facing a dragon with him because they were friends was one thing. Merlin staking his entire life on a promise—

“I’m not,” said Arthur desperately. “Merlin, whatever you think I am, whatever this prophecy says, I’m not that man. I may never be.”

“But you will be,” said Merlin simply, and Arthur burned.

“You can’t know that.”

“I do,” said Merlin, “Because I know you. It’s the only reason I think it has any credit, actually. I didn’t tell you before, but I laughed myself stupid the first time I heard it. The dragon told me I’d protect you from those doing you harm, and I’m pretty sure I said I’d give them a hand.”

He smiled, lopsided, at a memory Arthur didn’t share. “It… look, believe me, Arthur, I’ve had my fair share of experience with prophecies. I’ll tell you about them later, I promise. But what I have learned is that avoiding them is pretty hard to do. Avoiding them almost always ends up creating them instead.”

“What are you trying to say?” asked Arthur, and Merlin sighed, going red.

“Oh, alright,” he said, embarrassed. “Look, do you remember that tournament, with the guy who had snakes in his shield? Lord Valiant or whatever his name was. I showed you the snake’s head and you believed me. Just like that. And I realised— I liked you. I know you think— I know you think I only have faith in your because of the prophecy, but it’s the other way around. The prophecy only exists because I have faith in you.”

He shrugged. “I was always going to protect you,” he said, “so I do. Which makes it all sort of the same thing.”

Oh, thought Arthur. He cleared his throat.

“You really are stupid, aren’t you,” he said. Merlin shrugged, like it didn’t matter at all what Arthur said to him, he was going to love him either way. That was terrifying. And yet—Arthur got it. Very, very unfortunately, Arthur understood.

“Merlin,” he said now, with an odd sort of dawning overtaking him, as he looked at Merlin and realised Merlin did not look very much like a man declaring his undying love. “You do know, don’t you? You must know.”

Merlin blinked at him. “Know what?”

“My— regard for you.”

Merlin looked at him. “Your what?”

Arthur gestured expansively at Merlin, and then handwaved rather less expansively at himself. Still Merlin stared.

“What?” he said, and Arthur realised with dizzying dismay that Merlin really didn’t know.

“God help me,” said Arthur, and put his head in his hands. Thickest man in the entire kingdom, that was Merlin. “Tell me again how you’d die for me?”

“A hundred times,” said Merlin instantly, “in a hundred ways. You’d need only ask.”

Of course, thought Arthur, in despair. Of course it would be like this. No one had ever better illustrated to Arthur why people went to war.

“Come back with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

*

“What are we looking at?” asked Merlin, and Arthur couldn’t even find it in himself to make the obvious joke about getting his eyes checked.

“Your kingdom,” he said. They were on the roof, the same one Arthur had paced backwards and forth over when he had first found out about the magic and been trying to sort it all into something that made sense. It was nighttime, now, because Arthur had brought them back to Camelot and then promptly chickened out on following through with his gesture. He thought his palms might be sweating. “Mine, really. But I’m sure you will shape it as much as you’ve shaped me.”

Merlin looked quickly at him, a terribly pleased smile overtaking his stupid face. It was awful.

“This cannot possibly be a surprise,” grumbled Arthur. “Haven’t you been listening at all?”

“Well, yeah,” said Merlin, “but I thought that was more about, you know, your sense of duty, and honour, and stuff.”

“Good god, Merlin. You’re an even bigger idiot than I thought. I’d hardly have this big a crisis over Stuart.”

“Who?” said Merlin.

“Exactly,” said Arthur. He crossed his arms and looked very carefully out at his kingdom, feeling a bit of colour rise into his cheeks and hoping valiantly that Merlin couldn’t see it.

“In your prophecy,” he said, looking interestedly at a crack in the stone, “I, er, I understand that you’re supposed to follow me because I’m the most amazing ruler who’s ever lived, but— you still haven’t explained its reasoning for why I put up with you.”

Merlin rolled his eyes, shoulder bumping Arthur’s with the movement. “Yeah, you’re right. I only save your life on a weekly basis.”

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” said Arthur, and tried not to be sick. He was pretty sure he was dying. “It must be to do with your guidance. All of your odd little bursts of wisdom and heroism, perhaps. The way you have made me both a better person and a better prince.” He glanced at Merlin, then back at the stars. “Of course, it might also be just so I have somebody to laugh with. It wouldn’t do for me to get bored.”

“Of course not,” said Merlin, with a pleased little smile. Arthur clenched his hands around the lip of the wall.

“But there does still seem to be something missing, though,” he said. “From this prophecy.”

Merlin hummed. Arthur bumped his shoulder again.

“Aren’t you going to guess?”

“No. I’m kind of liking watching you struggle.”

“Idiot,” said Arthur, and coughed. He looked sideways at Merlin. “You do know how I figured out about the magic, don’t you?”

Merlin shook his head.

“Oh. I saw you feed your horse an apple. In Winter, Merlin. It was obvious.”

“Right.”

“But, er. I might not have noticed if I hadn’t been looking at you. Which I do, sometimes.”

Merlin smiled. “I’d noticed.”

“Oh,” said Arthur. Merlin’s grin got wider, to the point that Arthur was almost embarrassed for him. Merlin nudged his foot.

“I look at you too, you know,” he said, and Arthur’s head snapped up.

“You do?”

Merlin nodded. “Yeah. Obviously. Haven’t you been listening?”

“Don’t be smug, Merlin, it’s a bad look on you.” He squinted at him, scrunched his nose. “Then again, most things are, so I suppose you have to take what you can get.”

“Pillock,” said Merlin, which was more of a declaration than anything else, really. It was said so warmly, and this was great, this was grand, this was everything Arthur had ever wanted, but in a funny sort of way it didn’t really seem to matter much anymore. What was it if Merlin let Arthur kiss him, really? Merlin had shown him how to make dragons from fire and butterflies from nothing, and Arthur had overturned his world for him. A little kissing was nothing to that, probably.

Arthur stepped closer, feeling emboldened by his reasoning, and then realised that he couldn’t possibly go through with it with his heart in such a state. He really was worried he might be dying.

“Arthur?” said Merlin, in a small voice.

“Sorry.” He closed his eyes, tilted his head against Merlin’s (that made it three). “I don’t know if I can… there’s only so much a man can take, Merlin.”

Merlin put his hand on Arthur’s face. “Yeah,” he said, shaking, and they stood there a while, just breathing in and out together. It was alright, all things considered. It certainly wasn’t bad. He pressed harder against Merlin, Merlin’s fingers at the nape of his neck, and he licked his lips and he gathered up all his courage.

“This has been a terrible month,” he said, at last. “Really, just awful. Even by your standards."

“I know,” said Merlin, and his thumb brushed against the corner of Arthur’s eye. There was a smile in his voice, a tremulous little thing born from a different kind of fear. Arthur breathed out.

“I love you,” he said, from deep in his chest. “Not because of destiny, not because of anything. I just do.”

“I know,” said Merlin softly. “Me, too. I love you, too.”

Arthur smiled down at the ground. “I know,” he said. There was a pause.

“You mean the kissing kind of love, right?” said Merlin, and Arthur sighed.

“Yes, Merlin.”

“Just checking.”

He stroked the hair at the back of Arthur’s neck. Arthur peeked out of one eye. “Were you going to make good on it, or…?”

“Oh, right,” said Merlin, a bit shakily. “Yeah, just. It’s not been the best month for me either, you know. What with you being angry, and all.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. I mean, it’s not, but. I think you deserved to feel it. I know you did. But it was still hard.”

“I could have done better,” said Arthur, and Merlin shook his head.

“You really couldn’t’ve,” he said. “I— Arthur. I’m really, really glad that you know.”

“Me too,” said Arthur, and cleared his throat. “Do a spell for me?”

Merlin smiled; his eyes glowed, and a hundred tiny sparks broke apart from the torches to swirl around them, moving from one shape to another. Arthur smiled, and around him emerged a tiny forest, birds flying amongst the treetops and all.

“You and your light shows,” he said, and Merlin shrugged.

“I like them.”

They shone in Merlin’s eyes, lighting him up. “Me too.”

Merlin blushed, grinning idiotically down at the ground.

“About Morgana,” he said, and Arthur groaned.

“Shut up about the prophecy, Merlin.”

“I just, I don’t know if I explained it right, before. I don’t know if it’s what’s best.”

“I don’t care,” said Arthur. “I mean it, Merlin, I don’t give a damn about the dragon, it lost that right when it attacked my kingdom. And even if what you say is true, I won’t— I won’t condemn them on its basis alone, just as I won’t you. I’m trying to be better than that.”

Merlin swallowed.

“You’re a really good king, Arthur,” he said, and his thumb brushed against Arthur’s neck.

“Thank you,” said Arthur, a bit strangled. “And— thank you, for saving my life. And— and being here. And all that.”

“You’re welcome,” said Merlin, looking pleased. Arthur rolled his eyes.

“Shut up,” he said. “You’re still the worst sorcerer in all the five kingdoms.”

Merlin beamed.

“I’m really not,” he said.

“No, of course not,” said Arthur. “Quite right. The entire world, easily.”

“I hate you.”

“I assure you, it’s mutual.”

“Yeah?”

Arthur squirmed. “Unfortunately. Yeah.”

Merlin grinned, Arthur looked at his mouth, and suddenly it was easy. He moved his head forward and Merlin did the same, and it was slow and it was careful and it wasn’t a great kiss, exactly, but it was still good. Arthur grinned, feeling not very particularly inclined to open his eyes, and he pressed his forehead against Merlin’s. He could feel where Merlin’s hands had curled in the fabric of his coat.

“Hm,” said Arthur, low and pleased. “So there are some things you’re good at, then.”

“I’m going to feed you to the pigs,” threatened Merlin, and Arthur beamed even wider. He felt Merlin do the same, and then Merlin’s hand was on his face, his thumb in the divot of Arthur’s smile, and it wasn’t very funny anymore, though it was definitely still good. Arthur swallowed. Merlin kissed him again.

Yes. Definitely good, for certain. Possibly even grand.

“…mm,” said Arthur, when he could speak again. “I— what?”

Merlin looked delighted. Arthur couldn’t have that, so he tugged Merlin’s shirt back into place and cleared his throat. Two could play at that game. “Do some more magic, then,” said Arthur boldly. “Show me what I’ve to look forward to.”

Merlin twisted his head and took a moment to consider what to do, and Arthur was happy to watch it. He looked quite nice, lit up in gold. Arthur knew what his mouth tasted of.

Merlin’s face twitched, and he put his hand in the air and splayed his fingers. Arthur searched the sky, not sure what he was meant to be looking at, and he opened his mouth to say something and then realised the stars were moving and reforming into the wingspan of a giant, sod-off dragon.

“What,” said Arthur. Merlin blinked.

“Huh,” he said. He narrowed his eyes, squinting up at the sky. “Oh, okay, I get it. I think it’s just an illusion.”

“What,” said Arthur again. Merlin leaned in and pointed, and he was very warm where he pressed against Arthur, and Arthur couldn’t even appreciate it, because of the sky.

“No, see? It’s the clouds. That’s quite good, actually. We could use that to confuse invading forces.”

“What,” said Arthur. Merlin turned his head.

“Arthur? Are you alright?”

Arthur opened and closed his mouth. “When,” he said, rather strangled. “Er. When you said you really weren’t—”

“Oh, yeah,” said Merlin. “I’m sort of a big deal.”

“Good lord,” said Arthur. He looked up at the dragon again, and he knew he ought to tell Merlin to make it disappear, but he couldn’t find the words.

“The witchfinder last Autumn,” said Arthur slowly, as it occurred to him. “You were on the hill, when that woman saw the smoke-creature. Was that you?”

“Yeah,” said Merlin, as Arthur tried not to throttle him.

“Merlin!”

“What? He was an ass anyway. It was fine.”

At Arthur’s silence, he went a bit pink, and grumbled: “It was only a little bit of framing. He did most of it himself.”

Arthur stared at him. “Have you—” He spluttered, indignant. “Have you been going on adventures? By yourself? This whole time?”

Merlin flushed. Arthur found himself understandably furious.

“I don’t believe this,” he said, his tone undone by the way he grabbed Merlin’s hand when Merlin tried to step away. “What else have you been doing? Have you got—you don’t have friends, do you? Treasonous little friends who indulge you in the magic?”

“Um, just Lancelot,” said Merlin. “And Gaius, obviously.”

“Lancelot?” squeaked Arthur, unbecomingly. “You told— you— what have you been doing?”

“Um,” said Merlin. “A lot? Lancelot was kind of only there for the griffin. And the Wilddeoren. It’s kind of a long story.”

With great effort, Arthur composed himself. “I’ve got time,” he said, nonchalant. He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “Er. That is, if you’d like to— to tell me about it?”

That pleased pinch was back in Merlin’s mouth. He squeezed Arthur’s fingers.

“Alright,” he said. “You remember that thing with Cornelius Sigan?”

“Who?”

They started to walk back towards the door, Merlin’s star-dragon at their backs. His hand was warm and a bit sweaty in Arthur’s, but Arthur didn’t mind. Sweaty palms were not very important, when it came to love.

“Oh, right,” said Merlin. “Okay, so there was this big crystal—"

He kept talking all the way up to Arthur’s rooms, and then he talked a bit more, and Arthur tried not to interrupt but he wasn’t very good at it, because Merlin had been going out and having adventures on his own, which was just unfair. Then there wasn’t any talking at all for some time, but Arthur didn’t mind very much— true love and destiny and who was meant to betray who, all of it was rubbish. He was quite sure that the best thing to do was to make it up on his own.

On his own meaning, of course, with Merlin’s help. Just like always.