Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Camelot is bustling with life and activity, and Merlin is utterly overwhelmed.

It’s an entirely different world, in comparison to Ealdor. It is grand, in every sense of the word—its white towers casting large shadows over the market place, and the people hurrying through the sloped, cobblestoned streets. There are no streets in Ealdor; there is marked dust, paths that have been trodded upon so often that grass doesn’t dare to grow anymore. There are no such towers, and no such castles.

Merlin always told himself he’d be content with his life in Ealdor, right up until his mother had sent him here, tears in her eyes and conviction in her voice, and he’d been so convinced that he’d come back right away. That he’d hate the citadel and its loud, bustling noises, its self-important people.

He didn’t think he’d love it at first sight.

Of course, these are not normal circumstances; the citadel is even more crowded than it’d usually be, so much that Merlin has to push himself through the lines of people to even make it to the castle. There are guards at the entrance, diligently vetting anyone who wants to enter. Merlin meekly joins one of the queues, craning his neck to look up at the castle. 

The castle of King Arthur Pendragon; the king who legalised magic again.

“Hello,” Merlin says cheerfully, once it’s finally his turn. “I’m here for the—erm, for King Arthur’s position as court sorcerer?”

The guard, with a cleft in his chin and an utterly bored look in his eyes, turns incredulous at the sight of him. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” Merlin tells him, defensively rubbing his arm. “I didn’t realise there was an age restriction for the position.”

Then again, he could be mistaken. He isn’t even from Camelot; all they’d heard out in Essetir was that King Arthur opened his doors to the counsel of a magician, and that he would be searching for the perfect candidate for the position. Merlin hadn’t wanted to leave, of course, but after—

After—

Well. It had been best to go.

“There isn’t,” the guard begrudgingly admits, and Merlin smiles. “Still, I wouldn’t hope for too much, boy—the king’s looking for sage sorcerers, people with power and experience. I suppose it’ll be nice for you to see the event, though. This’ll only happen once in a lifetime.” He appraises Merlin again. “Maybe two times, for one as young as you. Well, then, what’s your name, boy?”

“Merlin,” he answers, and watches as the guard carelessly writes it down on a slip of parchment. “Merlin of Ealdor.”

“There you go, then,” the guard says, and adds the slip to a large, wooden box next to him. It must hold all the names of sorcerers who are vying for the position. Merlin’s heart beats hard, wondering how many names are in there.

“Thank you,” Merlin says, and slips past the guard to the inside of the castle. The crowd feels even more overwhelming here, when it’s kept in place by the solid walls and doors and stairs; there’s no place for it to spread out into. Merlin is tall and lanky; his growth spurt had come two years ago, and he still feels oddly unused to his limbs. Still, he remembers his mother’s advice and straightens his shoulders, using his wiry frame to push past the audience and other sorcerers to find himself in the king’s hall.

He can’t push any further than that; the king’s hall is filled solidly with people, smelling like sweat. The murmurs rise up, filling the chamber, and Merlin contents himself with a place in between two large men. One of them wears a cape of Camelot, red and deep and with that golden dragon furled in the centre of it. When he catches Merlin looking, he smiles at him.

“Don’t mind the bustling,” he says, and runs a hand through blond curls. “If you get too overwhelmed, I’ll help you back outside.”

Merlin must look more panicked than he feels, or maybe it’s just that the panic is overshadowed by the utter awe.

“I just want to see the king,” he says, and curiosity gets the better of him. “You’re one of his knights?”

“My name is Sir Leon,” the knight—Leon—answers. “I’m here to keep the crowd in line.” He winks. “So make sure you don’t start fistfighting, will you?”

Merlin smiles back vaguely. “I’ll try.”

“Good boy,” Leon says, and disappears among other people, presumably to make sure no one is actually getting into any fights. Merlin can only imagine what kind of trouble it’d lead to if a crowd this size started to panic and run.

It’s only ten more minutes before the murmurs become louder; loud enough for Merlin to realise something is going on. Although he’s tall, he is still in the back of the room with plenty of similarly long-limbed people in front of him, so he tiptoes forward and is immediately tugged back by the annoyed man behind him.

Merlin glowers at him, and twists his body so he can see a little better.

And then there he is, from the back of the hall. A throne stands there, golden and red and more expensive than anything else Merlin has seen in his life. And then there’s a figure who stands before the throne, more gold than all his halls; his hair shines, and the long line of his jaw highlights the strength of his body when he peers to the side. He is dressed in armour, glinting silver in the light of the sun; furs are draped over his shoulders like a cloak, making him seem even broader. 

Merlin’s mouth goes dry.

“Welcome to Camelot,” King Arthur proclaims, his hands held wide towards them. His voice echoes, cutting through all the whispers in the hall. “I’m glad to see so many people are showing an interest in the position I’ve newly reopened.”

There’s a sarcastic twist to his smile, Merlin can tell even from a distance; no surprises, really, given that it was Arthur’s father, the late King Uther, who was the one who started the Purge. He wonders what caused King Arthur to think of magic so differently to his father; he wonders what enabled King Arthur to reopen the position of court sorcerer after only having ruled for three years. He must have strong opinions on the matter.

“Do you know—” he decides to ask the lady next to him, only to get shushed.

And rightly so. King Arthur is talking again. “We’re welcoming all of you—those with magic and those without, but especially those who have suffered under the ban of magic for more than twenty years. Today will be known as the day that magic returned to Camelot in full, with all its power and its glory. For that, Camelot needs a court sorcerer—the finest one we can find, for that is what this kingdom deserves. A sorcerer who can look to the future to help us rebuild magic in our lands.”

The crowd starts up again when Arthur falls silent. It only takes the mere suggestion of his voice, however, to quiet them again. Merlin marvels at the steadfast power the king’s voice alone commands. He can’t blame them, though, for he falls silent at King Arthur’s voice himself; that certain, alluring baritone could convince anyone to listen, he’s sure.

King Arthur continues, “To this end, we’ve asked all sorcerers to give their names to the guards outside. We will conduct interviews with all who have given their name, and make sure to give them all the chance that they deserve. One of them will be Camelot’s new court sorcerer—our hope for a shining new future.”

He sits down after that, and the audience cheers. A portly old man addresses the people after that, explaining in more depth what the new laws surrounding magic will mean for Camelot and on what basis a new court sorcerer will be chosen, but Merlin tunes him out.

Instead, he stares at that golden king on his throne.

There’s an inn for all the sorcerers who’ve signed up to be King Arthur’s court sorcerer. Well, that is inaccurate—Merlin has been told that all of four inns have been reserved, and one of the guards ushers him and some other sorcerers to the one he’ll be staying at. Merlin doesn’t get his own room, or even his own bed, but that’s no matter. One woman—a matronly sorceress in her sixties, with dark hair that’s streaked with grey, and who reminds him of his mum a bit—offers him her bed, and Merlin adamantly refuses.

He’s used to sleeping on the floor; he’s even used to sleeping on the floor in crowded houses. When winter comes in Ealdor, and they don’t have enough knitted blankets for everyone, they sometimes huddle up in someone’s house. He’s used to having to tug his knees under his chin to make place for someone else, their legs touching his back, as they fit five people in a room made for two. In comparison, the inn is an unknown luxury.

Oddly enough, Merlin is glad that he’s not all by himself. It’s a bit of an elation to be around so many sorcerers and sorceresses, all loudly debating and showing off their own spells as if it’s the most ordinary thing in the world. And their room has a tiny little window that looks towards the castle; Merlin claims the spot near it, even though the light will wake him up early in the morning.

“And your spells, love?” the matronly sorceress asks him eventually, when he’s been staring at the castle a bit too long. “Are you sure you want such a position? You’re so young, and surely you’ve so much to learn, and you don’t want to be stuck in a castle all day—”

“I’d like to serve him,” Merlin says simply, and thinks of the golden king—thinks of that sincere tone of his voice, thinks of his broad shoulders and the hope he’d given magic users like him. Yes, Merlin would like to serve him. “I’m a quick learner. I’ll pick up what I need.”

“Well, I won’t talk you out of it,” the woman says, and smiles warmly at him.

It takes two days for the listings to come up. There are over eighty names plastered on the parchment that the knights come to hang up in all the inns, and Merlin’s hope sinks in his stomach. Even if he’s talented—even if his mother says that she’s never heard of anyone like him before, but what does that even mean, she’s never left Essetir—there’s no chance he’ll come on top of eighty other sorcerers. None are as young as Merlin.

“Where’s my name?” he asks over the bustle, tiptoeing to see when he’s supposed to come in for an interview. “Does anyone see—”

“Here it is,” one of the men says kindly to him; it’s Aldred, who shares a room with him, just like with Hilga, the matronly woman. They’re both treating him a bit like a son, and as annoyed as Merlin would be by parental control, he’s just glad to be taken under someone’s wing. “Merlin of Ealdor—you’re set to meet the king’s council in three days, just after noon.”

“Three days,” Merlin repeats, his heart hammering in his chest, and he licks his lips. “Three days.”

There’s not much for Merlin to do but to wait around. The interviews start the day after, and will take place over a total of four days. That means there are over twenty candidates for King Arthur’s council to discuss per day; from the hushed whispers that start after the first candidates return to the inns, they get only a handful of moments to prove their knowledge and skill with magic. 

It’s a lot of pressure, and Merlin wonders what he’ll be asked to show—or if he needs to come up with something for himself. He has never used any impressive spells, he thinks, or at least not consciously. The magic always thrums under his skin, but his mum always wanted him to stop it from coming out, even if he hadn’t always managed.

He’d always tried, though.

Merlin watches the other sorcerers in the inn as they discuss their spells; some others remain in the corner, snapping at anyone who asks about their magic that it’s secret, which Merlin thinks is a rather odd thing. Magic is just coming back into the world; it needs to be spread, and it needs to be shared. All the spellwork sounds so intricate and complicated. It’s nothing like Merlin’s use of magic.

It makes him feel oddly uncertain about himself, and by the time the third day of waiting rolls around—Merlin’s fifth day in Camelot, though he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the citadel with its overwhelming number of people and the shouting from the marketplace—it’s his turn to visit the castle.

He means to go there early and wait his turn, but on his way there he realises he hasn’t eaten at all because of his nerves, and when he tries to buy an apple from a merchant in the streets, he finds out that apples are significantly more expensive in Camelot. He’s already taken a bite out of it, though, and the copper he hands over is only about a third of all the money he brought from Ealdor, and he doesn’t have anything else with him.

So he has to race down the streets while the merchant shouts at him, because he’s loath to use magic so flippantly just before his interview with the king’s council, and he runs down some streets he doesn’t know, where he’s stared at oddly. A young girl points him back to the direction of the castle, but the streets are winding and narrow and by the time Merlin finally finds his way there, with a stolen apple in hand, he’s sweaty and late and his stomach is still churning in hunger.

Which is how he appears before the council for the first time, when a guard asks his name and pointedly sends him in.

The hall in which Merlin finds himself is larger than anything he ever imagined. The throne room was probably larger, he thinks to himself, but it was also full of people, and it hadn’t seemed so daunting—because now, the eyes of five people are aimed at him. And one of those people is the king.

Merlin stills, his feet refusing to work. He had thought he’d be before the king’s council, but for some reason, he hadn’t thought King Arthur himself would be part of the procedures. He wracks his brain for any hint, anything that anyone had said about the process that had indicated that the king would be here.

“Hi,” he croaks out, and straightens his shoulders. “Good—afternoon?”

“You address the king as my lord, boy,” the elderly scribe says; he’s the same one who’d appeared after King Arthur’s speech when Merlin had first come. “My name is Geoffrey of Monmouth, and these are Princess Morgana, Sir Leon, Gaius, our royal physician, and King Arthur Pendragon of Camelot. You are—” He peers down at the parchment, “Merlin of Ealdor? My, you’re a bit young for this position, don’t you think?”

He recognises Sir Leon now. He thinks the knight recognises him too, because his eyebrows are up high in his forehead, and he’s smiling in surprise.

“I’ll be seventeen in the spring, my lord,” Merlin says, and probably digs his fingers a bit too deeply into the half-eaten apple he’s still holding. He wishes he’d chucked it away; now the juice is streaming over his fingers, making them sticky.

“It just was spring,” King Arthur says good-humouredly. His voice is just as impressive as it was in the throne hall, but it reverberates less than it did then. For the first time, Merlin  chances a look at him. From this close up, King Arthur is even more breathtaking. His hair is spun of gold, quietly reflecting the sun, and his shoulders are broad and strong. His fingers, lying on top of each other on the mahogany table in front of him, are calloused, rough with knighthood. But his face—his face is open and kind, his eyes intently focused on Merlin as if he hasn’t already talked to six candidates today. 

He looks like a king. 

“I know, my lord,” Merlin says. “But time passes.”

Gaius, the physician, raises a bushy eyebrow at that. Lady Morgana casts a look towards the king. It’s hard to believe she is his sister, with her dark hair and her pale countenance. She is beautiful too, but a bit too beautiful, like she’s been sculpted from perfection. King Arthur is—

Well. Merlin finds himself fidgeting as his cheeks burn, and finds himself unable to look at Arthur, even as hard it was to look away from him. 

“That it does,” King Arthur agrees, and smiles, leaning back in his chair. He opens his hands towards Merlin in a welcoming fashion. “You must have started practising your magic very early, Merlin. Did one of your parents teach you?”

Merlin swallows. “No, my lord. I don’t know my father—” He pushes down the prickle of shame he feels at that, “and my mother has never had magic. I didn’t know anyone who did have magic until—recently, actually.” Until he came to Camelot and was thrown in with half a dozen sorcerers in a room, but he thinks that might not be the best thing to say.

“How did you learn, then?” Lady Morgana asks, sharp interest in her voice.

Merlin shrugs. “I was born with it.”

“That’s not possible, my boy,” Gaius says kindly. “Magic isn’t born; it is acquired through study. Even in the cases that it comes to surface in unpractised individuals—” He looks at Morgana for a second; Merlin doesn’t miss that shared glance, “—it comes at a later age, and usually only through a response of stress and anxiety. Is that what you mean, perhaps?”

“No,” Merlin answers, and wonders if he should add my lord to that, but no one looks oddly at him, so he decides not to. “My mum says that my eyes glowed golden when I was born, and that it always stormed when I cried. When I was a toddler, I made things float before I could walk.” When he sees their expressions, he awkwardly adds, “I mean, she’s my mum. I’m sure it’s exaggerated.”

“And spell books?” Geoffrey of Monmouth asks, tapping his quill against the parchment. It leaves dark, blotchy spots on the paper. Merlin decides not to mention it. “When did you get access to those?”

“I don’t,” Merlin flounders. “No books, no teachers. It’s just—” He shrugs, flapping his hands a bit. “I do things. I’m good at it.”

Or at least he thought so. He can’t really read what they are thinking. King Arthur’s expression is schooled, but his eyes are hooded, and he’s lost some of that easy smile he offered Merlin in the beginning. Merlin’s lungs constrict. Perhaps he’s already lost them before he can even show them what he can do.

“And your magic, it isn’t dark?” Lady Morgana asks. Her voice is low, as if she speaks of something secret. Merlin flounders, for a second, uncertain how to answer that. Dark magic; he shudders involuntarily.

“Dark?” he asks, and bites the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know—I don’t think so? I’m not sure what that kind of magic would be. I just… think about something happening, and I can make it happen. It never felt dark, at least.”

“If you’d used it like that, you’d know,” she says flatly.

“Well, then, my boy,” Gaius says, and presses his lips together in a weak facsimile of a smile. “Would you like to show us some spells?”

“Anything specific?” Merlin asks weakly.

Morgana’s eyes narrow, and she leans forward. She, most of all, feels like a hawk. Merlin pays more attention to her; he can sense the magic in her, near to the surface. That is what that glance to Gaius meant, then. But if they have her—and her magic is rather powerful, he can sense it—he’s not sure why they need a court sorcerer in the first place.

And it strikes him, suddenly, to wonder if she’s the reason that King Arthur legalised magic. If he did that out of love for his sister.

“You didn’t prepare a spell?” Morgana asks, her head tilted. “Your most powerful one?”

Merlin doesn’t particularly know what his most powerful spell is, mostly because he doesn’t really think of it as spells. He steers, and his magic follows—if he’s lucky. Otherwise it just happens, with very little control from his side. 

“I think you should just show us what you feel is right,” King Arthur says, which is really unhelpful, as far as advice goes. But it seems the rest of the council agrees with it, and they all watch him intently. The moment of truth, then.

What seems right to him. Well, he’ll let his magic decide.

Merlin takes a deep breath. He looks down at his apple, mangled in his hand from how tightly he’s been holding it, the juice now dripping on the floor. He swallows, and throws it up in the air.

It floats—or no, it doesn’t float, but time has stopped as it hangs in the air. Merlin effortlessly weaves his magic, and returns the apple to its original state. Uneaten, undisturbed, and its red coat gleams in the sun. His stomach churns again, and Merlin lifts up his palm to right under it, making sure just not to touch the apple. It turns into a seed, and it plops right into his hand.

Merlin looks up for a second, towards King Arthur. The sun is reflected in his eyes, but his rapt attention is all focused on Merlin. 

He leans down, and drops the seed on the ground. He takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes for a moment. This requires him to picture it; an apple tree in his mother’s garden, and the seeds that she had spilled when he was seven. He had lacked the patience for them to grow, and he recalls that sensation now. He feels the magic start; he imagines branches twisting towards the sun, and leaves sprouting on the branches, creating a canopy of green. He imagines, and his magic responds in kind as Merlin thinks about the low-hanging fruit on the tree, warm and ripe and tasty. Suddenly, there’s shade, and Merlin opens his eyes. 

A full-grown apple tree stands before him, blocking his view of the council except for Gaius, who sits on the far left. 

He presses his hand to the bark of the tree, and it disappears into a single seed again. Merlin picks it up, and then turns his eyes upward, to where his tree has left a hole in the ceiling. There is now a large gap to the story above them. Two faces of servant girls are peering down, very pale as they gape at Merlin.

“Sorry,” Merlin says sheepishly, and waves a hand. Slowly, bricks of stone that had landed around the apple tree fly back up, restoring themselves to become the ceiling once again. Merlin looks towards the council. “I can do—more, if you want me to? I don’t always need an apple or a seed, it just helps a bit if there’s something that already exists. But I can also—” He fumbles a bit, but when he opens his palm, there’s a fire licking his fingers. He frowns at it, and the flame becomes a golden dragon. It roars soundlessly, and then breaks free from Merlin’s grasp and flies across the room. It nearly scorches King Arthur’s hair before it dissipates into nothingness.

“Very impressive,” Gaius murmurs.

Merlin bites the inside of his cheek. “It’s not much. But I’m—well, I know I’m young, but I learn quickly.”

There’s not much else he can promote about himself. He wonders what the other sorcerers did before him, and what those after him will do. He hadn’t really heard anything, but most of them are tight-lipped. He knows that Hilga made a potion for them, because that’s her specialty.

A dreadful feeling of failure climbs up his limbs, making him unable to move. He can’t return to Ealdor, no matter what happens here. 

“We certainly have a lot to discuss,” King Arthur says eventually. “Thank you for coming, Merlin of Ealdor. We’ll decide on our new court sorcerer in three days’ time.”

Merlin inclines his head. “Thank you, my lord,” he says, and his tongue feels too large in his mouth. He turns around and runs from the hall as soon as he can—he doesn’t stop until he’s past the guards and in a hallway by himself. Only then does he allow himself to lean against the wall and look at the apple seed that he’s still holding in his hand.

He throws back his head and breathes. He can’t believe he mucked that up so badly.

An apple tree. He auditioned to the King of Camelot with an apple tree. Suddenly he wants to go home so badly, to lay his head in his mother’s lap and feel her fingers run through his hair.

But he can’t go home. 

The interviews end, and the citadel is abuzz with speculation of who will become the new court sorcerer.

Not everyone has stayed in their room as Merlin had. After accidentally stealing that apple—and really, he’d used his magic to give the merchant five new apples, except that the merchant doesn’t actually know Merlin did that, so he still can’t show his face—he hadn’t dared venture back to the markets. He isn’t sure of anything in the citadel, and least of all his own position. But others have made a bit of a name for themselves in the time they’ve been here.

There are sorcerers all over the citadel now, and Merlin isn’t sure if that’s a stroke of ingenuity or stupidity on King Arthur’s part. On one hand, the citizens of Camelot are quickly getting used to magic in their vicinity. On the other hand, with so many sorcerers around, it can easily get out of hand. Two of the sorcerers in Merlin’s inn are arrested for disturbance of the peace.

He wonders if that means they’re still up for the position of court sorcerer.

It does mean there are some sorcerers who have gained a bit of a following—with their power, or with their popularity. There are bets on whom Arthur will choose, and Merlin hears coins rattling wherever anyone is discussing the bet. Merlin, with his five coppers left—enough to live on for two weeks in Ealdor, but not enough for a day in Camelot, although fortunately the inn offers food for free—can’t imagine the riches that are flowing so freely.

Merlin has already talked himself into being at peace with not being chosen. It was a long shot to begin with—he’d known that even as he’d left Ealdor. On the day that the new court sorcerer will be chosen, he makes sure he has packed his bags. With magic now running so wild in Camelot, surely he can find some job here. It doesn’t even need to be one with magic.

Sure enough, Aldred comes sprinting into the room, looking ten years younger than he is with a rapturous expression on his face. “They’ve made the announcement!” he cries out, and grabs Merlin’s arm. “Merlin, you’ve been summoned to the castle!”

“What?” Merlin asks dumbly. “What do you mean? Who’s the new court sorcerer?”

“That’s just the thing!” Aldred says, and curbs his excitement a bit as he takes Merlin by the shoulders. “They haven’t chosen anyone, but they put out word that you are to meet with the king’s council as soon as you can. Merlin—”

Something is ringing in Merlin’s ears. He just nods as Aldred drags him out of the room. There are over two dozen sorcerers bowing over the announcement that was hung up only just recently, and when he comes in, they all stare at him. His skin prickles, but it’s hard to hear their words. Aldred’s fingers on his arms are the only thing holding him steady.

And then the door opens, and Sir Leon steps in, his eyes solemn. He doesn’t look at all like that kind knight that Merlin first met; the one who winked at him and asked him not to start a fistfight. Merlin just looks at him, and when Sir Leon talks, it’s the first thing that breaks through his haze.

“I’ve come to collect you, Merlin,” he says. “The king would like a word.”

“Right,” Merlin croaks, and lets himself be led away with the eyes of all of Camelot on him.

“Here’s the thing,” is what Arthur says. He is not at all dressed like he was during the ceremony, or when Merlin was auditioning. This time, he is only wearing a low-hanging white tunic, and Merlin’s mouth goes dry at the sight of him.

King Arthur is eight years his senior, but Merlin has never seen a more beautiful man—doubts he ever will again. 

“Yes, my lord?” he says when Arthur does not continue, and Arthur looks at him. His expression twists, for a moment, and then he smiles wryly.

“What Camelot truly needs,” Arthur says, taking a deep breath, “is power, that is undoubtedly true. We have faced many adversaries with magic, and we need to be able to counter it. If we return magic in this kingdom, we also need to be able to control it. But how do you find someone who is powerful enough when the skill has been banned on pain of death for the last twenty-four years?” 

Twenty-four years; since King Arthur’s birth. Merlin knows the stories well enough, but he wonders what Arthur thinks of them, and what is true and what has been embellished through retelling. 

“I don’t know,” Merlin says. “There are enough people who still seem to have the skill.”

He forgets to add my lord, and nearly swallows his tongue. Arthur doesn’t respond to that at all, however, and simply says, “Yes, you’re right. More people signed up than we expected, really. However—” Arthur raises his finger at Merlin, “—none of them are very powerful. Tricks and potions, and small remedies for home use. Spells for healing a broken bone, or for finding a missing shoe.”

“My lord?” Merlin says carefully and looks back at the locked door behind him. For some reason, he wishes Leon had stayed.

Arthur finally sits down and gestures for Merlin to join him. The chairs are more comfortable than the thick blankets Merlin uses to sleep; he shuffles awkwardly, but Arthur doesn’t seem to notice. 

“You are a bit of a conundrum,” Arthur says. “Had you been—what, ten, fifteen years older, we would have offered you the position in a heartbeat. I realise twenty-four still seems young to most people—” At this, he smiles self-deprecatingly, “—but I like to think it’s mature enough to help rule a kingdom. And that is, in fact, what a court sorcerer does.”

Merlin hadn’t thought about it like that. He frowns. “But?”

“But you are sixteen, Merlin,” Arthur murmurs, and looks at him—as if he is a child, and Merlin burns with something that he can’t quite name. He doesn’t want Arthur to look at him as if he’s a child. “You won’t be of age for five more years, and even so—you are so, so young, even then.”

“I’m not a child,” Merlin says.

Arthur puts a hand to his forehead. “I know it seems that way to you,” he says, “and I’m sure you’re very mature for your age. But you’re still—”

“I’m not,” Merlin sneers, and crosses his arms.

“Merlin, this isn’t a matter of power,” Arthur says. “We spent days debating over this—you are clearly the most powerful sorcerer out there, and especially considering your age.” That is news to Merlin, and he swallows hard. Arthur continues, “The truth of the matter is that you are still young, and I can’t hand over the reins of power over all people who possess magic in my kingdom to a boy of sixteen summers.”

Merlin is quiet. He is not a child, not anymore, but he understands what Arthur is saying. 

“So?” he asks quietly.

“So,” Arthur repeats, and sits up straight. The worry lines on his forehead make him look closer to his mid-thirties, for a moment. “We’ve come to an agreement. In five years’ time, when you turn twenty-one, you will be named this kingdom’s court sorcerer. In the meantime, my sister Morgana—she has magic, although we haven’t made that bit of information public yet—”

“I know,” Merlin says, and shrugs when Arthur blinks at him. “I could sense it. She’s powerful. I was wondering why you wouldn’t have her as a court sorceress instead.”

“Mostly because she doesn’t want the job,” Arthur says solemnly. “She’s largely untrained, just like you, but Gaius has helped her. What we’ve decided on, Merlin, is that Morgana will take over the position of court sorceress for these five years.”

“Even though she doesn’t want to?”

“She accepts the reality of the situation,” Arthur mutters. “And moreover, we’ve decided to implement a—council, of sorts, to assist her, and you, when the time is right. Sorcerers that have less power but more knowledge will help the both of you. Hopefully, in five years’ time and with rigorous study, you will be capable of being the court sorcerer that Camelot must have.”

Merlin swallows heavily. He’d only just talked himself through the disappointment of not being chosen, without considering what would happen if they chose him anyway. He hadn’t dared to consider what being court sorcerer would entail. Except he wouldn’t be doing it now; he’d be doing it in five years, which gives him ages to learn all of it. 

“You’ll give me magical training?” Merlin asks.

Arthur smiles. “Yes, and training in courtly etiquette. I imagine Ealdor doesn’t have nobles?”

“We don’t have nobles, but we do have pigs. And chickens,” Merlin says. When Arthur raises his eyebrows at him, Merlin flushes heavily with embarrassment. “Oh, shut up. My lord.”

“Don’t talk to your king like that,” Arthur says, but he doesn’t actually seem very upset about it, even though Merlin sort of wants to hit himself in the face. “Welcome to Camelot, sorcerer-apprentice Merlin of Ealdor.”

And that is how Merlin comes to join the royal household of Camelot.

The bustle is slow to die down, or perhaps that’s just Merlin’s own fame. The results of the search for a court sorcerer don’t seem to be very popular with the crowd; they had hoped for a singular court sorcerer, maybe. Most of them have lost money in their bets, although Merlin isn’t sure where it actually went. He doubts anyone thought him the likely candidate.

Although he isn’t, technically, court sorcerer. That role has gone to Lady Morgana, assisted by four other candidates she picked to serve her as her Council of Magic, an entirely separate entity from Arthur’s own council—which isn’t actually the five people who assisted in choosing the new court sorcerer, Merlin is quick to realise. Arthur’s actual council consists of nobles and knights.

Merlin is quickly set to work with all kinds of lessons. One of Morgana’s assistants is Hilga, entirely because of her unparalleled knowledge of potion-making. She is the favourite of Merlin’s teachers, mostly because creating potions requires a lot of knowledge about herbs and its uses. It is only when they are mixed together that magic comes into play, and she teaches by showing him exactly what quantities to use and how to infuse the magic into the tinctures.

Gaius comes along on a lot of their walks, and he talks about the medicinal uses of several herbs, as well, which is still interesting, but not nearly as much. Hilga and Gaius get along like a house on fire, though, which makes Merlin the third wheel on most of their outings.

The other three sorcerers… well.

The first one, Baradoc, is a son of one of the lesser noble houses. He is in his thirties, and oddly self-important. Merlin distantly recognises him as one of the more popular choices for becoming court sorcerer, and he thinks that Baradoc must be stung by being overlooked in favour of a lean, untried boy who can’t control his spellwork and doesn’t even really know how he casts magic at all.

The other two, Ead and Diarmuid, are not as disdainful, but Merlin still thinks he’s rubbed them the wrong way, so he steers clear of them whenever he can. It is mostly Baradoc who sniffs at him. One day, during a lesson in which Merlin is supposed to learn the basics of defensive magic, Baradoc drops three books in his lap.

“I retrieved these from the library,” Baradoc says heedlessly. “I expect you to have read them all by next week—only once you understand the basics will I be able to teach you. You show a clear disregard for the way magic is done, boy.”

Baradoc’s most powerful spell is to create an additional protection on a shield. Useful, but not the stuff of legend, Merlin thinks to himself sourly as he takes his books and flees to his bare set of chambers. Arthur had given them to him, along with an allowance of twenty coppers a day—more money than Merlin knows what to do with, frankly—and so there he goes.

He throws the books on his desk, and buries his head in the pillow and screams.

A knock on the door wakes Merlin up.

“My lord,” he says when he sees Arthur, and immediately runs a hand through his hair. The black strands are standing up in awkward tufts, but he had expected—well, he hadn’t really expected anyone this early, but certainly not the King of Camelot. Merlin has been here all of a week and a half, and the closest he’d come to King Arthur since joining his household was seeing him on the training grounds with Sir Leon.

He is oddly aware of the way that his nightclothes hang on his body, and can’t really take his eyes off Arthur’s low-hanging tunic—he seems fond of those. This particular one is Pendragon red, and Arthur’s chest hair is just as fair as the rest of him, and it trails down—

“Good morning,” Arthur says pleasantly, and Merlin yanks his eyes back up.

“Is it,” he says absentmindedly, and blinks.

Arthur gives him an odd look, and pushes past him. Merlin just lets him—he is the king, even if he can be a bit rude, at times—and watches him look around Merlin’s room. It’s still bare, despite the time Merlin has been here. All he has is his desk, with the books Baradoc has given him gathering dust, and his unmade bed.

Merlin awkwardly rubs his wrist.

“You’ve made yourself at home, I see,” Arthur says, a little mockingly. “I came to see how you’re doing. Baradoc is telling me that you haven’t been advancing very well in your lessons so far.”

“Maybe that’s because he’s a lousy teacher,” Merlin says bitingly. He has only just woken up—and dawn has just broken, and it’s summer, which means dawn is certainly not the time that Merlin wants to be awake. That doesn’t seem to perturb Arthur.

Why is Arthur talking to Baradoc, anyway? Merlin has seen neither hide nor hair of him for a week, and he’s supposed to be ranking higher than Baradoc.

“Is he?” Arthur asks, and picks up one of the dusty books. “You did tell me that you were a fast student, Merlin, and Baradoc has proven to be a capable enough teacher with Morgana. He told me he gave you some reading work to get you started on the basics, but if you are unwilling to even open the books—”

“Reading work makes a good teacher?”

Arthur gives him an odd look. “Not doing the reading certainly does not make you look like a good student.”

“You’re a prat, you know,” Merlin says angrily, and grabs the book out of Arthur’s hands to toss it back on the desk. “You don’t know anything about how my magic works, and Baradoc’s a moron, and you’re only listening to him because he’s older than you—”

“Yes, because you’re the shining example of perfect maturity right now,” Arthur says dryly.

“Arse,” Merlin bites. 

Arthur’s look turns harder. “If you don’t want to be here, Merlin, we are not holding you to your position. If you think you’re being so mistreated, why don’t you try a little harder to explain what, exactly, is not working for you—”

“I can’t read,” Merlin says, and turns around so he doesn’t have to meet Arthur’s face. The humiliation colours his face a darker pink than even Arthur’s broad shoulders could do, and he runs an arm over his face to get rid of that inconvenient stinging of tears. He hopes he can get away with it being a sneeze—but then Arthur’s hand is on his shoulder, warm and heavy, and Merlin shakes him off.

“Merlin.”

“No,” Merlin snarls, and finally whirls around. “You just—no one even asked me, they all just assumed I was being lazy, and I couldn’t—I didn’t—”

“You had to write down your name to apply,” Arthur says, a little uncomprehendingly. “All the information was carried on parchment, and spread like that—”

“Everyone told me where and when to be, Arthur,” Merlin says helplessly. “A guard wrote down my name. It didn’t come up, and I didn’t think—everyone can read here, can’t they? But I’m just—my mum’s a farmer, and I don’t even know who my dad is, and it’s not as if we needed to read and write. I didn’t think I’d need to, and then everyone just assumed, and I’m—I’m not an idiot.”

“No one thinks you are,” Arthur says carefully, his tone measured. And Merlin’s tired of that, too—this is exactly why he never managed to say it before. That sympathy, because he’s just Merlin of Ealdor, the poor farmer’s boy, who only came here because of some innate power he doesn’t deserve to have—

“Tell that to Baradoc,” Merlin snarls. 

“Merlin, it doesn’t change anything,” Arthur says. “We’ll just have to find someone to teach you; and you’re right, we’ll have to ask Baradoc to wait for you until you can read and write before he asks you to read any spellwork—”

“No.”

Arthur sighs, and runs a hand over his face. “What do you propose, then?”

“They’re not taking me seriously,” Merlin says, his throat dry. “Arthur—my lord, they’ll never take me seriously if they don’t see me as more than an illiterate farmer’s boy. I know you gave me five years, and I know that it’s—no shame for me not to know everything.” He looks down for a second. It certainly feels like a shame. “I don’t want them to know I can’t do this, too. My lord.”

Arthur is silent for a moment. “You’re a bit prideful, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think so,” Merlin says quietly, and then reflects on it. “I’d just rather be acknowledged for what I can do.”

“When I was sixteen, I’d been a knight for one year,” Arthur says—as if it’s a secret, something that not everyone knows. He is looking past Merlin, to a distant past. “I wasn’t very skilled at defending against an axe, but I didn’t want my father to know. He always boasted I’d be the strongest knight in the kingdom.”

Arthur is quiet for a long moment, so Merlin asks, “And?”

“I asked Leon to train with me, where no one else could see it,” Arthur answers, looking at him again. “And he did. In his free time, after already training for hours—he would come to me to an empty cellar, and we’d light the torches and practise my defence. Until I got skilled enough to beat any man coming at me with an axe. No one ever knew.”

“Except Leon,” Merlin says.

Arthur smiles. “Except Leon,” he echoes. “There’s a person in this castle who’s very skilled at keeping secrets, Merlin. She kept Morgana’s magic a secret for years, and she’s very kind.” There’s a fond tug of his lips that makes his face feel softer—Merlin wonders who she is. If Arthur has any sort of complicated feelings for her; and it twists in his chest, a bit.

“Who?” he asks, and can’t help the crabbiness in his voice.

“Her name is Guinevere,” Arthur answers.

Merlin didn’t realise how much it helps to have friends. 

Guinevere—or Gwen, as she immediately asks him to call her, stumbling over her own words—is a few years older than him, but she doesn’t treat him like a child. She doesn’t comment on his illiteracy either; instead, she acts more like a friend who just happens to be helping him learn to read.

The best thing is that she’s completely willing to start off with his magic books. 

It doesn’t entirely get Baradoc off his back, since Merlin certainly isn’t able to read all three books within the week. In fact, for most of the first week, the difficulty of the words and the letters only gets him more frustrated, and he’s sure it shows. His control over his magic lapses, at times; one day he wakes up to thorny plants all over his room. Fortunately, nothing has spun entirely away from him yet.

He’s not sure what Arthur would do if Merlin accidentally let out any sort of destructive magic in Camelot. He can still recall the prickling of his skin when Morgana had mentioned dark magic during his first audition; he hopes he’ll never have to use it.

Then again, that’s what he’s trying to avoid, and learning to read comes with the benefit of knowing what the books say, even if it’s just Gwen reading aloud to him at times. Merlin does pick up some of the rules easily, clicking in place as if he’s always known about them, but just hadn’t realised what they meant. Other rules…

Not so much.

But it’s a start, and Merlin slowly starts to settle in Camelot.

It takes two months of rigorous learning before Merlin can read the most basic of words. It’s fun, though, and he hadn’t known beforehand that studying would really be a lot of fun.

He’s sitting with one of the old tomes that Baradoc had given him up on the battlements, leaning against the grey walls of the Camelot towers and enjoying the sunlight on his skin. He used to spend most of his days outside, helping out in Ealdor. These days, he mostly goes outside for Hilga’s potion lessons.

“So that’s where you disappeared off to,” Arthur says, suddenly, and then there’s a king seated next to Merlin. Merlin blinks at him, and holds his book close to his body.

“I didn’t realise I needed to let you know where I was at all times,” Merlin says wittily, and just in time, remembers to add, “my lord.”

“We need to work on your courtly manners,” Arthur says, ruffling Merlin’s hair. Merlin ducks away, scowling at Arthur and his mischievous grin.

“I would, if you hadn’t given me a thousand other things to learn,” Merlin tells him, and shuffles a fair distance away. Arthur and his casual touches come rarely enough, but when they do, they’re all so fraternal, like a teasing older brother. Merlin doesn’t want it.

Arthur looks at the book. “Well, you’re certainly making progress,” he says. “Interesting read?”

“No idea,” Merlin confesses, and decides to forgive Arthur for his misstep in order to show him the page that he was looking at. There’s a fancy drawing of a sort of stone creature, and it really is quite ugly. It looks interesting, anyway. “Gwen taught me to read magic—and that’s here, you see—” He points at one of the words at the beginning of the chapters, “and I can sort of—figure out some of the other words, but it doesn’t really feel natural yet. It’s like a puzzle.”

“It’s a gargoyle,” Arthur tells him, and points at the word. It does have some of the letters that Merlin has come to recognise, and he mouths them soundlessly. “See? It starts with the ‘G’—”

“It’s not the same sound as the ‘G’ for magic,” Merlin says ruefully. 

Arthur laughs quietly. “No, it’s not. Here, I’ll read it to you. If we ever are to face gargoyles, you and I shall know what to do about them.”

“What are you going to do, swing your sword at them?” Merlin asks, and Arthur elbows him in the side.

“Here—it says, ‘The only man to defeat a gargoyle will be a knight of renowned valour, a king with a sword’—”

“It does not,” Merlin protests, and tilts the book away from Arthur. “If you’re just going to mock me—”

Arthur holds up his hands in surrender, but his eyes are bright. “No, you’re right. I suppose I shouldn’t be teasing you. You are making good progress, Merlin. Even Baradoc isn’t complaining as much as he used to, so I can only assume you’re picking up his lessons as well as you are Guinevere’s.”

“It’s not hard,” Merlin says, and skims through his book just so he doesn’t have to look at Arthur with his cheeks all pink. Perhaps he can pretend it’s from the sun. “I can spell, too, now. I can write my own name. I can even write yours.”

“A skill you will need, surely,” Arthur says with no little humour. “It’s the thing you’ll write most often in the world, when we finally get to introduce you to the lovely world of diplomacy.”

“I’ll create a spell for it,” Merlin says absentmindedly.

“Oh, I see how it’s going to be. You’ll be unrepentantly lazy.”

“I’d just rather focus on doing things that are worthy of my attention,” Merlin tells him wryly. 

Arthur huffs at that, and leans his head back against the wall. His hair is plastered to his forehead, Merlin notices; he must have recently come back from training with the knights. “Unfortunately, Merlin,” Arthur says quietly, “I think you’ll learn soon enough that a kingdom stands or falls with diplomacy—even if you don’t necessarily want to make any compromises.”

Merlin frowns. “Compromises?”

“The stuff that peace is made of,” Arthur murmurs, and smiles tightly. “I don’t want to bore you with that. You should focus on your studies.”

“Isn’t that why you appointed me in the first place?” Merlin points out, itching with the need to help out. It isn’t that he hasn’t enjoyed learning about magic; even the lessons on courtly manners are amusing, in some way, if only because he never thought he’d have to think about what fork to eat his food with—his worries, only months earlier, had consisted of whether they’d even have food in the first place. “To help you with these things? To advise you?”

“In matters of magic, yes,” Arthur allows. “And not yet. I haven’t appointed you—I’ve made you an apprentice in my household.”

“You give me money.”

“An allowance.”

Merlin feels wrong-footed, and he closes the book. Dust flies out between the pages. “So, consider this part of my training,” he insists. “I’m here to help you, Arthur, even if you don’t actually give me a title for five more years.”

Arthur mouths something, and shakes his head. “You’re a very stubborn child.”

“Not a child,” Merlin says, gritting his teeth.

“You’re from Essetir, aren’t you?” Arthur asks, suddenly changing the topic. “Ealdor—that is just over the border? So Cenred is your king, in truth?”

Merlin blinks. “Well, in some ways, yes. But you are—”

“And what is his stance on magic?” Arthur presses. 

Merlin thinks of a pyre burning; either the pyre, or a sack of stones and a river. He recalls the sensation of rope tied to his ankle, and trying to breathe, desperately trying to break the surface of the water—

He feels nauseous in a way he hasn’t since he left Ealdor. “Children who are found with magic are burnt, or drowned. Most sorcerers hide—it’s why I never knew anyone else with magic.”

“Just children?” Arthur asks.

Merlin presses his lips together. “No, I meant—everyone. There’s not much love for Cenred in Essetir, my lord. He’s not like you.”

Arthur quietly says, “That’s what I thought,” and gets up without saying another word. Merlin stares at him as he goes, and has a hard time returning to his book. When he manages, though, he opens up the page with the gargoyles, and traces the word, again and again.

Surprisingly enough, Merlin seldom comes across Lady Morgana. For a woman who is the court sorceress, and a woman he is supposed to relieve of that burden in five years, his contact with her is limited. She receives some of the same lessons from the council of magic that he does, but she already knows more, and she doesn’t have to learn how to read and write.

It’s an advantage that Merlin is jealous of, at times.

It is two months into Merlin’s apprenticeship that he’s summoned to her chambers for the first time.

“Hello, Merlin,” she says, smiling at him when he enters. Her smile isn’t at all like Arthur’s; hers is more pointed, and a little less kind. Her face is more drawn, too, especially with the candlelight casting flickering shadows across her expression. “It’s good that you’ve come.”

“You summoned me,” he says slowly. “I didn’t think I had much of a choice.”

She shrugs. “I’ve been told that we always have a choice in life. But that’s fair enough, I suppose. You’re still young—still intent on doing what you’re told, aren’t you?”

Merlin shuffles awkwardly. There’s nothing he can say to that, really, and he doesn’t actually know what she called him here for. Morgana’s eyes are sharp, heavily weighing on him, and Merlin just stands still. He doesn’t know what she sees on his face, but after a moment, she takes pity on him and gestures towards a chair at her table. He takes it hurriedly.

“I’m not sure why you called for me, my lady,” he says, and stops himself from plucking at his tunic. Hilga had told him it makes him look nervous, and had gently stilled his hands when he’d done it in front of her. Merlin is determined not to make a fool out of himself with Morgana, so he folds his fingers over his lap, no matter how tempted he is to fidget.

“Well, there’s no particular reason,” Morgana tells him, and sits down opposite him. “But you’re supposed to become our court sorcerer in five years’ time, and I’ll have to judge if you’re mature and skilled enough for it. I do have some stakes in this, you are aware. Arthur will have told you of my disinclination to take this position, I assume?”

Merlin winces. “My lady, I didn’t—if you’re upset with me—”

“No, not with you,” Morgana says, and smiles coldly. “You’re a child. A very powerful child, but a child nonetheless.”

If it had been anyone else who’d said it, Merlin might have protested. If Arthur had said it, the cold would have snuck up his bones, that insanely restless bit of him that can’t help but protest whenever Arthur looks at him like he’s too young to know what’s going on in the world. As if Merlin hasn’t lived in it—as if he hasn’t yet enough experience to know anything. But when Morgana says it, that bitter tone in her voice, he stays silent.

He’s not sure he could convince her otherwise. He’s not sure his own experience measures up against hers—a child of Uther Pendragon, a powerful sorceress.

“I’m trying to learn,” Merlin says instead, feeling a bit uncertain where to steer the conversation when Morgana keeps silent. “I am learning. I’m—I don’t know what you want from me, but I’m not going to give up , and I’m not leaving, and—”

“Oh, calm down.” Morgana stands up suddenly, leaving Merlin reeling. “I’m sure you’ll be a powerful sorcerer—I doubt we could stop you, if your natural talent has brought you where you are now. The only problem, Merlin of Ealdor, is determining what you want.”

Merlin blinks. “I want to be Arthur’s court sorcerer.”

“Do you?” Morgana presses. “Do you know him? Do you know what Camelot stands for? This isn’t your kingdom—you can walk away and not be any worse off for it. Why do you want to serve Arthur? Will you serve him, even if he asks you to do something that you might not agree with?”

“Because,” Merlin starts, and tapers off. 

“Because?”

“He’s a good man,” Merlin says helplessly. “He’s a good king. He lifted the ban on magic, and he’s trying to bring it back. He wants peace, and he’s—”

He’s determined. Merlin looks at him and believes, and he isn’t entirely sure why. It’s a question without an answer; it’s like he can’t control the beating of his own heart, even if he can control the rest of the world with a single thought. He hasn’t thought about why he wants to serve Arthur; he just knows that he does.

Morgana softens somewhat. “I know that Arthur must be something of an inspiration to you,” she says, and then adds, “although I’m not entirely sure why, with how much of a knight he can be at times. He can be rude and arrogant, but I’ve seen him inspire his men without even lifting his sword. You’re not the only one who believes in Arthur, Merlin.” She stops for a moment, and her shoulders sag. “But I want to make sure you’ll be loyal even if he does something you might not understand. That yours is not a loyalty only when it suits you. That you won’t abandon him when he makes a wrong choice.”

“He’s a good man,” Merlin defends him, uncertain why he feels the need to. Arthur can be rude, she’s right; Merlin has seen it well enough, although it always comes with a sense of fondness. She is his sister—she knows him better than most.

“That doesn’t make him a good king,” Morgana says, and looks at him again. “And it doesn’t mean you will always follow him. You’re still young, Merlin. And over these next five years, people will teach you to use your magic—they’ll teach you all these inane things, like how to hold a fork and how to dance during a feast and how to behave yourself during council meetings.”

“And that’s not what I should learn?” Merlin asks.

Morgana scoffs. “Of course you should. You’re at court now—these are all vital skills.”

“But you said—”

“That doesn’t mean they’re not inane. It means they are things you must learn to do—if you decide to stay.” She’s wandered away by now, and Merlin finally tugs at his tunic. She’s not watching him; she’s staring out the window. “In the years to come, I want you to learn something else—something that will help you decide whether everything else matters or not.”

Merlin is quiet for a second. “And what’s that?”

“I want you to learn to know yourself,” Morgana says. “I want you to learn what you stand for, and if you’re willing to spend a lifetime serving Arthur. Because if you decide that you’re not…”

If Merlin decides he’s not, then there’s no place for him in Camelot. Merlin wants to protest her words; wants to insist that he knows what he wants out of life. He wants protection, and he wants to use his magic, and he wants it to mean something. It’s not ambition, not in the way Arthur insinuated. But it’s something that Merlin feels in his bones.

He has this magic for a reason, and he wants to find out what it is.

“I’ll let you know,” is all he can think to say. Morgana looks at him and nods, and it’s apparently a good enough answer for her.

Chapter Text

The druids come to visit, and it’s the most excitement the citadel has gone through since Arthur had opened the position for court sorcerer. Apparently—Merlin wouldn’t know, but Hilga tells him in hushed tones—it’s the first time that a formal invitation has been extended to the druids, and they have taken Arthur up on it.

Merlin is invited to the banquet, alongside all other magic users. He’s fully aware that it’s only because the sorcerers in Camelot are a sort of bridge between the Camelot of old and the druids—a sign that things are truly changing in the kingdom. Still, it’s the first event he’ll be a part of, and that’s an exciting thing in its own right.

“If you don’t get that spell down, I’ll make sure the king doesn’t let you go to the banquet tonight at all,” Baradoc says, scowling down at where Merlin’s trying to make a stone dog statue come to life. It’s only a small dog, coming up to Merlin’s waist, but Baradoc has given him the words to make it come to life, and Merlin can’t yet connect the words to the magic.

“Arse,” Merlin mutters when Baradoc wanders off, and focuses on the statue again.

His mind is wandering, though, full of stories of the druids. His people in Ealdor hadn’t been very welcoming of any druids passing their way, although that was largely due to Essetir’s rules on magic, and the general fear of sorcerers. Merlin knows very well—

No, he’s still not thinking about that.

The stories about druids vary from portraying them as wise, peaceful people that are skilled with healing magic above all, to depicting them as isolated, uncaring sorcerers whose only loyalty lies with their own community. Merlin has never actually met any of them, but he’s wondering which of the stories is closer to the truth, or if it’s something in between. He wonders why Arthur never invited any of them, and why there’s no druids on the Council of Magic, and why Arthur didn’t think to ask a druid to become court sorcerer.

But he hasn’t seen Arthur in several days—and he’s not at all grumpy about that—so he hasn’t been able to ask.

“Bebiede þe arisan cwicum,” Merlin says carelessly, not even particularly thinking about the statue or the spell, but only about the druids that are coming to the castle and getting out from underneath Baradoc’s thumb for the day so that he might be able to find Gwen or maybe even Arthur—

The dog statue ripples for a second, and then there’s an animal barking in Merlin’s face. He only just manages to keep it from ripping into him by sending it flying through the room. It makes a pitiful noise that has Merlin feeling sorry for it before it’s back to growling at Baradoc and throws himself at him instead—probably hoping for a less magically-inclined victim.

“Stop him!” Ead calls out, who’d been quietly working on her own spells in the corner. All in all, it means there’s three sorcerers against one dog who used to be a statue. Baradoc calls out in a mixture of pain and confusion as he’s thrown to the ground.

Merlin wishes he’d learnt the spell to undo statues as well, and he grabs the spellbook in blind panic, quickly looking at the spells. It’s not mentioned at all, and Merlin just stares helplessly at the dog as Baradoc finally manages to throw him back, although not until it’s sunk his teeth into his shoulder.

The dog howls and makes for the door, and then it’s clattering down the stairs.

“For God’s sake, boy,” Baradoc snaps at Merlin, holding onto his shoulder tightly. 

“It’s not my fault!” Merlin protests, and runs towards the stairs. “Is there a spell to reverse that? I didn’t—I just did what you told me to do!”

“It’s meant to make the statue come alive, not to turn it into a wild, vicious animal!”

Ead shuts them both up as she looks out the window. “It’s a larger problem than that.”

“What?” Merlin asks, and comes to stand next to her. Ead doesn’t answer, largely because she doesn’t have to—the problem is pretty obvious. It’s not just the dog statue that had come to life. It’s all the statues, and Merlin watches as some knights clank around in armours that were stone only minutes earlier.

He winces. That is going to be hard to explain.

“That,” Baradoc says pointedly, “is not part of that spell. What did you do?”

“I don’t know,” Merlin says, and grabs the book again. He wishes he could read a little better. Although his skill is improving with every day, it’s virtually impossible for him to look at a page and know its meaning, and he can’t just leaf through the pages like Gwen does. Baradoc grabs the book from his hands roughly.

“There has to be a counter-spell,” Baradoc murmurs to himself, and Ead cranes to read along over his neck. Merlin is entirely forgotten, and he takes one step back, and then two—until he’s at the stairs, and can run down.

It’s Leon he runs into first, who’s standing with Elyan, another one of the knights and Gwen’s brother. Merlin had only met him one or two times, but he’s about to meet him for a third, apparently; when Leon catches sight of him, he holds up his hand to halt him, and Merlin straightens his back.

“Merlin?” Leon says, his face tight. “Do you have any idea what’s happened to all the statues in the courtyard?”

There’s a surprised scream from upstairs, and Merlin winces. “Not just the courtyard,” he says hurriedly. “There was—it’s not my fault, really, but there was this spell—”

“Did you cast it?” Leon asks.

Merlin bites the inside of his cheek. “Erm. Yes?”

“And can you fix it?” Elyan asks, a little more pointedly, although most of it seems to be aimed at Leon rather than at Merlin. “Before there’s anyone who’s seriously injured?”

“Well, I don’t really know what I did,” Merlin says.

Leon casts his eyes to the sky. “The druids just arrived, and they’re with Arthur in the throne room,” he says. “Elyan, you’ll make sure that they are aware of the situation and to stay with the king. I’ll go with Merlin.”

“Go where?” Merlin splutters, even when Elyan disappears without a moment’s hesitation.

Leon takes him by the shoulder and pushes him towards the staircase he just came from. “The sorcerers,” he points out. “One of you will be able to solve this, won’t you? And it’s best that it's sooner rather than later.”

It’s a rational thought, but Merlin wrenches himself loose from Leon’s grip. “They’re looking into it,” he tells him. “Can I—the battlements.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” he says, and the shame burns his cheeks when Leon looks at him. “I just—it’ll work better if I can see, I think. I can try and undo it, but I don’t really know what happened, so it’s just going to be a guess.”

Leon looks at him for a long second, and Merlin rubs his arm. Then Leon nods. “Let’s go,” he says, and Merlin runs for it. Leon keeps up with him easily, even though Merlin is breathing hard and feels sweat pouring down his face when they’ve finally made it up all the stairs and are standing on top of the castle. From up here, the statues are even clearer. They are no longer made of stone, but they move as if they are—as if they don’t know any other way to move.

“Okay,” Merlin says, more for his own benefit than Leon’s, and stretches out his hand. He can feel the magic that’s running through the statues, and he closes his eyes to focus on it even more. He did something—and it wasn’t the spell that he was supposed to use. He just let his magic free, and he shouldn’t have.

But maybe he can reign it back in.

There’s no spoken words this time; in all likelihood, it wasn’t the words that caused the spell the first time. But Merlin feels for the magic and asks it nicely to stretch back, and it does. It slowly dissipates into nothingness, and when he opens his eyes again, there’s several scattered statues in the courtyard.

He breathes out in relief. 

“So what happened?” Leon asks, and Merlin twirls around to find the knight staring at him thoughtfully. 

“I just,” Merlin starts, and frowns. “I was trying to do a spell, but my thoughts wandered a little bit, and I didn’t—I’m still not really sure, actually. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, I swear.”

“It’s not me you have to convince of that, Merlin,” Leon says, and offers him a small smile. “Come on, you’re coming with me to the king.”

Merlin blinks. “We’re seeing Arthur?”

“Well, I’m sure he’s very interested in your explanation,” Leon says, and Merlin’s heart sinks.

He’d hoped that Arthur might be able to laugh it off.

Instead, it’s dead quiet after Leon has finished giving Arthur—and by extension, the two druids that are with him in his chambers—his explanation of the events, in addition to what Merlin had told him. Merlin shuffles behind Leon, chancing looks at Arthur in between keeping his eyes on his boots.

“That does explain the peculiar magic that we felt,” one of the druids says, and when Merlin looks up, it’s to find the grey-haired man smiling at him. “It really has happened. Emrys has been found.”

“I’m sorry?” Arthur says, and turns around. 

“Emrys,” the other druid says. He is a fair bit younger, with dark skin and eyes, and laughter lines around his mouth. “There is a myth that the druids have. They speak of the greatest sorcerer this world will ever know, and the world he will bring. He is tied to the return of magic, and a great many other things, besides. We call him Emrys.”

“He’s a boy,” Arthur says, and he isn’t snapping, necessarily, but there’s a terse edge to his words. “A boy who can’t control the magic he’s being taught—”

“Wordless magic,” the grey-haired druid says. “Aglain is right. It’s an odd magic that we sensed. It’s not the kind of magic that is taught. Boy—what is your name?”

“Merlin, my lord,” Merlin says quietly. Arthur is clearly unhappy, and the druids are making very little sense.

“I am Iseldir,” the druid tells him kindly. “How did you learn your magic? How did you cast this spell?”

Merlin bites his lower lip. “It just happened!” he bursts out. “It’s always been like this, and I’ve tried to be better at it, but sometimes my mind wanders, and it’s not my fault. And if I’m not using magic, I’m nothing, but Baradoc’s lessons make no sense, and how he’s going about this—”

“Because you were born with it,” Aglain interrupts. “Born with magic in a way that no one else ever has been. Because you are magic.”

Merlin swallows. “I don’t know about that.”

“Your lessons might teach you a degree of control,” Iseldir says. “But your spells won’t work the way that any other sorcerer’s will. It is a unique path you are on, young Emrys.”

“That’s not my name.”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, a warning clear in his voice, and he turns towards the druids. “He’s only sixteen. He’ll be my court sorcerer, one day, but there is danger in uncontrolled magic. He’s talented, I’ll grant you that. But he is young.”

“Every great man was once a child,” Iseldir says sensibly. “He is Emrys. He is the god of magic.”

Now that’s a bit much. “I’m what?”

“I think perhaps it’s best if we pick this up again another day,” Arthur says, pressing his thumb to his forehead. “Leon, would you mind directing Iseldir and Aglain to their chambers? We’ll have to work hard to prepare everything for the banquet tonight, and I’d like a moment with Merlin.”

“Yes, my lord,” Leon says, and eyes Merlin with a somewhat pitying look as he leaves with Aglain and Iseldir. Merlin swallows and folds his hands behind his back. He’s seen some of the noblemen on Arthur’s council do that, and he thought it might be a good way to stop himself from fidgeting.

He thinks he might look a bit ridiculous, though, and watches as Arthur lets himself fall into a chair with a heavy sigh.

“Sit,” Arthur says, and gestures at the chair opposite him. Merlin takes the opportunity not to stand around like a moron, and sits, wrapping his ankles around the chair legs. Arthur stares at him for a second. “Have you ever met any druids before?”

“No,” Merlin says, feeling a bit defensive. “I would’ve said if I’d known anything about—this god of magic thing, or the magic without spells, or—”

“I’m not calling you a liar, you moron,” Arthur says, and runs a hand over his face. “I merely wanted to know. I suppose it’s a good thing that the druids approve of you.”

“I don’t see why it matters,” Merlin tells him. “It doesn’t change anything about who I am. I’m still just Merlin, and I still can do the same things I could before. And—”

“—and you still don’t have an ounce of control,” Arthur says, his voice suddenly hard. “What if you hadn’t known how to undo the statues, Merlin? What if we’d had them wreaking havoc around the castle for the rest of the day, with no idea how to stop them? I took a leap of faith in giving you this position, and if you can’t handle it—”

“I am handling it!” Merlin snaps, throwing up his arms. “You’re the one who’s calling me just a boy, and I am trying to learn, but none of these spells make any sense to me! And I don’t know if it’s because I can’t read, or if it’s because my magic’s different, but just because it went wrong once—”

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says, and it’s enough to shut Merlin right up. “You are right. You are still only a boy.”

“I’m not,” Merlin says. “I’m trying to learn, Arthur, but I’m only just beginning. I promise, no more outbreaks of magic—I’ll focus, I swear. But I’m not some child, and I don’t want you to see me like that. I’m sixteen.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen you,” Arthur says quietly.

So instead of going to the banquet, Merlin goes to sulk in his room.

It might not prove his maturity to Arthur. It might not be where he wants to be; from his window, he can hear the distant voices of the guests who go to the courtyard to cool off for a moment. But he feels as if he’s been thrown off kilter, and he isn’t sure he’d actually enjoy the feast.

He doesn’t think he can bear another second of Aglain and Iseldir staring at him like that, as if he’s a myth come to life. And he can’t sit by Arthur’s side without thinking of Arthur’s quiet confession, knocking the breath out of Merlin’s lungs.

Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen you. It feels as if he’s already lost his position before he’s even had a chance to properly prepare for it. He wants it, and it doesn’t matter if he can’t explain to Morgana why he does. He can’t lose it like this.

There’s a knock on the door. Merlin is sitting on his bed, his knees drawn up to his chin. “Come in,” he calls out, but makes no move to get up.

It’s Gwen, smiling kindly at him when the door creaks open. “I was wondering where you’d be.”

“I don’t think I’m that hard to find,” Merlin says, a little sourly despite the fact Gwen hasn’t done anything to deserve that. “Aren’t you going to the feast?”

“Aren’t you?” she asks in return, and comes to sit on the edge of his bed, her hand on Merlin’s knee. “Elyan told me what happened. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m not a child,” Merlin says.

Gwen tilts her head. “I didn’t say that you were,” she says kindly. “Did Arthur? Is that why you’re upset?”

“No,” Merlin says, and looks down. “Maybe. He just—he said he wasn’t sure if he should’ve chosen me. And I don’t know. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I can’t do this.”

“That’s no way to think, Merlin,” Gwen says, and pinches him a bit to make him look at her. “Look at how much you’ve been learning! There’s been so much to focus on, and maybe you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed. But that’s no reason to stop now.”

Merlin isn’t sure where he’d go if he had to leave Camelot. Ealdor is no longer an option, but there’s no other place he knows. He likes Camelot, despite it all—likes the buzzing activity in the citadel and the crowds of people and all the noise they make. It awes and humbles him in turns, and he wants to be part of it.

But he isn’t entirely sure how to get there.

“He’s going to send me away,” Merlin says flatly. “Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow. But he doesn’t like me, and he thinks I’m a child, and he doesn’t take me seriously. He’s such an arse—”

“Merlin,” Gwen interrupts, and raises her eyebrows at him.

“Sorry,” Merlin mutters. 

“I don’t think he meant it,” Gwen tells him, her voice low as if she’s telling him a well-kept secret. “I’ve heard him talk with Morgana about you—they’re very impressed with your improvement. He’s anxious too, Merlin, you’re forgetting that. He’s still only twenty-four, and he’s already king, and a lot of people are relying on him to get it right. And he’s doing an entirely new thing in legalising magic and befriending the druids. He’s putting a lot of faith in you to be his new court sorcerer when you’re of age.”

Merlin bites the inside of his cheek. Twenty-four feels like a lifetime to him; for him, it’s a whole eight years away. It’s unthinkable, being twenty-four. But perhaps Gwen is right. Merlin already wants to hole up in his chamber just for the few people hounding him about the few duties he has, and no one actually relies on him for anything. It’s hard to imagine what it must be like, being king.

The anger dissipates, just a bit. “He’s still a prat for saying it,” Merlin says, just because he can. “But I understand, I suppose. But he’s just not letting me help him.”

Gwen smiles. “And it’s kind of you to want to help him,” she says. “But I think he has to figure this one out by himself, Merlin.”

A shout outside leaves them both looking around towards the open window. It’s just two drunkards walking outside, leaving the feast. Merlin frowns. “Do you think I could still go to the feast?” he asks. “It’s just—I’ve never seen one before.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Gwen says, and grabs his hand to tug him off his bed. “Of course you can.”

The morning after, the castle is filled with people regretting the night. Merlin, who’s only had a half cup of wine, and watered down—and thank you for that, Gwen—watches them all go about their day, sitting on top of one of the stairs leading down to the courtyard. He has the morning off; undoubtedly because all his mentors are still in bed, nursing their headaches.

“I suppose I should apologise,” a familiar voice says above him, and Merlin cranes up his neck to watch the king of Camelot. Arthur huffs out a breath and slowly sits down next to him. His face is a bit pale, but his eyes are bright as he looks over the courtyard with Merlin.

“I don’t know,” Merlin says. He hadn’t talked to Arthur the evening before, even though he’d spotted him. The most vicious part of his anger has abated, but there’s still the sting of rejection that he can’t quite put behind him. “I suppose that depends on whether you mean it.”

“Fair enough,” Arthur mutters, and they both watch as a half-asleep stable boy gets startled awake by his neighing horse. He can’t be any older than Merlin, but he certainly didn’t have Gwen to chaperone him.

Merlin has never done well with quiet, as a general rule, and sitting next to Arthur is making him antsy. He blurts out, “You were anxious, weren’t you? About the druids’ visit. And you think I mucked it up.”

“I don’t think that,” Arthur says carefully, and looks at Merlin for the first time since he sat down. “What makes you think I was worried? I’m the king of Camelot.”

“That’s exactly why,” Merlin says. “Must be hard.”

“My father trained me for this.”

Merlin snorts. “Sorry, my lord,” he says. “It’s just—your father wasn’t a perfect king, was he? He hated magic, and he left you with a fractured kingdom, and you don’t even have that many allies. Isn’t that the most important part of being king?”

Arthur raises a singular eyebrow at him. “And what do you know of kingship, Merlin, pray tell?”

“I know that purging part of your citizens doesn’t help,” Merlin says wisely, and draws up his knees under his chin. “If you don’t want me, Arthur, because you think I’m too young, or because—because you don’t like me, or my magic, that’s fine.” It’s not. But he doesn’t need to say that. “But if I’m staying, I want to learn how to help you. And you can’t tell me that you shouldn’t have chosen me. Because if you tell me to go one more time, I’ll take you up on it.”

Arthur slowly nods. “Not entirely useless, are you,” he says, and jostles his shoulder against Merlin’s to soften the insult into something fonder. “You’re right, and I am sorry. Even if I had my doubts, I shouldn’t have told you like that.”

“And you have those?” Merlin says, and presses his lips together. “Doubts?”

Arthur sighs. “I’m twenty-four, Merlin, and I get comments daily about my age as a ruler,” he says tiredly. “You’re still a child in the eyes of the council, and it doesn’t matter how mature you behave, or how talented you are. They will look down on you for it, and you don’t have any sort of status to protect you besides what I’ve given you. And if you don’t learn to control your magic…”

“I will,” Merlin says hastily. “And I’ll grow up.”

“I can’t ask you to help me with everything,” Arthur warns him. “But you’re right. If I want you to learn these things, you must be taught first. But, Merlin—make sure you get your magic under control. You’re powerful, but if I know anything…” He looks away again, a pensive expression on his face, and Merlin knows he’s thinking about something else. “Power is worth nothing if you don’t know how to use it.”

There’s more of an understanding between them from then on. Merlin, when he’s between his own lessons, sometimes sits with Arthur as he’s reading his textbooks, and once or twice he’s even allowed into a council session—just to watch. Arthur tells him about Camelot’s allies and the peace treaties he’s trying to make, and the complaints that people bring to him. Mostly, he talks to Merlin about the issues with magic.

There’s nothing Merlin can really do except give his thoughts on them. They are intricate problems that require intricate solutions, and Merlin isn’t entirely sure how to help Arthur, but Arthur never mentions that to him. He seems thoughtful, even, at the suggestions Merlin offers.

Slowly, Merlin begins to grasp Gwen’s reading lessons, and it seems that the more he learns, the faster it goes. After another month, he begins to slowly start writing for himself, and he understands most of the words. It’s not just Gwen; Arthur helps him too, letting Merlin read his letters, in order to get him used to more people’s handwriting.

“It doesn’t say that,” Merlin says, scowling down at the letter. “That’s just a squiggle! Those aren’t letters.”

“They are, Merlin,” Arthur says, but he’s laughing. “Kings write down their names so often that they become somewhat illegible, at times. This is why I’m letting Geoffrey write all the important things.”

“You do that too?” Merlin demands, and peers down at the letter from King Rodor—although he still can’t make out the name. “That’s just horrible. Learn how to write your own name! And properly!”

Arthur smiles. “You’ll do the same, one day.”

“Absolutely not,” Merlin says. “Gwen is complimenting my penmanship. I’m still slow, but at least you can read mine. I thought kings were supposed to be taught how to write from birth. How is he still so bad at it?”

“The rest of the letter isn’t as bad,” Arthur points out. “Come on, start from the second paragraph. Read it to me, if you’re insisting on being useful.”

Merlin peers down, his tongue sticking in between his lips and his finger finding the right place on the slightly-yellowed parchment. Arthur is right that Rodor’s letter isn’t as horribly illegible as his signature, but it’s still clear that he wrote in a hurry. Merlin has learnt to recognise that, too—the messy strokes and the blotted ink over the pages.

“He’s just asking you about your trade deal,” Merlin says, his eyes flitting over the words as fast as he dares to go. “Your wheat for his cabbages? Is that—yes, cabbage.”

“Read what he’s writing,” Arthur says sternly.

“Fine, if you want to waste your own time.” Merlin sniffs and rubs a sleeve along his nose. “He says, In order to—to ask—sorry, ascertain, not ask, he says… In order to ascertain that our people have plenty to eat in the coming months, I would like to propose… erm—propose a—what’s this word?”

Arthur cranes his neck to look over Merlin’s shoulder. His breath is warm against Merlin’s cheek, and Merlin stills entirely until Arthur leans away again. “Negotiation. It’s when—”

“I know what it means, you clotpole,” Merlin says. “I just didn’t know you wrote it like that.”

“Clotpole?”

“I know many words,” Merlin says, smirking at Arthur. Arthur just shakes his head, but Merlin can see the small smile that graces his lips, and feels oddly smug at the thought that Arthur might actually like him as a person, and not just for what Merlin can do for Camelot. “This one’s made specifically for you.”

“Just continue,” Arthur says, and waves his hand at Merlin as he closes his eyes. He’d be so much faster if he read his letters himself instead of letting Merlin stumble over them, and Merlin preens a bit before he puts his finger on the word. Negotiation. He’ll have to make sure to remember that one.

“I would like to propose a negotiation about our current trade pertaining to your wheat harvest,” Merlin continues, making sure to go slow and steady. It’s a trick Gwen taught him. It gives him more time to read, and he’s more understandable at the same time. “We have had bad luck with our own harvests this year, and we are now—sorry, not, we are not able to trade with you in the am—amounts that we had thought previously. Moreover, we are—”

“You can stop there,” Arthur says, and now he’s frowning. “He’s not the only one who has reported a bad year of crops. It’ll mean many people will suffer from starvation.”

“But you can trade, can’t you?” Merlin asks.

Arthur presses his lips together. “Yes, and so we will. But if there’s a shortage everywhere, it won’t matter how much we trade. In fact, it might be better to trade as little as we can to keep the prices lower, and so give the poorest people more to eat.”

“But how can everyone have a shortage?”

“You’re from a farming village, aren’t you?”

Merlin shrugs. “My mum is the seamstress. I didn’t hang around the farms much—I’ve helped, though; everyone did when it was time for harvesting. And when we had a particularly bad winter, I made an apple tree in my mum’s garden. I wasn’t supposed to, and she cut it down after the winter was over. But then we had plenty of wood for the winter after that, at least.”

Arthur is staring. “Like you did when you first met with us?”

“It’s just apples,” Merlin says. “It was a smaller one than the one I did for you, though. I must’ve been seven or eight—didn’t really know what I was doing yet.”

“Ten years ago,” Arthur says slowly. “We had a very bad winter, I remember. A very long one. A lot of people died. Your village must’ve been hit by it too—most kingdoms were, if I recall. I was only fourteen. It was a few months before my knighting ceremony.”

Merlin shrugs. “I’m not sure. I just knew it was cold, and we didn’t have enough food, and my magic could do something about it. She’d always taught me not to use it, so my mum was very worried, but it was the backyard, and our house was at the end of the village, so it wasn’t very visible. Not a lot of people who willingly left their home, anyway, except to trade at the market at the next village over. I think I just wanted an apple pie, maybe.”

“It’s a solution, though,” Arthur says slowly, and taps the letter from Rodor. “You can make apples. Can you grow other food? With just the seed, or if we already have them planted—you could help them grow?”

Merlin blinks. “I suppose,” he says. “I’ve never really tried. It’d take a lot more magic to do it for a whole kingdom, though. An apple tree is one thing, but crops are a lot of living things.”

“Is that something the druids are capable of doing?” Arthur asks. 

“I don’t know,” Merlin says honestly. “I don’t think I’ve heard Diarmuid mention it.” Diarmuid is the only one of the Council of Magic who has any affiliation with the druids; he spent his youth with them, he’d mentioned once. Ead and Baradoc, both from Camelot, have little knowledge of the druids. “And I haven’t seen any spells like it in the spellbook I’ve been going through with Gwen, but we haven’t read all of it yet.”

“But you can do it.”

Merlin shifts in his seat. “Sure, yeah, I think so. But I can’t do it for everyone at once, and it’ll take—a lot of magic. A lot of it, Arthur. You’ll need to train a lot of sorcerers for that kind of thing, and I’m not sure there’s an existing spell for it.”

“It’s something to consider for the future,” Arthur says, but he’s frowning deeply. “Are you sure there’s no spell?”

“I just told you I’m not sure,” Merlin says. “I don’t know.”

That seems to shock Arthur back to the present, and he looks at Merlin. It’s that odd look again—as if he’s weighing him, assessing his capabilities and what he still needs to learn. Merlin raises his eyebrows meaningfully, because he doesn’t like that look. 

“I suppose I can’t expect you to have all the answers yet,” Arthur says, more lighthearted than the moment feels. 

“Prat,” Merlin just says. “I can mention it to the others, and we can see if there’s a spell to be found. Otherwise—I can teach them, maybe.” He tries to think about teaching others. Not now, but sometime in the future, after those five years have passed and when Merlin can mean something. It still fills him with doubt. “When I’ve finished my own education, and we’ve found others who can be sorcerers.”

“You want to… train them?” Arthur sounds sceptical.

Merlin shrugs. “Why not?” he says with more bravado than he feels. “Isn’t that what you want me to do when I’m finished?” He doesn’t want to mention being a court sorcerer—it feels too distant, and too large. It still looms over him.

“I hadn’t really thought about that,” Arthur says slowly. “That might work. We don’t have nearly as many sorcerers as there were before the Purge.”

The answer to that sits on Merlin’s tongue: you burnt them all. But that’s not Arthur’s fault, or if it ever was, he’s now working doubly hard to undo all that pain and suffering. It’ll take them a long time to heal from the Purge, he thinks; he was never personally affected by it, but it’s not hard to see how it would have changed Camelot. 

“We can’t change everything right away,” Merlin says sympathetically. The more time he spends with Arthur, the more aware he becomes of the many intricacies of the issues Arthur deals with. It can’t be easy for him, upending his father’s rule and figuring out a way to return magic to society at large. Lifting the ban is one thing—bringing magic back is another.

But Merlin will help him with that. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but one day.

“You’re right,” Arthur sighs, and smiles kindly at him. Merlin swallows hard, his heart skipping a beat. “When did you get so wise, then?”

“I didn’t get it from you, that’s for sure,” Merlin tells him, and receives a playful swat to the back of his head for his trouble.

Merlin has been in Camelot for just over half a year by the time the midwinter feast rolls around. Arthur’s birthday is a few days later, so preparations are well underway for both Samhain and for the king’s twenty-fifth birthday when Arthur decides to sit down with the entire Council of Magic to discuss their progress.

It’s not just Hilga, Baradoc, Ead, and Diarmuid who have joined them; Lady Morgana sits on Arthur’s right side, and Gaius on his left. Merlin hasn’t talked much with the physician yet except to get a tincture for a burn when a fire spell had gone slightly awry, and he’s not entirely sure why Gaius is joining them, but he figures there must be a reason. Gaius is one of the older advisors Arthur has, and the Purge was only twenty-four years ago, when Gaius was already well into adulthood. Maybe his knowledge is from that period.

“We haven’t seen much increase in the way that magic is used outside of the citadel,” Morgana is reporting, her brows furrowed so that it looks as if she’s disapproving of everything she is reading. “We’ve heard from towns that there is still a lot of fear of sorcerers. There’s been a handful of executions—that we know of, at least.”

She sounds frustrated, which is more than understandable. Ead tries, “But the citadel has been improving, hasn’t it?”

“Slightly, yes,” Morgana says. “Not as much as we’d hoped. The fact that there’s sorcerers in the castle openly using magic helps, admittedly, but there are still concerns.”

“About what?” Baradoc asks, leaning forward. 

“People who might not agree with lifting the ban,” Arthur sighs. He looks beyond weary, and leans his head against his hand. “Many of my generation grew up being taught to fear magic—and they are the strong young men and women of the citadel. Everyone who knew magic before the Purge is my father’s age or older, and all the people who approved of magic left the citadel.”

“There are few who stayed,” Gaius agrees. “But not everyone left, Sire.”

Arthur smiles. “No, they didn’t. Still, it presents a problem. I’m not sure how to change everyone’s minds. I’m quite sure that I can’t, even beyond changing the law.”

“It’s because we have the king’s protection,” Merlin says, and there’s suddenly a number of eyes on him.

“What do you mean?” Morgana asks, leaning back in her chair as she appraises him. 

“It’s—what Arthur said,” Merlin says, and presses his lips together. “Anyone who might want to use magic is afraid of being hated by anyone who doesn’t like magic. And there’s still executions happening, you said so, but they think it can’t reach us. We here, using magic within the castle, are under the king’s protection, so we’re not really inspiring anyone outside the castle to be free with their magic. We’re not in the same position as they are.”

It’s silent for a moment. “I’d hoped that finding a court sorcerer and appointing a Council of Magic might’ve helped with that,” Arthur says eventually.

“It probably did, my lord,” Diarmuid says, and eyes Merlin for a moment. “But the boy is right. As soon as you made us an official entity, we did have a degree of protection other people in the citadel do not have. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re still hesitant.”

“You have to prove it to them,” Merlin tells Arthur, and for a second, it feels like it’s just the two of them. “Prove to them that they’ve nothing to be scared of. That you are on their side, on the side of magic, and that you’ll protect them just as you’d protect us. If you can do that, they’ll start using magic again.”

“I think it’s a solid idea,” Arthur says, and smiles at him. “We’ll get working on ways to do that soon enough—for now, there’s more we need to discuss. For example, Merlin’s progress.”

“Oh, great,” Merlin complains, but while even Baradoc gives him a review that might not be glowing, necessarily, he does begrudgingly admit that Merlin’s control and skills have improved substantially over the last half year.

Merlin preens, just a bit.

Winter passes, slow and steady. For the first time in his life, Merlin doesn’t need to huddle up to his mother during the nights, but can instead hide under his blanket. He wonders how she is doing—how Ealdor is doing, and if they’ve missed him at all. 

If his mum is still okay without him there.

Arthur’s twenty-fifth birthday comes and goes, and time moves on and on. Merlin learns to read, learns to use magic, learns what capacity Arthur might need help in. Even Morgana seems to have warmed up to him, although that might have to do with Merlin attempting to win over her friendship by buying her honey cakes with his allotted money.

It’s not a bribe, he explains to Gwen when she amusedly catches him with the honey cakes at the market. It’s a trading deal, like Arthur makes all the time. Except it’s honey cakes for friendship, and it’s working, so she shouldn’t be criticising him.

And then, just to make sure she doesn’t tell Morgana, he gives her a cake as well.

Slowly, it starts to feel as if there’s a place for him in Camelot. As if this might truly be home, and as if he might have friends here in a way he’s never really had before. But Gwen is his friend, and her brother Elyan always makes sure to stop for a chat in the castle, and Merlin is slowly getting to know everyone in the castle by name. There’s George, Arthur’s manservant, and several of the knights—Leon, and Gwaine, and even Gaius always has time to sit down with Merlin and teach him a bit more about the history of magic users. 

And, of course, there’s Arthur. And Arthur rarely has time for anything, but it seems he always has a moment or two for Merlin—it doesn’t matter if it’s to teach him a word that Merlin hasn’t learnt how to write, or if it’s to give him some helpful advice in dealing with a comment made by Baradoc, or even just to ask him how he’s doing. Arthur is unfailingly kind even through his insults, and Merlin likes it. He likes teasing Arthur, and likes that he’s the only one who calls him by his first name, and likes the way that Arthur’s eyes crinkle when he’s amused.

Arthur’s a prat. But in so many ways, he’s also really not.

It’s been nearly a year of living in Camelot when Elyan invites Merlin to the tavern. The edge of winter is settling in, cold but bright as the sun insists on staying up later, and the knights are celebrating—something. Merlin isn’t entirely sure on the details, but Elyan is very kind about it, insisting that Merlin, as part of Arthur’s household, is more than welcome. Arthur is coming too, he says, and Gwen and Gwaine and even Morgana might show up—

Merlin was convinced as soon as he mentioned Arthur, which is how he ends up sitting in between several knights that are all several years older than him, their eyes merrily glinting from all the ale they’ve been drinking.

“Bottoms up, boys!” Gwaine exclaims, and hands Merlin his own ale. “The scary lady’s made me water down yours, but I managed to convince her to let you have some. Think you can manage it?”

Merlin’s eyes flit towards Gwen, who’s innocently standing in the corner with Morgana. He wonders which one of them is the scary lady.

“When did you start drinking?” he asks Gwaine, and takes his own mug. Ale smells terrible, and he much prefers some of the wine that they usually have at feasts. Gwen makes him water that down, too, but it’s far fruitier and sweeter. All the men are drinking ale, though, and Merlin doesn’t like to stand out.

He isn’t a child.

“Oh, far too early,” Gwaine says cheerfully, and slings an arm around Merlin’s shoulder. “But I’ve been told that you need to be careful with your magic, and I wouldn’t like to be responsible for the castle falling down!”

Merlin sniffs his nose and takes a sip of the ale. It does taste bad, but he also thinks that watering it down doesn’t actually help the flavour. “I haven’t had any accident with my magic in ages,” he complains. “It’s under control.”

Gwaine laughs. “Fair enough, little friend,” he says, and gives Merlin his own cup. “I can see you scrunching up your nose—try this. It’s better without the water.”

Merlin takes a gulp. It still isn’t very good, but it does have a more noticeable flavour—a little bit more fruity, and bitter, and less like someone’s mixed a perfectly good drink with water. He holds onto it, even when Gwaine raises his eyebrows.

“I’ll just have the one,” he says sensibly. “You can have the other one.”

Gwaine laughs. “Just the one, mind,” he tells Merlin, and ruffles his hair. Merlin scowls and immediately attempts to flatten his hair again, and quickly looks in Arthur’s direction. Arthur is surrounded by his men, talking rapidly and with a dark flush on his own skin. He’s been drinking, too, and the joy looks good on him.

“Just the one,” Merlin replies absentmindedly, and doesn’t tear his gaze away from Arthur.

It isn’t just the one. Although it might not have mattered if it had been—it’s a large mug, and Merlin hasn’t had much to eat during the day, foregoing dinner in order to cram in some more hours of study. So by the time he sees the bottom of his first mug of ale, he’s already feeling the alcohol in his system, and doesn’t really notice when Elyan hands him another one.

“I sneaked it past Gwen,” Elyan says, and winks. “Just the one, alright, Merlin?”

“I won’t tell,” Merlin leans in to whisper, and Elyan leaves him to his own devices. 

He’s dragged into a game with dice that he doesn’t understand at all, with several knights he only knows by face and not by name. But it’s fun, and loads of people laugh with him, and new people bring him drinks. The taste gets better the more he drinks, and he loses at the game—he thinks, anyway—but none of it matters, because they like him, and he is having a good time.

And then there’s a hand on his shoulder. “Merlin?”

“Arthur!” Merlin exclaims, and proceeds to immediately fall over into the king’s side. His lack of coordination seems extraordinarily funny, and he snickers even as Arthur brings him back upright, looking at him solemnly.

“Who’s been giving you ale?” Arthur demands, and looks around him. “How many have you had?”

“It’s fine,” Merlin says, throwing up his hands, only to forget that he is still holding a mug of ale. The liquid sprays over the table, and he looks at it sheepishly. “Oops.”

“I’m bringing you back to the castle,” Arthur decides, and Merlin can feel how Arthur’s muscles ripple as he slings an arm around Merlin’s shoulder and tugs him along, allowing Merlin to lean against him. Arthur feels warm, and he smells of booze and sweat, and not at all nice. Still, Merlin lets his head fall back in the crook of Arthur’s neck.

“I don’t want to go,” he slurs out, and then there’s suddenly a blast of cold midnight air in his face, and he feels far more awake. Behind him, the muted sounds of the tavern suddenly sound very loud, and the way his vision twists and eludes him isn’t as comforting anymore. “I don’t think I feel so good.”

Arthur promptly aims Merlin away from him. “Don’t throw up on me, if you must.”

“Not like that,” Merlin protests, but his stomach churns as if to ask him if he’s certain about that. “I just—I’m woozy.”

“Come on, we’ll go sit you down, you idiot,” Arthur says, sounding oddly fond, and manhandles him away from the noise of the tavern. Arthur stops about three minutes away and pushes Merlin down on a lone bench in the streets, and sits down next to him. Merlin presses a hand to his forehead. He’s warm and a little miserable, but the cold air is slowly helping.

“I think I’m drunk,” he says pitiably.

“Yes, I think you are right about that,” Arthur tells him, and lays a hand on Merlin’s neck. “Lean forward if you’re feeling ill. We’ll get you into your bed, and then I’ll tell Baradoc not to bother you in the morning about practising magic. This is a lesson every man has to learn.”

“Ugh,” Merlin exclaims, and leans forward like Arthur suggested. It doesn’t do as much as he hoped it might, except make his stomach roll again, but after a while, even that discomfort goes away. The world is still gently rolling before his eyes, though, making him feel as if he’s floating. 

Eventually—and Merlin has no idea how much time has passed—Arthur tugs at him. “Time for bed,” he says, not unsympathetically. “You won’t feel too bad in the morning, I hope. You’re still young.”

“Right,” Merlin says, and leans his head against Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur is so warm and kind, he thinks somewhat drunkenly, very aware that his thoughts are being influenced by the ale and not caring one whit about it. Arthur is nice, even now that he is tired and probably wanted to be in bed already, and Merlin is slowing him down. 

In fact, Arthur’s arms around him are strong and muscled, and oh, Merlin would really like to keep holding onto him. Arthur is nearly carrying him at this point, Merlin’s stumbling feet unlikely to get him to his bed, and Merlin’s head lolls against Arthur every few seconds. Arthur seems unbothered by it, and just hoists Merlin upright every time he threatens to fall over.

“We’re here,” Arthur tells him, and the door to Merlin’s chambers creaks open. 

“Already?” Merlin says, blinking hard. Merlin can’t entirely remember walking the two sets of stairs required to get to his rooms. Arthur is grinning at him, his eyes a little bit red but bright with humour, and Merlin leans forward without even really thinking about it—

“What do you think you’re doing?”

And then Arthur’s expression is a thundercloud, threatening to hit him with lightning, and that sobers up Merlin more than anything else possible could’ve done. Their faces had been close, and now they aren’t, and Merlin finds himself leaning against the wall as Arthur moves away.

Gods. He’d tried to kiss him. Merlin’s face floods with embarrassment and shame, and he grabs weakly for his door. “Sorry,” he manages to get out, “I didn’t—sorry, I’ll just—”

And he throws his door shut in the king of Camelot’s face, and promptly proceeds to throw up on the floor.

The following day is suspiciously fine. Merlin sleeps in late, and feels horrible until afternoon rolls around, at which point he sneaks to the kitchen to get some food. He sees Arthur only from afar, and makes sure to stay away from both him and the knights, in case Arthur had shared something that Merlin would have preferred he didn’t.

He thinks about packing his bags. He thinks about how there’s nowhere to go. He thinks about Arthur, rather more than he should, perhaps, and how Merlin doesn’t want to leave him. 

So the first day is—fine, somewhat, even if Merlin works himself into a panic. Hilga comes to check up on him, and Gaius hands him a tincture for the remaining headache, and neither of them mention Merlin’s ill-advised attempt at kissing Arthur or seem to pity him for more than just his horrible night of drinking, so he thinks it’s safe to assume that Arthur hasn’t told the entire castle.

Merlin buries himself in his magic books, and when he wakes up the day after to loud knocking on his door, it’s to find himself asleep on the page about gargoyles. Arthur had joked about them to him, once, and Merlin stares at the drawing for a second before he hoists himself up and opens the door.

And finds Arthur staring at him, with no more thunder on his face, but the second worst thing: utter blankness.

“Hi,” Merlin says weakly. 

Arthur’s lips twist, and then he presses them together. “Good morning, Merlin,” Arthur says politely, and then seems to notice the still-made state of Merlin’s bed, and the creases on Merlin’s face. “Or is it a late night?”

“Both,” Merlin suggests, and holds his door open for Arthur to enter. There’s no denying entrance to the king of Camelot, he thinks, and if Arthur is going to shout at him for this, then Merlin would rather have his door closed for it. Dread has climbed up his lungs and made its home there, and he swallows hard to fight the fear.

“I’ve no doubt you know why I’m here,” Arthur says, and he looks a bit awkward as he leans against Merlin’s table instead of taking a seat. He’s not planning to stay for long, then, which might be for the best.

The thing about Arthur, Merlin has learnt, is that he’s not very good at being neutral about things. Arthur’s feelings are always plain as day on his face, if you know what to look for—a disapproving furrowing of his brows, an amused twist of his lips, a curious sharpening of his gaze. If Arthur is making an attempt to conceal his feelings, it’s for Merlin’s benefit, doubtlessly. 

His heart sinks.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “That was—I was drunk, and I’ve never been drunk before, not like that! Well, there was this sort of wine in Ealdor that was far stronger than Will thought, and we stole a flask of that, one time, but we were fourteen, so it wasn’t—okay, that’s not the point. I’m not—you don’t have to send me away over this, Arthur, and it’s not as if I meant it! It was just the moment, and how you were looking—are you going to say anything?”

Arthur is just staring at him, and Merlin feels his cheeks flaring with heat. He crosses his arms defensively, and Arthur sighs. “Ale, unfortunately,” he says wryly, “sometimes brings out in us what we’d rather not acknowledge when we’re sober. Merlin, you’re sixteen.”

“Nearly seventeen,” Merlin says sullenly.

“Fine, nearly seventeen,” Arthur says, and pinches his nose. “We’re all a bit of an idiot at that age. I can’t fault you for being drunk, or even having—amorous ideas—”

“I don’t have any ideas!”

“—but you need to know when they are appropriate and when they aren’t,” Arthur finishes, although his cheeks have gone darker. “Lord knows that there are plenty of boys—”

“You don’t have to do this,” Merlin says. “Please, in fact, don’t. I know very well what boys do and don’t do, and where what goes, and what doesn’t go, and I have been through this once already with my mother, and I would really prefer it if you didn’t.”

Arthur slowly nods. “Thank God,” he mutters. “I wasn’t looking forward to that. Look, I know it might be hard to believe, but I have been where you are. I can’t blame you for—feeling certain things. But—” He sends Merlin a warning look when Merlin opens his mouth, “But you are young. You will get over this, and you will see that there are—plenty of men who are inclined in such a way, and who are appropriate ages for you.”

“I don’t want other men,” Merlin says plaintively, and bites the inside of his cheek as he realises how that sounds. “I mean—I’m fine. I’ll get over it.”

That doesn’t sound any better, and he presses his eyes shut in frustration for a second. He hadn’t realised, for all his thinking over the last day, that there was something to get over. But he realises it now, with Arthur in front of him and his own heart beating so fast and so loudly that it encompasses all he is at that moment. And he hadn’t allowed himself to think on it earlier, knowing very well that this is what Arthur would say.

That Merlin is a child, and even if he wasn’t—

Even if he wasn’t, then he wouldn’t be anything like what Arthur might imagine for himself. And Merlin can’t even picture it, really, because of course he hadn’t realised it. It’s not anything he would have acted on.

Unless, apparently, he were to be drunk and more than a little mad for Arthur.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Arthur tries. “I’m not sending you away, and your position remains the same. That’s the fortunate thing about youth—you’ll grow out of this, and you’ll find someone else to hold a place in your heart.” He smiles, for a moment, wry and reticent. “Someone who will be there to stay, one day.”

“What about you?” Merlin challenges him, despite the tightening of that fear in his lungs. “You said—you’ve been where I am.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Arthur says, and when Merlin wants to protest, he insists, “Merlin, it doesn’t matter. Not to you, and not to anyone else. And if you ask me one more time, I am really taking this as a sign you’re not mature enough to keep your nose out of other people's business.”

Merlin shuts right up, and Arthur runs a hand over his face.

“Sorry,” Merlin says again, hunching in on himself. He is feeling even more miserable than he was the morning right after; he doesn’t have the headache to distract himself this time. Arthur sends him one last glance, and frowns again.

And then he leaves Merlin to his magic books.

They don’t really talk about it, but then again, Merlin rarely talks with Arthur in the next few months, and certainly not one-on-one. Arthur always finds an excuse not to have to talk to him, and Merlin comes to miss him more than he thought he would. There’s thousands of little moments that Arthur would quietly check on him, to tease him or teach him, and Merlin feels a little lost now that they’re all gone. It really feels as if he’s on his own, suddenly, with Arthur no longer steadying him with a firm hand on his shoulder.

Winter passes and spring comes, and Merlin keeps learning. He spends three mornings a week with Gwen, and it’s become more of a friendly meet-up rather than any lessons in reading and writing. Merlin is still slow-going—especially with the writing, though he’s found that the more he reads, the better his spelling becomes—but he’s improved enough that he doesn’t need her guidance anymore.

“Have you ever thought about inviting your mother?” she suddenly asks, as if the thought has just occurred to her. Merlin can’t help but think she was waiting for a moment to bring it up.

“She won’t be able to make the journey,” Merlin says absentmindedly, and pokes at the fire in his hearth. With a small spell, it roars back to life, and his chambers are immediately much more comfortably warm. 

“I’m just… a little worried about you, Merlin,” she tells him, and winces when Merlin raises an eyebrow at her. “It’s just, I know that Camelot is still new for you, in a lot of ways. I don’t want you to be lonely. And you must miss her, and your village.”

Merlin finds it hard to breathe, for a moment, and thinks of air bubbles travelling up on the water. No, he doesn’t think he misses Ealdor.

“I’m not lonely,” is all he can think to say. He knows what this is about, what she’s trying to do, and Gwen sighs at the expression on his face. She’s never been good at lying, and Merlin doesn’t want to talk about this—doesn’t want to talk about Arthur. It only comes with a sense of mortification and guilt that he can’t rid himself of. 

She sits down next to him, dropping a gentle hand on his shoulder. “One day,” she says quietly, “you’ll tell me what Arthur said to you to make you avoid him. Merlin, he’s really not as bad as you think he is.”

It’s an assumption he doesn’t bother to correct. Arthur is avoiding him just as much, or perhaps even more—but he’s also busier, and he’s less likely to be blamed for not running into Merlin. And it’s easier for Merlin if everyone thinks that Arthur was rude to him, instead of—

Well, instead of what actually happened.

“I know,” Merlin says, and smiles tightly at her before he leans her head on her shoulder. 

“If you were just to talk to him,” Gwen stresses.

Merlin makes a noise. “I know,” he repeats, and bites the inside of his cheek. He wonders how long Arthur will remain uncomfortable around him. He wonders if he can invent a spell that will make him travel back in time so he can undo what he did. “He’s a prat, but he’s a good man. We’ll be fine, I promise.”

“He liked you,” she says quietly, and Merlin swallows heavily. “He doesn’t always get along with new people so easily, Merlin, but he does like you. It would be a shame if the both of you lose out on a friend because you’re both being stubborn.”

It’s not stubbornness, Merlin thinks to himself. It’s just stupidity, and he promises himself he’ll never drink any ale again if it leads to such a lack of self-control. Stupid, stupid, stupid, and endangering everything he’s ever wanted just for a chance to—

His cheeks burn hot, and he turns his head away from Gwen so she can’t see.

“It was my own fault, really,” he says quietly, and he isn’t even sure she can hear it. The shame churns in his stomach and his lungs, quietly eating him up. He can’t stand Arthur’s silence, but he can’t stand his nearness, either. Perhaps Arthur is right to make this choice for them both.

Merlin just hopes his mother’s age-old adage is correct; he hopes time does heal all wounds.

Chapter Text

Another day, and another one of Hilga and Gaius’ herb-collecting trips out in the woods. 

Merlin doesn’t always go with them anymore, content to stick to his own studies now that he can read books on his own time. There’s a measure of self-sufficiency he has now that he didn’t before. It’s just that Merlin’s choices were either to go with Hilga after his lesson with her had ended, or to sit with the king’s council.

The choice had been simple, really.

But then Hilga and Gaius had started investigating some herb patch that had been hidden under a bush, and Merlin had started wandering, only to find himself at what might be the nicest place in Albion.

It’s a lake.

Merlin has seen lakes before, but he’s never really had time to appreciate them. In Ealdor, there is a small river that he’d used to swim in as a boy. On his way to Camelot, he’d been in too much of a hurry to appreciate any of the bodies of water. None of them had been as beautiful as this, anyway.

The lake ripples, and a short wave laps at Merlin’s feet, as if enquiring if he’d like to take off his shoes. It shines in the sunlight, gold and bright, and there’s a sense of life around here that Merlin has never really known how to ignore. It’s everywhere, of course, but the lake feels as if it’s crawling with life, and with magic.

Merlin carefully dips his fingers in. The water feels cool, and he shudders for a second. The sun in spring is slow to warm water, he has always known that, but the goosebumps spread over his arm nonetheless.

“I feel you,” he murmurs slowly, and smiles. All his fears melt away entirely, with the sweet water of the lake lapping at his fingers as he crouches down deeper, and puts in his entire hand. There’s no concern about Arthur and his stance, and no thoughts about whether Gaius and Hilga might be looking for him.

The river laps at his wrist, and Merlin laughs in delight. “Yes, you feel me, too,” he says, enraptured. “Of course you feel me, I have all my fingers in the water. It’s like we’re shaking hands.”

The next wave is suddenly a far bit higher, and it comes from nowhere. It comes up to his waist, and then mysteriously stops, mid-wave. It lingers above Merlin’s arms, and gently, drops of water start falling on his skin. Merlin stares at it, open-mouthed.

“Do you want me to come in?” he wonders. The wave drips on his arms a bit more insistently, and then gently pushes itself up against his chest. It’s enough of an answer, and he regards the water for a second before he determinedly pulls off his tunic and tugs at his trousers.

It’s not really warm enough yet for swimming, let alone in just his underthings, and Merlin shivers as soon as his toes brush the lake. He’s determined, though, and the magic from the lake reaches out to him and settles him somewhat. Magic has never felt like this before. 

He dives in, just to make sure he can’t change his mind. He gasps right as his body hits the water, squealing, “By the gods, that’s cold,” and dives. Under the surface, the water is a little bit warmer, and it’s surprisingly clear. He sees the fish dart away from him, and he watches them for as long as he can hold his breath.

There must be something here, but there’s nothing he can make out beyond the bottom of the lake, far underneath him, and oddly-striped fish that don’t dare come anywhere near him. There must be something that gives the lake its magic, and Merlin darts under water, trying to find what it is.

And when he can’t hold his breath anymore, he breaks the surface again, and finds himself face-to-face with a girl.

She isn’t just a girl, he realises as soon as he gets his breath back. Her hair is dark, and it is dry around her face despite being in the middle of a lake. She is a little bit see-through, just enough for the outline of the island in the distance to be visible. Merlin swallows.

“Hello,” she says, and smiles brightly. “I sensed you.”

“Hello,” Merlin echoes, a little struck. “Are you a nymph? I’ve never met a nymph before.”

Her smile tilts into something softer. “No, I’m not a nymph. I’m the Lady of the Lake. I’ve been living here—oh, a long time. Longer than you’ve been alive.”

“Your magic is very strong,” Merlin offers, and recalls right away how that compliment usually fares with him. “I mean, that’s good, but mostly I meant that it feels nice. It’s warm.”

“So does yours,” she says. “You’re Emrys, aren’t you?”

That’s the second time he’s heard that name, and Merlin presses his lips together. “My name’s Merlin,” he says, and shrugs. “I’m not really sure who else I am, but I might be. I mean, the druids—never mind that.”

She regards him for a second, and Merlin wonders if she will let it go. Then she cups her hands, and says, “Would you like to do some water magic?”

“Yeah,” Merlin says, his heart beating fast. He thinks his face might threaten to split open from how much he is grinning. “I would love that.”

When Merlin had first been chosen to be Arthur’s court sorcerer—in five years, of which there are four remaining—he had thought it would be a life of glory. A life in which he’d help a powerful king to make all decisions about magic and the people who use it, and in which he would make a difference. In which he’d be meant for something greater than himself.

In which he’d have a reason to have been given this magic.

Arthur had involved him more and more in politics as his first year in Camelot had drawn to a close, and Merlin likes to think he’s come to a basic understanding of politics. There are nuances, of course, and there’s no single matter which is black-and-white. At its heart, though, there’s one very basic issue to keep in mind.

Who profits off a decision, and who doesn’t?

Merlin thinks about stealing an apple in the marketplace—using that seed to grow an apple tree in front of the king. His concept of money is still developing, and he sometimes has to do calculations when Arthur’s council is talking about financial matters. Gwen taught him that, too, but Merlin picked up sums rather easily.

The real thing that Merlin hadn’t expected is that most of ruling would be so utterly boring, and he isn’t even the one doing the real thing.

“Yes, you’re entirely right,” Arthur says, pinching his nose. 

“What are we talking about?” Merlin whispers to Gwaine. Out of any of the knights, he can only rely on Gwaine not to judge him harshly for drifting off during the council meetings—because Gwaine does it, too. The downside of this arrangement is that Gwaine doesn’t know what the meeting is about half of the time either.

This time, Merlin is in luck. Gwaine whispers back, “The letter that the king of Nemeth sent about assistance with some dark magic users.”

Merlin hadn’t been paying attention for a while. The last topic of conversation he remembers is one about the rebuilding of a road between two remote towns. For this, though, he sits up straighter.

“It’s a delicate matter,” Arthur continues. His shoulders are slumped, and he is refusing to make eye contact with Merlin—with anyone on their side, Merlin realises, subtly glancing at Baradoc and Morgana, who are a few seats down from him. “King Rodor assumes we have the power to fight those sorcerers with our own, but at the same time…”

“My lord,” one of Arthur’s advisors says, a middle-aged man named Robyrt, “you argued to lift the ban on magic precisely so we would be able to fight any magic attacks that came our way. You argued we would be stronger for it. You are the one who set forth this belief that magic can fight magic, and to back out now—”

Arthur’s expression twists, and Merlin balls his hands in fists. “Magic isn’t a weapon,” Merlin says, for the first time ever in a court session, “it’s just—it’s life! It’s not just here for you to fight people with—”

“No, it’s not,” Arthur interrupts sharply, and glances at him. Merlin ducks his head down at once, unsettled with the intensity of Arthur’s gaze on him. Arthur hasn’t said a word to him in weeks. “It’s one of many issues, and it’s something our sorcerers are not ready for.” Arthur’s gaze moves to Morgana. “Are they?”

“The more immediate issue, I think,” Morgana answers, “is that it’s King Rodor asking you to fight on his behalf with a method that has been outlawed in his kingdom for over twenty years. I think not.”

“You want us to ask him to legalise magic first?” Arthur asks, and sighs deeply.

Leon speaks up. “My lord, it took years for us to legalise it here, and King Rodor won’t be pleased. Even if you can convince him to legalise it—” And that must have been a topic of conversation before, Merlin realises suddenly. “—it will take years for him to set up the laws that are required for us to interfere. These attacks are happening now.” Leon’s argument sounds rehearsed, and he wonders if Arthur means to push for the legalisation of magic everywhere. That must be daunting to consider. It is an enormous undertaking.

“You suggest that we don’t interfere at all?” Arthur asks. “That we don’t help Rodor?”

Elyan says, “But then the attacks might come to Camelot.”

“We’re defended!” Robyrt points out. 

“The point I am considering,” Arthur says solemnly, “is how this will impact Rodor’s view on magic. If we do want a kingdom in which magic can flourish, and in which sorcerers are no longer viewed with suspicion—we can’t just sit still. We have to act, and we might have to act with magic in order to show that not all sorcerers are on their side.”

Morgana leans back. “Who are these dark sorcerers attacking?”

“Knights,” Arthur says, looking down at the letter. “Some settlements. Two of Rodor’s noblemen are dead, but he expects the sorcerers will come back stronger and more people may die. I can’t just let it stand.”

“It’s not your job,” Morgana points out. “Besides, these sorcerers seem to be attacking noblemen, mainly. It’s not the people who are being targeted. How much can you change their opinion on magic if it’s just the lords who are being bothered?”

“They did say settlements,” Gwaine says, his eyes dark. “Noblemen lash out at their people when they’re in trouble. It might not be a direct attack—”

“Sir Gwaine!” Robyrt exclaims.

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t even matter,” Arthur says in frustration. “The people will still hear about the attacks, and they’ll still form their opinions. If we are to fight fire with fire, we do have to send in sorcerers. But the only one who’s capable of using such magic at all is Morgana, at the moment—”

“I could do it,” Merlin says, his heart beating fast.

“You are sixteen,” Arthur tells him harshly.

Merlin shrugs. “Seventeen,” he says. The snowdrops bloomed; it signifies the coming of his birthday. “And I don’t see why it matters when you were knighted when you were fifteen, my lord.”

“I’d been training my entire life, it’s not the same,” Arthur says. “And you’re…” 

“He’s skilled enough,” Morgana says thoughtfully. “Young, but not impulsive like you were at that age, Arthur. And far more powerful than any other sorcerer currently walking around in Albion—”

Arthur stands up, cutting her off effectively as his chair loudly scrapes the tiles. The sun catches his hair, but his face is a rolling cloud harbouring rain—a face that requires hiding away until the storm has passed. “And then we have only two sorcerers capable of dealing with an entire group of renegade sorcerers?” Arthur says. “No. I will write back to Rodor that we cannot help him at this point in time, but that we are willing to send him more information about magic and its uses, and to support him if he wants to train his own sorcerers. I am not sending you—either of you.”

“My lord—” Merlin tries.

“That is my decision,” Arthur says. “Leon, what is next on the list?”

There is a moment of awkward quiet, and Leon rustles through his parchment. “I think that’s all that matters for today, my lord.”

“Then you are all dismissed,” Arthur tells them sharply, and the king is the first to stride out of the council chambers, his red cloak billowing behind him. Merlin watches him go, and scowls at the disappearing form. Arthur may be king, and as brave and golden as Merlin thought him to be when he first came to Camelot—but in other ways, Arthur runs away as well as any of them.

And Merlin doesn’t mean to let him.

Merlin bursts into Arthur’s chambers as soon as George has opened the door for him.

“I need to talk to you,” he says, crossing his arms as he looks at Arthur. Arthur is seated by the window, his face half-shadowed.

“You can’t just come in here!” George exclaims. “My lord, I can send him away—”

“You really can’t,” Merlin tells him, and turns back to Arthur. “You can’t make decisions like that, just based on what you’d like to do! If there’s a need for sorcerers who are powerful enough to fight, then you know that you’ll have to send me eventually—”

“I am the king, Merlin, you can’t talk to me like that,” Arthur says wearily, but he closes the book on his lap. “George, leave us, will you? I’ll see you in the morning.”

George looks at Merlin with consternation clear on his face, but eventually seems to decide that he’d rather listen to his king and disappears without a sound. The door falls shut behind him, and Merlin lets out the full force of his displeasure. 

“There’s a problem, and you want to fix it with magic!” Merlin says, throwing up his hands. “You need to fix it with magic, and Rodor doesn’t have people who can! But this is precisely the reason you wanted us here, and why you set up this whole law! It’s so that we can help you, Arthur—”

“That isn’t why I did it,” Arthur says quietly. “I did it because it was right. You are not seeing the whole picture.”

Merlin starts pacing. “I see it well enough. You want to legalise magic in all of Albion.” Arthur remains silent, and a sense of triumph fills Merlin’s lungs. “I’m right, aren’t I? Camelot is just the beginning. You want to do more, and to do that, you have to change how people think about magic! If magic is doing ill, and then magic fixes it, that’s huge! People will—”

“Merlin,” Arthur barks. “Shut up, will you?”

“No, I won’t,” Merlin says heatedly. “Isn’t this what you’re training me for?”

“Magic was outlawed twenty-five years ago,” Arthur starts, holding up a finger to signal Merlin’s silence, “and the Purge followed. But do you really think the Purge came from nowhere, Merlin? Even before the Purge, many people feared magic. It had become a strange thing to them, and sorcerers all kept to themselves and those like them, rarely interacting with anyone who didn’t have that power. The Purge succeeded because there was already distrust towards sorcerers. I am not fighting one generation of distrust—I am fighting lifetimes.”

“Then let me show them,” Merlin insists. “If you’ll just let me be useful—”

Arthur shakes his head. “You have to stay where you are.”

“And let Nemeth hate magic even more?” Merlin presses.

Arthur stands up and pokes at the fire in his hearth with an iron rod. Merlin could let it flame up with a single spell, but instead he watches as Arthur does it manually, his shoulders rolling in his tunic. Merlin bites his lower lip.

“You’re a powerful sorcerer, Merlin, but you’re also seventeen,” he says quietly. “There’s some things that I can’t ask a boy to do.”

“I’m not a boy anymore,” Merlin says, and deflates. “If you don’t want to talk to me, I won’t make you. My lord.”

“I thought I’d give you space, Merlin, if that is a concept you understand!” Arthur turns back around to him. “Merlin, what if I were to send you to Nemeth? I can’t miss both my court sorceress and her apprentice, so you’d be all by yourself to face these sorcerers. If you were to find them, and you were to fight them—imagine they come at you with their own magic, perhaps with swords. What do you do?”

“I fight them,” Merlin says.

Arthur slowly nods. “Alright. You fight them. How? And what if more than one attacks them at the same time?”

“Well—my magic can handle that.” Or at least Merlin thinks so.

“Have you ever fought before?” Arthur presses. “Have you ever seen a man die, Merlin? Have you ever seen them bleed out, watched the light fade from their eyes as they lose their life? Will you fight or will you flee—and if you kill a man, will you be ready for what that makes of you?”

Merlin blinks. “I haven’t—you have killed people before, and I thought—”

“I was trained for that since birth,” Arthur says. “Listen to me, Merlin, because this is what I want you to remember. I do not mean to make you into a fighter. I don’t think you have the nature for it. You are kind, and swords kill that kindness. Power is not the most important thing in battle. Control is, and yours is untested. Don’t ask me to send you into a battle that you can’t win.”

The only sound, for a moment, is that of the crackling fire. Merlin looks down. “I’ve defended myself before,” he says weakly. “I just… won’t you let me help?”

“You are helping,” Arthur says, and then he’s closer to Merlin, grabbing his shoulders. “You are helping me by staying here and learning your craft. It’s diplomacy that will win this race, Merlin, not violence. This is Rodor’s problem to sort out, as much as I’d love to help.”

“I never thought magic would be legal,” Merlin says, and stares past Arthur’s face into the fire in the hearth. “I always thought I’d spend the rest of my life running away from myself, and I didn’t know why I even had these powers. I want to do something.”

“You’re impatient,” Arthur says. “Perhaps it’s best to think of something else for now. Guinevere told me that you’ve been very preoccupied with a girl, the last couple of weeks.”

He says girl as if it’s something odd, and when Merlin looks at him again, it’s to see Arthur’s eyebrows raised at him. Merlin can feel his cheeks heating up. He hadn’t realised that Gwen had noticed, to be honest—but then, she might have guessed rather than actually seen anything.

“I’m not preoccupied with anything,” he says, sniffing loudly, and then adds, “except my studies, of course.”

“Obviously,” Arthur says, and grins. “Do you want to tell me about this girl, perhaps? Or is it not a girl, but a boy?”

Merlin understands—Arthur thinks his own predictions have come true. That Merlin’s interest has wandered towards someone else, and that Arthur is free to roughhouse with him again. Merlin wants to roll his eyes.

“I am not,” he says pointedly, “talking to you about this.”

“Alright, I suppose that’s fair,” Arthur says, and holds up his hands. He sobers a little, his grin falling away. “You do understand my point, don’t you? I am not keeping you back because I don’t trust you, Merlin.”

“I think so,” Merlin says, and rubs his own arm. “Sorry. For—shouting at you, I suppose.”

“I should have you put in the stocks for that,” Arthur says, “but it’ll be our secret.”

Merlin smiles.

“Are you alone in the lake?” Merlin asks Freya.

He has been coming here for several days a week—whenever he can get away with it, usually. Gwen smiles at him whenever she sees him grab his cloak, but Merlin lets her believe what she wants.

Freya isn’t like that. Freya is more than some girl that Merlin fancies; he isn’t like Will, who used to have eyes for whatever girl passed them by at that moment. Merlin has never been like that. It’s just that Freya is kind, and she’s magic, and she is his friend. Just his, without seeing him as some child that’s supposed to grow up to be a court sorcerer.

To her, he’s just Merlin.

Moreover, she knows a lot about water spells. Other magic isn’t really her domain, but she’d taught him to feel the water as much as he does the trees, and the birds. It’s not nearly as distant and unfeeling as he always thought it was—it just requires a bit more attention, as if his concentration is floating along with the waves.

But so far, she’s the only one he has seen in the water.

“No, I’m not alone,” Freya says. “There’s many of us, but we’re scattered around. There used to be more.”

“Because of the Purge?” Merlin asks.

Freya tilts her head. “I’m not sure what the Purge is.”

Merlin leans back. His clothes are drenched in the water, but he has a spell for drying them after, and he likes the weightlessness of swimming. The days are slowly warming again, but the lake remains cold.

“It’s what happened twenty-five years ago,” he says slowly. “When Uther killed all the sorcerers and banished magic. A lot of magic died.”

Freya nods thoughtfully. “I think we felt that,” she says. “But we’ve been dropping in number for a long time. For centuries, I think.”

“But why?” Merlin asks, and sits upright. 

“Humans,” she tells him quietly, and looks away, her eyes intently focused on a past that Merlin wouldn’t be able to see even if he turned around. “They lived in harmony with magic once, but that has been changing for a long time. They fear us, so we don’t show ourselves to them.”

“But I’m human,” Merlin says slowly.

Freya tilts her head, and slowly reaches for his face. Her touch is soft and cold against his face, and he feels her magic intently, as if it reaches out to his own. “You’re not really, Merlin,” Freya murmurs, and rests her palm against his cheek. “You’re something more than that. You are Emrys. You’re one of us.”

Merlin shakes his head, but Freya holds onto him. “I’m not, though. I’m human. My mum was human, and my dad—well, I don’t know, but she would’ve said!”

“I was human once,” Freya tells him, and for a moment, she looks lost and far away.

Merlin swallows. He thinks of the druids, for a moment—the god of magic, they’d said, but Merlin doesn’t know what it entails. All the gods he’s ever learnt to pray to are distant beings, unbound to time and the physical nature of the world. They’re not like him, and he isn’t like that. He isn’t anything but human.

“I don’t want to be anything else,” he says, unsettled, and Freya embraces him. Merlin presses his eyes closed, and pretends the wetness on his lashes is just from the lake. 

“Whatever else you are,” Freya tells him, and kisses his cheek, “you’ll always just be you.”

It’s hard to focus. The words are hazy on the paper, and Merlin wants to get this spell right. Concentration is hard to come by, and Merlin inhales and mouths along with the words on the page. 

“Merlin?”

He sits up straight, eyeing Gwen in the door opening. He’s in his own chambers, so he hadn’t expected anyone’s voice but his own. Her fingers are curled around his door, and she has her eyebrows raised at him.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “Did you knock?”

“Three times,” Gwen says cheerfully, and closes the door behind her. She comes to stand behind him and leans over his shoulder. “Interesting spell? Is this your third book, now?”

“Fourth,” Merlin says.

“You’re becoming very good at this,” she says appreciatively. 

Merlin just shrugs. “It’s the only thing I have to be good at. I can’t seem to focus, though. Do you think Baradoc would mind if I don’t know the spell tomorrow?”

“Would you mind?” Gwen smiles. “It’s Baradoc, Merlin. I can’t imagine he’ll be pleased.”

The frustrated groan comes out before he can stop it, and he leans back to pleadingly stare at Gwen, his head against her belly. “Do you think people are scared of me?”

She’d started to run her fingers through his hair, but abruptly stops. “What?”

“Are they?” Merlin asks. “I didn’t realise how odd my magic was until I got here, and even then… I was born like this, and I just never really thought about it. But I’m not like Baradoc, and I’m not even like Morgana, because even if they have this innate talent, they just can’t do what I do.”

“It just makes you very gifted,” Gwen says. “You have Arthur’s protection. No one—”

“But do they worry because of me?” Merlin presses. He can’t stop to think of it, Freya’s tale about what happened to magical creatures—about what the druids claimed him to be, and what she said. What if he isn’t human? “Because of what I can do?”

“I—” Gwen starts, and gently pushes him back. “You shouldn’t worry about that.”

“So they aren’t?” Merlin asks sceptically.

“Well, I’m sure people are still a little worried about magic in general,” Gwen says quietly, and crouches so that she’s on eye level with Merlin. “And I think they might… be a little fearful of very powerful people. But that’s going to change, Merlin, and just because people are worried—it doesn’t mean that they always will be, or that there’s something wrong with you.”

“But there is, isn’t there?”

“Sorry?” Gwen asks.

“Something wrong with me,” Merlin says. “I’m different. I always have been, but I thought—maybe it wouldn’t be so bad here.” The frustration wells up, and he tears himself away from Gwen to pace the room. “All my life, it’s been this—this constant attempt to hide it, and I just couldn’t, and I knew what people thought of me. I could see it on their faces, and I thought… if there’s something I can do with it that’s good, that helps people, that means I can be free…”

“You are free,” Gwen says hopelessly.

“Just because Arthur decided that,” Merlin says, and wants her to understand, but he isn’t sure that she can. He doesn’t know if she realises what he’s come to accept over the past few months—that his life and freedom have been assigned to him on the whim of people with no idea of what it entails. Uther once decided that people like him must die, and it’s only Arthur’s kindheartedness that has saved Merlin from the same fate.

If Camelot had never legalised magic—where would Merlin be now? Drowned, or burnt? Hiding away with powers beyond anyone else’s understanding? It’s scary to consider, and once, it had been the life he’d been told he must have. And that twenty-year gap of magic being illegal had led to so many more problems.

Freya had told him that magic had been feared long before the ban. Surely the ban had only made things worse as magic slowly disappeared from the world—as its people had been hunted down and had to resort to violence to save their lives. It’s no wonder the opinion on magic had deteriorated even further, and now Merlin sits in a citadel with only the king’s word, and his own powers, to protect him.

They fear him—and he fears them, he realises. There’s still so much that has to change for magic to be truly free. They’ve taken the first steps, but how many are still left to take before Merlin can create a butterfly in the courtyard without people staring at him for it?

“Arthur decided that because it was right,” Gwen says sternly. “And not everyone agreed with the ban in the first place, Merlin. They’re not afraid of you.”

“Just of what I can do.”

“They’re your people now.” Gwen takes his hands and stops him from pacing any further; her eyes are pleading as she looks at him. Merlin takes a breath and worries his bottom lip between his teeth. Softly, she adds, “You’ll show them how beautiful magic is, and they’ll change their minds. There’s nothing wrong with you, or what you are.”

Merlin sniffs his nose. He doesn’t entirely trust her word, but this is what he’s fighting for, isn’t he? He has to hope that she’s right. “Promise?”

“I promise,” she says solemnly, and kisses his cheek.

The bathwater has long since cooled, but Merlin could heat it up with the touch of his finger. However, it’s late summer, and Merlin has spent the majority of the day practising his spellcasting speed. That turned out to be surprisingly exhausting training, and he’d been very, very sweaty.

So the cold bathwater is actually a welcome relief, and it reminds him of Ealdor. Whenever he’d had a bath, it was to be shared, so it was rarely warm.

He hopes his mum’s alright. 

Merlin has his eyes closed and his head leaned back over the wooden edge of the tub. It digs uncomfortably against his cranium, and his skin is dotted with goosebumps, and his fingers are all wrinkly. He nearly falls asleep, though, exhausted from the long days—it’s not just magical training that’s on his schedule. He meets with Morgana to discuss her duties and give insight into what he thinks, as a preparatory sort of training for when he assumes the role of court sorcerer, and there’s everything he needs to learn about court etiquette. He sits in on an increasing number of council meetings as well; Arthur hadn’t mentioned that bit to him as part of his responsibilities, but Merlin supposes Arthur wants him to learn the intricacies of ruling.

He is just a bit tired, that’s all.

And then there’s suddenly someone in his room. “Best you not fall asleep in that,” Arthur says, suddenly right in front of him. He has his eyes averted, though, high up towards the ceiling. His face is creased with clear embarrassment.

“What are you doing here!” Merlin calls out, and immediately grabs the towel that’s hung on the side. His face flushes, and a wordless spell causes the water to turn opaque immediately. Arthur lets out a huff.

“Your door was left unlocked, and you didn’t answer when I knocked,” he answers. “Gwen has told me that happens sometimes, so I thought I’d make sure you were alright. I didn’t know you’d be in the bath.”

“Just because the castle belongs to you doesn’t mean you should just barge in,” Merlin sputters. “Why did you even come in once you realised? Turn around.”

“I did call out for you, you simply weren’t responding!  Maybe you’d fallen asleep, or drowned, how was I supposed to know!” Arthur sounds as if he’s regretting the decision now.

“Turn around, my lord,” Merlin says strictly. “Weren’t you the one lecturing me on propriety—”

“Yes, alright, I’m turning,” Arthur says, hands lifted in the air as he turns. Merlin quickly snaps his fingers to dry himself. He likes to use the towel, normally, for warmth and comfort, but he’d rather be in his clothes as fast as he can, which he does, using another small burst of magic.

“You can turn back now,” Merlin says, and with a final spell, drains the tub. Arthur stares at it as it empties, and Merlin smiles wryly. “It’s late, my lord. I’m not entirely sure why you’re here.”

“I wanted your opinion on something,” Arthur says, and eyes the bathtub still. “That’s a neat little trick, isn’t it? No servants required for cleaning your tub.”

“Or bringing the water, or heating it up,” Merlin adds. 

Arthur smiles, clearly more at ease now that Merlin’s dried and clothed. “It’s no surprise you’re so lazy.”

Merlin throws an unused washcloth at his head, and Arthur ducks easily. Merlin crosses his arms, even as Arthur picks up the cloth and puts it on his desk. He is glad that Arthur has stopped tiptoeing around him, even if he has entirely the wrong idea about Merlin’s relationship with Freya. 

He much prefers Arthur acting like himself, instead of some unreachable entity.

“What did you want my opinion on?” he asks, because he’s curious despite himself. Arthur has plenty of advisors with knowledge on many matters; Merlin’s only contribution is his raw talent with magic, and even then, he’s still lacking a lot of knowledge that only comes from reading books. 

“Essetir,” Arthur says simply, and his face becomes more solemn. “You’re from there. You lived there for sixteen years, hiding your magic. What did you think of your king?”

Merlin blinks. “Well, I never met him,” he says, a bit uselessly.

“I know that,” Arthur says, eyeing him. “But—your general opinion. Not just about the magic, mind you, although I suspect that influences how you see him.”

“You want to make peace with him?” Merlin guesses. Arthur presses his lips together, and he doesn’t say anything, so Merlin drops it. He can guess well enough; it’s not the first time Arthur has brought up his issues with Essetir. “Cenred’s a bully. And that’s not just my own personal feelings—no one really likes him. He takes more tax than he says he will, and everyone knows his favourite noblemen don’t have to pay a penny. My mum always made sure everyone paid their due; she was worried he might send people otherwise, to collect, you see, and figure out what I was. No one could blame her, though.”

They’d blamed him, instead. For standing out, for requiring them to be cautious. No one in Ealdor would’ve given him up—or at least, not for a long time, not until the very end—but they resented him for making them accomplices to his crimes.

His crime of existing, and their crime of allowing him to exist, instead of dropping him in the river as an infant.

Arthur tilts his head. “Are you alright, Merlin?”

“I’d almost think you cared,” Merlin says absently. His heart is still reeling from the thoughts about Ealdor, and the people who once protected him. It takes a village, his mum had said once—it takes a village, or the promise of a king, apparently.

“I know I don’t always show it properly,” Arthur says suddenly, carefully striding forwards towards him, and taking Merlin’s shoulders, “but you do know you can come to me if there’s anything you want to talk about?”

“To you?” Merlin teases, trying to get them back to the lightheartedness that fits them better. He isn’t entirely sure what to do with Arthur’s sincerity. “Maybe if you want to punch my problems.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Arthur says warmly. “There’s worse people to have in your corner than the King of Camelot, Merlin. Even if you make it sound as though I’m a complete buffoon with a propensity for knocking people down.”

“That is because you are one,” Merlin says, and steps away from Arthur’s hold. His fingers glide away from Merlin’s shoulder, and Merlin tries very hard not to miss his touch. Just because Arthur is unaware of the lingering of Merlin’s unfortunate attraction doesn’t mean that Merlin should take advantage of it. “Arthur, about Essetir—Cenred isn’t a good man, and he doesn’t care for his people. Not like you do. If you make peace with him… I wonder what he’ll ask you to compromise.”

“I worried about the same thing,” Arthur mutters, and rubs his forehead. “But I’ll have to make peace with him one day, Merlin. I want to return Albion to what it once was—a united and peaceful land.”

“And I believe you can,” Merlin says honestly. “But don’t give Cenred anything you can’t bear to lose.”

Arthur smiles at him, and Merlin feels his lungs constrict at the sight of it—the true nobility, the warm regard that so often goes hidden behind teasing barbs and burdened kingship. Merlin wishes he could want Arthur less, just to make it easier on both of them, but then Arthur has to turn around and be so—Arthur. 

It’s impossible to stop loving him, even a little bit.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Merlin,” Arthur says. “Thank you for your wisdom, and I am sorry for interrupting your bath.”

“It’s fine,” Merlin says, and unwisely adds, “I live to serve the king, after all.”

Arthur smiles crookedly, showing a glint of white teeth for only a second. Merlin assumes he takes it as a joke. And then Arthur wanders off, and Merlin is left alone with his heart beating wildly and his cheeks warm with the memory of Arthur’s easy affection.

Morgana is the least forgiving teacher that Merlin has ever had.

She isn’t really a teacher, and perhaps that accounts for some of her ruthlessness. But she does, occasionally, test all of them who’ve joined the Council of Magic. Hilga is exempt, because her talents lie only in potions, and not in spellcasting. Baradoc, Ead, Diarmuid, and Merlin are all expected to show their increase in skills, though, every few months.

This time, nearly two years have passed since Merlin first came to Camelot, and clearly this means that Morgana feels his test should be more strict.

“Again,” she calls out, when Merlin has just decimated a tree with a bolt of fire. Merlin’s shoulders slump from exhaustion. 

“I’ve done it five times,” he tells her, turning back. Behind Morgana, Arthur smiles in his direction, and puts a finger to his lips. Merlin just frowns.

“And I want you to do it a sixth time,” Morgana says. “What if Camelot is attacked, one day, when you are Arthur’s court sorcerer? Will you tell your enemies that you’ve blasted them five times already, and you would like a break before the sixth?”

Baradoc snickers. Merlin would like to see him try; the most Baradoc can do is create a flame in his hand. He may be more theoretically inclined, but he’ll never be able to do what Merlin does.

“Fine,” Merlin says snappishly. He turns around to face the forest. He can sense each tree individually, all the life that lies in there; four branches are smouldering with the power of his magic, and Merlin decides to do things a little differently this time. Morgana wants to see his true strength, his ability to defend all that Arthur stands for—

He closes his eyes, and the forest vibrates around him. It is alive, so utterly alive, and he stretches out his hand and turns around his palm. In his mind’s eye, it is alive, and then he imagines it dead; imagines a candle snuffing out, and the descent of a large, dark cloud that erupts above a field. He imagines how it covers the sun and how it drowns out all life, drowning and drowning and drowning—

He is startled into opening his eyes when Arthur tugs him backward as the flames erupt, uncomfortably hot and dangerously close. “Get back!” Arthur calls out, his voice full of unforgiving command. In front of them, the entire forest begins to collapse under the force of Merlin’s magic, and he nearly trips over his own feet.

“There’s such a thing as overdoing it,” Baradoc says roughly, gripping Merlin by the tunic and dragging him along as Arthur extends his hand to Morgana instead. Alongside them, the flames erupt, hotter than anything Merlin has ever felt—for a moment, he thinks of a burning pyre, and then he yanks himself free from Baradoc and turns back around.

Arthur nearly walks into him. “Move,” Arthur says. “Merlin, now—”

Merlin doesn’t have the time to explain it to him. “Behind me,” he says, and his magic lends him the force that his muscles don’t have. Arthur is pushed behind him, nearly tripping over his own feet, and Morgana follows.

“Merlin!” Arthur exclaims, but Merlin extends his hand again. Around them, the forest is falling, dying—all at once, a number of trees so high that Merlin can’t possibly count them, and their life is fading.

Live, he thinks, channelling the command in Arthur’s voice into his own magic. Live, and he closes his eyes to better remember the smell and sense of the life that was there only a few minutes ago. His magic surges up, so strong it nearly overwhelms him, and the smell of burning wood disappears.

Merlin opens his eyes. Above them, a few birds chirp uncertainly. Merlin turns around.

“There’s no need to run,” he says faintly. “I did it, and I can undo it. I did learn from the incident with the gargoyle, you know.”

Arthur’s lips quirk—only for a second, but Merlin sees it. “Well. I suppose there’s one thing that you have shown today.”

“What’s that?” Merlin asks.

“You’re definitely the most powerful sorcerer out there,” Arthur tells him thoughtfully, and squeezes Merlin’s shoulder for a second, “and you’ll be a wonderful court sorcerer. Well done, Merlin. Let’s get back to the castle—if Leon saw that fire, he’ll be worried for us.”

At least he managed to impress Arthur, Merlin considers, watching the king as he walks off. Arthur seems in a good mood, twirling his sword around as he walks, getting into an animated conversation with Ead. Merlin turns around to see the forest; he can still recall it blazing, and the way his magic had made it feel…

He frowns. He might be able to do things like that, but he doesn’t think he wants to. 

“Merlin,” Morgana says, and he catches her eyes. Her lips are pressed tightly together, and she stares at him as if not entirely sure what to make of him. “I would like a word, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m sorry,” he offers.

“What for?”

He blinks at her. Morgana is unsettled by him, he realises. He doesn’t want to make anyone fear him—he just wants to be accepted. And maybe he’d also wanted to show Arthur what he could do, but that’s only because he needed to make an impression.

Perhaps it wasn’t the right thing to do.

“It was too much,” he says, trying to explain—how his magic makes waves, and how he can still feel the tides of the spell he just cast. “That wasn’t—I think that was improper use of my magic, and I’ve never…”

“You used dark magic, yes,” Morgana says, and Merlin feels a pit settle in his stomach. It must show on his face, because Morgana adds, “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t think any of them realised.”

“But—”

“My main concern is about your control,” Morgana tells him, and hooks her arm in his. “Come on, keep on walking. Arthur is thrilled with you, did you see? Surely that is a relief to you, considering how badly you want him to take you seriously.”

Merlin looks at her. “I didn’t do it for Arthur.”

“You might be able to fool him, but not me,” Morgana says sharply, and jostles her elbow against his side. Ahead of him, the other sorcerers and Arthur are still talking about the forest, but Merlin has a hard time listening to them.

Dark magic. But it felt so natural.

“Just say what you want to say,” Merlin says wearily.

Morgana raises a single, perfectly manicured eyebrow at him. “Oh, the kitten has claws, does he? You’re pining after Arthur, it’s clear as day. Oh, it’s alright, don’t try to deny it—I’m glad you’ve managed to convince him it’s not true, at least. He can be so annoying about propriety sometimes. He’d never go for you, anyway.”

That stings more than it should, despite everything Merlin has ever told himself. “Thanks,” he says sarcastically. “I’d never have believed it if you hadn’t told me. You said you worried about my control.”

“You don’t want to talk about Arthur?” she says, and grins at him. “Shocking. But alright, fine, we’ll talk about your magic instead. There’s more power in you than you know how to control, isn’t there? It’s fine on a day-to-day basis—you don’t really have to use magic for the kingdom yet. But I’m wondering what will happen when you do.”

“So you’re saying I need to use my magic more often,” Merlin says slowly.

Morgana turns her eyes upwards. “I’m saying you might not want to do that.”

“But I am training to be Arthur’s court sorcerer,” Merlin argues, “I’ll have to use magic. I can’t not use magic.”

“Did you feel in control of that fire?” Morgana demands. 

Merlin bites the inside of his cheek. He had managed to stop it, yes, but he hadn’t controlled it. He had not determined where it would go and what it would do; he hadn’t had a say in what it consumed and what it left untouched. That was not control.

Still. “I stopped it,” he says, a little petulantly.

“Every time I think you’ve grown up,” Morgana says, and unhooks her arm from his. “One day, Merlin, you might cast a spell that does more harm than it does good. I hope you’ll take it more seriously when that day comes—and believe me, it will.”

She looks troubled, but there’s no time for Merlin to ask her what she means. She walks ahead of him, and Merlin is left at the end of the group. Arthur’s hair shines brightly in the sun, and Merlin takes a deep breath.

His loss of control was because that was dark magic, he reasons. So he’ll just have to steer away from that kind of magic, and he will be fine. Morgana’s concerns are unwarranted, and Merlin will prove he’s not a child, still lashing out with powers he can’t understand. He is Arthur’s future court sorcerer.

He’ll show them all.

The more time that Merlin spends in Camelot, and especially as a (sort of) advisor-to-be, he realises how much politics weave the way of Arthur’s everyday life. His training sessions, his social life, his meals—everything revolves around when Arthur has to make decisions for the kingdom.

And it bleeds over into his social life, too. Or at least, looking at the lavish dining table and the jugglers on the far end of the room, he thinks this is supposed to be a social event. 

A small delegation from Nemeth has come to visit. The Princess Mithian is here, and with her are her handmaiden and several knights and noblemen. They are here, Merlin knows, to forge a closer relationship. In private, Arthur had discussed with Merlin that King Rodor was old, and has grown more kind-hearted over the years. Mithian is supposed to be a lovely princess and will continue his legacy.

Arthur wants to show them that magic can be a force for good, and he wants Merlin to—how had he put it?—impress Princess Mithian with his easygoing attitude and his knowledge about magic. Merlin is still not entirely sure how to go about this, and Mithian has been sitting next to Arthur for the entire evening. Merlin sits on the other side of the table, outranked by everyone on both Nemeth and Camelot’s side.

So he’s not entirely sure how he’s supposed to convince anyone of anything. Neither is he sure of how to be easygoing on purpose. Perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise that he can’t possibly be expected to do this while he’s so far away from everyone.

“So,” the boy next to him says—a knight’s page of some sort, and the only one that Merlin does outrank, apparently—and leans forward on his elbows. “What do you do?”

“I’m training to be King Arthur’s court sorcerer,” Merlin says, and looks back towards where Arthur is sitting, Mithian by his side. They would make a lovely couple, he considers sourly, when Arthur laughs and puts his hand on Mithian’s for a fleeting second. Her skin is fair, and her hair is dark, as are her eyes—against Arthur’s gold, she looks like a perfect match. 

“Court sorcerer?” the boy says, and when Merlin looks back at him, he’s gone pale. “You can do magic?”

Merlin knows fear when he sees it. The little bit of privilege he has—his protection by Arthur’s favour, and the legality of magic in Camelot—alongside the no little amount of petty hurt from all the ways he’s still not being accepted are combining to make him want to snipe back. But then he lets out a breath. It’s not this boy’s fault he doesn’t know any better.

“I’m not going to do anything to you,” he says, and looks back to Mithian, “or to anyone from Nemeth. I only do what my king commands me to do. Magic isn’t a bad thing, you know. It depends on how you use it, like anything else.”

“But—”

“Knights aren’t considered evil,” Merlin says. “And they’ve killed loads more people than magic ever did.”

He isn’t sure if that’s true. In recent years, maybe, but magic has plenty of opportunity to be destructive, given enough power. Then again, it also can do such beautiful things—Merlin would like to see a sword do half of what magic can do for its people. The two things aren’t equatable, but it’s the only comparison Merlin can think to make.

The boy’s frown has gone pensive. “But it’s without honour.”

“To do magic?” says Merlin, uncomprehending. “Magic isn’t good or evil, it just is. It doesn’t care about your honour.”

“But the people who wield it should,” the page insists.

Merlin considers this for a moment. “I’m not sure I agree,” he says. Arthur might agree, he thinks, but Merlin hasn’t grown up with concepts like honour, and nobility, and hospitality, at least not in the sense that the knights believe in. His people are too busy hiding and surviving to worry about what nobles think is proper for them to be doing. And they wouldn’t have to be so worried about hiding and surviving if the ruling class treated them with honour in the first place.

It occurs to him that maybe this is part of what Arthur has been trying to teach him—about his values in life. About what might be important to a person when they aren’t just trying to make enough food to survive the winter.  Things like love, and dignity, and honour that is extended to all people.

Arthur has been teaching Merlin about what he wants to stand for, at the end of the day.

“How can you not agree?” the boy asks, slowly. “Everyone should be bound by honour.”

“But not everyone is treated with honour, even by nobles,” Merlin says, growing agitated, “so how can you expect them to want to play by your rules? Honour is something for kings, and for their knights. Most people don’t have the luxury of thinking about whether they are acting with honour—they act out of love, sometimes, or hate, or simply because they want to survive. Honour is for people who are already being treated with fairness and dignity in the first place. Farmers aren’t honoured when their crops are taken and they are left to go hungry and cold. Witches using their powers at home aren’t treated with honour—they are persecuted instead, even when they are healing the sick and injured. Why should they be made to play by your rules of fairness when they have never had this fairness extended to them?”

“Being fair and noble is what makes us nobility, though.”

Merlin smiles. “I’m not nobility,” he says. “I’m a bastard boy from a small village in Essetir. I didn’t know what honour was until I came here. I was just trying to survive.”

“But you have magic,” the boy says. He isn’t malicious, that much is clear, but he also doesn’t seem to understand. “You could kill countless knights with a single spell! That’s evil, and so you must be—”

“Evil,” Merlin finishes, without humour. He’s lost his taste for this conversation. “I must be evil. Most people with magic aren’t nearly as powerful as you think, you know. They’re just people with a gift—one they use for mundane things, like lighting a campfire, or making remedies, or playing with their kids. They’re all in hiding because of the way they live. It’s no surprise people are bitter about being hunted for no reason.”

The boy looks unsettled. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant,” Merlin says. “I know what you’re afraid of. But you’re only making your own enemies, by persecuting people who are just living their lives, and then when they turn against you because they’re afraid of being murdered, you think that means you were right all along.”

The boy is quiet, or maybe Merlin just hasn’t given him enough time to speak before he stands up. He can’t stay here, with these people who can’t even pretend to accept him. Tears prickle at his eyes, and it’s all he can do not to run towards the doors—past Arthur and Mithian, and he pointedly does not look at them. Everyone at this feast can ignore him, the way they’ve ignored him for sixteen years.

He’s just reached the staircase when there’s a hand on his shoulder.

“What?” Merlin snaps, whirling around, and startles when he sees Arthur’s curious gaze. “I mean—sorry, my lord, I thought—”

“What happened?” Arthur asks calmly.

“Nothing,” Merlin says. “I mean, apparently I’m an evil sorcerer, given that all sorcerers must be evil, and don’t understand any concepts of honour and all that is holy to you knights, and everyone is entirely in their rights to kill anyone who’s ever shown a bit of magic. But I’ve been told that for my entire life, so I suppose that’s all normal.”

He didn’t mean to vent his frustrations to Arthur. He’d hoped to be able to go to bed and avoid the page for the rest of the Nemeth delegation’s stay in Camelot. Maybe he could’ve talked to Gwaine about it, or Gwaine, or Elyan, or anyone who was not Arthur. Because Arthur has better things to worry about.

Except maybe he doesn’t, because Arthur’s expression changes to a cloudy storm of anger and disdain, creasing his face and darkening his eyes.

“Who said that?” Arthur demands. “Dalvik? The page?”

Merlin hadn’t known his name, but he nods slowly. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before,” he says awkwardly. “Arthur, really, don’t make this a bigger deal than it is. He can’t be more than fifteen. He’s just repeating what he’s been told.”

“That is the entire problem,” Arthur says, throwing up his hands. “There’s a generation that can still remember when magic was a part of this world, but anyone who spoke out against my father is now gone! And they kept telling their sons how evil it is, how dangerous, but they don’t understand…”

Merlin grabs Arthur’s arm. “You’re trying to change that.”

“And your purpose in my court is just to be verbally abused, apparently,” Arthur says, and frowns darkly at him. “You should have come to me.”

Merlin snorts out a laugh. “You were entertaining Princess Mithian. I can’t interrupt that.”

“You are to be one of the most important members of my court,” Arthur says, smiling wryly. “I don’t think you understand what you are training to be, sometimes, and the rank that you will carry. You will be my main advisor, Merlin, not only on magic, but everything that ruling this kingdom entails. It is a position that used to be revered, when my grandfather still ruled. It is the most trusted advisor of the king. My right-hand man.”

Merlin’s heart beats fast. His duties have been explained to him before, but never with the kind of reverence placed on them that Arthur displays now. “Then you’ve made a poor choice of court sorcerer, haven’t you?” he manages to get out.

Arthur blinks. “How so?”

“You just picked me because you wanted the person with the most power,” Merlin says in disbelief. “If this position is that important, power should be secondary! You should have picked someone who knows more about—about everything, like politics, and how to socialise, and who’s genuinely likeable, and who isn’t—who isn’t me!”

“We didn’t just look at power,” Arthur says, bemused, and slings an arm around Merlin’s shoulders. “We also looked at what they thought power was, and what kind of spells they wanted me to see. And you chose to grow a tree, Merlin. An apple tree, to feed and to grow. I didn’t only pick you because your magic was the strongest. I picked you because, out of all the magic you could have done, you chose something that can only thrive in peace.”

Merlin blinks. “I only did that because I had an apple seed.”

“That might be true,” Arthur allows, “but I haven’t regretted my choice yet. I don’t think I could’ve picked anyone who’s more humble and eager to learn. And I will be talking to Princess Mithian about this, Merlin. She might not openly support magic, but she will understand that I can’t have someone from her court disrespecting you.”

“Princess Mithian,” Merlin says, and his eyes flit back to the door to the feast that they’d just abandoned. “Is she—kind?”

“Very much so,” Arthur says, and can’t hide the smile that appears, a faraway look on his face. “Far more than I’d expected. I have high hopes for Nemeth, Merlin, if she’s to be their queen. King Rodor once proposed a marriage, but—”

“A marriage?” Merlin squeaks.

Arthur ruffs his hair. “Well, that would make her the Queen of Camelot, and I’d rather have a strong ally such as her in Nemeth, truth be told. Besides, I once vowed to only marry for love. I don’t expect it’ll happen—not anymore.”

“Not anymore?” Merlin echoes, curious despite himself. Arthur bares his heart so rarely—Merlin isn’t entirely sure what to expect.

“Gwen,” Arthur says absentmindedly, his mind clearly elsewhere. “Since she broke off our courtship, I haven’t—but that was two years ago. Camelot needs a strong queen, a kind one, and one that I love. That’s my decision, and I’ll make my peace in other ways.” Arthur smiles at Merlin, letting go of him. “And you’ll be part of that. We’ll be going to Nemeth soon, on a return visit, and you’ll be coming, too. We’ll change their minds, Merlin. I promise.”

Merlin’s mind is still whirring. Gwen. Arthur had been courting Gwen, and that had ended two years ago—presumably just before Merlin came to Camelot, then. Arthur had only been king for a short while. Neither of them had ever mentioned it. And why should they have? But he can’t shake the image of it.

Arthur and Gwen. 

“You should get back to the feast,” Merlin manages to get out, his throat closing up. “They’ll be wondering where you are.”

“Discussing important state matters with my future court sorcerer,” Arthur says, a glint in his eyes, and inclines his head toward Merlin. “You don’t need to return. I’m sorry I couldn’t have you closer to our end of the table, Merlin, but custom dictates—”

“I understand,” Merlin says. There are rules for court, and honour isn’t the only thing that binds Arthur. A great many things do; Merlin can see the web around Arthur, dictating everything he ought to do and ought to be. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow,” Arthur decrees. “Sleep well, Merlin.”

“Good night,” Merlin says. He watches as Arthur returns to the feast; when he opens the large doors, the buzzing sounds of conversation, laughter and music drift into the empty hallway. He feels oddly alone, for a moment, distinct from the world he’s inhabited for nearly two years. A torch flickers, and Merlin shakes himself out of it.

Perhaps it’s time to accept that not everyone will be glad for his presence, he thinks. Until now, he’s always had this distant hope that Arthur’s beliefs would convince his own people first, and then, other kingdoms. But things are never that simple, are they? Even if magic is fully reintegrated someday, it’ll be a long time from now. After Merlin’s dead and gone.

But Arthur is right, too; they have to work to change people’s minds. So Merlin might still face this distrust and hate, but he’ll have his station. Arthur is giving him the chance to change the world, even if Merlin might not reap all the benefits. And things are already so much better than he’d once thought they’d be—so what if some noblemen keep hanging onto their old beliefs?

“And thanks for coming out to help me, Arthur,” Merlin murmurs to himself, and turns around to go to bed.

Merlin has been keeping his distance from the Nemeth delegation for two full days; it hasn’t been hard, truthfully. He’s thrown himself back into his spellbooks, and he’d allowed Gwaine to drag him along to the tavern—where he’d been immediately mortified at the memory of trying to kiss Arthur, nearly a year ago now, which had kept him from drinking anything more than two watered-down mugs of ale. 

So it’s a surprise to find Princess Mithian of Nemeth standing at his door, having knocked rather politely. Merlin stares at her, astounded.

“Good morning, Merlin,” she says. He hadn’t thought she’d know his name. She smiles a bit awkwardly. “I’m sorry to intrude. I hope you don’t think me rude—it’s just that we’re leaving in a couple of hours, and I’d hoped to have the time to speak with you.”

“Oh,” Merlin says, and because it bears repeating, again, “Oh. No, you’re not intruding, erm. Please come in, my lady.”

He wishes he’d cleaned his chambers. His bed covers are strewn from one side of the bed to the floor, and his magic books are scattered everywhere, along with several pages of his own notes. There’s his half-eaten breakfast on his desk, where he’d abandoned it in favour of reading.

Mithian just smiles, though. “I assume you weren’t expecting me?”

“I thought you might be Gwen,” Merlin confesses. “Or Gwaine. Maybe Baradoc, so he can hound me over some spell or another. Sorry, I’m just—I’m not entirely sure what I can do for you, my lady.”

Arthur is better at this; Merlin’s seen him come to the point of a conversation with a few well-placed hints. Arthur has never learnt to outright say what he wants, which Merlin thinks is a shame. Merlin, on the other hand, has yet to learn the art of subtlety.

He thinks it may be lost on him.

“Arthur told me about your conversation with Dalvik,” she says, and folds her hands over her front. “I wanted to make sure you knew that the opinions he expressed aren’t ones that are shared by me.”

Merlin swallows. “That’s kind of you, my lady,” he stutters out.

“No, it’s something I ought to say,” she says. “Arthur has—in extensive detail, in fact—told me about your progress since you came to Camelot, and the many good qualities you possess. He seems very fond of you.”

Something in Merlin’s brain malfunctions. “Arthur?” he repeats sceptically.

Mithian laughs. “Is it so hard to believe?” she asks.

“He’s not usually very open about his feelings,” Merlin says, still thinking about it. Arthur, talking about his good qualities? Arthur would tell him he didn’t have any and swat him in the back of the head. It’s what they do. Then again—Arthur also tells him all the reasons he picked Merlin, and that he is proud of his progress, and he offers these soft smiles—

“He’s a very kind man, I’ve found,” Mithian says. “Although perhaps not as open about his fondness as he ought to be. Still, he’s a good king.”

“A great one,” Merlin immediately agrees.

“A great one,” Mithian repeats softly. “And in this, I hope to follow in his footsteps, one day, Merlin. The two of you, you and Arthur, you’ve taken on an immense job, and I greatly respect it. To bring back magic to Albion—I hadn’t believed it possible. I hope I’ll be able to assist one day.”

“Just having your support and acceptance already helps,” Merlin says, and smiles back.

“Well,” Mithian says. “If any two people can do it, I believe you and Arthur can.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Merlin says honestly. 

Mithian holds out her hand to shake Merlin’s, looking at him as if they’re sharing some secret knowledge of the future to come. Her palm is warm and soft, and she seems all the brighter when Merlin tentatively shakes it. 

“A promise, then,” Mithian vows, “to always work towards the freedom of magic.” 

And Merlin believes her.

When the delegation of Nemeth leaves, a few hours later, with the glowing hope of an alliance and Arthur’s promise to visit Mithian in Nemeth before a year has passed. It’s the anniversary of Merlin’s second year in Camelot. 

For the first time, he feels as if Arthur might really manage to set free magic in all of Albion.

Chapter Text

“Try and stay awake during these meetings next time, Merlin,” Leon says, halfway between amused and exasperated, shaking Merlin’s shoulder gently.

Merlin blinks himself awake, and suddenly he’s the only one in the council session left, apart from Arthur and Leon. He sits up straight, his heart plummeting with dread. “I’m sorry,” he starts, “but it was such a long night, and—”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, and Merlin shuts right up.

“I’m an idiot?” he asks.

Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose. “If you want any of them to take you seriously, perhaps you shouldn’t fall asleep in the middle of an important session. And if you want me to take you seriously—”

“As if you’ll ever do that,” Merlin mumbles absentmindedly, and rotates his shoulders. His neck is stiff from the awkward position he’d slept in. “Did I miss anything important?”

Arthur shares a look with Leon that conveys far more information than a single exchange of looks should, in Merlin’s opinion. “We discussed Essetir. Again. We decided to cancel one of our trade deals because of a disagreement with Cenred.”

That isn’t ideal, Merlin knows. Arthur wants to unite Camelot and Essetir, eventually, but his relationship with Cenred is quickly souring. It’s not just that Arthur is unwilling to ignore Essetir’s persecution of sorcerers, although it certainly doesn’t help; Merlin has learnt that Cenred is demanding, asking for things that Arthur simply can’t give him. If only their sole problem was the magic.

It’s so political. Merlin has quickly learnt to dislike the entire notion of it, even as he spends his day-to-day life at the heart of Camelot’s court. Or perhaps he dislikes it especially because he is learning how difficult it can be to compromise with obstinate people. Take one step to the middle, and they’ll take a step back, only to ask you to come forward again.

That is the current situation Arthur is in with Cenred—and clearly, Arthur has just decided that he’s gone far enough.

“What will that mean?” Merlin asks solemnly. “For your agreements with him, I mean? For keeping the peace?”

“We’ll have to see,” Leon answers in Arthur’s stead. “I have to train the knights. Arthur, I’ll see you tonight for our meeting.”

Arthur groans, and waves Leon away. “Yes, yes, I haven’t forgotten. I’ll see you tonight, Leon. Merlin, will you stick around for a moment? I need to discuss something with you.”

Leon smiles wryly at him as he leaves, and Merlin waves despondently. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy the time with Arthur; he gets little enough of it as it is. Two years ago, he’d thought that Arthur barely spent any time with him—he hadn’t realised how good he had it. Arthur is so busy these days that Merlin’s lucky to catch him at all, even during his lunch breaks. And Merlin has fewer and fewer reasons to search Arthur out, ironically enough, as he becomes more independent in his studies.

He wonders if becoming court sorcerer will mean he sees Arthur more often, or even less.

“You mentioned keeping the peace,” Arthur says, as soon as the doors fall shut behind Leon. “Unfortunately, that’s what I need to talk to you about.”

Merlin wiggles in his chair, made nervous by the solemnity in Arthur’s tone. The kingly seriousness is usually dropped when it’s the two of them, but he can see the way it weighs on Arthur now. There are lines in his face from his worries, and dark shadows under his eyes, and his shoulders have drooped as if the burden is too heavy for him.

It doesn’t matter if he sees Arthur less, as a court sorcerer. Merlin just wants to help him, and take away some of that world-weary heaviness that Arthur carries with him, all the time. Merlin wants Arthur to have time to be a man instead of a king.

“What is it?”

“I don’t suppose you know anything about Cenred’s usual ways of warfare, or his defences?” Arthur asks wryly, and when Merlin shrugs helplessly, he sighs. “No, I didn’t think so, but it was worth a chance. I’ve already informed Morgana, but you’ll have to look into magical means of protecting Camelot, if it comes to that. I’m not expecting war, and I hope to avoid it, but Cenred is growing increasingly vexing to deal with.”

“What does he want with you?” Merlin queries, shuffling his feet just to have something to do with his anxious energy. “What is he hoping to achieve?”

Arthur sags down in the chair next to Merlin, tamping down a frustrated groan. “If only I knew. I’ve discussed it with Leon and Morgana—we can’t see a clear reason for him to oppose us. He’ll be losing our trading deals, and I know he doesn’t have any with Nemeth, at least, so that leaves few other kingdoms for him to trade with. I can’t make sense of it, and that worries me.”

At his core, Merlin knows, Arthur is a man who likes to know what’s ahead. Arthur likes to plan, and to make sense of plans, and to strategise the best way of doing things. It makes him a good king. It also makes him a tad predictable.

Perhaps that’s unfair. Arthur values certain things far more than practicality should dictate—perhaps he’s only predictable to the people who know him.

“I don’t think Cenred will go to battle with you,” Merlin reasons. “He just doesn’t like being told how to run his kingdom, but he won’t pick a fight he can’t win. Especially without any other support.”

“You’re probably right,” Arthur says, and smiles faintly at him. “We’ll have to see how the situation plays out, but I like to be prepared. And we’re going to Nemeth in a few months. We’ll need some sorcerers to stay here, as well, just in case anything happens.”

Merlin’s heart falls. “You mean I can’t come with you to Nemeth?”

“No, I don’t mean that,” Arthur tells him, and flicks at Merlin’s forehead. “I mean that you’ll have to make sure your fellow sorcerers are well-prepared in case something does happen, you idiot. I’ll need you in Nemeth.”

Merlin smiles at him—and he can’t help it, the way he wants to lean in and do something monumentally stupid again. Arthur is just so gorgeous, and he is kind and rude at the same time and he always, always, seems to have this misplaced faith in Merlin that sends his heart soaring. No one else has ever believed in him as much as Arthur does so effortlessly, despite all the insults.

But he knows the way this’ll end, so he hopes Arthur knows how much Merlin appreciates him, even if he doesn’t realise the depth of Merlin’s affections. Merlin is keeping more and more from Arthur; his heart, his insecurities, his fears. It’s the price of being at court, maybe, or more accurately, the price of being able to be by Arthur’s side in order to do what Merlin wants to do. It’s always a game in the court of Camelot, and Merlin is learning to play.

Arthur will never know. It’s for the best.

“I might know a spell or two,” he offers. “Camelot will always be safe, Arthur. I promise. You and I, we’ll keep it just as it should be.”

Arthur rolls his eyes and stands up. “Somehow, I always believe you,” he says. “Come on. I have a thousand letters to respond to, and your handwriting is good enough to write letters back.”

“I’m not your manservant,” Merlin says, but he’s already following right behind Arthur. It’s a rare evening that Merlin gets to spend with Arthur, and he’s not about to waste the chance.

“Oh, believe me,” Arthur tells him, slinging an arm around Merlin’s shoulders, “that would be much less work.”

Morgana is around far more often these days. Merlin isn’t entirely sure what the reason is—to him, Morgana has always been keeping herself distant from him. Apart from knowing that she didn’t want to be court sorcerer in the first place, he knows frighteningly little about her.

But she sits in on a lesson between Baradoc and Merlin now, perhaps intending to measure the knowledge that Arthur’s Council of Magic has gained. Merlin doesn’t want to think she’s there just for him, but sometimes it feels that way.

“You aren’t doing that properly,” Baradoc complains. Their one-on-one sessions have increased in number over the past few months. Hilga barely attends any of their meetings anymore, having found her own place at court. Her potions require magical ingredients, and a little bit of spellwork, but nothing so intricate as would require her to be here so often. Ead and Diarmuid have teamed up together, which leaves Baradoc with Merlin, as the two most powerful sorcerers on the Council of Magic.

Well, relatively speaking. Merlin has more magic ability in his little finger than Baradoc has ever felt in his life, he thinks sourly.

“There’s no one proper way of doing magic,” Merlin complains. Morgana shifts in her seat at the far end of the room; Merlin had thought she was fully immersed in what she was reading, but it turns out that’s not entirely true. “If the spell works—”

“Not as it should,” Baradoc argues, and leafs through his spellbook. Merlin scoffs. The spell in question is one to make objects float. He’s been doing that since he was a toddler. But Baradoc had marked it as a complicated spell, because there are a ton of intricate rules involved, except that Merlin just does these things.

“It’s floating!” Merlin says, waving exaggeratedly at the chair in question. “What do you want to be proper about it?”

“You didn’t even use the spell,” Baradoc says, his face growing red. “You’ll regret all these shortcuts one of these days, Merlin, even if you like to pretend that none of it is necessary—”

Merlin rubs the bridge of his nose. Baradoc has been a thorn in his side from the moment he realised what Merlin would be to Arthur—what position would be given to a lanky sixteen-year-old child. Merlin had accepted it, so busy and anxious and unknowledgeable about anything to do with magic. But he’s not sixteen anymore; he’s eighteen, and he knows far more about these things than he did before.

“Baradoc,” he says in exasperation. “I’m sorry, but you have to stop acting as if you know more about magic.”

Baradoc stops in his tracks, raising a single eyebrow at him. “Acting?” he says, affronted. “Acting? You’re just a child, and the Lord knows I’ve tried to make you see some sense about what you are doing with your powers, considering you barely even understand—”

“And maybe there are things I don’t understand!” Merlin interrupts him harshly, “but I know that my magic isn’t the same as your magic. I have to learn to do this my own way, but I’m never going to understand my own powers more deeply if I keep letting you cut in telling me about the proper way things are done. I decide how my magic works, Baradoc, not you!”

Morgana rises in one fluid movement, leaving all her papers behind her as she steps out from behind the table. “I can tell that the two of you training together isn’t working,” she says. “Baradoc, why don’t you join Diarmuid and Ead? I’m sure they can use your expertise.”

Baradoc gapes at her. “My lady—”

“That wasn’t a suggestion,” Morgana snaps. Baradoc looks between the two of them, and grabs his book in a huff. His face is still exceedingly red, and he stomps out of the room with no regard for etiquette. Merlin has been drilled by Arthur enough to know that there’s nothing proper about that, at least, in front of a lady.

Merlin guffaws. “I’ve been wanting to tell him that for ages.”

“You’re growing up,” Morgana says, but it doesn’t sound as complimentary as the words make it seem. She looks at him thoughtfully, her eyes giving away nothing of her true feelings. “Have you had any more issues with your control? With dark magic?”

“Nothing,” Merlin says honestly. 

“Don’t think that means you never will,” Morgana tells him, and turns around to lock the door behind Baradoc. It falls in place with a click, and Merlin stares at her.

“Morgana…”

“It will come when you least expect it,” she says. “It was the same for me, and so it will be for you. Magic is a tool, Merlin, and dark magic isn’t necessarily to be feared. But it must be controlled, as all your magic must be, and that is a far more complicated matter.”

Merlin frowns. “You used dark magic?”

“I still do, occasionally,” Morgana says, and grabs his wrist. He has never seen her this intense; from this close, it nearly seems as if her eyes are alight with magic even when she isn’t casting a spell. “When I tell you to be careful, Merlin, it is because I understand what all these other people with magic don’t. It is because I have a warning to give you that other people aren’t powerful enough to understand. Because if you do give into the darkness, and if you do not learn to control it, then I cannot help you.”

“But it hasn’t happened,” Merlin insists. 

“Make sure it doesn’t,” Morgana says darkly, and lets go of him. There are dark crescent-shaped indents on his skin where her nails dug into him. “It’s a long road back, and your magic might not feel like yours anymore.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Merlin challenges. “Is that why you didn’t want to be Arthur’s court sorcerer?”

Morgana half-smiles. “Don’t presume to know anything about me.”

“Magic is a tool,” Merlin says. “It can’t turn you toward the darkness. Only you can do that.”

She lets out an exasperated sigh. “So grown up in some ways, but in others, not at all. There used to be a time you’d bribe me with honey cakes to make me tell you. I’ll tell you when you can understand, Merlin, and not a day before.”

“You’ll be waiting a long time,” Merlin warns her.

The light falls into the room, the little dust particles the only thing that divides them. It feels like a vow, an oath of magic—that Merlin’s magic was made to be here, and to remain by Arthur’s side. It feels like that, suddenly, and his heart thrums loudly at the realisation.

“We’ll see,” Morgana says, and steps away. The moment breaks neatly into a thousand little pieces, and Merlin’s heart resumes its normal beating rhythm. “But for now, I’ll be the one training you.”

Sometimes, Merlin’s time in Camelot feels as if it’s flown by; at other times, months drag by slowly, convincing Merlin that the progress of time is just a cosmic joke. Lately, though, the time goes so fast that Merlin wakes up and feels as if he’s slept for months instead of several hours. In between his training with Morgana, which is far more demanding than anything Baradoc had ever thought to ask of him, and Arthur increasing his time in council meetings, and the preparations for their journey to Nemeth, Merlin feels as if he’s barely had any time for himself.

Which is why he’s rather put out when Arthur barges into his rooms, without even bothering to knock, just when he’s meeting up with Gwen.

“Oh,” Arthur says, when he catches them sitting at Merlin’s table together, books strewn open. “I thought the reading lessons were done?”

Merlin throws a loose paper at him—unfortunately, it flutters to the ground before it gets anywhere near Arthur. “I finished my reading lessons over a year ago, Arthur.”

“I know that,” Arthur says, and eyes Gwen. She is just smiling awkwardly at him. “I didn’t realise the two of you were still meeting up outside of those lessons, is all. I suppose I should have, shouldn’t I?”

Merlin looks between the two of them, and suddenly recalls Arthur’s words—his absent-minded admission to having courted Gwen before she called it off, now nearly three years ago. He suddenly can’t recall seeing them together in a room more than a handful of times, and never really alone with him. 

Are they still friends, really? Merlin vaguely remembers that they mention each other, now and again—as if they have talked, but that doesn’t mean they are spending loads of time together. Really, given how busy Arthur is, it’s quite unlikely.

“We are friends,” Gwen says.

Arthur just presses his lips together, and Merlin decides that something must be done before the tension kills him. “Did you need me for anything, Arthur?” he asks.

“Ah,” Arthur says, and flounders. “Yes, but if you’re busy—”

“I can leave,” Gwen offers.

“That’s not necessary,” Arthur says quickly.

Merlin eyes the two of them. Arthur’s cheeks aren’t pink, and Gwen isn’t casting down her eyes. He isn’t sure if they are still interested in each other—and it’s been three years, after all, and surely they would’ve done something about it if they were, he decides. It’s more as if they’ve forgotten how to act normally around each other.

And Merlin knows nothing will come of that smouldering fire that aches in his lungs every time he looks at Arthur; even if there’s something between Arthur and Gwen, there are worse things that could happen.

He’s so mature these days.

“Just stay,” he says to Gwen. “We’ll finish this when Arthur’s done.”

Gwen looks at him uncertainly, but doesn't move, so Merlin looks at Arthur expectantly. Arthur just frowns for a long moment, but then straightens his shoulders. “It’s about the delegation we’re choosing for Nemeth,” Arthur says. “You are, so far, the only sorcerer that’s coming along with us. Gwaine brought up that one sorcerer might not be… enough to convince Nemeth of our stance. I wanted to know your thoughts.”

Merlin blinks. “Why wouldn’t it be enough?”

“If we have one sorcerer, it might feel as though you’re the exception, rather than the rule,” Arthur says, shrugging. “The rest of the delegation will be knights and some nobles, so it will be on your shoulders to convince them. I’d rather not bring Morgana—it’s best to leave at least one powerful sorcerer in Camelot. I suggested Baradoc, but Morgana told me it wouldn’t be the best option.”

Merlin smiles grimly. “Perhaps not, no.”

“I thought it’d be a good match,” Arthur says, a little baffled. “He’s the second-strongest sorcerer in your group. Diarmuid doesn’t like social events, and Ead is a little—off-putting. Not that she’s unkind, but—”

“Arthur,” Gwen says, and smiles. “Merlin doesn’t get along with Baradoc.”

Arthur blinks. “I thought you just didn’t like him as a teacher.”

“No,” Merlin says. “Because I don’t like him as a person. He’s demeaning. I stopped letting him get away with it, and now he’s upset with me. I’ll work with him, but I’d rather not let him come with me.”

There’s a long second of silence. “Why didn’t anyone think to tell me about this?” Arthur says in exasperation. “I’m trying to make a show of power, but my strongest and second-strongest sorcerer are at odds with each other. You’d think you’d have come to me with this, Merlin.”

“I don’t need you to fight my battles for me,” Merlin says, and doesn’t add that it’s because Morgana already did most of the fighting for him. “And besides, Morgana is your second most-powerful sorcerer, not Baradoc. If you want to bring someone else, bring Hilga.”

“Hilga?” Arthur repeats sceptically. 

“You don’t need to make this about power.” Merlin leans back in his chair. “You need to make this about acceptance. Hilga’s friendly and kind and decent, and she loves what she does. And she’s sixty—no one will be afraid of her and her potions. She’s the other side of magic, the side that you’ve been ignoring.”

Arthur tilts his head. “Are you accusing me of something?”

“Me? No,” Merlin says. “But all the people who’ve got magic, Arthur, will be more like Hilga than me. If you want to convince Nemeth, you have to show them that magic isn’t always this powerful, evil force that can turn against them. You’ve got to show them ordinary people like Hilga. Besides, she’ll make them cake. They’ll be convinced by the cake.” Arthur still doesn’t look entirely convinced, so Merlin adds, “I’ll be all the power you need. Baradoc can’t hold a candle to what I can do, anyway.”

“So modest, aren’t you,” Arthur says dryly. “Did we turn you into this?”

Merlin shrugs and grins cheekily. “I just really want Hilga’s cakes.”

“I really hope you’re not hitting another growth spurt, Merlin,” Gwen says, looking him up and down. “You’re tall enough.”

“Just an inch taller than Arthur,” Merlin agrees.

“No, you’re not,” Arthur says. Merlin’s height hurts Arthur’s pride, certainly, but Merlin just laughs. He really is just an inch taller than Arthur, and he’ll lord it over him forever, if only to see that chagrined expression on his face. Merlin loves him so.

“Are you taking Hilga, then?” Merlin asks, leaning forward on his elbows. “I really think it’s the best option.”

Arthur sighs. “I’ll ask her if she wants to take the trip at all,” he says. “She’s rather old, and I don’t want her to take the journey if she isn’t up for it. But I agree, Merlin. It’s an astoundingly good idea from you.”

“I always have great ideas,” Merlin says. “You wouldn’t have come to ask me if I didn’t.”

Arthur rubs his forehead with his palm. “I suppose you’re not entirely terrible.”

“Arthur,” Gwen says disapprovingly. It causes Arthur to look up in confusion, and Merlin smiles, slinging an arm around her shoulders. He really loves Camelot, he realises suddenly. It isn’t just about Arthur, but also Gwen, and the knights, and really, it’s everyone who makes it a home to him.

“Don’t worry,” he says to Gwen. “He’s just pretending to be rude. He thinks it makes him look more kingly.”

“I do not,” Arthur says, but that’s alright. Merlin knows Arthur better than that, and when Gwen wryly smiles at him, he knows that she does, too.

The restlessness tugs at his feet.

It’s not that Merlin doesn’t want to be in Camelot, but the closer they get to their trip to Nemeth, the more he realises how much time he’s been spending inside the castle. He takes a few more trips to visit Freya, but every time the grey walls of Camelot come back into view, he thinks about what it might be like to see something else.

He just wants to see more of the world, Merlin tells himself. A trip to Nemeth will do him good, even if it’s only the one kingdom. He loves Camelot; he loves working toward being the man that Arthur wants him to become. It’s just that Merlin has only ever lived in two places, and every time he leaves, the urge to travel becomes stronger. It becomes wilder, like the flourishing underbrush in the deepest parts of the forest.

It’s something he can’t entirely explain.

“You’re not joining in?” Arthur asks, sitting down next to him. They’re in the tavern, and Merlin obstinately does not think about the last time he was in a tavern with Arthur. Gwaine dragged him along, because the delegation to Nemeth is leaving in three days, and this is the last evening they have free before the journey.

Gwaine is dancing with Gwen, and she laughs, her hair falling over her shoulders. Elyan and Leon are negotiating some sort of bet, with a few more knights egging them on. Merlin smiles faintly as he watches them.

“You’re not, either,” he points out. “I’m just thinking.”

“I didn’t know you did that,” Arthur says, but he lets them fall into a companionable silence as they watch everyone else.

“I just—” Merlin starts, after a few moments. “Do you ever feel like you haven’t seen enough of the world to really make any decisions? You have to make these big, important choices, and they often involve a part of the world you’ve no idea about. Doesn’t that worry you?”

Arthur is quiet for a second. “No, not really,” he admits. “I travelled a lot when I was a boy. My father made sure that I set foot in every region of Camelot, at least, but I met many other rulers in my teens. And when there are conflicts between kingdoms, I am careful to gather as much information as I can before deciding anything.”

Merlin bites his lower lip. “I’ve never been anywhere but Essetir and Camelot,” he says. “And I’ve just…” He thinks about Freya, and about her comments about the other magical creatures. About the fear of magic in other places. “I feel as if I don’t really understand the various ways that magic works. What it’s like for other people.”

“You’ll learn on the road, Merlin,” Arthur says. “The entire problem is that there aren’t many people you can learn from. The druids, perhaps.”

“But there are,” Merlin insists, “they’re just hidden.”

Arthur smiles at him, and suddenly messes up Merlin’s hair. “You’re still young,” he says reasonably. “Of course you still have much to learn. You’re keen on leaving Camelot, then?”

“Just for a bit,” Merlin says.

“I can’t say I’ve ever felt that way,” Arthur tells him, and his voice becomes more pensive as he looks away. “It’s always been my home. I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else, really. A journey’s only ever that—a journey.”

Merlin bites his lower lip. In the distance, Elyan yells out a shout of victory, and he can hear Gwaine’s loud laughter. “I don’t want to leave forever,” he says, because he doesn’t want Arthur to take it the wrong way. “I just want to see what else is out there.”

Of course Arthur can’t understand. Arthur loves Camelot more than anything else; Merlin knows that nothing can trump what Arthur feels for his kingdom. It is innate for him, this desire to do what’s best for his home. It’s part of why Merlin appreciates Arthur so much, and what makes him such a good king. They are Arthur’s people, part of him as he is part of them. They make one whole.

But Merlin can only be whole when magic is whole again. He is one of a kind, in so many ways.

“The journey to Nemeth will be great for you,” Arthur says teasingly, and jostles his shoulder against Merlin’s. Merlin smiles faintly, and doesn’t mention it again. 

They leave for Nemeth when the sun has only just risen.

Merlin rides right behind Arthur, next to Leon. He might be the only one who’s properly awake, because most of the knights are still yawning on their horses. Arthur’s hair sticks up at the back. Merlin hasn’t told him yet—it’s too amusing. Leon doesn’t seem to have noticed, the way his eyes keep drooping. Only Hilga seems awake, but she’s riding at the back of the group, intently focused on making sure not to fall off her horse.

But they are leaving Camelot, and Merlin is vibrating with the need to press onward.

It takes a couple of hours for most of the party to be awake enough for conversation. For the first leg of the trip, Merlin takes the time to just look at their surroundings. They are still familiar, so it’s unsettlingly boring. When he tries to talk to Arthur, though, he’s shushed into silence. It’s only when they’ve made their first stop—food-related, which surely helps with the energy of the group—that conversation starts to flow.

This is also the moment that they get far enough away from the castle that the environment becomes new. They travel through the dark, deep forests, and Merlin feels the ebb of magic awakening at his presence; the life around him, and all it entails. It’s so utterly beautiful. He has never been this far south before, since Essetir is east of Camelot. 

“Is this what you had in mind?” Arthur says, when he falls back to walk next to Merlin. “For your trip?”

“No,” Merlin answers absentmindedly, having craned his neck to stare at a particular bird flying overhead. “I wanted to understand more creatures with magic unlike mine, and we haven’t seen any.”

Arthur snorts. “You’re hard to please, did you know that?”

“Says the royal clotpole,” Merlin fires back. “It’s still nice. I’m not complaining, Arthur.”

“You will be before the end of this trip,” Arthur says, meaningfully looking at Merlin’s stance on his horse. So perhaps Merlin isn’t the strongest rider—it’s not his fault his father wasn’t around to put him on a horse by the time he was two years old. Knights are all insane, and Merlin wants no part in it. “You’re going to be sore before the day’s over.”

“Don’t you worry about my backside, Arthur,” Merlin says. Arthur opens his mouth, and then closes it again. Merlin just grins and watches as Arthur shakes his head, his cheeks a touch pink. It’s been long enough that he isn’t worried that Arthur will draw back into himself at any mention of Merlin’s unrequited kiss from two years ago.

He’s still mortified. It’s just funny to see Arthur blustering at the memory of all that.

“It’s a four-day ride to Nemeth,” Arthur says, coming back to the topic. “And then another day to the capital. And you’re riding your horse as if you’ve never even seen one before.”

“Add it to the long list of things you’ll have to teach me,” Merlin says.

Arthur just sighs, and trots back to the front. Merlin doesn’t mind; he’ll have to spend long days in Arthur’s company, and this small respite gives him time to look around even more. 

The first day passes by slowly, and true to Arthur’s word, Merlin does have a sore bottom by the end of it. He makes a point of not complaining about this to Arthur, but he does to Hilga; she offers him a potion for it, and it takes the edge off the uncomfortable ache.

Magic really is the best thing in the world.

The second day already comes with an odd kind of boredom. The sense of life still runs through the forest, but it’s not new anymore, and they still have another full day before they reach the end of the forest. The horses walk slower, too, unable to run over all the branches, because Arthur is worried one of them might break a leg. So Merlin sits on a slow horse, and just listens in to Leon going over their alliance with Nemeth in the front.

Travelling is a little dull, Merlin concludes, when it’s all along the same road. They are following a small stream that will eventually join the river that marks the border between Camelot and Essetir. It quietly babbles as it hits the rocks and slowly becomes wider. Merlin wonders if any water sprites like Freya live in the river. Perhaps he can make friends with them.

He’s lost in thought until the moment that an unfamiliar knight jumps from behind the trees.

Arthur rides at the front, and his horse neighs loudly at the interruption. Arthur has no time to act, though. The knight raises their sword, and it’s only because of the horse’s panic that the slash misses as she rears back just in time.

The knight isn’t alone. Merlin’s own mare brays, whipping around so suddenly that Merlin nearly falls off. He only just holds on through his own adrenaline, clinging onto her with one arm and outstretching the other. Four more knights have appeared, jumping from the bushes where they must’ve been lying in wait. Arthur isn’t far enough away from their reach—he can’t escape, he can’t get off his horse in time, and even though he’s grabbed his own sword, there’s no way he can attack four unfamiliar knights before they simply strike him down, and then pierce his heart—

Merlin doesn’t know where the spell comes from. He feels the magic surge up, dark and fearful and dangerous, and he wants to throw up with the force of it. The entire world gleams in gold, for just a moment, but to Merlin it feels like a lifetime. He can’t entirely pinpoint what happens, because the strength of his own spell throws him off his horse and into the stream.

From one moment of confusion to the next, he’s drenched in the water. Merlin doesn’t even realise he can’t breathe until the glow of gold disappears and he finds himself reaching frantically for the surface. His ankle has become stuck on a sunken branch, and he thinks his head hit a rock—or perhaps his own spell dislodged his brain, he thinks, as he tries to figure out where he’s going. The stream is forcefully pulling at him, so he can’t quite reach the branch that’s keeping him trapped. A bubble of air goes up, and that’s wonderful—he knows where to go.

If only he could reach. The panic sets in fast, and Merlin is grabbing for his ankle. He remembers this, he remembers—the stream in Ealdor, and the hands that keep him pushed down, and his own waterlogged attempts to plead for his life. And then there’s strong fingers clutching his arm, and he’s pushing at them. They can’t drown him—they can’t drown him, he hasn’t done anything wrong—

And then he’s being tugged out of the water, and someone is forcefully beating him on the back. “Breathe, Merlin, come on,” Arthur says, and Merlin vomits river water, collapsing into Arthur’s arms.

Arthur doesn’t seem to care; he just encloses Merlin in his arms, rubbing his back. “I’m fine,” Merlin gurgles out after a few minutes, or perhaps a few hours. “I’m okay.”

“Are you?” Arthur asks dubiously, and grabs Merlin by the shoulders to inspect him. Merlin tries to breathe more calmly, to savour the sweet air—and then he takes in his surroundings for the first time.

His spell was clearly more forceful than he intended it to be, if he had any intentions at all. He stills as he sees one knight lying on the ground, his face pale and slack, blood running from his mouth. Hilga is seated next to Leon, ordering Gwaine and some of the others around.

“What did I do?” Merlin demands.

“Calm yourself,” Arthur orders, and grabs Merlin’s cheek to tilt his face back towards Arthur. His eyes are stern and demanding, and Merlin doesn’t think he’s ever seen him like that before. “Merlin, I do not want you to panic. You have to be calm.”

But it’s hard to be calm, knowing Merlin did something, and now he recalls the kind of magic he used—its darkness, its anxiety. He drew on something he shouldn’t have, and now he is reaping the consequences. He turns away from Arthur to throw up on the ground again and it doesn’t make him feel better at all.

“You nearly drowned,” Arthur says, holding him tightly. “You were thrashing in the water. I only barely managed to get you out in time. Merlin, what spell did you use? And tell me calmly.”

Merlin tries to breathe, a normal function that shouldn’t require any thought, but which has suddenly become increasingly hard. “I don’t—it’s not a spell. I don’t know what it was.”

“Then why did you do it?”

Because Merlin lacked control. Because he’s always relied on innate talent instead of the theories he’s been reading to do magic. Because he lets the magic surges up, and never thinks about what it might do before he’s finished the spell. Suddenly, he understands what Morgana was trying to tell him, though he wishes he didn’t. He glances over at Leon, where he’s still lying down, pale and bleeding, and presses his forehead against Arthur’s chest. “I panicked,” he whispers under his breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—I never meant to—”

Arthur cards his fingers through Merlin’s hair, gently cradling him. “Just calm down.”

That’s easier said than done, though. Arthur sits with him for several more minutes, but eventually lets go of him to reluctantly wrangle their group back into some semblance of order. Hilga does what she can for Leon, and then takes over for Arthur, coming to sit with Merlin. He falls crying into her arms, exhausted from the emotional turmoil.

He doesn’t feel like such an adult anymore, watching everyone take care of the mess he’d created.

It’s not just Leon who’s hurt, although he’s the worst off. Apparently, when Merlin had cast his spell, he’d flown off his horse and hit his head on a tree. Several others had fallen as well, and one of the knights has a broken leg, and another a sprained wrist and several bruises on his back. The knights that had attacked them are all dead, so it seems Merlin had some idea where to aim his spell.

Not that he remembers it. It’s pure luck that things ended up as they did, or at least it’s outside of Merlin’s control.

“What are we going to do?” Gwaine asks, when all the horses have been retrieved and all the knights have been treated as best as they can. “We can’t go to Nemeth with Leon like this.”

“He’ll have to go back,” Arthur says, wearily scratching the back of his head. It’s only mid-afternoon, and they all look as if they could do with a good night’s sleep. “It’ll take too long to continue. Everyone who was injured will return to Camelot, and I’ll send two other knights along with them—as well as Merlin.”

“What?” Merlin squeaks from where he’s sitting on the ground.

“Do not argue with me about this,” Arthur says, and looks straight at him. “I can’t believe I was going to take you to Nemeth. Haven’t you learnt anything about control, Merlin? You are hurt, and if I can’t trust you to keep hold on your spells if there’s any sign of danger—”

“It was an accident!” Merlin calls out. 

“An accident that could’ve killed people ,” Arthur says, and it’s like someone put a sword through Merlin’s heart. Arthur rubs his head. “I don’t want to discuss this now, Merlin. I know you didn’t mean for this to happen. But the fact that it could happen means that you are not yet ready to be on a delegation like this.”

Merlin stays silent, and watches as Arthur turns away. He can’t argue with him—what could Merlin possibly say to defend himself? Arthur is right, and Merlin doesn’t know what else he can do. Perhaps there isn’t anything that can possibly make this right.

It takes a half hour or so for them to arrange Leon in such a way that they can move him safely. Arthur is set on taking Hilga with him to Nemeth as their sole remaining magic user. She looks solemnly at Merlin when Arthur makes the announcement, rubbing her hands together in anxiety. Merlin shrugs helplessly at her.

“I’ll see you when we get back,” Arthur says to Merlin. Leon is strapped in against Elyan, looking like death warmed over. Merlin can’t quite look away from him. He still hasn’t woken up at all.

“Yes,” Merlin says heavily. He doesn’t know what Arthur will say when he does—he has the entire trip to think it over. Will Arthur send him back to Ealdor, to his mum? It wouldn’t be unexpected, really. Merlin should consider his options.

Arthur sighs, and puts a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “Don’t use any magic until I do.”

All the trust Arthur has in him, gone, in one swoop fell. Merlin looks down, unable to meet Arthur’s eyes. “I won’t.”

And then Arthur turns around, focusing on the remaining party. They’ll have lost half a day to Nemeth, and now they have to make haste. Merlin stays with Elyan and Leon, grabbing his own horse’s reins and leading her back.

Back to Camelot, and toward his own uncertain future.

Merlin knows, objectively speaking, that Morgana and Gwen are friends. He’s seen them walking around together often enough, and they name each other in conversations more than enough times for him to realise they spend a lot of time together. All that said, he hadn’t known how much they could convey with a single glance.

First thing when they came back to Camelot, Elyan sent Leon to Gaius. Merlin isn’t very well-informed in medicine, but he’d helped Gaius gather herbs before, and Hilga isn’t here to do it, so he offers his help. Gaius takes him up on it without any further comment, putting Merlin to work grinding sage.

Gwen mysteriously appears an hour later, quietly helping as well, brushing her shoulder against Merlin’s every so often. He hasn’t said a word to her yet—and then Morgana arrives, tugging both of them along to her chambers.

Usually, they practise magic in her chambers, so Merlin knows exactly what it’s like on the inside. Somehow, though, the walls loom over him today, and all the magical artefacts that Morgana has collected seem to stare judgmentally at him, despite none of them having eyes.

“Elyan told me what happened,” is the first thing she says.

Merlin remains silent. Gwen shares a look with Morgana—one of those meaningful ones, one that Merlin can’t decipher—and adds, “Merlin, what happened?”

“It’s clear what happened,” Morgana says, shaking her head when Merlin still doesn’t answer. “He panicked, and all that tenuous control slipped from his grasp. It’s what I warned you about, Merlin, but you didn’t take me seriously. No amount of talent will ever save you from the lure of dark magic.”

“Morgana,” Gwen admonishes, and takes Merlin’s hands. “Is that what happened, Merlin? It was all just an accident, wasn’t it?”

Merlin wrestles his hands away. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “It was still my fault.”

Morgana isn’t nearly so kind. She tuts loudly, and turns away. “Of course it matters. It’s the difference between control and the lack of it.”

“I don’t care about dark magic,” Merlin says. “I hate it, I hate it, why can’t you see that? It makes me feel like I’m about to be sick, and I don’t—it’s not luring me in—but my magic just does everything so instinctively, and I don’t get to pick and choose! There were these knights, and they were about to kill Arthur, and I acted, and I didn’t think about it! And that’s all it was!”

He’s breathing hard by the time he finishes. Gwen hugs him right away, and he closes his eyes as he breathes in her scent. He doesn’t want to look up and see Morgana staring at him with all the judgement in her eyes. 

She thinks he’s just like her, and he thinks maybe she doesn’t like herself all that much.

“What did Arthur say?” Morgana asks when Gwen lets go.

Merlin doesn’t want to think about that, either. He’s sure that right now Arthur doesn’t like him all that much; Arthur values nothing more than his kingdom and his knights, the ones who protect the place and the people that Arthur calls his own. Merlin was a tool to an end, he thinks sourly—perhaps he was once one of those safeguards, but now he’s nothing but a disappointment.

He doesn’t want to think that way about Arthur. He can’t help it, remembering the disenchantment in Arthur’s eyes after he’d rescued Merlin from that river. If Arthur hadn’t been as noble as he is, maybe he would’ve let Merlin drown.

Merlin can’t even hold it against him, except in the hollowest part of his heart, he can.

“He’s going to send me away,” Merlin says, and huddles in on himself. “He didn’t actually say it. But I know he will.”

“That’s nonsense,” Gwen says, looking at Morgana, then back at Merlin, when she doesn’t find the encouragement she wants there. “Arthur likes you. You’re friends with him, aren’t you? He wouldn’t abandon you, not just like that.”

“Isn’t that what he did to you?” Merlin snaps. It doesn’t matter what happened between Arthur and Gwen—it doesn’t matter that they’ll never tell him. She blanches, and Morgana’s frown darkens, and Merlin doesn’t want to be around them anymore. He wanted to be free, and instead he’s back in Camelot. Only a few weeks ago, he had thought he’d found a home here.

Today, he feels more trapped than he ever has before.

He storms out the door, and ignores the cry of “Merlin!” behind him. Arthur is going to send him away, and Merlin doesn’t even know if he wants to stay. Not if Arthur’s trust in him is so shaken. He’s lost it once before—he can’t keep losing it. 

He’s not even sure he trusts himself anymore.

Arthur comes back quietly, and two and a half weeks have passed since Merlin accidentally blasted Leon into a tree.

Since then, Leon has finally woken up and returned to his full abilities. He still walks a bit awkwardly, but Gaius has assured both of them that, with sufficient rest, Leon should suffer no lasting effects. Merlin has refused to use his magic for anything at all, even when Ead came up to him to ask. Morgana hasn’t come at all.

It feels a little bit like breaking apart, and Merlin sullenly sits in his rooms and lets his meals come to him. He never did, before, and he still feels the sting of awkwardness whenever a servant comes in with steaming hot food. Still, Merlin has lost the energy to have his dinner with everyone else.

“Hello,” Arthur says, as Merlin opens the door to his chambers. Arthur’s hair is a bit damp; he must’ve taken a bath right before coming to Merlin, and that must’ve been right after he arrived. Merlin had watched the horses coming back in through the gates just two hours ago.

“Hi,” Merlin says hollowly, and lets Arthur in. The door falls shut, and Merlin leans against it. He cannot sit; he will fidget too much, and he’d rather be on his feet and able to pace freely. Arthur frowns as he takes in the state of Merlin’s chambers. They’re unnaturally clean—Merlin had made sure to pack.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how the visit to Nemeth was?” Arthur asks, trying for teasing humour that immediately falls flat. “It was fine, I suppose. Mithian asked after you.”

Merlin lifts his eyes to the ceiling, and he counts to five. “I thought you’d come to ask me how Leon was.”

“I’ve already gone to see him,” Arthur says, proving Merlin’s guess wrong. He should’ve known; of course Arthur would visit Leon first. “I’m glad to see he’s doing better. He said you haven’t been in to see him since he first woke up. He wanted to thank you for stopping Cenred’s knights from killing me in time.” Arthur’s lips are tightly pressed together, white and terse.

Merlin just blinks. “Cenred’s knights? They were from Essetir?”

“Hadn’t you guessed?” Arthur asks dryly. The truth is that Merlin hasn’t spent another thought on the dead knights. Perhaps he should have—that’s yet another way he has failed as a potential court sorcerer. Not so potential anymore, he supposes. “Cenred heard of our alliance with Nemeth and thought to nip it in the bud. And he would have, if not for you, Leon tells me.” Arthur is quiet for a second. “I am grateful to you, Merlin. But I can’t ignore—”

“You can’t send me home,” Merlin interrupts. He can’t bear to hear Arthur say it; can’t hear the solemnity and sincere regret in his voice. “Find another place for me, but I can’t go to Ealdor.”

Arthur stops. “Why can’t you?”

“Because I can’t,” Merlin pleads, and turns away from Arthur, even though there’s nothing else here to pretend to look at. His bed, maybe. He paces towards the window, but there are knights outside, and the Camelot red hurts his eyes—or maybe that’s his heart.

“Merlin,” Arthur says patiently, tamping down his obvious annoyance. “Why have you never gone home, these past three years? What’s so bad about it?”

“The river,” Merlin says, and sticks to watching the sky, and the blue of it, interrupted by a handful of clouds and a swarm of birds. “I didn’t—I wasn’t fighting you because I was panicking. I was fighting you because the last time I was in a stream, it’s because they were trying to drown me.”

Merlin is eighteen years old, and the last two years have been a whirlwind of activity—of learning who he is, and who he wants to be, maybe even who he’s meant to be. It has been two years of trying to mature as fast as he can, and denying his childhood. But when Arthur grabs his shoulders, Merlin breaks down sobbing, falling into Arthur’s arms.

It’s too much. He’s let himself make a home of Camelot, and now he’ll be sent away, and the worst part of it is—he isn’t even sure he could’ve stayed. There’s still so much he doesn’t know, and that he can’t learn here. There’s still that yearning for something else, something more, and his slowly growing resentment of the castle walls. 

And there’s nowhere else he can go.

“I’m sorry, Merlin,” Arthur says quietly into his hair. The sound is muffled, and perhaps Merlin isn’t meant to hear him over his own loud crying. He’s spent the last two weeks resenting Arthur for what he will have to do, and now all he can do is cling to him. 

“I believe in what you’re trying to do,” Merlin says, leaning his head into Arthur’s chest. If he doesn’t tell him now, he never will. “I wanted to be the court sorcerer you needed, but I don’t know how to control this. I don’t know, Arthur, and I can’t make my magic into something it isn’t.”

Arthur tilts Merlin’s chin up. A sympathetic little smile tugs at his lips, and Merlin wants to turn away just for that. “Perhaps if you listened for a second,” Arthur suggests, and Merlin wrinkles his nose. Arthur continues, “I’m not sending you away. Well—not forever.”

“Right,” Merlin says, and lifts his eyebrows sceptically.

“I discussed it with Morgana before I came here,” Arthur says. That must’ve been a shorter bath than Merlin thought—Leon and a whole discussion with Morgana, too. Merlin really was not a priority. “I had a thought about how to help you, and she agreed with me.”

Merlin narrows his eyes. “What was the thought?”

“We’d hoped that we could teach you here,” Arthur murmurs, almost as if Merlin didn’t speak at all. “First with Baradoc, and then Morgana as your skills progressed. But your skills are far beyond them—and perhaps always have been, at least in terms of raw power. Neither of them can teach you to control yourself in the way you’ll have to learn to.”

“So?” Merlin says impatiently. “You’re sending me away to where I can’t hurt anyone? Arthur—”

“Just listen,” Arthur tells him in exasperation, and tugs a bit at Merlin’s hair. “You impossible thing. I want to send you to the druids.”

The druids. Merlin turns it over in his head. He has thought about it before, but always as vaguely impossible—he isn’t one of the druids. That conversation with Iseldir and Aglain, proclaiming him to be Emrys, still haunts his nightmares. He doesn’t want to be a god.

But they know a lot about magic. They might be the only ones who can help him.

“For how long?” Merlin asks.

Arthur takes a deep breath. “The remainder of your time as an apprentice, so a little more than two years. Just until you’re twenty-one. You have nothing more to learn here, Merlin.”

“Except courtly etiquette,” Merlin says in bafflement. “Compromise, and politics, and—and basically everything you need to rule! You told me—”

Arthur waves him away. “You can learn all of that after you’ve learnt to control your magic. Besides, you wanted to see the world, didn’t you?”

“Not for two years,” Merlin says, his voice wavering. “I’ve only been here for nearly three years.”

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that long,” Arthur tells him.

Merlin just glowers at him. Two years might be short to Arthur, but it feels like a lifetime for Merlin. Just considering everything he’s learnt in Camelot—and to think he might spend nearly as much time with the druids. “That’s because you’re ancient. You are twenty-six.”

“Exactly,” Arthur says wryly. “Perhaps I’ll have a white beard by the time you come back.”

“Reaching all the way to your knees,” Merlin agrees.

“So.” Arthur tilts his head to look at Merlin solemnly, a piece of his fair hair falling over his forehead. “Are we in agreement? Two years and four months with the druids, and then back to Camelot to become my court sorcerer. That is, if you still want the position.”

“And what if I don’t?” Merlin asks, and that causes him to think about all the other things that seem so uncertain right now. “And what about Cenred and his knights? Is there going to be a war? If there’s a war, Arthur, you’ll need—”

“If anything, this move has shown Cenred for the coward he is,” Arthur says firmly, and softens his voice as he adds, “and if you change your mind, we’ll respect that. We are not binding you to my service, Merlin, if that is not where you want to be.”

“I want to serve you,” Merlin says.

“Because you don’t know anything else.”

But that’s not the truth. Merlin has spent more than two and a half years admiring Arthur from afar, and the last two weeks varying between loving him and despising him, just a little bit, if only to save himself from heartache. Arthur is a kind man, and a noble king, and a good friend. Merlin may not have lived anywhere else, but he knows that people like Arthur are a preciously rare commodity in this world.

And he loves him—by all the gods, and all the stars, and all the magic that Merlin has ever felt thrum in his veins, he thinks he’ll always love Arthur.

“I’ll serve you until the day I die,” Merlin says more firmly, “and when I come back, I’ll tell you again.”

Arthur smiles wistfully at him. “We’ll see.”

Perhaps everyone will trust Merlin to know his heart better when he’s twenty-one. For now, he shrugs, and lets Arthur have his own doubts. Merlin has two years to become the sorcerer he wants to be, and then he’ll be back.

It’s a good thing, he decides, and finally feels a bit of hope again.

Aglain arrives a week later, staff in hand and a dark green, hooded tunic covering his bald head. He inclines his head at Merlin first, and then at Arthur. Merlin’s cheeks flush pink at the reverence in Aglain’s every movement.

“Take care of him for me,” Arthur says. 

“With utmost care,” Aglain promises, and extends his hand to Merlin. Merlin looks back for a moment—the entire Council of Magic stands there, even Hilga, with a kerchief to blow her nose in. Gwen quickly comes in for another hug, even though she’d already given him three this morning.

“Good luck, Merlin,” she whispers in his ear, and squeezes his shoulders. “You can always come back if things don’t work out.”

“I have to do this,” Merlin says, and kisses her cheek. He’s just glad Gwen doesn’t hold his two weeks of sullen behaviour against him, or the accusations he’d made. Gwen has a heart of gold, and he values her more highly than he ever thought he would.

Morgana just waves at him. He has to prove it to her, too—that they can master their magic. Merlin isn’t entirely sure why she fears it, or what her experience with it has been like—but perhaps, one day, she’ll learn to love her magic, too. Merlin waves back, and then Arthur puts a hand to his shoulder, his face intense in its solemnity.

“I know it’s really my fault that you’re going,” Arthur says quietly, “but I hope you find what you’re looking for with the druids, Merlin. And if not—there is always a place for you here.”

“Even if I can’t control my magic to the degree you want me to?” Merlin asks doubtfully, and steps toward Aglain. Arthur lets his hand fall back to his side, and Merlin can see him flexing his fingers slightly, as if he isn’t entirely sure what to do with himself. A surge of fondness and desire wells up in him—he wants to step back and grab Arthur’s hands, and promise him that the rest of Merlin’s life will be spent by Arthur’s side. But it’s too much, and Arthur would never accept it, and Merlin isn’t that selfish.

And he itches to get moving, even if he knows his path will always lead back to Arthur.

Arthur presses his lips together in a poor facsimile of a smile. “You know that’s a promise I can’t make. But I can take care of you, even if you’re not my court sorcerer.”

“I’m not a child anymore, Arthur,” Merlin says, and smiles faintly. “I can take care of myself. And if I can’t use my magic here, I don’t want to be under your care at all.”

Arthur blinks at him, his face oddly struck. The words are sour on Merlin’s tongue, even after he’s already let them out, but he means it. He wants Arthur to know, too, the importance of Merlin’s magic to him. If this doesn’t work out the way either of them wants it to, Merlin cannot come back. He might return to Arthur—but on his own conditions.

It’s Arthur’s kindness that gave Merlin a place to grow in; now, he’s learnt he can thrive away from Camelot.

“I suppose I couldn’t expect otherwise,” Arthur says, but there’s still something wistful in his expression, in the way he’s scrunched up his eyebrows. “Goodbye, Merlin. Until we meet again.”

“Until we meet again,” Merlin echoes, and turns back to Aglain. The druid inclines his head to him, and motions towards the gates of Camelot, towards the forests. Merlin’s heart skips a beat in an odd combination of sorrow and excitement, and he takes the first step. And then another, and another.

He looks back once, just to see Gwen quietly talking to Arthur, their heads bowed together. Merlin isn’t sure why he expected Arthur to watch him until he’d gone, but he just turns back and follows Aglain.

Two years.

“I think your decision is a wise one, Emrys,” Aglain says, when Merlin finally falls into step with him. “There are things we can teach you that no one else can. I am glad you called upon us.”

Arthur is the one who called upon you, Merlin nearly says, and then bites his tongue. It was his decision to come—he should own up to it. “You don’t have to call me Emrys,” he says instead. “That’s not my name. I prefer Merlin.”

“Emrys is a name as old as prophecy,” Aglain says noncommittally. “You will grow into it in time.”

Merlin sighs, and follows him.

Chapter Text

Everyone is looking at him.

Merlin huddles in on himself near the fire. Only Aglain sits down next to him, infinitely more at ease than Merlin feels. Slowly, Merlin nibbles on the bread that Aglain had offered, and tries to ignore the eyes on him.

This is even worse than Camelot, where he’d only just been Arthur’s sorcerer-to-be. 

“Is it always like this?” Merlin asks, loathe to finish his loaf of bread. He won’t know what to do with his hands if he’s not holding it, but his stomach churns.

“Like what?” Aglain says, and follows Merlin’s eye line. “Ah. They are simply unused to you—they will come to know you in due time. They are trying to be respectful.”

“Great,” Merlin mutters. “Is there… anything I need to know about your people?” Perhaps he should’ve asked before he left to live with them for over two years, but he’d been so preoccupied with the thought of leaving Camelot that he’d barely considered the druids. They have magic, so he just assumed he’d fit in.

“That we are your most devout followers,” Aglain says.

Merlin tears a piece of his bread and stuffs his mouth with it, just in case he says something inadvisable.

“And?” he presses, barely audible with his mouth full. 

Aglain doesn’t seem bothered by it, although he glances back at Merlin. “Our rituals are rather simple ones. We follow nature and our past, and we treat our gods with respect. We honour the forest we live in, and we never stay in one place. There isn’t much that you will not learn in your own time, Emrys.”

“How about your tattoos?” Merlin says. Aglain’s lower arm is full of them, and the triskelion on his wrist most prominent of all. “Do they mean something? Or should I not ask about it?”

It might be similar to the knights and their scars, he thinks. Knights like to brag about their ordeals, but one should never ask how they’ve earnt a scar, just in case it was by something embarrassing. Leon is the one who taught Merlin that little tidbit about social life in Camelot, and Merlin’s heart twists at the memory.

“They are a reminder of things we deem important,” Aglain says, and shows his arm to Merlin more carefully. The bold, black lines stand out starkly even on Aglain’s darker skin, painting him a druid for the world to see. The triskelion is the largest one, but it is surrounded by silver birch leaves and flying owls. Aglain traces the lines of a particular flower—a primrose, Merlin recognises—that takes up the highest part of his lower arm. “Events that have shaped us, and things that we cannot forget.”

“Not everyone has tattoos,” Merlin says, looking around them.

“They are a sign of a druid’s coming of age,” Aglain tells him solemnly. “And for important matters in our life, such as handfasting. Everyone has them, but they may be hidden.” He frowns, and looks off into the distance. “They can be dangerous to wear visibly, these days. We’ve learnt to hide ourselves away from the outside world, and some of us place our tattoos where they can’t be seen so easily.”

They are a mark of pride, but also a mark of pain, Merlin thinks. Aglain must not care about the pain, or he had them done before the Purge—he isn’t entirely sure how old Aglain is, but he must be in his mid-forties, or perhaps his early fifties. Merlin wonders what it’s like, to carry a sign of one’s magic so clearly on his skin.

He isn’t sure if he’d like it or not.

“I hope you won’t have to hide them anymore, one day,” Merlin says quietly. Isn’t that why he’s here? To shape his magic, and himself, into something that can make this a reality for the druids? To help these people like him?

And they’ve invested so much in him. His annoyance turns to humbled awe, for a second, and he presses his lips together. He isn’t sure he can do this, but for their sake, he’ll try. He just hopes he can live up to their ideas about him. For the freedom of magic.

“I hope so, too,” Aglain says, and smiles.

There are several things Merlin learns over the course of the first few months with the druids.

The first is that Merlin has become used to several luxuries in Camelot that he really oughtn’t have relied on so much. Bathwater does not exist; they bathe in rivers and little streams in the forest, all in groups, as a sort of social event. Merlin, even in Ealdor, had liked to lean his head back against the bathtub and think, but this is not an option with the druids. 

The druids are a community—much more so than Ealdor or Camelot. They rely upon each other for everything, and everything is shared. Not only property, or what little they have of it, but emotions, stories, connections, even lovers, occasionally. Merlin has never felt as much like an outsider as the first night around a campfire, with the druids singing songs of their people and sharing stories that feel like an old quilt, wrapped around their shoulders, well-worn and comfortable. They all have tattoos on their wrists and shoulders and the backs of their necks—a sign of what they are, and who they are, and their pride in the matter.

They’re his people, or they should be. They use magic for even the little things that Merlin feels guilty using magic for—healing up a little scrapes and cuts, making hot water stay hot for longer, lightening the burden of what they carry when they move to a different place. The children have games with magic, and sometimes Merlin will see tiny flashes of light from the forest when they play.

Merlin has never been so aware that he has no idea what a world with magic looks like, even though he’s been fighting for one for nearly three years in Camelot’s courts.

Aglain is the leader of this particular group, but there are other clans that they meet. The first is the one of Iseldir, the other druid that Arthur had met in Camelot.

“Ah, Emrys,” Iseldir greets him, when Merlin has been with Aglain’s clan for just a little over a month. Merlin sits in his own tent—a courtesy from Aglain, claiming Emrys and his powers deserve their own place of rest, and Merlin had been too uncomfortable to refuse.

“Good morning,” Merlin says politely, and eyes Aglain curiously when he trails behind Iseldir.

“Aglain told me you haven’t been settling as well as he wishes,” Iseldir says, and Aglain shares a wry look with him that Merlin doesn’t miss. “I suppose you must be missing Camelot? Your friends?”

“No, that’s fine,” Merlin says, and winces. Arthur has been a large part of his thoughts, but perhaps not in the way that Iseldir means. “I mean—it’s only been a month. And everything’s so different here, and I…”

“I’ll leave you for a moment,” Aglain says suddenly, and disappears through the flap of the tent. Iseldir sits down next to Merlin.

“He didn’t want me to come and speak to you,” Iseldir whispers conspiratorially. “You are the great Emrys, and Aglain imagines it means that your presence is too blinding for us mortal men. He doesn’t dare speak against any wish you might express, though you might’ve realised already.”

Merlin had not, actually, realised. “He doesn’t strike me that way,” he says dubiously. 

“How old are you now?” Iseldir asks, leaning back and appraising him thoughtfully.

“Just nineteen,” Merlin tells him. 

Iseldir nods. “Still young, in a great many ways,” he says, and Merlin must’ve looked exasperated, because he adds, “Mature, I’m sure, as well. You grew up in a village in Essetir, did you not? That must have been hard on you. You must’ve hidden away in a lot of ways, and even in Camelot—well, I can’t imagine it was so easy to openly be a sorcerer in a citadel where views are changing so quickly. And you don’t have a lot of experience with your magic.”

“I’m here to learn control,” Merlin says, because he isn’t sure what Iseldir is fishing for.

“We cannot teach you that,” Iseldir tells him, and puts a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “But we hope we can help you find yourself, and with it, your control. Emrys, you are something that is beyond most men—and so is your magic, but my stay in Camelot made me realise that you have never been taught to be anything more than you are.”

Something feels heavy in Merlin’s chest, and he frowns. “I don’t need to be anything more.”

“Of course you don’t,” Iseldir agrees at once. “But you are in a unique position. You are the god of magic, Emrys, and the sooner you accept this, the sooner your control will come. Your magic is yours alone—and all the magic in the world belongs to you. The only man who could possibly tame it is you, and we cannot help you with this. But we can help you become someone who can.”

“That isn’t why I came here,” Merlin points out, and shifts away from Iseldir. “I don’t want to be a god, and I don’t want to be Emrys.”

“But you want your magic?”

“My magic is me,” Merlin says. He hadn’t believed he’d ever have to explain this to a druid. “It’s not just something I have. If I didn’t have my magic—” He fumbles for words. “I might as well be dead without my magic.”

“So you are Emrys,” Iseldir concludes. 

Merlin bites the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know what the druids can teach me about that.”

“The druids have a connection to nature that many others have lost,” Iseldir continues more quietly. “I do not want you to be anything more than you are, Emrys—Merlin. I just want you to realise the full extent of what you are, and of who you are. We have stories and songs, legends and prophecies. Do not be so concerned with what the druids think of you, but just try and see what they are doing. Move in flow with them.”

“But I’m not a druid,” Merlin says helplessly. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Then for the first time in your life,” Iseldir says, and smiles kindly, “perhaps you may need to ask for help.”

There are about two dozen druids in Aglain’s clan. Five of these are around Merlin’s age—three girls, and two boys. The oldest of the girls is called Hanna, and she’s twenty-two. She’s planning to handfast with Aed, one of the men. At twenty-seven, he’s the same age as Arthur, but he looks far younger.

Or perhaps Arthur just looks more mature, Merlin considers, watching Aed swing Hanna around the fire with a broad smile on his face during one of the dances. They are at a sacred place, an ancient place—Merlin can feel the magic thrumming through the trees, vastly older than he can imagine. Arthur has ruled Camelot for five years, since he was twenty-two; and even before that, he’s never had the chance to just be a child.

Merlin misses him more profoundly than he could’ve thought, and wonders if he’ll ever get rid of this ever-present desire to take a horse and ride back to Camelot. Two worlds are pulling at him, and he feels as if he’s part of neither. He could put up with it, if only Arthur would—

What, exactly? Merlin doesn’t know, and he taps his feet on the ground to get rid of his anxious wondering, staring into the warm glow of the fire.

Hanna lets herself fall down next to him, and Merlin startles badly, and immediately curses himself for it.

“You’re so lost in your own thoughts,” she teases him, elbowing him in the ribs. “What worlds are you hiding from us, Emrys? Are you dreaming up new planes of existence, where we all might be free?”

Merlin shakes his head, but he can’t help the smile that touches his lips. “And what if I were?”

“Then you’d have to come and take us with you, of course,” Aed proclaims, sitting cross-legged on the other side of Merlin and rubbing their arms together. “To be free—oh, truly free, wherever we go in the world! That would be a wonderful existence.”

“You don’t know what it is to be trapped,” Merlin tells them, only half-solemnly. The druids don’t have the freedom to go wherever they want to, of course, but they have more freedom than most magic users. 

“Oh, but we are merely your devout followers,” Aed says slyly. He isn’t at all like Arthur, but in the light of the fire, there’s some of the same energy that touches him—that lilt in his tone when he’s teasing, and the way his hair glows gold. Merlin finds it hard to look at him, sometimes.

“You know he hates to hear that,” Hanna tells Aed, and entwines her elbow with Merlin’s. “Come, Emrys, will you dance? It’s not the Beltane fire, but spring has come, and it’s worth a celebration. The gods will be pleased.”

“What gods?” Merlin says in exasperation, but allows her to tug him up. Aed follows as well; the dances of the druids aren’t nearly so well-coordinated as the ones in Camelot. Hanna just gives herself with abandon to each movement, dancing around the burning wood with her hands thrown up in the air and her dark hair swinging wildly across her shoulders. Aed laughs loudly, and grabs Merlin’s arm with enough force to bruise.

A hint of magic spreads across the fire, and Merlin closes his eyes. Magic, he thinks to himself. They are not his people, but they use his magic. They want the same freedom that Merlin has longed for, and there are things they can teach him. To be this free—what it means to live with magic, hand in hand, tapping into existence itself.

Hanna dances to the rhythm of the magic, and Aed kisses her, and it feels right. Merlin dances, and across the fire, he sees Aglain smiling at him.

Then Aed brushes his skin against him, and yanks him in between him and Hanna, and kisses him too, and Merlin feels the glow of the golden fire, and the fondness in his chest, and Aed looks like Arthur. Merlin kisses him back.

“There are no lessons I can teach you,” Aglain says, and Merlin trails behind him uncertainly. The morning is still young, and the woods smells like the cold sun is pouring its light over branches still wet from the rain; Merlin inhales deeply, and smells magic once again. He is immersed in it, all the time, and it is dizzying now that he realises how far he was removed from it in Camelot.

“Then why are we here?” Merlin asks, when Aglain doesn’t continue. They are slowly making their way towards several monoliths that tower high in the distance; they are covered by moss that must be so slick that Merlin couldn’t climb it even if he wanted to.

“Because there are things you must learn,” Aglain tells him, and gestures towards the sky. Its blue is still streaked with purple and red. “The druids have tales of Emrys’ power, and how he will unite Albion, alongside the Once and Future King. It is the tale of the freedom of magic. It is why the druids believe in the world you will build.” 

“But I’m trying to do that,” Merlin says. “I need to work on my control.”

“And that is why you must understand what you are,” Aglain says decisively. “Do you see the highest boulder? It is a little whiter than the rest, and the birds make nests there.”

Merlin peers into the distance—he can see the topmost boulder, and the moss that covers it. It does appear a bit whiter, but that might also be because Aglain just told him it is, and now he’s expecting it to be. “I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.”

“It is a sacred place,” Aglain says. “You can see the entire forest from there. No man can climb there, but you must.”

Merlin stops walking, and Aglain looks back at him. Merlin says, “You can’t expect me to climb that.”

“I do expect you to do so,” Aglain says mildly. “I expect you to go there, and to meditate about your powers and what they are. What they mean. I cannot teach you control—I can only help you understand what you are, and the gifts you have.”

“I can meditate right here,” Merlin says wearily. 

“This is not a sacred place.” Aglain’s eyes are wide, as if Merlin is a heretic. He might well be; Merlin has spent enough time with the druids to know the value they ascribe to certain places. They’re not wrong about them, because the forest is teeming with areas that are bursting with magic. Merlin just isn’t sure if they even know the reason why magic is so abundant there.

“But why that sacred place?” Merlin insists. “I can’t climb that. I’ll fall to my death, and there are so many other places to go that are sacred. We’ve already been to three since I joined your clan!”

“They all have their own meaning,” Aglain says firmly. “Emrys, you must climb the boulder. It is no insurmountable task for one like you.”

“Fine,” Merlin snaps. 

It takes them another hour to get to the foot of the mountain of boulders. Even at the start, the moss grows like a thick tapestry, and when Merlin puts his hand to the stone, the wet slickness of it sticks to his palm. He eyes back towards Aglain.

“I will wait for you to come down again this evening,” Aglain says serenely.

“You don’t have anything better to do?” Merlin asks him in exasperation, but doesn’t wait for the answer. Of course Aglain doesn’t have anything better to do. Merlin claws at the boulders to see if there’s a fissure he can put his fingers in; it’s unsuccessful. The moss makes it impossible to even start the climb, let alone actually complete it.

Even when Merlin sits with his back against the moss, uncaring about the stains to the green cloak that he’s been wearing ever since he joined the druids, Aglain doesn’t say a word. In his mind, it must all be part of the process, Merlin considers sourly. He wonders what Aglain will do if Merlin just sits here all day.

But Merlin has never been well at sitting calmly and being introspective. He sits down for only a few minutes before he starts his search again, walking down a fair way to the other side. The moss isn’t growing as abundantly there, but the climb is far steeper, and the rocks are jagged enough to pierce his side. Merlin winces as he imagines falling down here.

“Do I have to climb it?” he eventually asks Aglain.

Aglain looks at him, his frown twitching. “You have to reach the top,” he says. 

That’s not a yes. Merlin sighs and looks back at the boulders, craning his neck to see the top. Several birds are flying from and towards their nests; their wings gleam in the light, all sorts of brown and black and white and grey. 

“Fine,” Merlin says, and thinks about Baradoc’s spellbook. Metamorphosis had been a chapter that Baradoc hadn’t let him practise—probably worried about the results if Merlin messed that one up—but it hadn’t stopped Merlin from reading it. He’d read it with Gwen, he remembers, back when the letters had all still danced before his eyes.

It feels like a lifetime ago, but he remembers thinking how fun it might be to be a bird, and to fly away. He imagines it once again, thinking of Gwen’s calm voice, the way she’d slowly move through paragraphs, her finger never wavering as Merlin kept place. The bold, dark strokes of her handwriting, so at odds with her demeanour, and nothing at all alike to the curling script of the magic books.

He thinks about flying back to her, and showing her exactly what she has taught him to dream of, and when he opens his eyes again, the world is far taller than it has been ever since Merlin was a toddler.

“Emrys?” Aglain says, peering down at him. Merlin tries to respond, but he lets out a high-pitched caw instead, and flutters with his newly-acquired wings. He jumps up, and suddenly the wind carries him. He smacks right into a boulder.

“Caw,” Merlin says in annoyance.

“I suppose that works as well,” Aglain says carefully, picking up Merlin and straightening some of his feathers. “Have you ever done this before, Emrys?”

“Caw,” Merlin tells him. It means no, which Aglain must realise, because there is a dark tilt of his lips.

“It’s a powerful magic that you are playing with, but if anyone can wield it well, it is you,” Aglain says, and his own rationalisation lifts some of his concerns, because his expression lightens. Merlin taps on his palms, looking at his own dark claws. He can’t be such a big bird, because he fits in Aglain’s palm.

“Caw?” he asks.

“I’ve no idea what you’re saying,” Aglain apologises. Merlin considers using the mind-speech—the druids are oddly fond of it, but he hasn’t used it yet, and Aglain is clearly respecting that decision—but decides that it doesn’t really matter. What matters is whether he can fly, and if his wings will carry him to the top of the mountain.

He throws himself upwards, and this time doesn’t smack into a boulder, which he considers a success. The wind tugs at his wings, and Merlin just lets himself be carried. It strokes his feather’s like a lover’s touch, and Merlin takes a deep breath. This is freedom, he thinks, as he surges above the canopy of the trees. This is being able to go where he pleases, and not have to worry a single day about who wants to kill him and who doesn’t. 

He gets to the top of the mountain within mere minutes, and the other birds look at him strangely. Merlin decides he’d rather be a human again, and spends three minutes lingering on the thoughts about Gwen’s disappointment if Merlin decided to be a bird for the rest of his life—he doesn't think he could stand never receiving a hug from her again.

He finds himself back with all his fingers intact right after he thinks that thought.

The other birds caw loudly and the whole flock flies away. Merlin laughs, and stands up. His knees wobble, and Merlin reaches his fingers as far up as he can. He’s never been this high, so on top of the world. Behind him, the forest stretches wide and far, and beyond it, the rivers and plain fields of Albion. Camelot lies to the north, and he turns to look towards it—Arthur is there, and Gwen, and Gwaine, and even Freya, somewhere within the dark green cover of the trees, near a lake. All the life that Merlin has built, that he’s so desperately trying to hold onto, and yet—

The itch to travel finally feels satisfied, just a bit. This is part of the world he wanted to see, and this is a place where he wanted to belong. He sits down again, letting his feet hang over the side.

“Hello?”

He nearly falls off—it’s only his tight grip on the boulder that saves him from falling all the way down. Behind him, a young man stands, his skin dark and his eyes deep. His chest is entirely bare, and he wears only a patched-up pair of brown trousers.

“I didn’t think anyone would be here,” Merlin says, his heart beating in his throat. “Are you—how long have you been here?”

“I live here,” the man—boy? He doesn’t seem a day over sixteen—says. 

Merlin blinks. The mountain is large, but it’s also completely bare, and there’s nowhere he thinks would be a suitable place for a home. He can’t see a house. “Where?”

“In the cave,” the stranger says, and points to a small fissure that Merlin would’ve missed entirely. “It’s just me. My name’s Tanaros.”

“I’m Merlin,” he says, feeling oddly wrong-footed. “Sorry. Am I intruding?”

“No, no,” Tanaros tells him. He shuffles forwards, and when Merlin doesn’t stop him, he sits down next to him. Merlin thinks he might’ve been wrong about his age. His face is young, but there are creases around his eyes and lips that speak of a longer life than Merlin would’ve thought. “I’ve been alone for so long, I just—forgot what it’s like to have visitors.”

Merlin considers him for a long second, and then frowns. “Are you a spirit?”

“What?”

“A magical being,” Merlin says. Tanaros feels the same way that Freya does—as if he isn’t entirely human, but made of magic. He doesn’t smell like water, but then, Merlin shouldn’t expect him to. Tanaros smells like—the wind in the morning, a calm and cooling breeze that hasn’t warmed up yet in the sun.

“Oh,” Tanaros says, and brightens. “Yes. The weather is my domain; it plays with me, and I with it.”

A weather sprite. Merlin nods to himself slowly. “And you live here alone?”

“Most of my family left a long time ago,” Tanaros says. If he’s a sprite, he must be immortal, or at least live for very, very long. Merlin has no idea how many years it must’ve been to be a long time to Tanaros. “But thunder is always the best from here, and I love how it looks. So I create it here, and it brings me the rain. I love the feel of water on my skin.”

“I have a friend you would like,” Merlin says, and smiles. He hasn’t seen Freya in far too long.

“I like most people,” Tanaros agrees, “but most people don’t like the thunder. And other places aren’t safe—not when you’re alone. So I’m here, and I have the thunder.”

“Why isn’t it safe?” Merlin asks carefully. Freya had told him how many spirits had suffered, even before the Purge, but this area is so remote that he wonders why. Only the druids come here, as far as he knows, and they abhor any sort of violence. They would be worshipping the spirits, not killing them.

Tanaros purses his lips and turns towards the sky. It is blue, with not a cloud to be seen. “We are with so few now,” he says, and sounds remarkably lost. “And those of us that used to travel, they’ve lost their safe roads, or they can’t find their way back. I used to live on a mountain that now has a castle, and a king.” He frowns. “Or perhaps they’re gone now. But before the castles and the kings, we had peace.”

“But that must’ve been centuries before the Purge,” Merlin says, trying to wrap his head around it. “You can’t have been hunted for that long, can you? What do you mean, peace?”

“You’re not a man,” Tanaros says, and eyes him so intently that Merlin feels as if his very soul is being scrutinised. “But you are a man. There is a duality in you—part like me, and part like them. But you… you feel kind.”

“I want to help,” Merlin says, and adds, “I want to bring back peace. To your people as well.”

Tanaros slowly nods. “You might be the only one who can,” he murmurs, and slyly says, “Emrys. I’ve heard that name in prophecies, echoing from the mouths of gods. And you said your name was Merlin. Do you call yourself that because you like to turn into a bird?”

“What? No,” Merlin defends himself. “My mother gave me that name.”

Tanaros’ expression softens. “It’s a good name. Merlin, then. The name of a man, and the name of a creature of magic. That’s why you feel so familiar. You’re magic.”

“I just want to learn to control my powers,” Merlin says, and his mouth feels dry. He never asked for this kind of infamy; for this name. All he wants to do is—to be by Arthur’s side. It’s still a lofty goal, bringing back magic to the world. In the face of this sprite, all alone, it seems nearly impossible.

“I don’t understand,” Tanaros says, and eagerly leans forward. “You are magic, aren’t you? To control yourself is to control magic.”

Merlin shifts. “It’s not like that,” he says awkwardly. 

“You truly are very young.” Tanaros’ eyes are deep, suddenly, dark and lovely like a river. It reminds Merlin of drowning, and Arthur’s hand clutching his arm. It reminds him of that carnivorous space between life and death. “It’s not a lesson to be taught. It’s something you acquire over time. It’s an experience of life. It’s letting yourself try everything you can think of, and seeing where the limits are.”

“But the dark magic,” Merlin says. In the time it took Tanaros to say all of that, he seems to have aged thirty years. The lines around his eyes are starker now, like the wind has blown creases into his face. “What if I do something I didn’t want to do?”

“It’s your fear you have to control,” Tanaros says. “Not your magic. It’s the human part of you that’s wild and unbalanced.” He smiles, and his teeth are all white, and the sun seems to shine even brighter. “They didn’t tell you that, did they? For you and me, for us beings made of magic—it’s never the magic that is the problem.”

Merlin breathes out. “How do I fix that?”

“Just remember that there’s no dark magic,” Tanaros tells him wisely, and taps Merlin’s forehead. “It’s only what you perceive to be dark that shapes your fears. Don’t fear your magic, and don’t fear yourself. It will come with time.”

“But I don’t have time.”

“Oh.” Tanaros tilts his head. “You have time. It’s the only thing anyone has, really.”

He stands up, leaving Merlin seated alone on the edge of the boulder. He lifts his fingers up to the sky, and dark clouds appear, grey and foreboding. The first drop of rain hits Merlin’s nose, and he scrunches up his face.

“I want to help the other creatures of magic,” Merlin says quickly, because Tanaros seems like he’s lost interest in Merlin, the way he stands on the edge of the mountain and relishes in the rain. “How do I best do that? What happened to drive you away?”

“As soon as magic is accepted in this world, the rest will follow,” Tanaros tells him, not even looking at him. His arms are outstretched. In the distance, thunder rumbles, and the lightning strikes relentlessly into a tree. Merlin blinks as a fire starts, slowly.

That’s not dark magic, he thinks. There is no dark magic, Tanaros had said. Just the evil of men, and what they consider right and wrong. Merlin takes a deep breath, and smells rain and stone. When he turns his head back around, Tanaros has gone.

Merlin laughs, and lifts his hands up to the sky, and lets the rain drench him.

“Is there such a thing as dark magic?” Merlin decides to ask Aed and Hanna.

Hanna lifts her eyebrows. Between the trees, the children are playing their game with their spells. They are collecting berries, and Merlin had come along with Aed and Hanna despite Aglain’s protests.

“Of course there is,” Aed says. “There’s right and wrong.”

“That’s such a human way of looking at it, isn’t it?” Merlin says, and turns towards Hanna. “A plant isn’t evil for growing where it does, even if it has to kill another to take its place. A wolf isn’t dark for killing to eat. How can magic be evil?”

“Not magic, perhaps,” she says slowly, and puts a berry to her mouth. It stains her lips red. “But men, certainly.”

“But judged by whom?” Merlin presses.

Aed raises his eyebrows. They are blond and bushy and wild, and not at all like Arthur’s, but the look in his eyes is. As if he has all the answers in the world, or at least is determined to find some way to discover them. “Other men.”

“Then it’s not universal.”

“Does it need to be?” Hanna points out. 

“But it changes between every person,” Merlin says helplessly. Aed hands him a handful of blueberries, and Merlin pops one in between his mouth. It is a little sour, but still good. He thinks it might make for good juice. “What you consider to be evil isn’t what a knight of Camelot might. And what you consider good might be considered evil by others.”

“So what do you think?” Hanna asks.

“I’m not sure,” Merlin confesses. If anything, his conversation with Tanaros just left him reeling with questions. “I think some things just—are, maybe? And we’re the ones placing value on it. But I don’t know if there’s anything about it that’s right. And I want to know.”

“I think there are some values that are true for anyone,” Aed says, and slings an arm around Merlin’s shoulders. “Killing men for no reason is evil. Loving another is good.”

Merlin eyes him. “But even that is subjective. I don’t—you kissed me, during the last dance. But you’re handfasting with Hanna. In Camelot, that would be—”

Well, he’s not entirely sure. But it wouldn’t be good.

“We share,” Hanna says, and shrugs. “Love is love, isn’t it? And you are lonely, and we like your company. If you want a place in our bed for the time you’re here, you’re free to ask.”

Merlin blinks. He knows the druids do things differently, and that’s why he hadn’t made a fuss of it when Aed had kissed him. And it’s not wrong, but it feels—different. Like something that crawls under his skin, and whispers to him that he can’t. He thinks of Arthur, and the callouses on his palms, and the arch of his lips and the crook in his nose.

“I’m in love with someone,” he says, and thinks it’s the first time he’s properly confessed it. “I don’t think I can.”

“You don’t have to,” Aed says, a little more seriously. “But it’s not a lifetime commitment. You’re welcome if you want—but no pressure. What we mean, really, is that, as long as a thing is done out of love, and affection, well. It can’t be so bad, right? If I’d kissed you knowing Hanna doesn’t want me to—that wouldn’t be a thing done out of love, so it would be bad. But it wasn’t, so it was good.”

Merlin smiles wryly, and rubs his face with his hands. “I think it’ll come with time,” he says, and looks at the sky. It’s blue, today, and he wonders if it’s thundering in another place. Time is all he has, really.

“Do you want to practise your spells, maybe?” Hanna offers. “Aglain told us to bring it up with you.”

Of course he did. Merlin presses a kiss to her cheek, and feels his hair being ruffled by Aed. “I think,” he says slowly, “I want to grow a lot of apple trees, and bring home some food.”

“Excellent,” Aed declares, and neither of them makes a fuss when Merlin’s eyes grow golden and he sets his magic free. The apple tree reminds him of the one he made in Arthur’s court, once, and the fruit hangs low, easy to pick. When he bites into it, the juice drips over his chin and onto his toes, sticky.

And it tastes like freedom.

Aglain is a less strict teacher than either Baradoc or Morgana, and not as good a host as Arthur. Merlin joins with Aed and Hanna most days, but on the days he finds his feet wandering, he leaves for longer periods of time. He goes back to the mountain one day, but doesn’t find Tanaros again. One time, he leaves for the lake, and spends a whole day with Freya to tell her about the druids and about meeting another sprite. 

He lets his magic wander more freely, too. It takes some time to get used to, but magic is such an essential part of the druidic community that it’s inevitable. And it’s freeing in a way that he never had considered before.

“Are you feeling at home?” Aglain asks him, when Merlin has been there for half a year already. There’s an amused glint in his eyes; Merlin likes to think that Aglain has become more used to him as well.

“Yes,” Merlin says, and falls in step with him. The community bustles with activity around him. Children wave as they run past. Magic is in the air, and Merlin breathes it in. “I didn’t think it was possible, but I do.”

“You haven’t worked much on your magic,” Aglain tries tentatively.

“I’ve worked on other things,” Merlin says, and smiles. He touches a branch that’s growing crookedly, and it straightens itself out automatically, without even a thought. “But you want to know if my control is what it should be.”

“King Arthur wants you to control your magic even in a place of danger,” Aglain confirms, and looks ahead. “We have… heard reports. There are sorcerers in Nemeth that are using dark magic, and Iseldir fears that they might reach clans that are living in that area. We do not use force, but we were considering…”

“That I might?” Merlin says faintly.

Aglain winces. “Yes.”

Dark magic, Merlin thinks. He hasn’t had any accidents in the time he’s been living with the druids, and he thinks he understands better now. He wonders, though, if he’ll revert back to the fear he felt. When he injured Leon—it was fear that struck him, he realises now. Fear for Arthur’s life, and it ruled his magic. It was dark magic only because it came from the wrong place.

He wonders how true that is for many sorcerers. He wonders if magic works like that for them, or if it’s just him. He thinks it might be like that for more people than just him, though, when he considers Morgana and her confessions. 

“I want to help,” he murmurs, and bites his lower lip. “But I can’t promise that I have that control.”

“You won’t learn until you are put in that situation,” Aglain says, but he doesn’t sound as if he likes it any more than Merlin does. “We do not condone violence. We are a peaceful people, but—”

“Not everyone is,” Merlin says decisively. “Are they attacking other people?”

Aglain sighs. “Yes.”

“I’ll go,” Merlin says, and squares his shoulders in an attempt to feel better about it. Dread has settled in his stomach, but there’s also a hazy sort of relief that there’s something he can do. That there’s something for Arthur, even, because Nemeth is to be Camelot’s ally. There’s still a part of him that’s restless; that wants to go where he hasn’t gone before. To figure out the rest of the world.

In Camelot, he didn’t have anywhere to go—no way to escape the citadel in a meaningful way. With the druids, he finds he lacks a kind of direction. There are so many places in which he can escape, but there’s no reason to. He just follows where his feet lead, but they hardly lead anywhere important at all—and Merlin is left contemplating magic, and himself, and he wishes he could outrun his thoughts. There’s nothing for him to do.

Perhaps this will give him a place to wander and something to achieve. Perhaps this is enough of both worlds.

The plan is for Merlin to travel to Iseldir’s clan first—they are only half a day away, which is why Aglain and Iseldir are in touch so often—and to travel to Nemeth from there. Nemeth isn’t too far away from where the druids are staying. The journey won’t take him long. 

There’s no hurry, though, so Merlin agrees to stay with Aglain’s clan for another few weeks while Iseldir gathers more information about the renegade sorcerers. Merlin isn’t impatient, necessarily, but he doesn’t really know what to do with himself while he waits. Camelot always offered magic books to peer into; the druids’ life is simpler than that. Merlin finds himself wandering off again, and Aed and Hanna often come with him.

“It’s odd, the thought of you leaving,” Aed says. He handfasted with Hanna only a month ago. Both of them now have a dark tattoo on their shoulder as a sign of their dedication. He smiles wryly at Merlin. “We’ve become so used to you, Emrys.”

“Like a puppy trailing you,” Merlin says dryly.

“Never like that,” Hanna promises. “Are you sure you can’t stay for longer? Iseldir’s clan doesn’t have many people your age—they are all handfasted already, and over thirty. You could always come back.”

“The plan wasn’t for me to come back,” Merlin says, and takes another step. They’re not really going anywhere; he’s just wandering. Part of him is hoping that he’ll find another spirit if he goes far enough, but so far, it’s only been Freya and Tanaros.

“We are druids,” Aed points out. “We don’t follow plans; only our traditions. And you are one of us.”

Merlin tilts his head back at him. “I’m not really, though,” he says. “I’m not really at home here, and in the same way, I wasn’t really at home in Camelot. There’s always something pulling at me, and I don’t know what it is.”

“Yourself,” Hanna says wisely, and tugs at Merlin’s hand to slow him down. “Come on, sit. You are part of us, even if you’re leaving. Your name is etched in the memory of druids all across Albion. Can’t you see?”

“I’m not a druid,” Merlin says weakly. A part of him wishes he were—that he could join Aed and Hanna and not think of a distant, golden king. That he didn’t always live with the fear of magic in his heart that Ealdor instilled in him. The thought of water, that frightening thing as it drowns him, and that lovely thing as it splatters across his face in the form of a raindrop, or Freya with her cold fingers. He is made up of all sorts of different things, and none of them seem to fit with each other.

“You don’t have to be,” Aed says, and smiles at him secretively. “There’s something we wanted to ask you.”

“What?”

“A tattoo,” Hanna says, and tugs so hard at Merlin’s hand that he has to sit down. “Something to remember us by. We get them when we are handfasted, but they are also for other parts of our life. Aed has one on his back for when he reached maturity, and I have one on my thigh.”

Merlin frowns. “But I’m not yet twenty-one.”

“Mature enough for me,” Aed says, and raises his eyebrows at Merlin. Merlin blushes darkly and looks down; he hasn’t forgotten their offer, but he also hasn’t forgotten Arthur. Sometimes he thinks he’ll remember Arthur even if he forgets everything else. Arthur was wrong when he thought Merlin would move past it—Merlin hasn’t.

Maybe he never will.

“By the time you reach your own maturity, you’ll be gone,” Hanna says softly. “But you carry yourself… differently, don’t you? You’ve realised new things. You’re not the same person you were before.”

“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things,” Merlin says, and huddles in on himself. “But there’s so much more I could learn. There’s so much I don’t know.”

“Let us mark you as a druid,” Aed says again. “It’s your birthright, if nothing else. Do you want us to? A tattoo doesn’t need to be large, if you don’t want it to be—it could be hidden. It’s a sign of magic, and Camelot might not take that kindly—”

“No, they might not,” Merlin interrupts, and his shoulders slum. “Although maybe they should.” 

If anything, his time with the druids has shown him far more about his kind of magic than Camelot ever did. He does want to be marked with magic; he wants to drown in it, and he wants to be tied to it. Suddenly, he wants it more than anything, and he looks at the tattoo on Hanna’s arm. When he runs his fingers past it, she smiles. “Is that just for the handfasting?”

“That’s part of it,” she says. “But it can be for much more. Would you want it on your shoulder?”

“I’ve done Hanna’s,” Aed says. “I can do yours, too.”

Hanna adds, “He has steady hands.”

Merlin thinks about it, for a moment. He thinks about Aglain’s careful veneration, and Hanna and Aed’s offer, and Tanaros on top of a mountain. He thinks about children playing with magic, and he thinks about magic in the small, mundane ways of this world. The druids have given him hope for a community with magic.

“I can do a small one, if you’re worried about what they will think when you go back to Camelot,” Aed tells him softly, as if Merlin has to mould himself to what Camelot wants him to be, instead of what he is. Merlin inhales and closes his eyes. Even when he’s not using it, he can feel the magic thrum under his skin. No, there’s no hiding what Merlin is anymore.

“Do my whole arm,” he decides.

When he sees Merlin, Iseldir just smiles. 

“I’m glad to see you’ve become more comfortable with our customs,” he says, and inclines his head to Merlin, his eyes on Merlin’s arm. The black ink stands out on his pale skin, and Merlin smiles back at him. It had taken Aed two days to get it right, starting Merlin’s tattoo from his shoulder down to the back of his hands.

It makes Merlin feel more complete. It feels like magic drawn on his skin, by two people he’s come to consider close friends even if he’s only been here for a short time. The magic helps, he thinks; he doesn’t like to think about it in these terms, but Aed and Hanna understand more about the intrinsic need for Merlin to practise his magic than Arthur ever could. And the druids are his people, in the same way that the people of Camelot are, and in the same way they’re not.

Perhaps no one is really like Merlin. Perhaps none of that really matters, as long as he’s found a place to be content.

“It was a gift,” Merlin says, and smiles. 

“And what a kind gift they have given you,” Iseldir agrees. “It says much about a man, what he chooses to put on his skin.”

Merlin turns his right arm, looking down at the skin; parts of it are still reddened, but the lines are crisp and dark, and it is everything he wanted. He wonders what Arthur will say, seeing him. He decides it doesn’t matter. 

“I didn’t pick much of it,” Merlin says. Just the touches of water; he needed to have those in the design, and Aed had done his best to work with Merlin’s few specifications. Hanna and Aed had most experience with the druidic tattoos, so he’d let them go with what worked best. Camelot’s sigil, the dragon, stands out starkest, right in the middle. The sign of Arthur.

Merlin doesn’t think he could make much more of a vow if he tried.

“We’re travelling to Nemeth,” Iseldir tells him, leading Merlin further into the camp. Aed and Hanna were right. Iseldir’s clan is smaller, but it mostly has adults, and a few children under ten. They all stare at him, large-eyed and impressed. Merlin smiles thinly and waves at them. “It will take us some weeks to arrive, but we’d prefer for you not to travel alone.”

“Why is that?” Merlin asks.

“We promised Arthur we would look after you,” Iseldir says. “It is not a promise we take lightly.”

Merlin raises his eyebrows. “But you want to send me to find dark sorcerers and stop them,” he points out. “Isn’t the point of it to be dangerous? To see if my control holds up?”

He wonders if they asked Arthur. If they have any contact with Camelot at all. He would assume not, but he’s been wrong about these things before. Suddenly, he thinks about Arthur sending him to stop several sorcerers in Nemeth who’ve been seen using dark magic, and he severely doubts it.

Arthur wouldn’t send him, but Merlin is going to go anyway.

“We wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t absolutely necessary,” Iseldir says, but he’s frowning. “They are encroaching on our clans’ territories too. Several druids have been attacked. You are the prophesied Emrys.”

Merlin feels a spike of bitterness rising in his throat at the reminder. Sometimes it seems like Iseldir only sees him as a person when it suits him best. 

“So that’s your plan?” Merlin asks. “You’ve proclaimed me a god, so send me to handle the danger? Is that the peaceful way of dealing with it? Making someone else fight on your behalf?”

He gets them, maybe, Tanaros’ misgivings about humanity. The druids might not attack spirits, and they do hold them in high regard—but Merlin has seen the looks thrown in his direction, the bowed heads and the men and women falling to their knees before he can awkwardly help them up. Perhaps they don’t entirely think of him as human. Perhaps they don’t consider him a druid as much as a benevolent god.

“That isn’t what we mean,” Iseldir says more sharply. “Do you not want to go? Have you not been itching to leave since the moment you arrived, Emrys? We promised that we would teach you what we know, so that you might learn to control your magic—but I told you, there is very little we can do for you. It is you who must learn to seize your power, and only then will you be safe to use them as you please.”

“So you’re sending me away?” Merlin demands.

Iseldir presses his fingers to his forehead. “You are a stubborn child,” he says wearily. “Do you want me to treat you as a boy or a man, Emrys? A druid child or a court sorcerer of Camelot? Do make up your mind before you accuse me of treating you poorly.”

Merlin bites down on a scathing reply. Iseldir isn’t Arthur, who can give as good as he gets, and who might allow him to get away with thoughtless remarks. He takes a few breaths, and looks up to the sky again. Winter will be coming soon, and the skies are grey. For a second, he thinks Tanaros will be pleased.

“I want to know my place among the druids,” Merlin says, when he’s given himself a few moments to recognise what he’s really upset about. “If I’m one of you, or if I’m not. And what else I am.”

“Only you get to decide.”

“Not if you treat me as if I’m a god,” Merlin says simply.

Iseldir inclines his head. “You are right. Emrys, your name is prophesied, and your powers too great for us to ignore. You are a god, but you are also a man. The rest of your life, you will be a duality. I cannot promise you that this will ever change. But if you want to be only a druid, or only a court sorcerer—say the word, and it will be done.”

“I want to be both,” Merlin says. “I want to help. I want to understand. I want to help Arthur build a world that’s fair to creatures with magic and creatures without, but I can’t do it if I don’t even know where I stand.”

Iseldir smiles faintly. “You are in a unique position, but you are never alone, Emrys. Rest assured, you will never be alone. Now, we are having dinner, and we have a place of honour for you. I have told them to treat you as a son, but you must be used to the looks by now.”

“They’ve become used to me, in Aglain’s clan,” Merlin says quietly. He misses Aed and Hanna, suddenly, and the way they managed to make him feel normal about being a worshipped deity in their culture. It’s a talent he hadn’t fully appreciated until now.

“And so they will here,” Iseldir declares, and leads him to the table.

Iseldir’s clan isn’t so different from Aglain’s in most ways, but there is a different atmosphere nonetheless. Perhaps it is because the clan is travelling, Merlin thinks, but even so—the people in Iseldir’s clan are more solemn, more focused on their everyday work, and less on bonding as a community. 

Merlin doesn’t get as close to any of them as he did to Aed and Hanna, but he does feel part of the community—maybe because he already knows the druids better than he did before, but it also helps that Iseldir treats him more like a man than Aglain ever managed to.

“I’d almost offer for you to stay with us,” Iseldir says, after Merlin has absentmindedly lit the fire for the druids’ dinner and has made the first blessing to the gods. He still isn’t entirely sure where he stands with their religion—but it’s become a bit of a habit, because there’s nothing the druids enjoy like rituals.

“You know I can’t,” Merlin tells him wryly. “I’d get too restless.”

Although the restlessness isn’t as bad with Iseldir’s clan. They travel around more often, and there’s more of a purpose to their movements. Merlin’s feet aren’t so restless when he knows the end point to their journey, he’s noticed. 

“And you’d long too much for Camelot,” Iseldir says knowingly.

“I’ve thought about it, though,” Merlin says, and pokes at the fire. With a thoughtless spell, it surges up higher. Merlin does most of his spells without considering them too deeply, these days. It’s become ingrained to him to a level it never could have been in Camelot.

He’ll have to be careful when he goes back. He’s certain he’s going to scare Arthur’s advisors by carelessly lighting fires in everyone’s hearth in the winter and growing Gaius’ herb garden to three times the size he’s currently managing to keep it at. Most of the time, he’s not even aware he’s doing it—he sees something that must be done, and then it is done, without even a snap of his fingers.

“You thought about staying?” Iseldir asks. “I didn’t think you would have considered it as a real option. It is clear how you feel about Camelot.”

“It’s easier to be here,” Merlin confesses, and thinks about Aed and Hanna. He could take them up on their offer—stay with them, and never be lonely again. Practise his magic with a community that loves him for it, and protect them with his powers. He could spend a lifetime searching out spirits.

And he wouldn’t make the slightest difference in the world to anyone, and he’d never see Arthur again.

“Easier, I’m sure,” Aglain agrees, and nods his head towards Merlin’s sleeve of druidic tattoos. “You’ve done a great deal of maturing, Emrys. If you decide that your fate lies in another direction, we cannot stop you.”

Merlin smiles wryly. “And if everything you think I must do… everything you think I must be, if that’s all in Camelot? And I still choose to stay.”

“Well,” Iseldir says. “You are a man capable of your own choices. You’ve learnt from the druids all you could have, I think, and you have found a place in our community. If you decide that this is the best place for you, I will not argue.”

“I’m going back to Arthur, once this is all over.” The fire is flickering steadily in front of him, and Merlin uselessly throws a twig from the ground into the flames. “I made him a promise, and I mean to keep it. Besides, he’ll need me.”

More than Merlin might even need Arthur, when it comes down to it. He’d never thought about it like that before, but it’s suddenly become a fact of life. Merlin could never return to Camelot and still have a place to be content, and to build a home. But Arthur needs a sorcerer, and despite that, he’d set Merlin free.

And Merlin loves him, and he’ll do this with Arthur, side by side, simply because Arthur would want anyone to be free.

“I thought you would,” Iseldir says, and eyes the fire. It paints his face golden and shadowed in turns, making him seem older than he is. “Only one more week before we reach Nemeth, and then our paths diverge. Will you come back to the druids when you are done?”

“What if I fail to control my magic?” Merlin says suddenly.

Iseldir takes a breath, and grabs Merlin’s wrist, turning his hand over. The leaves of the tattoo start from the back of his hand and twist around his wrist, slowly moving upwards to meet the druids’ Triskelion and entwining around the dragon. “This is a sign of your maturity,” Iseldir says. “A sign that you know yourself, and your place in this world. You have painted your entire arm, even knowing how people will see it. I do not believe you will fail. A man who knows himself as you do—that is a man who knows his magic.”

“But I’m still afraid,” Merlin says quietly. “And fear is what leads to loss of control.”

“Fear is part of being human,” Iseldir tells him, and drops Merlin’s arm. “What you must show is that you can control yourself despite fear, not in absence of it.”

The fire crackles before them. The edges of its warmth reach Merlin, heating him up even in the cold of the night. He longs for Camelot, in a way he hasn’t in months; to sit beside a hearth with Gwen, reading from a spellbook. Having Arthur enter his chambers without knocking, and jostle his shoulder against Merlin’s.

But there is a journey that still stretches out before him.

There is still much for him to learn elsewhere before the winding path leads back to Camelot. He thinks about Freya, and Tanaros, and how they’ve hidden away over the centuries. He wonders how many other spirits are out there, and what they might be able to tell him.

“I’ll control my fear,” he says simply.

It’s the last thing that stands between him and Arthur.

Chapter Text

Merlin is twenty by the time he parts with Iseldir’s clan, and it’s harder than he thought it would be. Iseldir claps him on the shoulder and makes him promise to find him again. When they move back between the trees, Merlin can still sense the magic emanating off them. They have become so familiar to him that it shakes him to his core to feel them leaving.

But he is in Nemeth, and he knows where he must go next. His attunement to magic is different, too, he notices at once. He can feel it, far more accurately than he could before. In the trees, and the plains, and the blooming flowers. In the birds that fly overhead, and it would be overwhelming if it didn’t bring him such simple joy.

Iseldir had explained to him in what area of Nemeth he might find the dark sorcerers, and they’ve brought him as close as possible without venturing out of the forests. So Merlin has been following that path, and his magic tells him that he is closing in on them.

Except that there’s a jarring reality check interrupting all of Merlin’s carefully crafted plans.

“What do you mean, you won’t allow me?” Merlin asks the bartender in exasperation. He’s a large fellow, stocky and red in the face, and looks at Merlin as if he were the scum on the Earth. “I have money, if that’s what concerns you.”

He doesn’t have much, but Iseldir had given him a few coppers to live on. Enough for two weeks, if Merlin uses it sparingly. 

“We don’t give rooms to your kind,” the bartender says, and his eyes wander down to Merlin’s hand—the rest of his arm hidden by the cloak. Merlin leans back, opening his mouth and closing it again when nothing comes out.

Theoretically, he had been prepared for this eventuality. But in the moment, it stings. I’m not really a druid, sits on his tongue, but then he thinks about Aglain, that very first night Merlin had come with the druids. What he’d said about the hidden tattoos, and the joy on Aed’s face when he’d painstakingly drawn the lines on Merlin’s pale skin, tongue between his teeth. It’s about pride, and Merlin is one of them.

“My people,” Merlin repeats deadpan. 

“You’re not welcome here,” the bartender repeats. Some of the other guests are starting to notice the commotion, and Merlin can hear their whispering. He presses his lips together, and nods slowly.

“Fine,” he says, and grabs the few coins he’d already put out on the counter. “Fine.”

“Wait!” a woman calls out, holding up her skirts as she runs to the counter. Her eyes are wide, and she’s breathing hard. She must’ve just come down from the set of stairs Merlin can see right around the corner. “Wait, you’re a druid?”

“I am,” Merlin says cautiously. The bartender grabs the woman—his wife, Merlin thinks—by the arm, hissing something Merlin can’t hear.

The woman yanks herself free. “I don’t care,” she hisses at him, and turns back to Merlin. “You have magic? Healing magic? It’s just—my son. We’ll give you a room, for free, dinner included if that’s what you want—but my boy, he’s—”

Merlin looks at her, gasping out her words as if she can’t stop him fast enough. Her face is pale, and the rim around her eyes is red. She is a mess, and Merlin thinks about being petty for a fleeting second—repaying her husband’s foul manner with his own. But she has a child, and she loves him, and he might well be dying.

And Merlin wants to be kind.

“I’ll help,” he says, and eyes the bartender carefully as he inches past him. The woman doesn’t care, clearly, and the bartender doesn’t say a word as she grabs Merlin’s hand, her thumb skirting over his tattooed flowers spilling out over his skin.

And he goes upstairs.

It doesn’t take him long. Merlin is no expert at healing magic, but it’s a little surprising—even to him—how much his powers have grown, and how much more attuned he is to the world. The boy can’t be more than three or four, and he has a nasty flu that has him bedridden; a cool cloth sits on his forehead, and when Merlin touches him, it might as well be as hot as touching fire. Merlin undoes the illness within a short hour, and the boy is already up and talking to his mother so fast that Merlin can barely understand the words.

“I’ll talk to Gerald,” she says, clutching at her son. “He’ll give you the room if I tell him to—and free of charge. Oh, I can’t thank you enough!”

“It’s fine,” Merlin says, and smiles faintly. “I don’t want to stay where I’m not wanted.”

Her face falls. “But you’ve been such a help.”

“Well, I hope you’ll extend my invitation to the next druid who comes around,” Merlin decides. He doesn’t think he’ll sleep comfortably here, knowing exactly how much he’s hated by the man who runs the tavern. He has been sleeping in tents among the trees for a year; there’s no reason he can’t spend another night outside.

“But—”

“Really, I mean it,” Merlin says, and that’s that. He nods at the bartender when he leaves, and finds the man’s eyes boring into his back. If he wants to thank Merlin, he’s too late to do so—Merlin disappears back into the night, and leaves the homey sounds of conversation and utensils clattering against plates behind him.

His stomach churns, but there’s nothing to eat, and Merlin’s too tired to find food elsewhere. So he finds a tree and settles against its bark for the night, and falls into an uncomfortable sleep.

It’s not the only frigid welcome Merlin receives in the days to come, unfortunately. But he refuses to hide his tattoos, and he doesn’t get a new cloak. So instead he travels through Nemeth, being avoided by most of the townspeople anytime he arrives somewhere new.

It also has a very ironic upside, though.

“You belong to those people?” a farmer asks dubiously when Merlin comes to buy some bread and apples. “The troublemakers?”

“It’s just me,” Merlin answers, but leans in closer. “What people?”

The farmer looks him up and down, face scrunched. “They weren’t druids, I think. Fine folk, the druids. Peaceful, and keep to themselves. Nothing at all like these sorcerers.”

It must be the ones that Merlin is looking for, he decides. There can’t be that many dark magic users in all of Nemeth. “Have they been causing much disturbance?”

“Not to me, personally,” the farmer confesses, and shrugs. “But my cousin, she lives a town over—they’ve lost some of their crops, and a few houses were burnt down. I don’t know the details, mind.”

“How long ago was this?” Merlin prods.

“Just a few days back.” The farmer huffs. “They’re trying to rebuild, but it’s slow going.”

“Thank you,” Merlin says, and bags his apples and the loaf of bread. He drops a copper in the farmer’s hand and sets off right away. It’s still early morning, and he can make faster time by himself than a group can. 

He finds them by the time night falls. It turns out that they haven’t gone far; like the druids, they’ve set up an encampment somewhere in between two villages, far enough away that few people will wander in. Merlin only found them because he still can sense the magic; the closer he comes, the more twisted it feels.

There is no dark magic, he reminds himself. There is darkness in people, and the tools they misuse. But their magic, in any case, has become corrupted by their hearts. Merlin hides behind a tree and watches their silhouettes across the fire they’ve built. There must be at least ten or twelve sorcerers.

He bites the inside of his cheek. He still isn’t really sure how he wants to do this.

“—money in the next village,” a woman is saying when Merlin crouches closer. “They’re all merchants, and they’ll be far richer. But they have more guards, too.”

“Guards!” a man scoffs. “One look at our spells and they all faint!”

“Tell that to Marian,” the woman says, her voice solemn. “She still can’t walk because of that one farmer’s boy with the knife. It only takes one accident, Albert.”

Merlin keeps moving, trying to spot if there’s any sorcerer alone that he might be able to neutralise first. Taking on a dozen sorcerers at once isn’t impossible, probably. But he also has never tried before, and would rather not place himself in that situation. He’s powerful, but he’s not insane.

There are five tents total, so they must be sharing. The one furthest back is all dark, and Merlin tentatively makes his way in that direction. Anyone in there must be sleeping, so he wagers it’s the safest place—

“You!”

Or not.

Merlin whirls around, just in time to see the wiry man coming at him. A piercing agony spreads in his stomach, low and biting and cold. Merlin pats at the injury, and feels the knife stuck in his side, suddenly, thrown by the man who saw him. Killed by a man peeing in the night, Merlin thinks to himself, wanting to laugh, if only the situation wasn’t so dire. He stumbles over his own feet trying to get back, panic clouding his mind. He recalls the knights from Essetir he’d killed, suddenly, and the anxiety tightens in his lungs.

He won’t do it like that again. The pain nearly sends him into unconsciousness, but he promises himself—not like that again. 

“Intruder!” another voice calls, and Merlin holds up his hands. There are five sorcerers all coming at him at once—the disadvantage of invading their small encampment, and Merlin takes a deep breath, ignoring the ache. The first of their spells comes at him, and it’s just a little fire bolt. It’s nothing Merlin couldn’t do before he was five.

He stops it in its tracks, and throws it at the ground. It sputters out, like a sad little thing.

“Who are you?” the woman from before demands, her hair wild in the wind. Merlin can feel the darkness emanating from them, their hatred and loss and grief—for a moment, he feels bad for them. But they have made their choices, and Merlin can smell death in the air from everything they’ve been doing.

If magic were free, these people might have been happy. But as long as it’s not, they are obstructing him.

“I am Emrys,” Merlin says, and balls his fists. He can feel the golden glow in his eyes, and his own magic nearly blinds him. There is no panic; there is only the knowledge that they can do nothing to him that Merlin does not allow them to. Vines burst from the ground, grabbing at their ankles. They all screech, and a few try to turn away and run.

Merlin doesn’t let them.

“You should be on our side,” the woman says, tears streaking down her face when Merlin passes where he’s caught her. The vines keep hold of her even as she struggles to break free. “They all hate you, too! You’re one of us.”

“I’m one of many,” Merlin says, and smiles. One of Camelot, and one of the druids, and even one of the spirits, if Freya and Tanaros would claim him. “But not one of you.”

He takes five steps, ten, twenty—loses count of the steps as he stumbles forwards, dizzy with the stinging ache from his injury and unable to think clearly. He can hear the sorcerers call out after him, but they will stay stuck there until Merlin releases them. If he releases them, he thinks woozily, and pats at the hilt of the knife still stuck in his side. He tugs at it, and it comes free.

That was dumb, he realises straightaway. He’s only going to lose more blood.

Merlin faints.

He doesn’t realise he’s blinking himself awake until he is. A faint light shines above him—not the sun. Candles on a wall, flickering as they defend against the absolute darkness of night. Merlin isn’t entirely sure where he is, except for inside a room he doesn’t recognise. Nor does he have any recollection of how he got there.

“Good morning,” an unfamiliar man says to him, and Merlin sits up straight. Immediately, he wheezes, clutching at the fierce pain in his stomach.

“Who are you?” he asks, his voice coming out hoarse and gravelly. The way that he sounds, it’s as if he’s lost a bet with Gwaine and become entirely hammered the night before, Merlin thinks to himself. It feels even worse than that.

“My name is Lancelot,” the man says kindly, and offers a cup of water. Merlin takes it gratefully. “I found you on the side of the road last night. I thought you might be dead, but you’re made of sturdier stuff than you look.”

Merlin blinks, trying to sort through his memories of last night. “And the sorcerers?”

“Still stuck,” Lancelot says, with quiet humour. “Your work, I presume? People are very relieved. I was looking for them myself, you know. I thought I might try to stop them before they reached town.”

“They would’ve killed you,” Merlin says blandly.

Lancelot just smiles. “Yes, I imagine so. But it was worth a try, I thought, if I could stop them from hurting anyone else. Unfortunately, I came too late to help you. That must’ve been an impressive sight.”

“I just didn’t want them to hurt anyone,” Merlin says. “Same as you.”

“Except you have the power to restrict them, and I don’t?” Lancelot asks seriously, and holds up his hands at Merlin’s careful look. Perhaps Merlin has become a little used to being judged so easily in Nemeth, because Lancelot just looks apologetic. “I’m grateful, honestly. I expect a lot of people will be.”

“You don’t hate magic?” Merlin asks him. Lancelot doesn’t seem the type, but Merlin still wants to know.

Fortunately, Lancelot shakes his head. “It all depends on the people who use it, doesn’t it?” is all he says, and nods towards Merlin’s tattoo. Lancelot—or someone else; Merlin isn’t entirely sure where they are, but it seems like an inn—must have taken off his cloak and tunic, because Merlin’s chest is entirely bare except for the bandage that covers him. “You are a druid, then? All I knew from druids is that they are a peaceful people.”

“It’s complicated,” Merlin says. “I’m a lot more than just a druid.”

“So it seems,” Lancelot says, and smiles. “Tell me, then.”

Lancelot is the kind of man who makes friends anywhere, Merlin thinks. Or perhaps not friends, because Lancelot does not seem to let people into the secrets of his heart; but he is genuine, and kind, and his mild manner and lovely eyes seem to convince people to trust him. The innkeeper gives them several horses—to borrow, she insists—to take the sorcerers and bring them to the citadel, to turn them in to King Rodor.

That had been Merlin’s idea. Lancelot had been sceptical about it, but Merlin persuaded him, mostly because there aren’t that many other options.

“Are you sure the king will see you?” Lancelot asks several times, to which Merlin has to explain that yes, King Arthur will have mentioned him, and Princess Mithian knows him personally. Lancelot doesn’t seem convinced.

Merlin isn’t entirely sure when it was agreed that Lancelot would come with him. But they’ve become a bit—well, attached to the hip is a strong expression, but it might very well be true. Merlin likes Lancelot’s company, and Lancelot seems to enjoy his, and they have nothing better to do.

“I always wanted to be a knight,” Lancelot confesses to him, once they’re on the road to the capital of Nemeth. Behind them, Merlin has put a dozen sorcerers to sleep on their horses, just so they won’t try anything. “I even tried to become one in Camelot, do you know? When Uther was still king.”

“You did?” Merlin asks. “When was that?”

“Oh, seven or eight years ago,” Lancelot says pensively. “I was seventeen, and I was so convinced it was my life’s work to be one of Camelot’s knights. But they don’t make knights of ordinary men, and alas, I’m no nobleman.” He smiles self-deprecatingly. “So I built a life in Nemeth instead.”

Merlin lifts an eyebrow. “Arthur’s not like his father. He has dozens of knights that aren’t nobles.”

“You jest.”

“No, really,” Merlin insists. “You should come with me when I’m going back. I can put in a good word for you.”

Lancelot smiles. “Merlin, you’re only twenty. I know what you’ve told me about King Arthur, but…”

“I mean it. I know Arthur, and he’s a fair king, and a good man. He’ll make you a knight, if that’s what you want to be.”

“I’ll think about it,” Lancelot says, and then they’re quiet for the rest of their ride to King Rodor.

Merlin doesn’t preen. He’s not the sort of person to preen, or to flaunt his connections. He’d rather be judged on his own merits rather than those of the people he knows.

Still, the doors swing open at the mention of Arthur’s name, and Merlin’s relation to him, and Merlin casts a smug look towards Lancelot. Lancelot’s head swings to him, his mouth opened, and then he finds himself shaking his head in surprise.

“You truly are everything you claim you are, aren’t you?” Lancelot says, a little amused, and Merlin shrugs.

It doesn’t take them long to be ushered into King Rodor’s private chambers. The dark sorcerers are taken off their hands—to be put in a cell, Merlin hopes, and hopes they don’t know any spells to break out. They hadn’t seemed particularly powerful, but he can’t be sure.

He puts a ward on them before he leaves, just in case, to make sure they can’t use any magic inside the castle.

“King Rodor,” Merlin says, smiling with all his teeth and putting his hands behind his back. He hasn’t been in court in over a year. He bows his head towards Mithian. “Princess.”

“Oh, it’s been too long,” Mithian says warmly. “I’m glad to see you again, after Arthur’s delegation came to visit without you. How are you, Merlin? And who’s your friend?”

“This is Lancelot,” Merlin says, and Lancelot steps forward, bowing deeply to both father and daughter. “He helped me with arresting those sorcerers.”

“I didn’t help that much,” Lancelot says humbly. And perhaps he didn’t assist in the arrest, but Merlin is pretty sure he’d have bled out without Lancelot. The healing gash in his side pulses painfully for a second, and Merlin elbows Lancelot.

“I’d be dead without him,” Merlin says honestly. “But the important thing is that the sorcerers have been arrested, my lord. If you’d like—I can help you keep them imprisoned. There are some spells—”

“No spells,” Rodor says, putting up a hand. “I’m grateful for your assistance, Lord Merlin—” And oh, it’s been a long time since anyone called him that; Merlin wants to shuffle his feet at the title, and only just manages to keep himself standing still. “But magic is forbidden in this land, and you are not an exception to that rule.”

Merlin smiles thinly. “Should I put myself in the cell next to them, then?” he asks. “I’m sure you’re aware how I caught them in the first place, my lord. Or perhaps the pyre is faster for you, if that’s how you like to do things.”

“Merlin,” Lancelot hisses.

“You are of Arthur’s kingdom,” Rodor says, pressing a hand to his forehead. “I won’t touch you, Lord Merlin, out of respect to Arthur Pendragon. But that does not mean you can come in and tell me how to run my kingdom.”

“No, but I can tell you that if you keep running it as you have, these people aren’t going to go away,” Merlin says strictly, and gestures to the floor—to the dungeons under their feet. “These sorcerers aren’t evil because of magic. They’re evil because of how you treat people with magic, and they don’t know what else to do. Keep the laws as they are now, and the same problem will return. Perhaps not now, perhaps not in a year—but it’ll happen, and even more of your villages will burn. One day, they might even come for you.”

Rodor is quiet. “Is that a threat, Lord Merlin?”

“I’m not threatening anyone,” Merlin says impatiently. “But Arthur saw the world his father created. He tried to show you what will happen if you persecute everyone with magic, and you chose to do so anyway. You wouldn’t be in this position if you had better laws surrounding magic.”

“He is right, Father,” Mithian murmurs, grabbing her father’s arm. “I’ve tried to tell you—”

“We are not having this discussion now,” Rodor says, and turns back to Merlin. “I thank you for your help, Lord Merlin, and commend you for speaking your mind so openly, even if you do have a sharper tongue than I’d like. You are a credit to King Arthur, but you will not openly use magic in my citadel.”

Merlin really didn’t expect anything else. He didn’t mean to stay.

“If there’s no place for magic, there’s no place for me,” he says, and shrugs theatrically. “Lancelot?”

“I’m coming,” Lancelot says, and holds the door for him like a gentleman. Merlin smiles at him, and side by side, they leave the king and the princess behind him. Lancelot looks over his shoulder, a baffled expression on his face. “Do you generally talk to royalty like that?”

“Well, the only royalty I know is Arthur,” Merlin says, and after a moment, adds, “and Morgana, but I don’t think she wants me to treat her like she is. So really, I suppose I do.”

“And where are you going now?” Lancelot asks. Merlin stops to look at him. He hadn’t thought any further than this part—and he finds himself loath to part ways with Lancelot. Lancelot is looking at him thoughtfully.

“Why?” Merlin asks carefully. “Are you thinking about coming with me?”

Lancelot is a thoughtful, considerate man. The smile he offers Merlin, though, shows a mischievous side that he doesn’t often show. “Are you thinking about letting me?”

“I’m not going to Camelot just yet,” Merlin tells him. Even in Nemeth, the castle seems to loom over him, large and restricting. Camelot is home, if any place is home at all, but Merlin knows where he wants to go before he can find contentment in the castle. There are places he must go before he can sit by Arthur’s side.

“I’d guessed,” Lancelot says simply. “Where to, then?”

Merlin bites his lower lip. “The south,” he decides, right there as he stands. “First towards the Great Sea, and then inwards, towards the Darkling Woods. The most ancient part of the kingdoms, and places untouched by human settlement. I want to find more spirits.”

Lancelot heaves out a breath. “This won’t be a short trip, I take it?”

“A year,” Merlin says. “I have to be back in Camelot before I turn twenty-one. I made Arthur a promise. So before spring ends, we’ll return to the citadel. Arthur will knight you.”

“You seem sure of that.”

“I know Arthur.” Merlin considers the man before him. “And I think I know you.”

Lancelot looks back towards the castle. Presumably, he could find a knighthood here, too. It’s not Lancelot who insulted Rodor, and he has shown his nobility through his actions. Merlin has no idea if Rodor allows ordinary men to take up the sword for him, though. Pity if he doesn’t—Lancelot has so much to offer.

But Merlin doesn’t mind if it means Lancelot will stick with him a little bit longer.

“Will it be dangerous?” he asks, his voice low.

“I can’t promise anything,” Merlin says. “I’ve got no money, a very recognisable druid tattoo that takes up most of my arm, and more magic than I really know what to do with. I don’t know where we’ll end up or who we might meet, and I’m not sure what their response to us will be.”

“Sounds like you could use a travelling companion,” Lancelot says, and hooks his arm in Merlin’s.

It really is nice to have someone by his side for his journey. Merlin isn’t entirely sure where to search, and he has no leads to follow. Most nights, he sits in the grass and listens to the rustling of the trees, and lets his magic be immersed in nature. It is life, and he is life. There is an undeniable connection.

He asks the trees and the streams if they know of any creatures like him. They always say no, but there’s a memory that’s older than that of the flowers or the birds—the mountains, especially, waver when they hear that question. There was, once, Merlin hears in the echoes of their answers, and then he breaks out of his trance, without any idea what the mountains are trying to tell him.

Lancelot eyes him oddly, but he always listens to Merlin.

“Why do you want to find these spirits?” Lancelot asks him, one night. He’d bought a chicken from a farm nearby, and it’s slowly roasting over the fire that Merlin had snapped into existence. “You’ve met Freya and Tanaros, haven’t you? Aren’t they enough?”

“They’re only two spirits,” Merlin says. “I can’t really know what they’re all like just from that.”

“But why do you need to know?” Lancelot presses gently.

Merlin leans back. The chicken will be bland, he thinks, because they have no herbs at all. Perhaps he should’ve gone out to find some thyme; but now, his limbs are heavy and comfortable, and he’s loath to move. “Because they’re the closest thing to myself that I can think of,” he says honestly, leaning on his elbows. “Because they’re a part of the magical world I don’t know anything about, because we’ve driven them all away. It’s just—if we’re really going to try and do this, change everyone’s thoughts about magic… they’re made from magic. They should have a say.”

“Do you think you can?” Lancelot asks. “Change everyone’s opinions.”

Merlin smiles thinly and looks up to the sky. “No. But we can start.”

“That’s a difficult task.”

“Someone has to do it,” Merlin murmurs. “And Arthur picked me. I’m not going to let him down, so I’m making sure we do the best job we can. And I need to know what the spirits think, if I’m to do that.”

“But you don’t know where to find them.”

“I don’t even know how many are left,” Merlin says honestly, and sits up. “Do you think I’m insane?”

Lancelot raises his eyebrows. “Why would I think that?”

“For doing this,” Merlin says, and lifts his hands to insinuate—well, everything about himself, really. “For trying to find the spirits, and for the way I went to the druids. I could’ve stayed in Ealdor, and stayed hidden. I could’ve protected myself.”

“I think you’re a brave man, and Arthur’s lucky to have you,” Lancelot says, and smiles. “Do you want some chicken?”

Merlin’s stomach churns in answer to that question, and it’s enough to distract Merlin from the conversation.

They find the first spirit four months in, just when Merlin’s confidence is flagging enough to have him consider turning around and going right back to Camelot.

They’ve been following a consistent path south, towards the Great Sea. For some reason, Merlin thinks there must be some spirits in the sea. If the mountains attracted Tanaros, and Freya has spent her life in the lake, then surely the Great Sea must be impressive enough to warrant its own spirit. When they get there, though, it’s nearing winter. The skies are a joyless grey, and have been for days, and the sand is cold.

The sea isn’t nearly as impressive as he had imagined. When Merlin first lays eyes upon it, he understands why it is called great—because surely that’s only for its size. The waves lap gently at the sand, the same colour as the sky. Rain starts dripping down, and Merlin scowls.

“I thought it’d be more impressive,” he says. “But it’s just a lot of water.”

“That’s what a sea is, yes,” Lancelot agrees.

“You’ve been here before?”

“No, not here,” Lancelot tells him. “But I’ve been to the western coastline. It’s much more impressive than this, I’ll admit, but the sea remains the same. It’s the cliffs that take your breath away.”

“Maybe we should’ve gone there,” Merlin murmurs to himself. That journey will take them too long, though, so he takes a deep breath, swallows away the disappointment, and walks onto the sand.

It gets into his boots right away, chafing at his skin. Merlin makes a face to himself, but Lancelot follows him without complaint, so Merlin doesn’t say anything. There is magic here, but it’s muted. There might be spirits here, but then they’re distant. Maybe they’re further out into the sea, Merlin considers, chagrined that he hadn’t thought of that before.

Even if there are spirits, how will he ever get them to talk to him?

“We’ll sleep on that grassy stretch,” Merlin decides when they’ve walked along the beach without seeing a single other being, human or not. “Tomorrow, we’ll see if anyone lives nearby who knows more.”

“You really think there are spirits here?” Lancelot asks. The wind has swept his hair back, and when Merlin runs a hand through his own locks, they are tangled with sand and the salty air. He scowls. No, he really doesn’t think he likes the beach.

“There must be,” Merlin says, and hopes he’s not fooling himself. He’s been following what nature tells him, and where his magic has guided him. 

“Well, if you say so,” Lancelot says, and sits down on the beach. He looks entirely at peace like that, his fingers digging into the sand and tilting his face towards the sun.

Merlin regards him for a moment. “You’re not… doubting me?” he asks sceptically. “I’m not really sure where I’m leading us, you know. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know what I’ll do if I’m wrong.”

Lancelot cranes back his head to look at him. “I trust you to know where you’re leading us. I’ve seen what you can do.”

“But I’m—” Merlin says, and the words are stuck to the tongue of his roof. Just a boy to you, he’d been about to say, but Lancelot doesn’t deserve that kind of accusation. He’s thinking of Arthur, he realises suddenly—imagining Arthur not in Camelot, but here on the beach with him. Perhaps that’s what his doubt comes from.

It’s not as if Arthur had trusted Merlin to know his own mind, most of the time. Trusted him, maybe, but as a boy. Not yet grown up—not yet to be trusted with decision-making.

“I trust you,” Lancelot repeats, softer. He doesn’t look like Arthur at all, and something clenches in Merlin’s chest. He wishes Arthur would trust him like that; wonders if he’ll ever get there. If Arthur will still see him as the boy that once left. Merlin takes a breath.

Things have changed, and Arthur will be able to see it. 

“Thank you,” Merlin breathes out, and hopes that Lancelot is the first of many. 

In the middle of the night, three women stand around them, faintly glowing like the moon.

Merlin doesn’t remember startling up, but something about their presence must’ve woken him, because he is sitting and staring at them. His forehead is damp with sweat, and he wipes it off, quickly kicking Lancelot awake.

“Who are you?” he asks, his heart beating fast, both frightened and excited. They are spirits, but their frowns are etched deeply into their faces.

“The guardians of the sea,” the first lady says—the oldest, with her silver hair pooling down to her waist, floating as if she’s still in the water. “And you are Emrys.”

“I am,” Merlin confirms quietly. Lancelot has woken up too, leaning on his elbows as he stares from one guardian to the next. 

“Why have you come?” the youngest one asks. Her hair is golden, like Arthur’s.

“I wanted to speak to you,” Merlin tells them. “I want to return magic to this world, as it once was. And I wanted to know your stories.”

The middle one scoffs; she has deep lines in her face. She reminds Merlin of Hunith, for a second, and a sense of loss grips his heart. He hasn’t seen his mother in four years, and suddenly he wants nothing more than to return to Essetir and embrace her, without caring a whit if the rest of the village wants to dump him in a river again.

“There will be no return of magic,” she says. “Mankind turned its back on us a long time ago. No longer are we its protectors and gods; we are the monsters of their stories.”

“That isn’t true,” Merlin argues.

“Not for you, perhaps,” she tells him harshly. “You are under their protection—you are one of them, in many ways.”

Merlin shakes his head. “Maybe,” he grants. “But it’s easier to hate me, because they know of me. They don’t hate you, you have just been forgotten. We will bring back magic, Arthur and I. And I want to know all beings of magic when I bring it back. I want to make sure we’re never forgotten again.”

“That’s not as easy as you make it sound,” the eldest says.

“The seas are unbothered by men’s ways,” the youngest adds. “Why should it matter to us what they think?”

“Because we’re all part of this world,” Merlin says, swallowing hard. “And I want to make it fair for all of us. I know it won’t be easy, but it matters. For humans and for spirits.”

The youngest looks at Merlin more deeply; there’s something sincerely kind in her expression, and she reminds him of Gwen for a second. Then she sits down in the sand, and looks up to the silvery light of the moon above them.

“If you’ve journeyed so far to hear the stories of sprites,” she says lightly, “the least I can do is indulge you.”

Merlin and Lancelot listen to the three spirits of the Great Sea; they spin tales of seafoam and men in their boats, fishing for their food while the waves gently rock them. They tell them of the men who, noticing them, turned their weapons on them, and the eldest shows Merlin a scar on her shoulder, where she was caught by a fisherman’s harpoon once.

Slowly, they tell them, they turned away from men and their fears. Their existence, already something of a legend, became a myth unto itself. Now, no one knows they are there, diving deeper and deeper into the sea out of fear.

“Most of them don’t know we exist,” the youngest says quietly. “And we know how they’ll react if they ever learn.”

Merlin and Lancelot sit with them the entire night, and when dawn comes, pale and red, it paints the sea golden. Merlin watches the waves lap at the cold sand, feeling the wind in his hair and the sand between his toes, and watches as the three spirits submerge themselves back into the Great Sea. The eldest lets her hand rest on the water, and it lovingly caresses her fingers before she disappears into its embrace.

And Merlin understands why they love the sea so dearly, and feels his own affection for it burn in his chest. The sea is a force of nature, but it loves its people, and they love it back.

The understanding drives him forward; it seems it affects Lancelot in a similar way. They talk about where to find other spirits, and it drives them back north, towards the mountains and the silvery rivers and the tallest trees. Merlin lets his magic guide him fully, and uses what he knows of Tanaros and Freya and the three spirits of the Great Sea, and they find another spirit on their way towards Caerleon. 

She is a gentle spirit of the wind, and she dances on the plains, her long, auburn hair waving behind her. She tells Merlin of the way that birds fly on the wind, and Merlin takes up his wings for her and dances with her for an afternoon. Lancelot laughs, his shoulders shaking with it, and Merlin is more pleased than he has been in a long time.

They find themselves in Essetir after that, and Merlin feels a wave of fondness pass through him when they cross the border into the kingdom that was once his home. They are still a long way from Ealdor, but Merlin doesn’t think he has the heart to go back when he has to leave so soon, so he mentions nothing of it to Lancelot.

Another spirit hides in the dark forests in the kingdom, though, and he tells Merlin of the men who come hunting. His body is littered with scars of every size that run across his skin, and the spirit’s eyes are defiant and proud. He watches Lancelot with a cautious distrust. He welcomes Merlin, though, and they spend three days learning the secrets of the wolves rustling in the bushes.

It is only when they leave the forest that they encounter trouble.

“Well, then,” a knight says, high upon his horse and with his sword drawn. It glints in the sunlight; winter is at its end, and spring will soon settle in. Merlin has only a few months left before his twenty-first birthday, and his return to Camelot. “What do we have here?”

The knight hasn’t come alone. There are six of them, all in full armour, and Merlin hasn’t been so aware of the druidic tattoos on his arm in quite a while. Lancelot, by his side, shifts into a defensive stance, subtly moving himself in front of Merlin.

“Good morning,” Merlin says politely, and bares his teeth in a poor facsimile of a smile. He doesn’t care if it comes off as threatening. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

“We know what you are, filthy druid,” another knight snaps. His voice is still high; he can’t be out of his teenage years yet, and Merlin looks sourly at him. A child, really. He shocks himself with that thought. He’d been sixteen when he first came to Camelot, and only now does he understand what Arthur means.

This knight doesn’t yet know what he’s fighting for.

“I know what you are, too,” Merlin offers. “I’m not stopping you for it. Now, let us pass.”

“Magic is forbidden in Essetir,” a third knight says, the most reasonable of them all so far, “and all who practise it are to be put to death. It’s the law of King Cenred.”

“He’s always been a bit dramatic,” Merlin says. “Put to death, really? Is he beyond putting us in prison now? Isn’t immediate death a bit severe as a punishment, just for having something that he doesn’t understand?”

The first knight trods forward on his horse and puts his sword underneath Merlin’s chin, lifting it. The knight lifts his visor, revealing solemn blue eyes under thick eyebrows. “Your presence is not wanted here, druid. And for treading here, you will die.”

“I don’t think so,” Lancelot says, and lifts his own sword. He hasn’t had cause to use it yet, but Merlin has seen him practise. There’s a fluid grace to his movements that even Arthur would be hard-pressed to find fault with, he thinks, and he knows exactly how hard Arthur drives his knights.

“Lancelot,” Merlin says, his voice tinged with warning, and lifts up his own hand. “I can deal with it.”

“Deal with it,” the youngest knight sneers. “He says he can deal—”

Merlin snaps his fingers, and all the knights slump forwards. Two fall from their horses, and the poor animals, surprised by the sudden movement, panic. Three of them run away at once, and Merlin doesn’t bother to watch them go.

Lancelot turns towards him slowly. “Did you kill them?”

“I just put them to sleep,” Merlin says defensively. He’s killed only once—the knights that had dared to attack Arthur. He still remembers the foul sense of darkness in his chest, and the panic of the river that had swallowed him after. No, he doesn’t like to kill, and he doesn’t need to in order to incapacitate his opponents.

Arthur had told him once that killing wouldn’t fit Merlin; it turns out he was right.

“Things are worse in Essetir than I thought,” Lancelot says, and watches in the distance where a brown mare runs off into the forest they’d just left. Then, he grimaces at one of the knights that’s lying unconscious on the ground, and slowly taps his helmet with his feet. The knight doesn’t stir. “They would’ve killed you just for showing an ounce of magic.”

Merlin bites the inside of his cheek. “Arthur wants to make peace with Essetir. I don’t know if he can do that, if Cenred stays like this. He’s only getting worse.”

“There’s nothing he can do about that,” Lancelot says. 

“It might come to war,” Merlin says. “Arthur is serious about this. He won’t accept what Cenred’s doing, I know that.” He considers it for another moment. “And Cenred won’t change his mind—not if Arthur’s the one trying to change it. Cenred won’t change for anything, probably. Unless…”

“What, Merlin?” Lancelot says, and crosses his arms.

“I’ve got an idea,” Merlin says sheepishly, “and Arthur won’t like it, and I think that you might not, either.”

Lancelot doesn’t look surprised in the least. He tilts his head slightly, as if to say that Merlin’s allowed to keep going—for now. “And what might that be?”

“Arthur once told me that compromise is the stuff that peace is made of,” Merlin says. “But Cenred will never compromise, or at least not in a way that Arthur will accept. Any step Arthur might make towards him… Cenred will just take a step back. That’s the kind of man he is. But I’m thinking that perhaps we can…”

“Yes?” Lancelot prompts.

Merlin smiles. “Intimidate him.”

Lancelot shakes his head, his shoulders sagging. “I normally wouldn’t agree to this,” he says heavily, “but things can’t go on like they are now. What are you thinking?”

There are tiny dots of light in the castle, and the magic reeks of desperation. Merlin is very nearly overwhelmed when he first reaches it, and has to stop for a few seconds to compose himself. Trapped, they’re all trapped—it must be more than a dozen sorcerers, their powers all diluted and their magic used for Cenred’s gain. 

This is how you make magic evil, Merlin thinks to himself, and hates Cenred for it.

Lancelot’s presence is the only thing calming Merlin enough to stop and think for a second without immediately charging the castle. He would come out unscathed, presumably, but it wouldn’t help him do what he wants to do, which is to reach Cenred.

“So,” Lancelot says, in a rough whisper. “How do you want to go in? If the knights see you…”

“I’ll turn into a bird,” Merlin says. 

“A bird.”

Merlin sighs. “What are they going to do about a bird? Anyway, I’m faster than they are, and trust me, most guards will be sleeping at this time of their shift.” Most of them do so in Camelot, anyway. “I just have to find Cenred’s bedroom, and I’ll make my way in.”

“He won’t have a window open,” Lancelot warns him. Merlin can see the breath from his lips as he talks; no, Cenred won’t have a window open, because it’s far too cold for that. Merlin will have to make his way through the castle, but that’s no problem. That way, he’ll be able to find Cenred’s chambers much more easily, he guesses. There’s no telling from the outside, but castles have a logic to them. If he’s inside, he’ll be able to tell what direction to go.

“I’ll be fine,” Merlin says. “I’ll go inside, and you stay here and—keep watch.”

“I’m not coming?” Lancelot demands, and grabs Merlin’s arm. “You can’t go by yourself!”

“Mother hen,” Merlin tells him, and yanks himself loose. “It’ll be fine, Lance. Believe me; there’s nothing they can do to hurt me.”

Lancelot seems doubtful, but Merlin just sends him a winning smile and stands up. Lancelot doesn’t stop him, and Merlin doesn’t give him the time to change his mind. Suddenly, Merlin has wings, and he lets the wind carry him towards the castle. Not a single guard comes to stop him; and why would they? He’s a bird.

Not a single window has been left open, except the one in the kitchen. Even this late at night—or rather, early in the morning—servants are bustling inside, each with shadows under their eyes as they make their loaves of bread. Merlin stops on top of a counter, and one of the girls tries to shoo him away. Merlin ducks aside from her half-hearted swats, trying to figure out where, exactly, he is. When he spots an open door, he makes his way there. The kitchen staff clearly don’t care enough to stop him.

That’s what you get for treating your servants like that, Merlin thinks to himself. Arthur would never. The cook in Camelot loves the king as if he’s her own son; Merlin had quickly realised that when she’d scolded him for grabbing a plum from Arthur’s plate, one of the times they’d shared their luncheon. He’s never done it again.

Gods, he misses Arthur so fiercely that his chest hurts.

There are a few guards that half-heartedly attempt to catch Merlin when he flies by them, but none of them succeed, and none of them make a real fuss when Merlin disappears from their sight. Merlin has to spend half an hour searching the castle to find the right wing, more lost than he thought he’d be. Perhaps castles aren’t all the same. Still, he eventually manages to find Cenred’s chambers when a servant sneaks in to put more fire on the hearth.

Can’t let the king grow cold in the night, after all. Merlin waits until the servant has left again, and in the quiet of the hallway, turns back to his human form. The door creaks for a second as he turns the handle, but the figure in the bed doesn’t move. Snores come from under the covers, and the only thing Merlin can see is Cenred’s dark hair.

With a wordless spell, the door is locked behind him, and the windows are barred. Cenred won’t escape him today, and Merlin draws his druid’s cloak around himself. “Hello, King Cenred,” he says pleasantly, and the King of Essetir sits up straight.

“Guards!” he calls out, his voice still rough from sleep. “Guards!”

“I don’t think that will help you,” Merlin tells him. Cenred throws off his covers, and blindly grabs for his sword. The only light comes from the hearth; the new logs that the servant had thrown on there, a scant five minutes ago, creak in the fire.

“Sorcerer,” Cenred hisses.

“Yes, that’s me,” Merlin says agreeably, and before Cenred can even reach him, he lets his magic surge up. It stops Cenred in his tracks, sword in hand, right where he’s coming for Merlin. Merlin just smiles as Cenred’s mouth opens, and he stares at Merlin agape when he can’t get his legs to move.

“You filthy animal!” Cenred calls out. “You—you!”

Merlin smiles kindly and sits down at Cenred’s table, taking off his hood. “You don’t even know who I am,” he tells him. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m not even going to hurt you, really. I promise.”

“You—”

“I didn’t say you could talk,” Merlin says strictly, not recognising the authority in his own voice. He doesn’t even require a spell to have Cenred to snap his mouth shut, though, which is a little satisfying. Merlin drums his fingers on the table. “You’ve changed your laws about magic.”

Cenred eyes him darkly. “Yes. Am I to assume that you have a problem with that?”

“You assume correctly.” Merlin stands up, and the chair scrapes loudly over the tiles. “Now, here’s a proposition for you. The magic you know—all the sorcerers you’ve crossed paths with so far… they’re under my protection from now on. And if you abuse your power over these innocent individuals, I will come for you.”

“Magic is evil,” Cenred barks. 

“No, you are,” Merlin counters, and takes a few breaths to calm himself. It would be so easy to kill Cenred—to be rid of him, and watch Essetir scramble to find a new leader. But if he used his magic to kill, he’d be proving their point, and they’d only find a new king who hates magic just as much.

And Arthur would be disappointed in him, which shouldn’t be the most important reason not to do it, but somehow it still is.

“I know magic can be dangerous,” Merlin continues, rubbing his eyes. He doesn’t want to look Cenred in the eye for this. “I know it can do evil. But it is not inherently bad; you have used sorcerers for your own gain, so you know its uses. If you were to put in place some laws that restrict its uses for evil, you will see that your kingdom will thrive for it. I promise you.”

“And if I don’t?” Cenred says bitterly.

“For every sorcerer you harm,” Merlin vows, “You’ll find your kingdom taken from you. Piece by bitter piece, Cenred. I don’t care what it takes. I came here today without any issue—I am the most powerful sorcerer you will ever meet. They call me Emrys. I was born as magic, and I will protect it until my dying breath. And I don’t plan to die for a very, very long time.”

Cenred looks at him sceptically. “You can’t be a day over twenty,” he says, but there’s a dark hesitation in his voice. “You can’t do that.”

“I came here, and none of your guards stopped me, or even recognised me,” Merlin tells him, and smiles wryly. “You have no idea what I can do. Now, I suggest you make a compromise with Arthur Pendragon. Because I will know if you haven’t, and I won’t always be so kind.” He leans forward. “I killed the knights you sent to kill Arthur when he left for Nemeth. And I did it without lifting a finger.”

Cenred pales. Merlin doesn’t tell him about the nausea or the aftermath of that entire debacle; he thinks he’s made his point. He snaps his fingers, and Cenred falls forwards, dropping his sword on the ground. It clatters loudly, and Cenred stares at Merlin without making a move to take it up.

“You are threatening me.”

“Yes, I am,” Merlin says, and brings up his hood again. “And do you trust me on my word?”

It takes a few seconds for Cenred to nod, but Merlin thinks his message has come across. Here Cenred is, face to face with a sorcerer who had every chance to kill him, and didn’t; Merlin hopes that means something to him, as well as Merlin’s words. 

Cenred won’t listen to kind words, or to Arthur’s promises of peace. Merlin only hopes this will do the trick.

“Goodbye, then,” Merlin says, and opens Cenred’s window. A cold gust of wind blows his hood back, and Merlin has to hold onto it. For a second, he turns back to Cenred, whose eyes are tracking him carefully. “Don’t forget this. Magic has let your crimes slide for now—it won’t do so any longer. Remember, King of Essetir.”

He turns into a bird. Cenred’s gasp is the last sound he hears before he jumps out of the window and makes his way back to Lancelot. Outside, the first rays of golden sunlight touch the surface of the Earth, and Merlin drifts on the wind and feels freer than he ever has before.

The snowdrops bloom the day that Merlin and Lancelot arrive in Camelot. It’s the day of his twenty-first birthday.

Camelot hasn’t changed at all, even if Merlin rightly feels that it should have. The walls are the same shade of grey, and the castle stands high above the houses of the citadel, proud and powerful. Merlin smiles in its direction, and his heart urges him forward. Arthur is there, Arthur—whom he hasn’t seen in over two years, and his skin prickles. Lancelot smiles at him, raising his eyebrows. Oh, he knows Merlin all too well.

Merlin’s cheeks burn pink, and he sends a tiny burst of magic to Lancelot’s direction, just to give him the sensation of being elbowed. Lancelot just laughs at him, mirth written plainly on his face.

“Welcome to Camelot,” Merlin says, as they walk through the main gate. The citadel is as busy as he remembers it being, and he senses the flashes of magic. It is alive, in the middle of a town that once hated all magic; Arthur changed that. Merlin wants to run towards the castle, but forces himself to walk calmly.

Lancelot swings an arm around his shoulders. “Home, at last,” he agrees, and jostles Merlin.

“Home,” Merlin says, and then grabs Lancelot’s arm to tug at him. He doesn’t need to run, but Lancelot is going so slowly it might yet kill Merlin.

The castle comes nearer and nearer, and Merlin feels the skittishness growing in him with every step. It makes his legs jitter, and his heart beat fast. It has been so long, and he wonders what Arthur has been doing, all this time. A part of him wants to run away and stay gone, so he might never have to know. Arthur might have changed; Merlin knows that he has. He isn’t that sixteen-year-old boy, stating his name to a guard in a hopeful wish to have a destiny alongside a golden king.

He is Merlin, and he is Emrys, and he is a druid, and he is a court sorcerer, and he is magic.

No one is waiting at the entrance of the castle, of course. No one knows Merlin is coming. But there are several knights in the courtyard that Merlin knows. He tugs Lancelot along to a group of three, their red cloaks billowing in the wind.

“Hello, Gwaine,” he says cheerfully. “Elyan, Leon.”

Gwaine responds fastest. Suddenly, Merlin is being lifted in the air, his lungs compressed by a tighter embrace than he’s ever had. “Merlin! You’re back!”

“I said I’d be back,” Merlin protests, and pats Gwaine’s shoulder. “Will you put me down?”

“Look at that,” Leon says, grabbing Merlin as soon as Gwaine’s put him down. “Little Merlin, all grown up.”

Merlin smiles. “I wasn’t ever little, you know. This is Lancelot—I’ve brought him along so that Arthur can knight him. He’s been travelling with me all this past year. And—erm. Where is Arthur?”

Lancelot smiles tightly, a little awkward as Gwaine slings an arm around his shoulders, and Elyan just shakes his head at Gwaine’s antics. “Stuck with paperwork, but I’m sure he’ll be glad to be interrupted,” Elyan says, and leans in close. “Just between you and me, Merlin, he’s been wondering when you’d turn up. One of the druids told him you weren’t with them anymore, and I don’t think he’s stopped worrying since.”

“Oh, let me take him to Arthur,” Gwaine says gleefully.

Leon shakes his head ruefully. “Fine, but we’re all coming with you.”

“I’m busy,” Arthur calls out when Gwaine knocks the door. Gwaine rolls his eyes and puts his finger to his lips, motioning for Merlin not to say a word. He knocks again.

“Sire, it’s urgent,” he calls out, and winks at Merlin.

“Gwaine—” Arthur says, as he opens the door. His hair is ruffled, but he’s dressed impeccably, his white tunic perfectly suited to his body. Merlin stills, because he knows what Arthur looks like; of course he knows. He’d just forgotten the little freckles on Arthur’s jaw, and the precise bend of his nose, and the few hairs in his eyebrows that bend in the wrong direction.

And Arthur’s as breathtaking as ever, staring right back at him as if he can’t quite understand who’s standing in front of him. His eyes have grown large, and he stares Merlin up and down as if he can’t comprehend what he’s seeing.

“My lord,” Merlin says, and is relieved to find his voice doesn’t shake. He bows his head to Arthur—all the courtly manners he’d been taught slotting right back into place. He’d almost feared he would have forgotten it all after two years, and would have had to start from scratch. “I’m sorry for interrupting.” He eyes Gwaine. “Your knight insisted.”

“It’s Merlin!” Gwaine calls out, and shoves Merlin forward so that he nearly falls against Arthur.

“Yes, I can see that,” Arthur says, rolling his eyes, and then gingerly takes Merlin’s shoulders between his hands. He hesitates for a moment, and then he presses Merlin into a hug; it’s not as warm as Gwaine’s had been, but then Arthur’s hands ghost Merlin’s back, and he thinks it might be even more welcoming.

“Hello,” Merlin murmurs in his ear. “Missed me?”

“Not at all,” Arthur says brusquely, and pushes him away again. There’s something oddly disconcerted in his tone, and his cheeks are tinged pink. Merlin wonders what he was doing before, and then he spots Gwen behind Arthur. “I was relishing the break from my court sorcerer-to-be. That is to say, what have you been doing?”

“Now, or for the last two years?” Merlin asks in confusion. “Sorry, erm—this is Lancelot. I’d been hoping you would knight him?”

“Good morning,” Lancelot says awkwardly.

“Knight him,” Arthur says flatly, and looks at Merlin again. “Just like that?”

Merlin shrugs. “He’s been an immense help to me the last year. Will you let go of me so I can say hi to Gwen?”

Arthur puts his hands away immediately, and Merlin regrets it—just a bit. Then his arms are full with Gwen, and he smiles into her hair. “You’re all grown up!” she says, and presses a kiss to his cheek. “And your arm! Are those all druidic?”

“A friend did it for me,” Merlin confirms. “I hope Arthur hasn’t been annoying you too badly while I’ve been gone? We all know what a clotpole he can be.”

“Oh, he’s been fine,” Gwen says, and shares a secretive smile with Merlin. “You have to tell us everything you’ve done while you’ve been gone. Oh, look at him, Arthur! You’d barely recognise him, wouldn’t you?”

Arthur’s eyes on him are dark and speculative. Merlin swallows hard, and tries to smile, but thinks it might fall a bit flat. “Yes,” Arthur says quietly. “You’d barely recognise him.”

Chapter Text

The first week is a whirlwind of activity. Arthur insists that robes must be made for Merlin for when he takes his position as court sorcerer, which is only a month away. There are meetings with the Council of Magic, during which Merlin is very aware of Baradoc’s cold eyes on him, even as Morgana recounts every decision they’ve made in the past two years.

Lancelot undergoes a trial for knighthood and is, according to Lancelot himself, reluctantly allowed to become a knight of Camelot.

“I don’t think he likes me,” Lancelot whispers to Merlin one night, during a banquet to celebrate Merlin’s return. No, Merlin isn’t happy about that. “King Arthur, I meant. He keeps staring very disapprovingly.”

“He just doesn’t like it when other people are as good as him,” Merlin whispers back, but then Leon shushes him.

Somehow, Merlin doesn’t really get to speak a lot with Arthur, even though he tries to. But Arthur is always out to practise with the knights, or he’s gone on horseback to hunt, and when Merlin tries to catch him during dinner, one time, Arthur claims he still needs to talk to a member of his council and promptly leaves his chicken unguarded.

Merlin steals just a few bites. Maybe just one leg. But Arthur had it coming.

So Merlin comes to the conclusion that, for some reason or another, Arthur is avoiding him. This is mostly because Arthur saw him in a hallway that morning, promptly turned around, and then ignored Merlin loudly calling his name. 

“Hello,” Merlin says, right as Arthur is stuck in a bath. This had been planned on Merlin’s part—and he remembers how Arthur had once barged into his own time in the bath. If anything, it’s just payback.

“The door was locked,” Arthur protests, and his cheeks go red—either from embarrassment or because his bath is too warm, but Merlin has a sneaking suspicion it might be the first. “How did you get in?”

Merlin raises his eyebrows. “Magic,” he says, and wiggles his fingers. He takes a chair and snaps his fingers—Arthur’s bathwater goes opaque, and Arthur presses his lips together in a displeased sort of acceptance. “I need to talk to you.”

“We have meetings for that,” Arthur complains.

“You,” Merlin says, “are avoiding me. Don’t you want me to be your court sorcerer anymore? Really, Arthur, it’s best to say it now before you give me a position you’ll end up regretting giving me. I know things have changed, but if there’s anything you need to tell me, this is the time to do it.”

Arthur stares at him, and Merlin determinedly stares back, making sure not to let his eyes linger on Arthur’s arms and the blond, coarse hair that covers them, or his broad, nude shoulders. He will have to spend a lifetime by Arthur’s side, and there is far more to Arthur than all the things that make him so golden, and Merlin needs to focus.

“What?” Arthur manages.

Merlin makes a displeased noise. “I’m not an idiot,” he scoffs. “You have a problem. Tell me the problem, and we can sort it out. We’re both adults now, aren’t we? I’m twenty-one, I’m not the boy you kept insisting I was. I’m ready to serve you, but I can’t do that if you’re going to be an annoying arse about this.”

“Glad to see not everything about you has changed,” Arthur mutters, and sags deeper into the water.

“Is it about that?” Merlin demands. “Do you think I’ve changed too much? Or not enough? Tell me, Arthur.”

“Your tattoos,” Arthur says abruptly. Merlin stares down his arm, at the dark ink that marks him. “Tell me what they mean. Who put them there?”

Merlin smiles at the memory. “Aed. He was one of the druids—a bit older than me, and he’d just handfasted with Hanna. They were my friends, and they taught me a lot about… their values. What’s good and what’s not. And how to tell the difference. I asked him to do it—I don’t want to hide my magic. Not anywhere.”

“You’ve a dragon in there.”

“It’s for you,” Merlin says simply. “It’s what I owe to Camelot. The dragon to protect the kingdom—that means you.”

Arthur closes his eyes for a moment, the lashes fluttering darkly against his fair cheeks. “You’re all grown up, and I keep expecting to see the boy I first met when I look at you. The boy that grew me an apple tree.  But when I look at you…”

“It’s what you wanted me to be,” Merlin says awkwardly, nervously adjusting his own sleeve. “I just understood what I was meant to be, Arthur. What I wanted to be.”

“And is that what you are now?”

Merlin doesn’t have to think about it for even a moment. “Yes,” he says. “I’m exactly what I want to be, and I’m exactly where I want to be. So why don’t you tell me what your issue is? You wanted me to grow up, and it’s been five years, Arthur. I’m twenty-one, and I have my magic under control, and I’m ready to be your court sorcerer, but that’s only if you want me to be. It’s not too late for you to change your mind.”

Arthur opens his eyes, and sits up straight again. “And you would let me, wouldn’t you? If I were to send you away, you’d go?”

It’s not a fair question. For five years, Merlin has trained to be where he is now, and it’s finally within his grasp. He loses the ability to breathe at the thought of leaving Arthur, but instead, he presses his lips together so solidly that he’s sure they’re white as snow. “I wouldn’t want to. But yes, I’d go. If you could promise me that there’s someone else who can help you as I would.”

“And not just because I ask you to?”

“It’s not just your life on the line, isn’t it?” Merlin muses. “I made a promise to all the magical creatures I met. I spent more than a year with druids who were all looking at me as if I were—as if I were something more than I am, and I am not letting them down. I promised them we’d bring back magic. I promised them I’d spend my life in pursuit of that. So if you don’t want me to do that with you, then fine. I’ll find another way. But you won’t see me walk away without some promise from you that you’ll do all you can to save their lives.”

Arthur stares at him, and finally, the ghost of a smile touches the corners of his lips. “You feel so strongly about it?”

“Yes,” Merlin tells him, and crosses his arms defensively.

“I don’t want you to leave,” Arthur says finally. “Now, turn around. I need to get dressed for this conversation, and then I need to figure out what I’ll do to you for barging in like this.”

“Throw something at my head, no doubt,” Merlin says, and can’t help the lilting tease to his voice. Arthur has said he wants Merlin to stay—that’s the worst of his fears alleviated. He turns around and stares at the wall, hearing Arthur shuffle behind him as he leaves the bath and gets dressed.

“Turn around,” Arthur commands, and Merlin does. Arthur’s hair is still wet, and soft, and Merlin wants to run his fingers through the strands. His face is open, and for the first time, Merlin thinks that Arthur is still very young for all of this.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” Merlin says, more calmly this time. 

“Truthfully,” Arthur says quietly, and leans against the table, “it’s because I’ve somehow got it in my head that you’re going to tell me you’re leaving. I know, I know.” Arthur holds up his hands when Merlin opens his mouth, smiling at him wryly. “You’ve only just come back. You’re determined. You are of age, Merlin, and it’s plain that you know your own mind. But you’ve seen the world, now—you’ve met your people. I suppose I wasn’t sure what I could offer you that anyone else wouldn’t.”

“And you don’t want me to stay just because I promised I would,” Merlin realises. “You’re a prat, you know.”

“What?”

“I wouldn’t stay if I didn’t want to,” Merlin says, and throws up his hands. “It’s the rest of my life that I’ve promised you. If I wasn’t sure—you’d know, Arthur. I know where I want to be exactly because I’ve seen the rest of Albion. I know what you’re offering me, and I’d like to take it.”

“Why?” Arthur asks, and rubs his forehead.

“Why?” Merlin repeats. 

“What am I offering you that’s so much better than anything else out there?” Arthur asks, and he sounds a little bit helpless. “I know what I’m trying to do, but surely I’m not the only one who will treat you with the respect you deserve. Some of the things I’ve said to you in the past…”

“You’re offering freedom,” Merlin says. “And I know you, Arthur. You’re a fair king. You’ll do the right thing. And I want to help you with that.”

Arthur’s shoulders slump. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t take the job, at this point,” he confesses. “I can’t keep Morgana in this position forever. She loathes it.”

Merlin really needs to have a talk with her, he reminds himself. For now, he just smiles. “You don’t have to worry about that. You’ve got me.” In more ways than Arthur could possibly know. 

“I’d like to say something to you I’ve never said before,” Arthur says, and before Merlin can ask, Arthur strides forward to take Merlin’s shoulders between his hands. Merlin goes still under his touch, trying very hard to breathe normally. Arthur smells like lavender soap, and his hair is a shade darker as it’s plastered to his forehead. “Thank you.”

“Any time,” Merlin tells him, and his heart doesn’t stop beating hard even when Arthur drops his hands and steps back again. 

Morgana’s chambers are unusually messy when Merlin steps in. He hasn’t been to visit her personally yet, but she’d asked him to meet in order to discuss everything needed to make Merlin court sorcerer. The invitations have gone out now—Merlin will be appointed as Arthur’s court sorcerer in only a few weeks.

It’s a scary thought, but not as scary as it could’ve been.

“Thank you for coming to meet me,” Morgana says formally, and leafs through her letters. “There’s much to get through. First, as Arthur’s court sorcerer, you will be more than just a magician. You will be an advisor in many situations. You will be the second-highest ranking man in the castle, and there are many matters that you will be asked about.”

“I know,” Merlin interrupts. He was told all of this five years ago. “Before we get into all of this—there’s something else I want to discuss with you.”

Morgana leans back in her chair, looking at him sceptically. There are dark shadows under her eyes, and her dress doesn’t fit her as well as it used to. She’s lost weight, Merlin thinks, and her cheeks are thinner. Even now, he can feel the agitation of her magic rolling from her. He wonders how he’d never noticed before.

“We have very little time, and I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible,” she says curtly.

Merlin takes the seat opposite her, holding her gaze. “You’ve held this position for five years. I don’t think an hour or so will make much of a difference.”

She scoffs. “What’s so important, then, that you don’t want to hear about your new duties? Are you already putting it off?”

“I’ve got a lifetime to discuss all that,” Merlin says, gesturing at the letters on her desk callously. “I wanted to talk to you. About what you said to me about dark magic before I left. You told me you’d talk to me when I understood.”

“And do you?” Her eyes are dark. “Because despite your skills, I don’t think you do.”

Merlin presses his knees together, forcing himself to sit still. Morgana, even without her magic powers, has the sort of control over herself that Merlin might never acquire. She’s kind, but there’s a dark edge to her, and a lack of faith in herself. Not dark—but not entirely light, either.

Merlin wonders if Uther is to blame for it, and what she might’ve become if magic had been legal when she was born.

“There’s no such thing as dark magic,” he says kindly.

“Of course there is,” she snaps at him. 

“No, there really isn’t,” Merlin says, and leans forward—an attempt to reach her, to bring her back from whatever grief keeps her on the edge of everything she might allow herself to be. She is dangling out of reach, and Merlin just wants to help her, because he can’t bear her fear. “There’s darkness in people, but it isn’t magic that’s inherently capable of being dark. If you’re being tempted by dark magic, Morgana, it’s because you feel that it’s dark.”

“Some magic is evil,” Morgana argues. “You’re a fool to think otherwise.”

“It’s a part of yourself,” Merlin says quietly. “You’ve been taught to hate it, and so you did, even if you didn’t mean to. I was afraid, too, and I lashed out with my magic in fear. But it was never the magic that did anything that was evil—it’s us. It’s our actions that shape magic, and it’s us who decide whether a spell is dark or not. But magic isn’t inherently dark.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Morgana,” Merlin says firmly. “You can’t pretend I still don’t know anything about magic.”

“Not about my magic, no,” Morgana tells him.

Merlin shakes his head. “It might not work in the same ways, but it’s the same magic,” he points out. “Just because you use it differently doesn’t mean that it’s another kind of power. It’s magic. Why are you insisting on magic being the problem? This way, you can change it.”

Morgana is quiet, frowning hard at him. “We can’t all change as easily as you, Merlin.”

“Go to the druids,” Merlin urges. “Leave Camelot for a bit. See the rest of the world. You don’t need to be confined here, Morgana. And if you never want to use your magic at all, that’s fine, too.”

It’s almost uncomfortable, watching Morgana’s face twist. She puts a hand to her forehead and keeps it there, hiding most of her face from Merlin. 

“You want this, then?” Morgana asks him, so softly that Merlin nearly doesn’t hear her. “I once asked you to make sure this is what you wanted. You’re sure? You’ll stay with him?”

Merlin stands up. He doesn’t think she’ll want to talk through whatever she is thinking with him, even if he might be the only one who understands. He has told her what he needed to say; the rest is up to her. “I love him,” he says simply. “How could I leave?”

“Sometimes I wonder how I could stay, after everything,” Morgana says, and pointedly doesn’t meet his eyes. Merlin wonders what he would see if she were to look at him, and thinks he can guess.

“Then don’t,” Merlin tells her. “Arthur wants you to be free. Even if it means you have to go.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, so Merlin walks away. They can discuss his duties another time, when she doesn’t have her own decisions to make. Merlin knows exactly what it’s like, to walk away from everything you’ve ever known—to feel as if you can never go back. He knows how it seizes your heart, like a fist is keeping it tightly in place even if it wants to jump out of your chest. 

He can’t force her to do anything she doesn’t want to. It feels like his first duty as court sorcerer, though, to make sure at least Morgana is content with her powers. 

He owes her that much.

Merlin is appointed court sorcerer of Camelot at the end of spring.

The day starts out bright, with a cloudless blue sky appearing over the citadel. Arthur is uncharacteristically pleased about the day, Merlin thinks. He wasn’t there for Arthur’s coronation—was it seven years ago? It must be!—but Gwen tells him that this will be the largest event since then.

Lancelot’s knighting ceremony is nothing compared to it. Lancelot just pats him on the back when Merlin laments the scale of the event. Several nobles have been invited, and even Princess Mithian is in attendance.

Arthur’s plans to name Merlin his court sorcerer in the courtyard falls to bits, however, when the rain starts pouring very unexpectedly right in the afternoon. Merlin’s special-made red cloak is drenched, and Gwaine lends him his knight’s cloak instead, and Arthur has to move the entire ceremony to the throne room, which, unfortunately, fewer people fit into.

But Merlin can’t help smiling nonetheless.

“With the power vested in me as King of Camelot,” Arthur says, and he sounds as authoritative as he did on the first day Merlin ever saw him, loud enough for the entire throne room to hear him over the crowd’s muttering. It’s a little funny, because his hair is dripping on the floor, and he looks a bit like a wet cat. “I name you, Merlin of Ealdor, court sorcerer of Camelot.”

The sword touches him lightly on his tattooed shoulder, and Merlin’s skin prickles. He never wants to leave again, he thinks faintly. He wants to stay, and build this kingdom with Arthur into what it can be. A safe haven, a promised land—a united Albion.

Arthur tugs him up, and his eyes are bright, too. And Merlin knows—

They share the same dream.

“Ready?” Arthur asks quietly, and Merlin is loath to let go of his hand, so he doesn’t. Arthur’s hand is a bit damp from the rain, but warm, and familiar, and as if he knows what Merlin is thinking, his grip tightens.

“Yeah, Arthur,” Merlin murmurs, and smiles. “I’ve always been ready.”

“Of course you have,” Arthur says, and Merlin turns around to face the kingdom—to watch the people he’s vowed to protect with his magic. And despite the hesitance that still lingers around magic, and the arguments he’s had with so many of Arthur’s advisors, they are all cheering for him. He catches Gwen’s eyes, and she smiles so broadly at him that Merlin can’t help but smile back.

They share the same dream, and they’ll make it a reality.

Unfortunately, council sessions aren’t any more thrilling than they used to be. Additionally, now Merlin’s actually expected to pay attention and have some input that isn’t just “Hm, right,” and “That seems like a solution,” like he’d gotten away with in the past.

Well, barely, but even so.

“Next point on the agenda,” Leon says pointedly, and Merlin wants to groan and fall asleep on the spot, “is the letter we received from Cenred. Now that we have a court sorcerer,” and here he explicitly looks at Merlin, “King Arthur thinks it is time we sent back a decision.”

“What letter?” Merlin says, sitting up straight.

Arthur answers, “Cenred sent a letter asking us to reconsider a trading deal that we’d backed out of. I told him I would not agree to the conditions he’d set then; he has now told us he is willing to compromise on his laws for magic. I think it’s suspicious.”

Merlin blinks. “When was this?” he asks with a dawning suspicion. He might’ve made more of an impression on Cenred than he’d dared to hope.

“About a week before your return,” Leon answers. 

Merlin smiles to himself. “Right. So why aren’t we trusting him?”

Arthur looks at him as if he’s grown another head. “Essetir’s laws have only tightened further and further when it comes to the ban on magic. I’m not sure what he wants, but I can’t imagine he’s changed his mind so easily.”

“Maybe he’s finally noticed that it’s working here,” Merlin tries to argue. They’re nowhere near full acceptance of magic, but Arthur has been steadily relaxing the laws on magic, and Morgana and the Council of Magic have done a stellar job of bringing back magic in the streets. It’s not so rare anymore to see someone selling potions, even if it’s still done in the less-crowded alleys.

“I doubt it,” Arthur says, pursing his lips. “But I do want to know what he’s planning, and… if he really has changed his mind, I don’t want to discourage it.”

“I think we should visit,” Merlin says.

“Visit?” Gwaine repeats, and laughs. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”

“It’s the best way to make sure his intentions are what he says they are,” Merlin tells Arthur. “And if he’s sincere, you can make a deal. If not—well, then he might back out before you actually arrive with your knights. You’ll never figure it out through letters.”

Arthur sighs. “I’ve thought about it,” he says heavily, “and you’re right. I’ll have to write him back and ask to discuss these changes in person. It’s best for us to go to Essetir, I think—I’d like to see his kingdom and determine what his own people think of him. And you’d be coming, too, Merlin.”

Merlin stills. “Of course,” he says. Cenred might not even remember his face. Or he might. Well, it might benefit him, really, if Cenred knows the power that Arthur has behind him.

“Three months,” Arthur decides. “I’d like to get to the bottom of this as soon as I can. Leon, start the preparations.”

Unfortunately, there are other things to deal with other than Cenred. Even as they are preparing to negotiate with Essetir, Merlin finds himself with plenty of other tasks he needs to stay on top of.

Despite everything that has changed, some habits have settled into Merlin’s bones. He is court sorcerer now, and his pile of unanswered letters is steadily growing so tall that it might reach his chin, and the matters he has to attend to are to be divided up into ‘urgent’ and ‘equally urgent but ignored in favour of other, more urgent things’. There is not a moment of the day that Merlin has to himself—he is working from dawn to dusk, and then beyond dusk into the inky darkness of night.

But he’d never be able to turn away Gwen when she appears at his door with a hopeful glint in her eyes and a book pressed to her side, asking him if he has an hour or so to spend with her.

“I think you read faster than I can, these days,” she says, her fingers splayed over the page to make sure Merlin doesn’t yet turn to the next one. The disadvantages of reading the same book, he realises, and bites his cheek when he thinks of how often she must have had to wait on him. 

Gwen sounds fond, though, and Merlin lets out a breath of relief when he spots the amusement and ill-concealed pride in her expression. “I had a very good teacher,” he tells her honestly.

“Oh, I’m nothing like that,” Gwen says, always too modest, and tucks a curl behind her ears. “You’re a very bright man, has anyone ever told you that? I doubt Baradoc would have mentioned it.”

Now it’s Merlin’s turn to colour darkly, and he leans back. “It’s just that I had to become a fast reader. You don’t even know how many letters they’ve given me to read,” he says mournfully. “I’ve had to learn to skim through them. Did you know how many people are complaining about their sheep being cursed? And their crops being affected by the legalisation of magic?”

Gwen blinks. “But why?”

“I don’t know,” Merlin says and scowls. “They still have to get used to it, I suppose. Anything that’s out of the ordinary gets blamed on magic. I’ve checked some of the numbers, and our harvest is actually larger this year. Still.” He smiles to himself, wistfully. “For every hundred letters that are complaining, there’s a sorcerer writing to thank me. So it’s all worth it.”

“Arthur is proud of you, too,” Gwen says, and Merlin starts as he looks at her. She rests her hand lightly on his wrist, her thumb pressing against his skin insistently. “I know he hasn’t told you, but I can see it when he looks at you.”

“When is he not looking at me?” Merlin says sceptically. “He keeps hovering over my shoulder, making sure I do everything correctly. He asked me if he’d have to ask Morgana to come and help me out. I keep having to remind him he has his own job to do.”

Gwen makes a noise of disagreement, and removes her hand. “He’s just looking out for you. Arthur knows, more than anyone, Merlin, what it’s like to suddenly have this kind of responsibility. He wasn’t much older than you when he became king.”

It had always seemed as if Arthur was so ancient, in certain ways—so used to shouldering the burden placed on him. Merlin wonders suddenly what Arthur was like in those first days of the crown being placed on his head—if he was reeling with grief and loss and a lack of direction. The Arthur he knows has always known his own mind, and it’s hard to imagine him differently.

Arthur was twenty-two when he became king—a year older than Merlin. But Merlin has known this responsibility was coming for five years, whereas Arthur, by all accounts, only had five days to prepare. Uther’s death was swift and unexpected. Arthur had told him, hadn’t he? How much he’d struggled to be taken seriously?

Yes, maybe Arthur is trying to give Merlin something that Arthur never had. His heart surges with fondness, and he presses his lips together in an attempt not to let it show on his face. Arthur isn’t his; Arthur is just being kind, in a very roundabout way.

“He always seems so much larger than life,” Merlin says quietly. “It’s easy to forget, sometimes, that he hasn’t always been like that. That he’s just a man, and not only a king.”

“I think he forgets, too,” Gwen says, and smiles softly as she leans her shoulder into him—a quiet, wordless nudge that says all it needs to. “But now he has you to help him shoulder all that, doesn’t he? And you’re good for him.”

“And you,” he adds. “He’s got you, too.”

“Of course he does,” Gwen says, but her smile becomes a little quieter, and then it fades entirely. She stares right past Merlin. “But it’s not the same as it was.” She squeezes his arm for a second. “And that’s fine. But I’m just glad he has you, Merlin. And that you’ve got him, even if neither of you realise it.”

“I know,” Merlin protests. Of course he knows Arthur is kind, underneath all the insults and the blustering. Gwen lets her hand slip away, and turns back to the book, as if there’s nothing more to say about it. But Merlin knows. Of course he knows—it’s just that he regards Arthur more highly than Arthur does him, and that matter is entirely to be blamed on Merlin’s heart.

That’s not what she means, though, but Gwen turns the page before he can say.

“Where did we leave off?” she asks brightly, and so Merlin drops it entirely.

“You’re settling in well?” Arthur presses.

Merlin might be more inclined to answer him seriously if Arthur hadn’t asked him that for every day since his appointment—which means that it’s been a consecutive fifty-seven days of Arthur checking up on him. 

So Merlin throws a shoe at him. Arthur ducks easily, but frowns nonetheless.

“When are you going to stop?” Merlin demands. “I’m fine, Arthur. Do you think I’m doing something wrong?”

“No, you’re doing splendidly,” Arthur says, far too fast.

Merlin throws the other shoe, just for good measure. “Is there something wrong with you? You’re never nice to me. Tell me what’s wrong, Arthur.”

“You’ve become bossy,” Arthur complains, and makes a face. It scrunches up his expression, and Merlin likes him far better like that, when he’s not so solemn. “It’s just—Morgana never enjoyed being court sorcerer. I’m worried you might find it’s not what you wanted.”

“Morgana doesn’t like her magic,” Merlin mutters. 

Arthur frowns. “Of course she does. She’s always been proud of it. Afraid, of course, when my father—well. She doesn’t like the responsibility that comes with it, but her magic has always been part of her, even when we didn’t know she had it.”

“No, I mean it,” Merlin says, and turns to Arthur. “She hasn’t talked to you about it? I asked her to go to the druids, but she hasn’t brought it up again.”

“To the druids?”

“Arthur, I can sense her,” Merlin says. Morgana clearly hasn’t discussed this with Arthur, and Merlin sighs. “I can feel how much turmoil she’s in. Just—trust me.”

“She’s my sister,” Arthur points out, crossing his arms.

“Don’t look at me,” Merlin says. He wishes he wasn’t out of shoes to throw. “She’s always warned me about dark magic. But it’s not magic that’s dark, it’s just how people use it. Her own negative emotions have been influencing her experiences, and I told her, but I think she’s—” He thinks about it for a second. “Processing, maybe. She really hasn’t mentioned anything to you? Or Gwen?”

“How would I know that she’s talked about it with Gwen?” Arthur asks, a little lost.

Merlin shrugs. “I thought that if she’d told Gwen, then Gwen might’ve told you,” he reasons. “Aren’t you—I thought Gwen and you…”

“No,” Arthur says, and sounds far more horrified about it than Merlin would’ve thought. Maybe Arthur realises it too, because his cheeks go pink and he coughs into his hand. “I mean, Guinevere and I are friends, but we haven’t been anything other than that for a long time. Truth be told, we don’t talk as often as we used to.”

“When I came back, she was there with you,” Merlin says slowly. He thinks about Gwen’s expression when he’d said that Arthur had her, as well as him. Maybe he doesn’t—not in the way he thought.

“One of the few times we did talk, yes,” Arthur tells him. “It isn’t—well, we haven’t been together in six years. We’re not the same people that we used to be.”

“Sorry,” Merlin says lamely, and looks away from Arthur. His heart does a funny little twist, and he wants it not to. Just because Arthur is available doesn’t mean that Arthur is available to him, specifically. Arthur had turned him down once; Merlin hardly wants him to do it again.

“You couldn’t have known,” Arthur says quietly. “Can I ask—no, I don’t think…”

“What?” Merlin asks. He’s never known Arthur to stumble over his words.

Arthur smiles tiredly. “I meant to ask you about Lancelot. When you showed up, I thought that you and him… not that it’s any of my business, really, what you do in your free time.”

“Oh,” Merlin says, and when the realisation sinks in, again, “oh. No, not at all. Never. I don’t think—he’s not like that. And I’m not—no, he’s just a friend. Really.”

“And your girlfriend?” Arthur presses. “From before you left?”

Merlin has to think for two seconds before he even realises what Arthur means. “You mean Freya? She’s the spirit of the lake, Arthur, and we’ve never been a thing. I just let you believe—well, things were so awkward, and you seemed to stop avoiding me when you thought I didn’t—it was easier. But I’m not—no girls for me. Erm.”

“Right,” Arthur says, and the tension is so heavy that it weighs on Merlin’s shoulder. Thankfully, Arthur changes the subject. “So. Morgana. Are you sure that she dislikes her own magic?”

“Yeah,” Merlin tells him quietly. “I understand, you know? It’s—hard, growing up with magic, and she didn’t even know she had it. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse, but I’ve known what I was hiding for all my life. And I had my mum to help me. She had to learn all by herself, and she didn’t even know what she was so afraid of. You grow to resent yourself, a little bit.” He looks out of the window, and recalls that sense of water dripping into his lungs. “It’s like everyone around you resents you, too, because you make it difficult for them. Like you can only see yourself through their eyes—that you’re a monster, and that they’re afraid of you. Or for you, but the fear’s still there.”

“Please tell me you’ve never thought you’re a monster,” Arthur says, disbelief sharp in his voice. His lips twist, the sort of turmoil in his face that Merlin has only seen very rarely; as if he can’t bear the thought of Merlin thinking like that. Merlin isn’t sure why it warrants such a strong reaction.

So all he does is shrug, because he certainly isn’t going to tell Arthur about his doubts if it upsets Arthur this much. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“But you’re…” Arthur says, and wavers. “You’re not like that. How can people not see that? What your people did in Ealdor—”

“How different do you have to be before you’re a monster?” Merlin asks, his voice gentle. It’s a question that Arthur has never had to consider, he thinks. He can feel the tattoos on his shoulders prickle, as if Aed is sitting next to him, carefully drawing the ink onto his skin. Marking Merlin as different—marking him with his birthright.

“It’s not about being different,” Arthur argues. “It’s about actions. It’s about honour.”

Merlin bites the inside of his cheek. Honour, Arthur says. “Do you remember that page you’d put next to me when Princess Mithian came to visit?” Merlin has forgotten his name, but not his words. He doesn’t think he ever will. “He talked about honour, too. But for him, the evil wasn’t in what you did. It was in what you are.”

“My father thought the same thing,” Arthur says. His eyes are dark when Merlin looks at him, but Arthur isn’t meeting his gaze. He looks past him, somewhere towards a past that Merlin has never touched. “But he was wrong. You are the best man I know, Merlin. Don’t let anyone tell you anything else—not even me.”

He strides out, and Merlin is left staring after him, wondering what Arthur is thinking. 

When he was with the druids, Merlin spent a lot of time wandering in the woods. His feet had a mind of their own, and they’d never lead him astray. He had spent hours, days, walking in the woods—towards rivers and creeks, and towards rain clouds and high mountains. 

Now that he’s back in Camelot, Merlin doesn’t have time for letting his feet wander and his mind drift. He has his own duties. Still, a part of him misses the hours spent outside, sitting in the grass and sinking into the warm grass, letting the mottled sunlight paint his skin golden. He yearns to be back between the trees, at times, just tipping back his head to enjoy a quiet afternoon.

He doesn’t miss it as much as he yearns to help Arthur, of course.

Still, it means he ends up stretching his legs in the courtyard whenever he’s thinking through a particular issue—being outside, Merlin maintains, is great for both clearing his head as well as filling it with ideas. Today, he has ended up with thoughts of Arthur, and his feet have automatically led him to the training field. Arthur can usually be found there in the early afternoon, along with all his knights.

Merlin doesn’t usually have time to watch, but he used to in his early days in Camelot. There are a few knights that he doesn’t know as well, mostly younger ones. Leon catches sight of him and waves, and Merlin returns the gesture as he comes to lean over the wall fence that separates him from the knights. His eyes stray towards Arthur; he’s training with Lancelot, the lines of his body tight and controlled as he lunges forward.

Lancelot only just manages to defend himself from the blow. It’s a vigorous challenge, Merlin thinks, but Arthur is always hard on his knights, and never more than on a knight who can handle that sort of training. Still, the battle is over within a few more seconds. Lancelot is skilled—even Merlin can see it, despite knowing so little about sword fighting—but he doesn’t have as much practice with this sort of training as Arthur. He is smiling awkwardly when he picks up his sword again, and Arthur says something to him. Lancelot nods along, and then catches sight of Merlin.

“You can tell me if he’s treating you badly,” Merlin says teasingly when Lancelot has made his way over. Arthur has already gone to speak with Elyan. Merlin doesn’t think he’s noticed him there at all. “I know he can be a bit—much. But he means well,” he adds quickly at Lancelot’s face.

“Oh, I know,” Lancelot says, his lips twitching. He puts a hand over his eyes to block the sun. “No, I prefer it like this. I asked him not to go easy on me—he’s a good tutor.”

Merlin slowly nods. “Sorry. I thought—well, it doesn’t look like fun.” At Lancelot’s raised eyebrow, he adds, “Being beaten into the ground like that. But I suppose that’s how you learn. Arthur always goes hardest on his best knights, though. It’s a compliment.”

“He didn’t, at first,” Lancelot says, and turns his head back in Arthur’s direction. “Actually, he came to apologise to me a few days ago, and then we discussed my training. I think he mostly agreed because he was feeling bad. Did you talk to him about me?”

Merlin blinks. “Not really,” he says. He’s not going to tell Lancelot that Arthur thought they were together. It’s too awkward to put into words—besides, Merlin has already disabused Arthur of that idea. 

“Well, whatever you told him,” Lancelot says quietly, bowing their heads together, “I have to thank you. I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong.”

But he hadn’t done anything wrong. Even if they had been together—well, Merlin wonders, why would Arthur care? Perhaps it’s some kind of misguided concern for Merlin, although even then, it’s clear that Lancelot is more honourable than most men. Merlin frowns, watching as Arthur explains something to Elyan and then steps away. 

Arthur looks in their direction—and looks straight at Merlin. Merlin doesn’t tear his eyes away, and neither does Arthur. The sun beats down on him, and Merlin would like to blame the heat of the summer’s day for the way his cheeks warm. Arthur’s eyes are unreadable from this distance, but his eyebrows dip, and his mouth twists in an odd way, as if he isn’t sure whether to smile or frown.

Then he walks towards them, and with a few certain strides, he is leaning against the wall with Lancelot and Merlin.

“I think you have some training to get back to,” Arthur says pointedly towards Lancelot. Lancelot grins lightly at Merlin and inclines his head to Arthur—and then he’s gone towards the fields again, lifting his sword as though to challenge some unseen adversary. Merlin watches him and smiles—yes, he knew he was right to bring Lancelot here.

“So I hear Lancelot is pleased with his training,” Merlin says, keeping his eyes trained on Lancelot as he starts his match with Leon. He shifts against the wall, and the rough stone surface scrapes painfully against his forearms. “And that, apparently, since our last conversation about him, you’ve stopped taking it easy on him. Can I ask you why?”

“Can I ask you why you’re staring after my knights instead of working out the details of our proposed compromise with Cenred?” Arthur returns, and raises his hand—to muss up Merlin’s hair, he thinks at first, but then Arthur’s face twists and he ends up lightly tapping Merlin on the shoulder, instead.

Merlin scowls at him. “What are you implying, my lord?” he says. “It was bad enough when you tried to have this talk with me when I was seventeen. I’m not interested in them, rest assured. Is that why you were being rude to Lancelot?”

“I wasn’t being rude, I was being…” Arthur frowns. 

“Yes?” Merlin presses him, but Arthur stays stubbornly silent, so Merlin continues, “Being rude to him? Yes, you were. He’s the best knight you could ask for, you know.”

Arthur sighs, and runs a hand over his neck. His face is pink from exertion, and his armour glints silver in the light. Merlin likes the look of him as a knight rather than a king; it seems as if Arthur fits better into his armour than his crown, most of the time. Not that he needs a crown, in Merlin’s opinion—everyone knows Arthur by the gold of his hair.

“I know,” Arthur says wearily. “I just wanted… I thought…”

“It’s not like that between us,” Merlin tells him again. “It never was. It won’t ever be—it’s only that Lancelot trusted me, even when you’d look at me and still see a boy. He’s my friend, and he knows me for who I am, and that’s all it is. Besides, have you seen the way he looks at Gwen? I don’t think he’s mustered up the courage to talk to her yet, but you can see it in his eyes.”

“I don’t see a boy when I look at you,” Arthur tells him, looking at him with an odd expression on his face, as if the thought causes him pain. “I’m well aware you’re a grown man, Merlin.”

“Then you don’t need to be checking in on me every two days,” Merlin says, and can’t fully hide his annoyance. “And now this with Lancelot—I know you want to take care of me, Arthur, but I’m all grown up. You don’t need to look out for me as if I’m still sixteen. I can take care of myself.”

Arthur looks away. “Yes,” he says, his voice heavy. “That’s all it was. I just wanted to make sure he took good care of you.”

“Well, don’t,” Merlin says, and feels a little pleased for having figured it out. He nudges his shoulder against Arthur’s; the armour is warm to the touch, and Arthur watches him carefully. “I don’t need you to do that for me.”

“No, I don’t think you need me at all,” Arthur agrees, and strides away again as Gwaine calls out for him. Arthur’s shoulders are stiff, and he does not look back towards Merlin at all. He’s just busy, Merlin concludes, but can’t really explain to himself why he feels the need to slip away only a few minutes later.

Something aches in his chest, and he doesn’t have a name for it.

Morgana, while Merlin has taken up his duties as court sorcerer, has stayed on the Council of Magic in a mostly advisory position. It must be an odd position for her to be in, Merlin considers, going from such an important role to—having basically nothing to fill her days.

Still, she hasn’t complained—in fact, she’s kept mostly to herself. Merlin hasn’t gone to search her out, partly out of lack of time and partly because he thinks it is up to her whether she wants to discuss anything with him. Besides, if he tries to talk to Morgana when she doesn’t want to, she’ll only snap at him.

Merlin isn’t brave enough to face Morgana’s vitriol even on his best days.

So when she comes to search him out, it’s a little unexpected.

“Hi,” Merlin says, watching her where she stands silently in front of his door. Her lips are pinched, and her face is pale. Then again, it’s the middle of the night, and Merlin only has the moonlight to judge her by. He rubs his sleep-heavy eyes. “Sorry, it’s just—it’s long past midnight. Did something happen?”

“Nothing happened,” she says, and apparently takes that as an invitation, because she brushes past him. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“And this couldn’t happen during the day?” Merlin asks tiredly, but closes the door behind her, accepting his fate.

“I know you said you don’t think dark magic is real,” Morgana says suddenly, and Merlin can only think, oh, we’re back on this. He snaps his fingers, and a warm fire starts up in the hearth, no wood necessary. “Why? Why do you think that we can shape magic like that?”

“Because the concept of evil and good is a human invention,” Merlin says, and lets himself fall into a chair. “Because magic is beyond all that, and it’s shaped entirely by how we use it. Because I think you’re struggling with what you’ve been taught about magic.”

“I was advocating for magic users before Arthur ever legalised it,” she snaps, crossing her arms. “I was the one fighting Uther while he watched, uselessly. It was me who changed his mind, and I’m the one who fought for this. If not for me, Arthur would be burning you on a pyre.”

It’s a low blow. Merlin waits for a few moments, and lets Morgana breathe.

“Are you afraid he’s going to change his mind?” he asks quietly.

Morgana opens her mouth, and then closes it again. “What? Arthur? No, of course not.”

“Because he’s a good man?” Merlin presses. “Because he’s made a promise, and he stuck to it? Look, Morgana, I don’t know what Camelot was like when Uther was alive. I don’t know what your life was like. I know it can’t have been easy. I know you’ve been fighting for magic for longer than Arthur has. I did wonder, you know, if you were the reason he legalised it, back when I first saw you.”

She stares at him. “He did it because it’s the right thing to do.”

“He did, because he’s Arthur,” Merlin says. It hangs between them, for a moment, this intimate knowledge of how Arthur is. If any two people know him best, Merlin is convinced, it’s the two of them. “But just because you fought for him—you still grew up with prejudices, Morgana. We all did.”

“Going to the druids won’t fix me,” Morgana says.

Merlin shrugs. “You don’t need to be fixed,” he tells her. “You just need to find your way.”

“What do your tattoos mean?” she demands suddenly, erratically. She has started pacing across the room, unable to look him in the eye. She is ten years his senior, but she’s never been allowed to find herself the way Merlin has, he thinks. 

“Water,” Merlin says, gesturing towards the droplets between the flowers. “Because the people in Ealdor wanted to drown me, and I survived. And because Freya showed me the beauty of a lake. Because Arthur dragged me out of a river even after I did something wrong.”

“And the dragon.” She stops, breathing hard. “For Arthur?”

“Because I made him a promise. And he made one to me, even if he didn’t know it.”

“To legalise magic,” Morgana says slowly, and looks at him again. There’s something in her that aches more than Merlin knows how to heal, but he hopes she doesn’t realise that.

“To set me free,” Merlin says quietly. 

It’s still and quiet, in the depths of a cool summer night, between the two people who have served as Arthur’s court sorcerer. Morgana must be searching for something in his face, Merlin thinks, and keeps his expression utterly blank. 

“I’m not always kind,” Morgana says suddenly, and twists her face away again. “I hated Uther. I wanted to make him hate me. Sometimes I want Arthur to hate me, too, but he never does. I made him legalise magic because I wanted him to be ashamed. I never thought about—people like you. Not in the way that Arthur does.”

He doubts she ever told this to anyone else. Merlin bites his lower lip so hard that he thinks he draws blood, simply to stop himself from saying anything he might not mean. It matters, what he says to her right now. It matters.

You can’t make me hate you by telling me this, is his first thought. The second is, Arthur could never hate you, either. And the simple truth of it is that he thinks she still hates herself, a little bit, just for having magic. That is Uther’s legacy to her; that is what she has been struggling with most of all, every day she served as Arthur’s court sorceress.

That is what Arthur is slowly undoing, with every step he takes to free magic everywhere. 

“I understand,” is what he ends up saying, afraid of letting the silence stretch on too long. “But you still did a good thing, and I’m still glad you did it. You might not have meant to save me, Morgana. But you did. Thank you.”

She puts a hand to her face, and Merlin pretends not to see her pain.

Arthur’s visit to Essetir is nothing, compared to all the planning that they’d done for the visit to Nemeth. Arthur wants to hurry, clearly agitated about Cenred’s plans. Merlin wonders if he should tell Arthur about what he did, and then decides to let it be. He doubts Arthur would approve, and it’s too late now.

Arthur may be able to command Merlin now—but things had been different when Merlin was with the druids, and then by himself.

Lancelot comes along on the journey, as well as Leon and Elyan, and Ead joins Merlin as a magical representative. Baradoc had stayed back in Camelot; he’d sent Merlin a lot of dark looks for it. Merlin doesn’t really care about Baradoc’s opinions any longer, though. That part of him has matured, even if Baradoc hasn’t.

Essetir is three days’ ride on horseback. Merlin and Lancelot had spent most of their own journey walking, and suddenly the world feels far smaller than it did back then. Or perhaps, Merlin considers, it’s just that it’s now more familiar to him. Lancelot smiles knowingly at him when Cenred’s castle comes into sight, and slows to ride next to Merlin.

“Have you told Arthur?”

“No,” Merlin says, and then blinks. “Have you?”

“Of course I haven’t,” Lancelot says. “It’s not really my story to tell, is it? But Merlin, there’s no doubt that Cenred will recognise you. Arthur’s going to find out either way.”

Merlin sniffs. “But he’ll disapprove. Maybe Cenred won’t say anything.”

“Do you still think you did what you had to?” Lancelot asks.

“Well, yes,” Merlin says. “But Arthur won’t understand. It’s not the way he likes to do things.”

“It’s not going to make him look good if Cenred finds out you never told him what happened,” Lancelot warns him, and Merlin sighs. He hadn’t considered that; even if Cenred mentions it, it’ll look odd if Arthur knows nothing of it. As if Merlin isn’t loyal. Lancelot raises an eyebrow at him and gestures with his chin towards Arthur, riding ahead by himself.

Merlin waits for a few moments, and then lets his shoulders slump. “Fine,” he mutters, treading forwards past the rest of the knights. Arthur looks at him oddly when Merlin joins him. His face is red from all the wind, and there are new freckles on the bridge of his nose from the sun.

“We’re nearly there,” Arthur says conversationally. “Are you worried?”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

Arthur makes a face at him. “Really, Merlin? We’ll have to face Cenred in half an hour. Are you sure you’re fine to see him? I know he hasn’t been a good king to you.”

“I don’t care about that,” Merlin says in exasperation. “Listen, Arthur. I should’ve told you this before, but I’m the reason Cenred sent you that letter.”

Whatever Arthur was expecting, it clearly wasn’t this. He frowns, the entirety of his face crumpled up in the way he does when he doesn’t understand something. “What do you mean?”

“I was in Essetir with Lancelot, right before I came back to Camelot,” Merlin tells him. “Several knights found us—they wanted to kill me.” At the thunderous tilt of Arthur’s lips, Merlin hurries to continue, “It’s just, there was a new law against magic, you see? And I thought—well, I didn’t want to let it go unchallenged. Not if I could do something about it. So… I might’ve gone to Cenred. And threatened him. Just a little bit.”

“You threatened him?” Arthur repeats, loudly enough for the rest of the knights to hear.

“Just a bit, I said,” Merlin says petulantly. “I told him that I’d make him pay for every innocent sorcerer he killed. I might’ve suggested that he should make a compromise with you. And I know it wasn’t—it’s not how you want to do things, I know that. I didn’t mean to undermine you. But Cenred will never give in if he can go on without facing any consequences. And I do mean it.”

“Mean what, Merlin?” Arthur says wearily. “The threats?”

“Yes, the threats,” Merlin tells him, his voice harder. “I did what I felt I had to, Arthur. He would’ve kept on killing them. I’m not sorry for it—I just should’ve told you earlier. Because he’ll recognise me.”

“He thinks I made you do it?” Arthur asks.

“No,” Merlin says honestly. “I think he thinks I’m probably—a god. Something like that.”

“A god.”

“I might’ve implied it.”

“Of course you did.” Arthur presses his lips together, but Merlin can see the hint of a smile pulling at the edge of his mouth. Arthur shakes his head for a second, and then turns back. “Alright. No, Merlin, I wouldn’t have let you do this if you asked me, but I understand. I don’t think you’re wrong. Cenred never would’ve come to me if he wasn’t actually scared of you.” He huffs out a breath. “I never thought the day would come that people would be scared of you, but I suppose it works out in my favour. I’ll have an imposing court sorcerer, even if he’s one that wouldn’t harm a fly.”

“I would, for you,” Merlin says seriously. Arthur’s smile turns a bit more solemn.

“You’d hurt a fly for me,” Arthur repeats. “Thank you. Well, at least we know why he sent me that letter, then. We’ll have to see how the rest of the talks go. And, Merlin?”

“Yes?” Merlin says.

“You did well,” Arthur says, and the sun is right behind his head, casting a halo of light behind his fair hair. Merlin smiles.

“Hello again,” Merlin says, and Cenred pales at the sight of him. Merlin must have made more of an impression than he thought; somehow, he’d forgotten how little magic some people are used to. Cenred has oppressed and killed everyone who has even a smidge of it. Perhaps he’s caused his own fear, believing everyone with magic to be so capable of evil.

“This is my court sorcerer, Merlin,” Arthur says, stepping in between Merlin and Cenred. “I believe you’ve met.”

“He’s yours?” Cenred repeats.

“Mine,” Arthur says, and his teeth glint as he smiles. Merlin’s chest warms, and he ducks his head to hide his red cheeks. Arthur’s, yes. In all senses of the word. “He’s very set on peace between our kingdoms, I think. But then again, I think he also simply wants freedom for sorcerers.”

“I see,” Cenred says. His eyes are dark and calculating, and Merlin smiles pleasantly.

“I’ve made them a promise,” Merlin says, and doesn’t bother hiding the hardness in his voice. His oath stands—to Cenred, to Arthur, to the druids and the spirits and everyone with magic in this world. Cenred inclines his head just a bit; Merlin thinks he understands.

Good. Merlin won’t have to threaten him again.

“I’m looking forward to our talks,” Arthur says, and then his hand is on Merlin’s arm, his nails lightly resting on Merlin’s skin. It’s a warning, maybe, not to push any more than he has to. Merlin calms himself. Arthur is here, and they are attempting to make peace. Merlin has done his part; the rest is up to Arthur.

And Arthur will come through, because he always does.

“—With the abolition of the death penalty for anyone found to have magic,” Merlin reads under the light of a candle, and stifles a yawn, “excluding the matters previously established, concerning—Arthur, remind me why you are making me read this?”

“Go on,” Arthur says, waving his hand in Merlin’s general direction. He is the picture of exhaustion, lying on the bed fully clothed; he is still wearing his boots, even, muddy as they are. The shadows are dark under his eyes, and Merlin can’t even pretend that it’s a trick of the candlelight; he’s been with Arthur since dinnertime, and he’d looked even worse then. Arthur’s eyes are closed, and Merlin isn’t certain that Arthur hasn’t been sleeping while he’d been making Merlin recite details of his deal with Cenred.

“We’ve gone over this three times now,” Merlin says. “We already made sure it’s what we want. I don’t know why you need to make me read it again.”

Arthur does a sleepy little sniffle, and Merlin ignores how his heart clenches in fondness. “It helps to hear it read aloud,” he says, and puts a hand over his eyes as if that’ll make them more rested. “I don’t think I can read another letter today.”

Merlin stares outside pointedly, where the cloudless sky does nothing to hide the crescent moon, already high in the sky. “I think it’s tomorrow already. Come on, Arthur. We need to sleep. I need to sleep. I’ve been reading just as much as you have today.”

“Alright, come on,” Arthur says, and sits up. The whites of his eyes are suspiciously red, and Merlin feels bad about nagging him, suddenly. Arthur reaches for the parchment Merlin is holding, and Merlin hands it over wordlessly.

“Excluding the matters previously established, concerning the death penalty in cases of misuse of magic,” Arthur continues, and then looks up at where Merlin sits still. “Why are you still sitting there? There’s a perfectly good bed. Go close your eyes for a minute, I’ll continue reading.”

Merlin blinks at him. He’s read to Arthur hundreds of times, even back when he wasn’t a particularly good reader. He has countless memories of Arthur leaning over his shoulder to explain a word, or to laugh at a king’s handwriting with Merlin. But Arthur has never read to him.

He can’t really protest—there’s no way he’s explaining why he can’t bear to be in the same bed as Arthur—so he kicks off his boots and slowly lowers himself down next to Arthur. The bed is large enough that there’s still a fair distance between them. Instead of closing his eyes, he closely studies the arch of Arthur’s aquiline nose and the gentle curve of his eyelashes; the pinkness of his lips and the angle of his strong jaw. Merlin wants.

“I’m listening,” Merlin says teasingly, as if getting read to by the king of Camelot is a daily occurrence—as if he isn’t sitting an arm’s length away from a man he’s promised his life to. Arthur looks up at him, and studying him doesn’t feel quite so safe anymore, but Merlin can’t stop himself. Arthur stares right back at him with an intensity that Merlin doesn’t entirely know what to do with.

He wonders what Arthur sees, looking at him. The boy, or the man. The tattoos on his arm, betraying all of Merlin’s loyalties at once, or the untainted skin he’d once had. For a moment, he wonders if Arthur might want certain things, too, and then Arthur looks back at the parchment and clears his throat.

“Misuse of magic is understood to be magic used for one’s own selfish gain, and to the detriment of others—”

Merlin feels like the worst kind of fool, and he doesn’t remember when he falls asleep, listening to Arthur’s familiar baritone.

Court meetings in Essetir aren’t any more invigorating than the ones in Camelot. Merlin spends most of his time by Arthur’s side, watching him as Arthur sorts through his letters and his plans for their deal with Cenred. After the compromises around magic have been sorted out, most of the talks are about trade deals, and he and Ead are both bored to tears. 

It takes two weeks for Arthur and Cenred to reach a tentative agreement; it isn’t a fully-fledged deal yet, because Arthur has to go back and discuss it with the remainder of his advisors. Arthur is glad, though, and Merlin has to sit through his humming when they finally start their journey back to Camelot.

“Merlin,” Arthur calls out, at the start of the second day of travelling. “Aren’t you from a town near the border here?”

“Yes,” Merlin says. “It’s a bit further north, though. Two hours, maybe a bit less. I had to do it on foot, the first time I came to Camelot.”

It feels like a lifetime ago, being sixteen and leaving home. He still remembers the trembling of his hands as he’d packed, his mother’s frantic pacing as she’d kept checking the windows. They had tried to drown him only the day before. Will is the one who’d come for him, he suddenly remembers. Will had pushed everyone else away and grabbed Merlin by the shoulders, tugging him out of the water.

But everyone else had wanted him dead. He wonders if they’d forgiven Will and his mum for loving Merlin.

“What do you think about visiting?” Arthur says, and when Merlin eyes him suspiciously, he laughs. “Oh, come on. You keep mentioning your mum—I think I’d like to meet her. We’ve finished our negotiations a few days earlier than expected, and we can make it before nightfall. Don’t you want to go home?”

“Ealdor isn’t home anymore,” Merlin says in astonishment, and Arthur’s eyes soften.

“Maybe it’s not,” he murmurs, “but you haven’t seen her in five years. Wouldn’t you like to?”

It’s not a thought he had ever let himself linger on. Ealdor holds dark memories for him, and only pinpricks of light. His mum has nowhere else to go, and she’s not as young as she used to be. She can’t make any long journeys, and Merlin hadn’t dared to come back and visit her.

But Arthur’s here now, along with several knights. Even Ead is here, in case Merlin’s magic were to miraculously fail. He has as much protection as he ever will have. And his mum—

“Alright,” he says, and tries to swallow away the thickness in his throat. “Follow me.”

It takes them an hour and a half to reach Ealdor. The village is the same as it has always been, and part of Merlin is surprised by it. He hadn’t expected it to have changed, but still. So many things are different for him now that he supposes it feels wrong for something to stay so stagnant. Unmoving, unrepentant. He eyes the river that splits the village, and takes a breath.

Arthur follows the line of his eyes, and steers his horse closer to Merlin’s. “They won’t touch you,” he says. “I won’t let them.”

Merlin doesn’t have time to say a word.

“Merlin!” 

“Will!” he calls out, and drops down from his horse to run towards the only friend he ever knew before he left for Camelot. Will is sturdy in his arms, having grown broader, but not any taller. His hair is in a state of disarray, and his face is older than when Merlin knew it.

“I didn’t think we’d ever see you again,” Will exclaims, and then he looks behind Merlin, towards Arthur’s entourage. “Who did you bring with you?”

Merlin smiles broadly. “King Arthur Pendragon.”

Will isn’t the only one who’s spotted them. Ealdor really isn’t a large village—you can see it from end to end in a single glance. Several people have come out from their houses; Merlin knows most of them, and he holds up his chin. He left, and they’ve stayed, and he’s all the better for it.

And then a figure comes from Merlin’s house—the one he grew up in. Her hair is greyer, he can tell even from a distance, but little else has changed. “Merlin!” she calls out, and Merlin runs for her. He runs like the wind, and feels the tears stream down his cheeks. He hadn’t even realised he’d started crying.

“Mum,” he says, and buries himself in her embrace. She still smells the same. “Mum, I’m here.”

“Merlin,” she whispers, and buries her nose in his throat.

“So.” Hunith does not seem at all awkward serving dinner to six knights, one king, and two sorcerers, one of which is her son. “I really hadn’t expected you to come by Ealdor, my lord. It’s really quite out of the way, for most people.”

“Well, Merlin kept mentioning you,” Arthur says. He is awkward, and keeps shuffling in his seat. Merlin wants to elbow him, but Arthur is in between Ead and Leon, and rather unreachable. “I thought he might like to come and see you, and we were already in Essetir, so I figured…”

“That’s very kind of you,” Hunith says when Arthur falls silent.

“He’s been very kind to me,” Merlin says. “You’ve no idea how much I’m making now, Mum. And he gave me five years to train first, so that was really the first sign it’d work out. I’ve never been doing so well with my magic. I really think I was meant to be here.”

“Hang on,” Arthur says, and his cheeks are flushed darker than Merlin has ever seen them. “You’re always insulting me.”

“He’s a prat, too,” Merlin says. “Always throwing things at me, and calling me names. But he’s also going to set magic free, so I think it balances out in his favour.”

Hunith stares at him disapprovingly. “You can’t say that about the king, Merlin.”

“Oh, he does it all the time,” Leon confirms.

“Really, I think that’s just how they are with each other,” Lancelot agrees.

Hunith sighs, but then she presses a kiss to Merlin’s cheek. He hurriedly swipes at it with his hand, but then he leans in again. It’s embarrassing, that’s definitely true, but he’s also missed her more than words can say. Perhaps he really should start visiting. He can look out for himself now.

“I’m glad you’re happy, Merlin,” she says. “I’ve never seen you so happy, I think. Thank you, Arthur—for how well you’ve taken care of him, when I couldn’t.”

Arthur fidgets with the ring on his finger. “It’s my pleasure,” he murmurs.

Merlin can’t sleep. So he finds himself outside, leaning his head against the wall of his childhood home, and looking at the stars. In Camelot, there’s always someone there—always a kind of magic to sense, or a friend who’s still awake. Ealdor isn’t like that at all. Ealdor is empty, and lonely, with not a soul around who might understand Merlin to his core.

At least, it’s usually like that.

“Still up?”

And perhaps it’s not like that today. Arthur sits down next to him, the wooden bench creaking under him. Merlin smiles at the sound. “I’m not sure this will hold both of us,” he says. “Mum made it, you know. I must’ve been six or seven, and I was always running outside. This was our compromise. I could be outside, but I’d be sitting calmly.”

“I’m sure that worked well,” Arthur says with an abundance of sarcasm.

“Yeah, not at all,” Merlin confirms cheerfully, and then turns towards Arthur. “Can’t sleep? I’m sorry if the accommodations aren’t what you’re used to.”

“No, it’s not that,” Arthur says, and doesn’t say anything else. The silence stretches on between them. It’s a cool summer night, but Arthur sits right next to him, and he’s warm enough to keep Merlin from shivering. Their shoulders are pressed together, and Merlin is loath to move.

“I didn’t think I’d ever come back here,” Merlin confesses. “I didn’t think I could bear to see everyone.”

“And here you are, along with the King of Camelot.” Arthur huffs out a laugh. “I wanted to come here, Merlin. Just so that they could see what you are now. They tried to kill you for who you are. That’s what I’m trying to stop from happening in the rest of the kingdom. In all of Albion, I hope.”

“We’ll get there.”

“You’ve always trusted in me so much,” Arthur says. “I thought that faith would fade when you were older, but it hasn’t, has it?”

Merlin shrugs. “Morgana always wondered if I’d stay loyal to you, even after five years.” He is quiet for a second. “I know you didn’t take me seriously when I was sixteen, Arthur, but I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what was at stake. I might not have known myself, but I felt like I knew you—and I knew what you were working towards. I knew I wanted part of that. Maybe I didn’t really change that much, when it comes down to it.”

“I think you did.”

“In what way?” Merlin presses.

“You have faith in yourself, too,” Arthur says quietly. 

Merlin hums. “Faith in what we can do together. As long as it’s you and me, I think we’ll do what we’re setting out to accomplish. A golden age for Albion.”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, and there’s a hand on top of Merlin’s, just for a second; it’s warm and familiar and calloused from holding a sword, and Merlin tugs away his own hand out of simple panic. Arthur is unreachable; he’s been telling himself that fact for four years.

“Sorry,” Merlin says, and stands up. When the bench creaks again, he doesn’t smile. “Erm—sorry.”

“No, no,” Arthur says, and gets up as well. He’s looking away, and Merlin knows his face so keenly—knows the way his nose scrunches up, the way his eyebrows furrow and how they twist his expression. Merlin loves him, and always has, and always will.

“I’m not—” he tries.

Arthur interrupts him. “I haven’t been sleeping enough, and you’re clearly… well, don’t mind me. You’re always calling me a prat—you shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. And ever since you came back, I’ve just—it doesn’t matter. Of course it doesn’t. I’m sorry.”

“You turned me down,” Merlin reminds him. His heart beats in his throat, making it hard to find the right words that fit with what he means to say; it’s thumping more loudly than his thoughts, all that traitorous hope.

“You were seventeen,” Arthur says, and runs a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t matter. Just forget about it, Merlin, please—”

“I’m not seventeen now,” Merlin tells him, and grabs Arthur’s hand. He isn’t sure what Arthur is doing, but Merlin won’t let him run from it. He has learnt to be brave, and he’ll be brave for both of them, if he has to. “Tell me. Ever since I came back, you have—what, exactly?”

“Merlin.”

“Won’t you tell me?” Merlin asks, more gently this time, his heart beating loudly in his chest. “How are we supposed to return magic to the world if you can’t be honest with me, Arthur? About what’s in your head as well as your heart.” Arthur still doesn’t meet his eyes, and Merlin quietly adds, “I’ll let this go, if that’s what you really want.”

“It’s not what I really want,” Arthur murmurs. “I’m not sure what I want.”

“I need to know,” Merlin says, “if you want me.”  

Arthur hangs his head, a complicated sadness tugging at his expression. “I’m the king. It doesn’t matter what I want or don’t want. Everything I do must be for Camelot.”

“It matters to me,” Merlin tells him, and puts a hand on Arthur’s cheek. Arthur’s eyes are bright and blue, intently following Merlin’s every move. There’s a moment of hesitation, and Merlin sways closer. Arthur hasn’t told him yes; Arthur hasn’t told him anything, yet. Merlin waits, watching Arthur as closely as Arthur is watching him—

And then Arthur leans in, his hand in Merlin’s hair as though to hold him in place as he kisses him, as though he can’t bear to have Merlin leave again. Merlin tilts his face, pressing himself up against Arthur, as close as he can get.

“Merlin,” Arthur whispers.

“I’m an adult, and I’ve made my own choices,” Merlin murmurs against his lips. “If you trust me to lead a kingdom with you, to make me your court sorcerer and advise you and bring back magic together, then you should at least trust me to know what I want.”

“I know.” Arthur is quiet.  “It’s just hard for me, because—before, you were only a child.  And I still…” he breaks off, swearing quietly. “I don’t know. I just want to protect you. Even from myself, if that’s what it takes.”

“Clotpole,” Merlin says lightly.

Arthur eyes him. “What’s that for?”

“I’m the most powerful sorcerer you’ll ever meet. I can protect myself, Arthur. And you still think you could make me do anything I don’t want to… I’ve been back-talking you and disobeying your orders since I was sixteen. What makes you think I’m going to listen any better now?”

It’s quiet for a second. Then Arthur laughs—quietly, his shoulders shaking with it as he throws his head back. “You’re right,” Arthur says, and grins at him, in a pleased, soft little way that has Merlin’s heart doing funny little leaps. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You don’t ever listen to anything I say, do you?”

“No, but I need you to listen to me, now,” Merlin says. “As your court sorcerer and your advisor, I’m advising you to think about your own heart, just for once, and tell me what you want.”

Arthur’s eyes flutter closed. “I want you to stay.”

“I’ve already promised you that, you prat,” Merlin mutters. “I’ll stay, Arthur. I’ll stay.”

“No, he’s really very successful,” Elyan is telling someone. “The king’s right-hand man, even.”

“Elyan,” Merlin says in exasperation. Elyan just shrugs and leaves to get his horse. Merlin follows him, intent on getting away from everyone’s opinions. It’s one thing for people who have hurt him in the past to now recognise him for what he’s become—it’s another for them to all stare at him like a foreigner. No longer Merlin from Ealdor, but Merlin, court sorcerer to Arthur Pendragon.

Hunith just beams with pride, taking Merlin’s hand right after he hops up onto his mare.

“You’ll come again, won’t you?” she says, and in a gleeful whisper, adds, “You’ve really given everyone here something to talk about. I’ve already had three women tell me how fond the king is of you.”

“It’s not like that,” Merlin says, and finds his eyes straying towards Arthur. It’s exactly like that, but he’s not going to tell her about the ghost of Arthur’s warm breath on Merlin’s lips. That memory is just for him, to hold near his chest; he nearly drowns in fondness at the thought of it.

“He’ll take care of you,” Hunith says solemnly, and lets go of Merlin’s hand. “I’m glad, Merlin. It’s more than I’d ever dreamt for you.”

Merlin smiles. “He’s a good man.”

“And so are you,” Hunith tells him, and steps back. “Take care of him too, Merlin, won’t you? I think he needs you, just like you need him. Like two sides of the same coin.”

Merlin presses a kiss against her cheek, and when it’s time to leave Ealdor, looks back over his shoulder three times. Every time Hunith is there, waving, and Merlin waves back until he can no longer see her. Then Arthur slows to ride next to him.

“We’ll come and see her again,” he promises.

“I know,” Merlin says. “I know. I’ll just miss her, but… well, Ealdor isn’t really my home any longer.”

And that’s the truth of it, and there’s only one man to thank for it. Arthur’s cheeks grow pink, once again, and he looks steadfastly away from Merlin. Merlin sends a tinge of magic his way; enough that it causes Arthur to nearly lose his balance on his horse, and then he stares back at Merlin with his mouth open.

Merlin laughs, and spurs his mare into a sprint before Arthur can push him off.

They’ve been back in Camelot for only a day when Morgana comes to see Merlin. His chambers are a mess, because Arthur had given him piles of parchment to go over—everything about his deal with Cenred, and all the things he has to catch up on from the time he’d been away.

One thing is certain: Merlin doubts he’ll ever have any free time again.

“I heard you and Arthur’s trip was a rousing success,” she says, smiling crookedly at Merlin. “Oh, and that the talk with Cenred went well, too.”

Merlin raises his eyebrows at her. “Just tell me what you wanted to talk about,” he says wearily. 

“Arthur,” she says simply, and sits down opposite him, tapping her nail against his desk. “I want to talk about Arthur, of course.”

“Of course,” Merlin says, and puts away his notes. “What about Arthur?”

“He kissed you,” Morgana says.

Merlin sighs. “I kissed him,” he corrects. “Arthur was too stupidly noble to kiss me, so I rectified the situation as his main advisor. Would you like to tell me about any other situations I was already present for?”

Morgana makes an offended noise. “You don’t mind?” she presses. “You know he can’t make it official, don’t you? He’s the king.”

“How do you even know about this?” Merlin demands.

“Oh, I could tell right away,” Morgana says, waving it away. “He’s never been particularly skilled at hiding his emotions. Gwen and I didn’t have any sort of difficulty prying it out of him. You are aware he’s waiting for you to come to him?”

“He gave me enough work to hole myself up in here for two days!” Merlin argues. “You mean he told you and Gwen?”

“We guessed, and he got all red in the face,” Morgana says.

Poor Arthur. Merlin can only imagine his mortification. “I’m not even sure why you care,” he says, defensiveness flaring up. “You told me once that I’d never be his type, and besides, we haven’t even—he hasn’t really said anything about it. We haven’t had time to discuss it, and…”

“And Arthur is dying to talk to you, because he likes to make battle plans,” Morgana finishes for him. “No, you haven’t discussed it yet, because he’s waiting for you, Merlin—until he knows where you stand with each other, he’ll drive himself to distraction over it, but he won’t make the first move. Are you still holding onto what I said to you so long ago? I don’t even remember that.”

“I think I’ve always loved him,” Merlin says. “I was just trying to tell myself that it could never—why are we talking about this?”

“I like to pry,” Morgana says, a little smugly. “But there’s also something else.”

“What?”

“Well, he’s my brother, and he might be a bit of a moron at times,” she tells him, “but Arthur… you know what he’s like. It’s impossible not to love him, isn’t it? It’s the only reason I’ve managed to stick around this long. But he has you to take care of him now, and I think you might be the only one who can.”

“You’re leaving,” Merlin guesses, and leans forward. “To go to the druids?”

Morgana smiles tightly. “We’ll see where I end up. But I think your advice might not be… entirely off. And I don’t really have any obligations left in the castle now that you’ve become court sorcerer.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Merlin says simply. “And I will. Take care of him, I mean.”

“I know you will,” she says. “I was just waiting for Arthur to come back so I could tell him. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

There’s no use in asking when she’ll be back. Merlin takes a breath, imagining what Camelot will be like without Morgana. Baradoc will be the second-strongest sorcerer, he thinks suddenly, and wonders if he can ask Morgana to stay just for that.

No, he’ll manage. Merlin has Arthur’s trust, and he has plans for the Council of Magic. It needs to be larger, for one, so that they can start teaching other sorcerers. They’ll bring back magic to all of Albion, but he’ll start by fixing it in Camelot. They’ve gotten a good start on things—now it’s time to follow through.

“We’ll miss you,” is all he says.

“Oh, I won’t be gone forever,” Morgana tells him, but then she leans forward to kiss him on the cheek, and that means more than any other goodbye could.

Merlin doesn’t go to Arthur right away. He can’t, because Arthur really did drown him in work—and also, maybe, because he isn’t really sure what to say. Merlin knows his own heart, but Arthur might have changed his mind. Merlin doesn’t know if he’s ready to hear it.

So he doesn’t go to Arthur until it’s nearly midnight, and then wonders if it’s too late. He knocks quietly on the door, just so it won’t wake Arthur up if he is sleeping, but then Arthur says, “Come in,” and Merlin has no other choice.

The door clicks shut quietly behind him, and Merlin leans against it. Arthur is still seated against his desk, the dark wood covered in parchment. Merlin isn’t the only one swamped with work, it seems, and he manages a small smile.

“I thought,” he says, and straightens his back. “Sorry if it’s a bad time, it’s just—I thought you might want to talk.”

“Morgana told you,” Arthur says, grimacing.

“She might’ve mentioned it.”

Arthur nods slowly, and then laughs awkwardly. “I’m not entirely sure what to say. I feel like I’ve spent all my words responding to letters.”

“You can insult me,” Merlin offers, and slowly edges closer. Arthur doesn’t seem like he’s changed his mind, or he would have mentioned it now. “Or you can say nothing, and I can kiss you.”

Arthur swallows; Merlin watches his Adam’s apple bob up and down, and then steps in close enough to touch. But he doesn’t, yet, waiting instead for Arthur’s response.

“Merlin,” Arthur says instead.

“Well done, that’s my name,” Merlin says when there’s nothing else coming, and, feeling a bit daring, puts a hand on Arthur’s cheek. “You’re not still feeling odd about it, are you? I can’t believe you’d let me help you run a kingdom but object to kissing me.”

“I’m not objecting,” Arthur says. “I’m merely waiting for you to realise that there are other options for you. Ones that don’t involve your king, who’s eight years older and won’t ever be able to openly show you any affection—”

“I’m not bothered by that,” Merlin says.

“You will be.”

Merlin lightly swats at Arthur’s head. “Don’t tell me what I will and won’t be.”

“I am your king,” Arthur protests.

“You’re a clotpole,” Merlin says, “but also the kindest man I’ve ever known, and I’ve loved you, possibly from the moment I met you, but most probably from the moment I learnt exactly what you want to do for people with magic. You put your foot in your mouth more times a day than most people manage in a year, but somehow it’s endearing, and if you also want me to, then I’d really like to kiss you.”

Arthur stares at him. “I don’t put my foot in my mouth,” he says. “I’ve been trained to say the right thing all my life.”

“You’re not saying the right thing right now.”

“Because it’s you,” Arthur tells him, and tugs at Merlin’s arm, unable to find the words and stroppy about it. “You’re just—a very frustrating man to be around, Merlin, do you understand that?”

“Tell me to kiss you,” Merlin murmurs, leaning forward. Arthur is still seated, so Merlin towers over him, and their faces are so close that he can count Arthur’s eyelashes. He’s so pretty, and Merlin’s lungs constrict. 

“Just tell me one thing,” Arthur says, frustratingly noble, as he’s always been. “Tell me that this is what you want. Tell me that you’ve no doubts, because I don’t think I can do this if you do.”

“I’ve never wanted anything more in my life,” Merlin says. “Arthur, please. You’ve made me free, and you’re fighting to do the same for all my people—there’s no one I could possibly love any more. You must know that.”

Arthur tugs him forward, and Merlin falls into his lap. And then Arthur’s lips chase his own, and Merlin really has no time to be thinking of anything else.

“They’re children, really,” Arthur mutters, staring at Gwaine and Leon as they’re loudly arguing about their bet. They are back in the tavern, because there’s something to celebrate: Nemeth is lifting their ban on magic.

Even Baradoc is there, drinking in the corner with Hilga and Gaius. Merlin shakes his head, looking at everyone around them. Family, friends—the only one missing is Morgana. She’ll come back, he reminds himself. And she’ll be better for having spent the time away. 

“They’re just excited,” he tells Arthur, jostling his shoulder against Arthur’s. “Nemeth’s the first kingdom following in your footsteps.”

“That’s just because Mithian is a decent person.”

“It’s because you showed them the way,” Merlin says.

Arthur sighs. “I think I liked it better when you got drunk in the taverns. At least you’d be walking funnily, and I could laugh at you.”

“And try to kiss you in dark alleys,” Merlin says, snickering to himself. “Best not. I think Gwen has a third sense for when I’m drinking, now. If I have more than two cups, she comes to nag me about hangovers.”

“You’re too young to have hangovers.”

“No, you’re just so old that mine don’t seem so bad compared to yours,” Merlin says, and smiles. “But you’re forgetting one simple fact.”

“You have the tolerance of a butterfly, I know,” Arthur says, ruffling Merlin’s hair. Despite the fact that neither of them have had any ale, Arthur’s cheeks are red from the warmth of the tavern. He’s beautiful. “This is still just the beginning. Nemeth wasn’t hard to convince, but everyone else will be.”

“But you have an ally now,” Merlin points out. “And Cenred won’t be as difficult as you were afraid he’d be.”

Arthur eyes him at that. “Don’t tell me you’ve sneaked into his castle to scare him again.”

“I think the first time worked well enough,” Merlin defends himself, and then laughs. “I haven’t. As if I’d have any time for it, anyway—you’re running me ragged. I’ll be old and grey by the time I’m thirty, so we’d best unite Albion fast. Where should we concentrate our efforts next?”

Arthur huffs out a laugh. “We’ll discuss it in the morning. They are celebrating—” He gestures towards the knights, and the sorcerers, and where Lancelot is dancing with Gwen, “but if anyone most deserves to be celebrating right now, it’s you.”

“I promised Freya I’d visit her in the morning,” Merlin says. “But I have some time for you afterwards.”

“Oh, do you?” Arthur says. “One might wonder who you think your king really is, Merlin.”

Merlin smiles again, and watches the festivities. His friends might be celebrating, but he knows much of that must be because they are happy for him. For the freedom Merlin and Arthur want to bring, and for the strides they’re taking to make it happen. It’s no small thing, to have another kingdom allow magic. Mithian is a good person, and Merlin vows to visit her soon, just so he can teach her those magic tricks she’d once asked for.

But for now, he’s most useful in Camelot. Arthur leans casually against the wall next to him, utterly calm and so regal, even when he’s not trying to be. He’s the only king that Merlin could ever see himself following.

“Well, you’re a bit of a prat,” Merlin says, but he feels as if he can’t control his mouth. His lips keep tugging themselves into a smile, and he can’t stop it. He’s too glad to be here—to be beside Arthur. “So I’m not sure I really want to listen to you. But tomorrow you can try and convince me otherwise.”

“I think I have an idea for how I’d do that,” Arthur says, and presses a quick kiss to Merlin’s cheek. They’re in a crowded room, and no one is watching, but still—Merlin feels the heat rush to his head, and he shuffles closer to Arthur to grab his hand.

“Then maybe,” he says lightly, “I can stay for a bit longer.”

Nothing could sway him to ever leave again. Arthur squeezes Merlin’s hand, warm and comfortable and familiar, and full of promise. His thumb brushes over where Merlin’s tattoo sits on his skin, the lines dark and familiar, and a symbol of everything Merlin is.

Merlin holds onto him, and doesn’t let go.