Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

E'en now their vanguard gathers,
E'en now we face the fray—
As Thou didst help our fathers,
Help Thou our host to-day!
Fulfilled of signs and wonders,
In life, in death made clear—
Jehovah of the Thunders,
Lord God of Battles, hear!

                ‘Hymn Before Action’ by Rudyard Kipling

                                                                                                           Help Thou Our Host

                In the distance, the soldiers’ campfires glittered like a constellation. More than that; it was an earthbound Milky Way. An unstoppable firelit juggernaut. It would have been quite inspiring if they hadn’t been the enemy’s fires.

The Saxon army was easily twice the size of Camelot’s, and Gwaine was idly musing on the fact that his future looked both uncommonly grim and unmistakably short when Merlin approached. He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but then again, so did everyone else in the camp. Impending doom had a way of doing that to people.

                “Why aren’t you asleep?” Gwaine greeted him. “You look awful.”

                “Thanks. Arthur said the same.”

                “Well, occasionally even he gets things right. Come on, sit down and rest your weary bones.”

                Merlin smiled faintly, and found a log to sit on. “Why aren’t you sleeping yourself?”

                “I imagine I’ll be sleeping well enough this time tomorrow. No, tonight I was thinking.”

                “About?”

                As if there was anything else he could be thinking about, Gwaine thought, bleakly amused. As if anyone was thinking of anything other than the hopeless battle on the horizon. “Oh, this and that. Life in general.”

                Merlin nodded, accepting that.

                Gwaine went on, surprising himself. “If you want the whole truth, I was just thinking that I picked the wrong side of the battle.”

                Merlin looked grave. “Do you really think so?”

               Gwaine considered. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t think I did. Losing side, maybe, but not the wrong one.”

               “Because if you do, there’s still time to get out of here.”

               “No,” he repeated. And, shockingly, he wasn’t even tempted. Not really. “No, I’m… I’m ready, I think. Or, at least, it’s worth it. It’s been good, you know?”

               “Yes,” Merlin said. “It has.”

               The campfire crackled, and Gwaine threw on another log. Why save the firewood, after all. A quick shower of golden sparks filled the air and dissipated as the wood caught.

               Merlin took a deep breath. “I came over here for a reason. I want to ask you a favor.”

              “Name it,” said Gwaine.

              He swallowed. “When I’m dead, I want you to remember me for who I was, rather than what I was. If you can.”

              Gwaine didn’t say anything for a long moment, considering and rejecting responses to that one. “I know who you are,” he said. “You were the first real friend I ever had, and that’s what I’ll remember for as long as I live. But Merlin… that probably isn’t saying very much. I’m not really expecting to survive the battle tomorrow. I don’t think anyone here is.”

              Merlin’s eyes went fierce for a moment. “Oh, you’ll survive,” he said. “I’ll see to that.”

             “But you won’t?”

             “Maybe I will. Probably. It might be better if I don’t,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”

             “Well, that certainly clears things up.”

             Merlin shrugged, a sad smile on his face. “It will. Eventually. Not important now.”

             Gwaine glanced at the amassed enemy army. It hadn’t gotten any smaller since the last time he’d looked at it. “Merlin… you’re not thinking of doing anything stupid, are you?”

             It was Merlin’s turn to think about it for a moment. “I’m not sure. Is it still stupid if there aren’t any other options? Or no good ones, anyway.”

             “I don’t know. Tell me what we’re talking about, and maybe I’ll have a better idea.”

             “Nothing,” Merlin said. “We’re all going to be okay, I’m sure of it. You don’t have to worry about tomorrow. It’s all going to turn out fine.”

              “Okay,” Gwaine said. “Just promise me this. Does that ‘we’ include you?”

             “That will be up to Arthur, I think,” Merlin said, and got up. “And speaking of which, I’d better get back to his tent before he notices I’ve gone, or I’m done for. Just… think about what I said, all right?”

             “What you said? You haven’t said anything!” Gwaine liked to think of himself as being a patient sort, but there were limits. His nerves were sufficiently on edge due to the now almost-forgotten certain death awaiting them all on the morrow; a barrage of dark hints and unrealistic promises were more than his poor overtaxed system could bear.

              “I said that what I am isn’t who I am. What I am isn’t even all of what I am,” Merlin said, and Gwaine’s head started to hurt just trying to parse that. “That’s all. I just wanted you to remember that. As my friend, I mean. Tomorrow… tomorrow you might see something that would make it easy to forget.”

               In Gwaine’s not-inconsiderable experience, Merlin only referred to his lowly social status when he was about to do something insanely brave, emphasis on both halves of the phrase. Since that was the only ‘what he was’ Gwaine could think of at the moment that was even slightly relevant, he assumed that was what Merlin was talking about. He caught Merlin’s sleeve. “You’re my friend,” he repeated. “And that’s all I ever cared about, or ever will. What’s going on here? What are you planning to do?”

             “The same thing I always do,” Merlin said, an oddly fey expression on his face. “It’s just that, this time, everyone will probably see me doing it. I don’t think I have a choice anymore.”  

             “Merlin, you’re scaring me.”

             “Don’t be scared. Everything’s going to be all right,” Merlin promised, patting him on the shoulder as Gwaine, slowly, released his sleeve. With one last quick smile—it didn’t quite reach his eyes, but the intention was there—Merlin slipped back into the darkness, leaving Gwaine with a fresh new batch of unanswerable questions and inchoate fears.

             He understood better the next morning, when a hissing cloud of arrows arced towards the Camelot army and just… stopped in midair, falling harmlessly to the ground. When lightning rained hell on the Saxons, and only the Saxons. When the ground itself opened to swallow their witch-queen. When a desperate last stand became an effortless rout.

            And when a single slim figure stepped into the open, eyes blazing gold and hands empty as the entirety of Camelot’s army—and its king—stood there with unbloodied swords and stared at him with expressions that ran the gamut of human emotion. There was fear there. There was awe. There was horror and there was relief. There was the anger that sometimes arises when terror recedes. Most of all, there was a profound silence.

            Gwaine didn’t hear it himself. He was with the vanguard, too far away to hear clearly. But he got the story from those that had the good fortune to be closer. Merlin had walked up to Arthur, his eyes glittering with gold and tears, but he was smiling as he dropped to his knees, looked up at his king and said three short words.

           “You’re safe now.”

Chapter Text

                   “You’re safe now.”

                    Three words. It was only three words, but they meant so much more than they actually said. ‘I love you,’ for starters.

                    King Arthur looked down at the man kneeling at his feet, and for a moment he couldn’t say anything at all. Finally, he fell back on the inarguable. “You’re a sorcerer,” he said.

                   “Yes. I am.”

                   “You betrayed me.”

                     Merlin shook his head. “I’m a sorcerer,” he repeated. “I’ve broken the law and now I have to face the consequences; I know that. But I’m loyal to you, sire. I always have been and I always will be.”

                    Arthur looked around, saw the men staring at the scene. Saw the dead Saxons. Saw the Camelot warriors beginning to shuffle, their hands still clutching their swords. Merlin had well and truly shown what he could do; there was no going back from that, however much Arthur might have liked there to be. “This gives me no pleasure,” he said, eventually, and fell back on another three word sentence. “You’re under arrest.”

                  Merlin bowed his head. “I know.”

                 “Leon… take him away.”

                  Leon sheathed his bloodless sword and stepped forward. “Yes, sire,” he said. “The wagon?”

                 “That’ll do for now,” Arthur said, looking everywhere except at Merlin.

                 Leon nodded. “Yes, sire. Come on, lad. Let’s go.”

                 Merlin heaved himself to his feet, and he didn’t fight back when Leon took him by the arm. The crowds parted for them as they walked back in the direction of the camp.

                There had never been much hope of capturing Morgana alive, but just on the off chance they managed it, Camelot had come prepared. There was a sturdy slaver’s wagon at the outskirts of the camp—a small cage on wheels already outfitted with shackles etched with runes.

                It could not be denied that Merlin visibly gulped when he saw it, but, to his credit, he didn’t hesitate; just meekly climbed into the cart and held out his hands for the fetters.

                Leon locked them in place, wishing that he was anywhere else, anyone else, doing anything but this.

                 As Leon was locking the cage door—that lock was spelled, too, and he didn’t even want to think about why his king had had so much anti-magic hardware lying about, ready to hand—Merlin cleared his throat.

               “Er… Leon?” he asked hopefully.

                “Yes?”

               “Arthur… well, he’s not a cruel man. Surely he’ll opt for the axe over the stake, don’t you think?”

               Leon stared at him for a moment. He’d had a very good view of the one-sided battle from his station at Arthur’s right hand. He’d seen the pure power commanded by the man in the cage and he was under no illusions that any trifling locks or chains could truly hold Merlin if he decided that he wanted out. There was nothing keeping him where he was. Nothing between him and Leon. Nothing except his utter devotion to a man he had already accepted would have him put to death.

               Lancelot, in his cups, had once insisted that Merlin was the bravest of them all. The knights had laughed at the thought, then promptly forgotten the whole matter. Leon finally believed him.

              “I’ll suggest it to him,” he said. “Firmly.”

              Merlin smiled. “Thank you,” he said, and the genuine gratitude in his voice was terrible to hear. “You’re a good friend, Leon.”

               It was too much. Leon turned on his heel, strode a few paces away, then stopped himself and came back. There were things that needed to be said, and he owed Merlin the courtesy of looking him in the eye as he said them. “I can’t condone the way you did it,” he said. “Magic… I just can’t. But that doesn’t matter. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that you saved a great many lives today, probably including mine, and Arthur’s too. I don’t imagine you’re going to hear this from too many people, but I’m grateful, and they ought to be, as well. Thank you, Merlin.”

               “It’s what I do,” Merlin said simply. “What I’m for. You don’t need to thank me for doing my job.”

               Leon shook his head. “Yes, I do.”

              And with that he left, taking it on himself to assign guards he knew and trusted to watch the cage. He wasn’t sure if they were there to protect Camelot from Merlin or to protect Merlin from Camelot, but either way there would be no bloodshed on his watch.

                                                                                                    *.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

            The guards had strict instructions that no one—no one at all, under any circumstances whatsoever—was to speak with the prisoner, which is why it took Gwaine the better part of the day to sneak past them.

                They had stood sentinel over the cage the entire way home from Camelot, keeping everyone at a safe distance and leaving no opportunity for casual conversations, but once a completely docile Merlin had been locked in the deepest part of the dungeons they seemed to relax a little. Enough to retreat to the guards’ station for a round or two of dice. It was all the invitation Gwaine had needed.

                Chains jangled as Merlin bounced to his feet, looking almost normal, except for the part where he looked like he’d been dead for a week. “Gwaine!” His expression clouded over with worry. “You shouldn’t be here.”

                “I could say the same,” Gwaine said.

                Merlin acknowledged that with a rueful half-smile. “I don’t want you getting in any trouble, is all.”

                “Let’s deal with your trouble before we start fretting about mine,” Gwaine said. “Is it true? Are you really a…?”

                The smile faded. He made a fist with his right hand, whispered something Gwaine didn’t catch, and opened it to show a tiny ball of blue light hovering over his palm. It flickered, casting eerie, cadaverous shadows on his face. “Yeah,” he said, letting it vanish. “I really am.”

                “Huh,” Gwaine said, noncommittally. “So that’s ‘what you are,’ is it?”

                “It’s not all of what I am,” Merlin repeated. “I’m still the same person you knew. Just… with one little difference.”

                “This is your idea of a little difference? I’d hate to see a big one.”

                “I’m no traitor,” he said softly. “That would be a big difference.”

                 “It would, at that,” Gwaine said. “I guess it’s your turn to do me a favor, Merlin.”

                 “I can’t do much from in here. What did you want?”        

                “This is for later. Remind me to ask you about a few of those dice games you won. I thought there was something funny going on.” 

                Merlin lifted an eyebrow. “That’s your first concern?”

                “Not my first concern,” Gwaine said, and grinned. “But still. A little treason here and there is one thing, but cheating at dice? That’s low, friend.”

                Merlin didn’t laugh. “Am I? Still your friend, I mean.”

                Gwaine considered and discarded several responses to that one before settling on “You didn’t win that many dice games.”

                “Then… can I ask another favor?”

                “Anything.”

                “Will you come to the courtyard? You don’t have to stay for the… the whole thing,” Merlin hastily amended that. “Just for a few minutes at the beginning. While they’re bringing me out.”

                Gwaine stared at him. “…Are you out of your spellcasting mind?” He turned half-away, ran shaking fingers through his hair as he tried to get his composure back. “Why in hell would you want to make me watch that?”

                “I’m sorry! Really—I’m sorry. Forget I asked,” Merlin said, fast and frantic. “Don’t come. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want you there. And it wasn’t fair of me. I’m sorry. Don’t come.”

                “You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Gwaine said. “But… why? Why would you ask such a thing?” 

                 “I… it was… Just so I’d see one person who wouldn’t be… glad to see me there,” Merlin mumbled. His control was visibly fraying around the edges. He knew a lot about defiance, or at least stoicism, in the face of hostility. It was kindness he didn’t quite have the strength to handle just then. “I’m sorry. That was selfish of me. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that. I mean it; don’t come.”               

                Gwaine set his jaw. Had Merlin really been so convinced that his friends would turn on him the moment sorcery came into the picture? And given where they were having this conversation, was he so far wrong? “First of all, Merlin, get it through your thick skull that nobody would be glad to see you there. Got that? Nobody. No one thinks that this is right, or that it’s fair, or that this is a good thing. Not even Arthur—who, I’d like to point out, has been utterly unbearable since this whole mess began. Secondly, no, I damn well will not be there, because you aren’t going to be there, either. One way or the other, we’re going to get you out of here. And don’t give me any rubbish about what Arthur wants,” he cut off the objection before it could start. “If Arthur goes through with this, it will destroy him. Are you going to let him cripple himself out of some misguided sense of duty? Is that really the legacy you want to leave behind?”

                Merlin had been pale as death before that; impossibly, he went a little whiter.

                Gwaine pushed a little harder, and felt sick doing it. No, Merlin—your agonizing death might be inconvenient for Arthur. A little inconsiderate of you, isn’t it? Gods, what a thing to say. But, he reasoned, that twisted bit of emotional blackmail was the only way to get through to him. He’d never get anywhere trying to convince Merlin to save himself, because whatever faint flickering trace of a self-preservation instinct Merlin had ever possessed had long since been sublimated into an all-encompassing Arthur-protection instinct. Everyone knew that, with the possible exception of Arthur himself, and if he was being completely honest, Gwaine found Merlin’s obsessive devotion profoundly disturbing.

                 No, not just disturbing; it scared the living daylights out of him. He’d never felt like that about anyone or anything, was fairly certain that most people didn’t, was entirely certain that he wasn’t even capable of it, and frankly, he was grateful that he wasn’t. He was even more grateful that no one felt like that about him. He didn’t have the strength to carry that much responsibility for another’s life. From either end.

                “Now, I’ve only got scraps of the story, and most of them are probably wrong,” said Gwaine. “But from what I can see, all this time, you’ve been sneaking around, doing whatever Arthur needed done—which usually had sod-all to do with what he wanted you to do. Hell, half the time it was something he’d flat-out ordered you not to do. Am I right?”

                “R-Right.”

                “Right. So what’s one more?”

                “One more what?”

                “One more time you do what he needs, and let what he thinks he wants go hang.” Poor choice of words, and he could have kicked himself for it when he saw Merlin wince, but he barreled on regardless. “Look. You let him burn you—and let’s not fool ourselves, sorcerer; if he does, it’ll be because you let him—and the rest of us are done for, as well. If you let Arthur become the sort of king who would send you of all people to the stake, what kind of kingdom do you think he’ll create?”

                Merlin shook his head. “I don’t matter. Arthur will be the greatest king the world has ever known. There are prophecies about him. It… it’s destiny. He won’t…”

                “He won’t fulfil any of those prophecies, whatever they are, if he turns into the sort of bitter, murderous lunatic his father was,” Gwaine interrupted. “And if those prophecies say you don’t matter, then I’d say they’re all a load of horse dung anyhow.”

                Merlin looked away. Gwaine stifled a sigh. Time to back off a bit. Before he could stop it, he heard himself say, “You could have told me, you know,” and stifled another sigh. Apparently he wasn’t ready to back off. And, he admitted darkly, there might not be another chance to have this conversation. Merlin was a stubborn man. “You could have trusted me.”

                “No. I couldn’t. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t.”              

                “Why not?” Wrong question, but, damn it, that had hurt.

                Merlin just looked pointedly around the cell.

                Hurt, nothing. That was a gut-shot. “You think I would have done this to you?” Gwaine asked, fury and incredulity mixed in his voice. “And here I thought we were friends. I would have had your back if you’d asked me. If you’d let me.” 

                “I know you would have! That’s why I couldn’t tell you!” Merlin looked almost as frustrated as Gwaine felt. “I’m the criminal, Gwaine! I’m the sorcerer! Not you! I wasn’t about to drag you down with me, and I won’t apologize for that!”

                Gwaine took a sharp breath to reply in kind, then stopped, struck with a sudden rush of pity that had nothing to do with cells or sorcery. How could Merlin have such a bone-deep sense of loyalty, have based so much of himself around the ideals of friendship and sacrifice and altruism, and still not seem to understand that it could—and should—go both ways? “Even if I would have wanted you to?” he finally asked, his voice soft.

                “Especially not then. I’d never do that to you. Or anyone I cared about, not on purpose. If I’d told, if you knew, if you’d helped, then if you were lucky, they’d call you my accomplice, and you’d be in a cell of your own. More likely you’d already be… Gwaine, nearly everyone who has ever found out about me—and I can count them with fingers left over—has died because of it. Because of me. The rest of them came close. Gaius was tortured on my account. Twice. Quite literally tortured.”

                Gwaine had a sudden memory of a frail old man lying in a cave. He remembered the agony on his face. He also remembered the shame in his eyes. He broke, Gwaine realized. Agravaine tortured him to get Merlin’s secret, and he broke.

                “It was never about trust, Gwaine. I trusted you with my life. More than that— I trust you with Arthur’s; what does that tell you?” said Merlin. “But I’ve destroyed too many of the people who made the mistake of caring about me. If not wanting you to be one more of them made me a bad friend, I’m sorry I let you down. You’re a good man, and you deserved better.”

                Past tense, Gwaine noticed. Damn, damn, damn… “Tell you what. You can make it up to me after we get you out of here,” he said. “Maybe teach me whatever spell you use to make the dice fall your way.”

                Merlin actually smiled, a bit. “I didn’t need a spell,” he said. “You’re just not as good at dice as you think you are, especially not after half a jug of mead.”

                “Shows what you know. Half a jug of mead only improves my game.”

                “For your opponent, sure.” There was a long pause. “You’d better go before they catch you. Thanks for everything… but I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to come back down here. And if anyone else was thinking about it, tell them not to.”

                Gwaine gave him an even look. “And if the shoe was on the other foot, would you just leave me here to rot? As I recall, it was, once, and you didn’t.”

                “That’s different,” said Merlin, predictably.

                 “How?”

                 “Because you didn’t deserve what they were doing to you. I mean it. You all need to keep away from me.” 

                “Hypocrite. Anyway, you never do as you’re told. Why do you think that the rest of us are going to just meekly go along with this?”

                “Because you’re smarter than I am? Smart enough not to get yourselves into this kind of mess?”

                “Since the hell when?”

                “Good point,” Merlin conceded. “But Gwaine—Arthur’s going to need his Round Table at his back. You have to show him you’re all on his side. Not mine. His. He needs to know that he can still count on something, and after this, it’s going to have to be you. Please. If you—”

                “—If I won’t do it for him, do it for you? Is that what you’re going to say?”

“Not even close. Do it for yourself. Be the loyal knight you know you are. Make sure he knows that he hasn’t been betrayed by quite everyone.”

“You haven’t betrayed him, damn it!”

                “He thinks I have. And he’s right. I’m a liar a thousand times over. For that alone, I deserve whatever I get. Forget about that! This isn’t about me, Gwaine. It’s not even about him, not really. This is about Camelot. This is about the kingdom Arthur will build for his people if we give him the chance. Will you do your job or not?”

                Gwaine ran his hand through his hair again. “My life was a hell of a lot easier before I got tangled up with Pendragons,” he muttered. 

                Merlin smiled sadly. “If it’s any consolation, mine was, too.”

                “Not much of one.” He let out a huff of breath. “Fine. I’ll do my job. As I see fit. Good enough for you?”

                “No, but I trust you.”

                “Glad to hear it; I’ll admit I was wondering.”

                “Well, don’t.”

                “All right.” They stood in silence for a moment, broken only by the faint clinking of Merlin’s chains. Gwaine frowned. “Those are cold iron, aren’t they? With runes or something?”

                “Or something,” Merlin said, with a curious glance at his own wrists. “I don’t know exactly what all these sigils mean, but I assume that they’re meant to keep me and my magic contained.”

                “Do they hurt?” Gwaine wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer, but he had to ask.

                “They’re heavy. I’ve been more comfortable in my life, but no,” Merlin reassured him. “I’m not in any pain. Don’t worry about me.”

                Easier said than done, Gwaine thought. Then something struck him. “Wait—when I first came down here, you did that thing with the light. I thought you said your magic was contained?”

                “Technically, what I said was that I thought that was what the chains were meant to do. I never said they worked,” said Merlin, with a lopsided smile. “But the guards are a lot less jumpy when they think I’m helpless, so they’re doing that much good, at least. No one likes an edgy guard.”

                “They don’t work?”

                “Not on me, anyway. They’d probably work just fine on an ordinary sorcerer,” said Merlin with a sort of unconscious condescension that almost made Gwaine smile. Almost. “I’m a little different.”

                Gwaine thought about the battlefield, which didn’t make him want to smile at all. “I suppose you are.”

                “Don’t tell anyone, all right? I don’t want anyone getting nervous. And it’s not like I’m going to use it or anything.”

                “No, of course you’re not going to use it. And I’m not going to be able to talk you into escaping, am I?” Gwaine waited for him to shake his head, which he did, then asked another question he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to. “Merlin… do you want to die?”

                “No,” he said immediately. Gwaine didn’t have time to relax before he continued. “But I might have to.”

                “Arthur isn’t going to—”

                “Not Arthur. I mean, he might be the instrument; the law is the law and he can’t afford to make exceptions, and all that. He might be the one to kill me, but he won't be the reason I die. Gwaine, you know how that battle was supposed to have gone. He was going to die. You were going to die. Everyone I care about was going to die. And I—”  

                “And you stopped it,” Gwaine said. “You saved us all. I don’t see why that means you have to die in our place.”

                “Because the laws of magic say that for a life to be saved, a life must be given,” Merlin said. “There has to be balance. I’ve seen that with my own two eyes. I had a vision of how this was supposed to play out, and I changed it. I don’t regret any of it—I’d do it all over again if I had to—but I probably have to pay for it.”

                “I thought you said Arthur was destined to be this great king. How was he supposed to do that if he died in his first major battle? How could you have thwarted destiny if this is what was supposed to happen?”

                “I don’t know. Maybe there were two prophecies. I don’t claim to know how any of this really works.”

                “And yet you’re willing to die for it.”

                “Always have been.”

                “I know,” said Gwaine. “But I’m not willing to watch it happen.”

                Merlin’s shoulders slumped, and he nodded. “I understand.”

                “No, you don’t.” Gwaine reached through the bars, gripped Merlin’s arm fiercely. He felt like ice. “If Arthur tries to enforce his father’s stupid bloody unfair laws, may the gods help him. And if the gods try anything with their stupid bloody unfair laws, they’re going to have to go through me. I’m getting you out of here, Merlin. You’ll live a long, happy life in peace and freedom, and you’ll like it, destiny be damned. All right?”  

                Merlin looked at him for a long moment, then chuckled fondly. “I couldn’t have asked for better friends, not if I lived a thousand years. Now go before they catch you.”

                “I will. And don’t think I didn’t notice you ducking my question, because I did. I’ll see you soon.”

Chapter Text

                Arthur had barely gotten off his horse before his oldest and least reasonable council members were swarming him with questions. Well, questions, hysteria, and thinly-veiled demands, most of them involving Merlin and various methods of execution.

                “Enough. Enough!” he snapped after the third incoherent bit of fearmongering—this one involving mind control spells that Merlin must surely have been weaving since the moment he’d set foot in Camelot. “As things stand, so far as anyone knows for certain, the only thing that my servant has ever done is save us from foreign invasion and polish my armor, and I won’t be making any decision on his fate until I know a hell of a lot more than that. So calm down!”

                Shoving past two counts and a baron, at least one of whom was now babbling about nefarious things Merlin surely must have done to Arthur’s armor, he stomped into the castle with only one thought on his mind; Guinevere. Somehow, she would make everything better. She always did.

                She was in the throne room, looking the very picture of royalty, and he was struck all over again by how incomparably lucky he was. Her serene demeanor lasted only as long as it took to clear the room, at which point she flew into his arms, and he was reminded that, however lucky he was to have her as a queen, he was luckier by far to have her as a wife.   

                “Thank the gods you’re home safely,” she said into his shoulder.

                “The gods and Merlin,” Arthur said.

                She stepped back, looked him in the eye. “Yes. I’ve heard all sorts of garbled rumors, each one stranger than the last. What really happened, Arthur?”

                “He’s a traitor,” Arthur said. “A damned sorcerer. And a powerful one, too. He took down the entire Saxon army like a hot knife through butter.”

                “What did he do to our army?”

                Arthur laughed mirthlessly. “Embarrassed them, mostly. Left us all standing on the battlefield twiddling our thumbs while one scrawny serving boy mopped up—I really can’t say this enough—the entire Saxon army. And Morgana.”

                She flinched. “Morgana is dead?”

                “Yes,” Arthur said. “I’m sorry.”

                “I think I am, too,” she said. “Part of me is, anyway. Part—it’s awful, but part of me is relieved.”

                “I feel the same way,” Arthur admitted.

                Gwen swallowed hard.  “There was a time I loved her like a sister. She was more than my mistress; she was my friend. I still miss the person she was, sometimes. I still don’t really understand what happened to her.”

                “Magic happened to her,” Arthur said grimly. “That’s what it does. It corrupts and destroys everything it comes in contact with.”

                Neither of them mentioned Merlin. Neither of them had to.

                Gwen eventually broke the silence. “So what did you do? With… with Merlin.”

                “What could I do?” Arthur asked. “I shackled him in cold iron and locked him up. It was that or run him through then and there.”

                She nodded, slowly. “And... what are you going to do?”

                “That’s the question, isn’t it. I’m not sure,” said Arthur. “I can’t pardon him; I don’t dare let him run around doing the gods only know what. He’s too powerful, Guinevere. I can’t banish him for the same reason. That only leaves keeping him locked away—which is a risk in its own right—or…” he swallowed, but his voice stayed even. “Or putting him to death. I don’t really have any other choices.”   

Gwen’s eyes widened. “You couldn’t,” she said. “Arthur! He’s… he’s Merlin!”

                “And once upon a time, Morgana was Morgana,” Arthur said. “Maybe… maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better for him to die while he’s still himself. Before he can turn into something ugly and evil the way she did. Maybe he’d even want it that way.”

                Her voice was very quiet. “Which of us are you trying to convince, Arthur?”

                “…I don’t know.”

                “I didn’t think so.”

                “I already know what the Council will say; half of them have already said it and I’m sure the rest won’t be far behind,” said Arthur. “They’re afraid, and I have to be honest—they have good reason to be. Morgana nearly destroyed Camelot more than once, and Merlin made her look like a fairground conjurer by comparison.”

                “Morgana wasn’t loyal to Camelot, or to you,” Gwen pointed out. “Merlin is.”

                “For now,” Arthur said darkly. 

                “From the sounds of it, he singlehandedly saved Camelot,” she said. “If that isn’t loyalty, what is?”

                “And what if he wakes up tomorrow and decides that he ought to be king?”

                “You can’t condemn him on the basis of what he might do,” Gwen said. “That’s unjust.”

                He gave her an even look. “…You’re biased,” he said.

                She gave him one right back. “So are you.”

                “I can’t afford to be. Or maybe I can’t afford not to be. I don’t know anymore.”

                She relented. “You don’t need to make a decision right this minute,” she said. “Take a few days; really think things through—”

                “And then sentence my best friend to death.”

                “Ah. It sounds as though you’ve already made up your mind, then?”

                “The Council won’t stand for anything less.”

                “The Council may be surprised to hear it, but they don’t rule Camelot. You do.”

                “Without the support of the great lords and landholders, a king is nothing more than a man in a fancy cape. I need their goodwill, Guinevere.”  

                “More than you need Merlin?”

                “I don’t need a lying, treacherous, snake-in-the-grass sorcerer.”

                “I wasn’t implying that you do. I was discussing Merlin.”

                 He glared at her, then wilted. “I owe him my life and my throne,” he admitted miserably. “Not to mention the lives of probably at least half my men. I know that. And I don’t want to lose him. But what if I already have? How can I ever trust him again? How much of what I thought I knew about him was a lie? Or an enchantment?”

                She shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.”

                Arthur nodded slowly. “He’s in the cold iron; it’s not as though he could hurt anyone if he wanted to. That should appease the screamers for a few days, at least.”

                Gwen didn’t wince, but for a moment she looked as though she might have, in other circumstances. “It’s a start,” she said.

*.*.*.*.*.*

                Gaius didn’t believe for one moment that Arthur would just casually forgive him for the part he had played in all this, and he weighed his options. There weren’t many, and none of them were good. The first was simply to wait and see what happened, and, if necessary, to try talking his way out of danger as he had so many times before, which wasn’t a plan so much as it was resigning himself to the inevitable. Another was to run, to escape Camelot as he had helped other sorcerers escape. He rejected that immediately. So long as there was the slightest chance of saving Merlin, he had to try. If he failed at that… he still wouldn’t run, he’d decided. He was too old to start over somewhere else, and too tired to fear death as he had in the early days of the Purge. That only left one real choice.

                He had watched relatives, friends, colleagues, teachers, pupils, and lovers walk to the scaffold. He could not watch his not-quite-son follow them.

                Arthur came to the infirmary one evening a few days after the arrest.

                “Can I help you, sire?” Gaius asked stiffly.

                “I suppose we’ll have to see about that,” Arthur said, and sat down. “You know,” he said, in pleasant, conversational tones that didn’t hide the steel in his eyes. “Despite what the two of you seem to think, I’m not actually an imbecile.”

                “I beg your pardon, sire?”

                Arthur snorted. “You knew. Don’t even bother denying it. You knew what he was.”

                “I did. I do. Better than you, I suspect.”

                “Finally. The truth. Let’s have more of it. Did he enchant you? Threaten you? Force you to keep his secret?”

                “No.”

                Arthur gave him a level glance. “Are you quite sure about that? You’ve already admitted that you’re not his dupe, so that leaves either his victim or his accomplice. Think carefully.”

                “I don’t need to. The answer is still no.”

“Accomplice, then. Or was it the other way around? Did you teach him?”

                “No again. At my best, I was never more than a mediocre sorcerer, and I gave up magic entirely, decades ago, when your father banned it. I couldn’t have taught him if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.”

                “Then who did?”

                “No one.”

                “That’s impossible.”

                “Impossible is rarely a helpful word to bandy about, sire. Very little is truly impossible.”

                “We’ll get back to that later. How long have you known?”

                “Since the moment he walked in my door. I fell from the upper shelves; he used his magic to save me from breaking my clumsy neck.”

                “And you didn’t tell anyone about it.”

                “I am neither an ingrate nor a murderer.”

                “No. Just a traitor and a liar.”

                “I am no traitor,” he said calmly. “Had I believed for a moment that he was a threat to Camelot, I would have done what was necessary. He isn’t.”

                “That wasn’t your decision to make, Gaius! You don’t get to pick and choose when you think the law should be enforced!”

                “If I had turned him in, sire, you would have been dead within a day. As you may recall, you were attacked by the supposed Lady Helen shortly afterwards. The only reason that she did not succeed in killing you is that Merlin—and only Merlin—was powerful enough to resist her enchantments and strike her down.”

                “I remember,” said Arthur. His voice hardened. “Quite convenient, really. Within moments of his arrival in the citadel, you were nearly killed falling from a catwalk we both know you climb every day of your life; in gratitude, you keep his secret. A day later, he saved me from an attack by an evil sorceress, and in gratitude, he was given a place at the heart of the royal family. To hear you tell it, the sorcerer has saved a great many lives over the years. I can’t help but wonder if they would ever have been at risk in the first place if he didn’t have something to gain from it.”

                The sorcerer. He didn’t even get the courtesy of a name anymore. Gaius ground his teeth. “If that is what you have chosen to believe, I doubt there’s much I can say to change your mind.”

                “Try.”

                “Very well,” Gaius said. “Then let me begin by saying that if he is trying to gain something besides nightmares and battle scars, he is doing a pitifully bad job of it.”

                “Scars and the trust of the king of Camelot,” Arthur said. “Not just trust—leverage. Favors can be worth more than coin.”

                “Indeed they can. Tell me, sire—what did he ask in return for destroying Morgana’s army of the undead? What concession did he wring from you in exchange for striking down Cornelius Sigan and his army of gargoyles? What did he demand after offering his life to save you from the Questing Beast? What price did he charge for saving you from being sacrificed by the Sidhe? What did it cost you to obtain a sword that could slay the dead?” Gaius hammered each rhetorical question home like a coffin nail. “What do you think he expected to gain from services you never even knew had been rendered?”

                Arthur’s mind spun through the implications of that. “Mercy when this day arrived, perhaps,” he finally said. It was weak, but, really, Gaius’s argument, passion aside, hadn’t been much stronger. “Anyone can claim wonderful deeds done in secret. You can’t prove he did any of them, any more than I can prove he didn’t. You can’t even prove that they happened at all. And even if he did, it still doesn’t prove what he intended by it.”

                “It proves that magic can be—and has been—used altruistically. Time and time again, he has saved your life and your kingdom by using the powers for which he stands condemned. Perhaps that was foolish of him, but foolishness is a long way from treason. Sire.”

                Arthur bit his lip as it came together. “That’s what he wants, isn’t it?”

                “A treason charge? I very much doubt it.”

                “No, not that. Or not that in particular. He wants me to change my mind about magic, doesn’t he? He wants me to repeal the laws against sorcery.” He looked up. “He wants me to end my father’s Purge.”

                Gaius gave him a withering stare that made Arthur feel about six years old. He was good at those. “Wouldn’t you, in his place?”

                Arthur couldn’t really argue with that, and didn’t bother trying.

                “And yet… when the subject of magic has arisen, what counsel did he offer? Did he urge you to end the ban? Play on your sympathies? Try to convince you of anything?” Gaius persisted. “Did he ever make even the slightest attempt to take his own head off the block?”

                He always told me to do what I thought was right, Arthur thought. Then he realized that he’d said it aloud.

                “Diabolical. Fiendishly manipulative,” said Gaius, bitter sarcasm twisting the corners of his mouth. Then, impassive once more, he looked at Arthur. “Do you intend to take his advice?”  

                Arthur gathered his dignity. “I never intended to do anything else. With or without that invaluable suggestion.” A muscle in his jaw worked. “And if I decide that burning him is the right thing to do? What then, Gaius?”

                “Then he will be dead, sire,” Gaius said. “I will not venture a guess as to how Camelot might fare the next time magic is used against her. And on a far less weighty note, you will need to find a new court physician.”

                Arthur blinked, suddenly noticing that all the books, and every piece of equipment, were neatly on their shelves, and that the chamber had none of its usual organized clutter—there were no potions steeping, no half-ground herbs in the mortar, no scribbled notes. The infirmary looked abandoned already. “You’d leave Camelot?” he said.

                Gaius shrugged. “In a manner of speaking.”

                There was one bit of clutter on the workbench, after all— a small glass bottle, tightly corked. It was about half full of an ominous clear liquid, and Arthur did not need to be a physician’s apprentice to guess its purpose.

                “I would have thought you’d poison me,” he said.

                Gaius was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry you think so little of me,” was all he finally said.

                “I could say the same,” said Arthur, and picked up the bottle. After weighing it in his fist for a moment, he pivoted on his heel and threw it as hard as he could against the wall. The sound of the smashing glass was inordinately soothing. “Don’t even think of making any more of that,” he ordered, in the coldest voice he had. “I have not dismissed you from my service; do you understand me? Or do I have to lodge you next door to your ward to be certain of it?”

                “I wish you would,” Gaius shot back. “I haven’t been allowed to see him since his arrest, and I am worried sick about him. Do you understand me?”

                “Why? What do you think I’ve been doing to him? Thumbscrews? The wheel?” Arthur’s voice iced over a bit more. “I’m my father’s son, after all. What do you think the evil tyrant has been doing to the poor helpless sorcerer?”

                “Arthur, there are worse things than physical pain,” The old man’s voice lost the challenge. Now he just sounded old and defeated. “The damage is done. Execution might be the kindest thing you could do for him at this point.”

                “…What?”

                “Merlin has built his entire identity around the idea that he is little more than a conduit for magic. Magic intended solely and entirely for your protection and benefit. You have rejected that. He has quite literally no other reason for living.”

                Arthur stared at him. “That’s… that’s insane,” he said.

                “I know. But it’s what he’s been told since the day he came to Camelot,” Gaius said. “Since his alternative was believing that he’s a monster, he clings to it.”

                “Told by who? You?”

                “By the Great Dragon, first. Later by the druids, by the Catha, by the prophecies, by the Fisher King, by Nimueh, by the Cailleach, by Taliesin… pick a name, sire! Anyone with the faintest smattering of magic has warned him, in the strongest possible terms, that his destiny is tied to yours, and that his failure to support you and the great deeds you are fated to perform would be catastrophic for Albion as a whole.”

                “So when you come right down to it, he thinks that the fate of all Albion is depending on him. Seems a bit…” Crushing. Terrifying. Unfair. “…egotistical.”

                “Possibly, sire,” said Gaius. “There is also a very good chance that it’s true.”  

                “You really believe that?” Arthur frowned. “He’s that powerful?”

                “Yes,” said Gaius, with no hesitation whatsoever. “He is. You saw it yourself at Camlann; believe me when I say that he is capable of far more than he’s shown. But it’s not a matter of power. As you said—it’s a matter of leverage. One man, at the right moment, can change the world.”

                “And he’s that man.”

                “You both are. It takes a hammer and an anvil to forge a sword, Arthur.” Gaius cocked an eyebrow. “It’s not about magic, you know. Not really. As you may recall, the first time the two of you met, you picked a fight, won it, threw him in the dungeons, and dismissed him from your mind. The second time you met, you picked a fight, won it, and immediately protected him from the consequences of his own unbelievable stupidity. In the span of two days, you began the journey from bully to prince. Granted, he was the catalyst— but he didn’t do it for you, or force your actions. He simply offered you a choice, and you made your decision. You chose who you wanted to be. And it had nothing—nothing—to do with his magic.”

                Arthur chewed on that for a moment, then shelved it for later, found a scrap of parchment on the desk and scribbled a pass. “Here,” he said, handing it to Gaius. “Go see him. Make sure he’s all right.”

                He accepted it gravely. “Thank you, sire,” he said. “Do you have any messages you’d like me to pass on?”

                Arthur took a deep breath, let it out. “…No,” he said. “Not yet.”

Chapter Text

                Gaius didn’t rush headlong out the door and to the dungeons. He thought carefully about the sort of things he’d needed when it had been him in a cell, then packed a basket with first aid supplies, slightly less than half of a loaf of bread, some cheese, and fresh clothing. At the last minute, gambling that he could intimidate at least one of the guards into fetching clean water, he added a chunk of soap, remembering how good it had felt to get clean after his various turns in the dungeons.

                Bracing himself for what he knew he was going to see, he began the long trek downwards. 

                Nothing, however, could have prepared him for the sight of the guards teasingly holding a bowl of what looked like thin pottage just out of Merlin’s reach.

                “Say ‘please,’ sorcerer,” one of them jeered.

                For a moment, Merlin looked stubborn, then he sighed and gave in. “Please, sir, may I have my food?”

                The guards looked at one another. The one holding the bowl said, “I’m not sure he meant it, are you?”

                “No,” said his companion, smirking. “I don’t think he did.”

                “The boy should have better manners,” said the first guard. Slowly, deliberately, he tilted the bowl, letting some of it spill to the ground. “Try again, sorcerer.”

                Merlin had apparently had enough of the game. “I didn’t make you beg when I was stitching up your leg that one time. You weren’t complaining about my manners then, either; you were too busy crying for your mother.”

                That tore it. His face reddening, the guard dumped the entire bowl into the filthy straw and shuffled his boot through the mess. “Lick it up, sorcerer; it’s all you’ll be getting,” he snapped.

                Merlin didn’t back down an inch. “I’d rather starve,” he said defiantly, folding his arms as best he could with the chain in the way.

                The second guard chuckled malevolently. “You won’t. You’ll burn first, and I’ll be there to watch. But if you want to die hungry, that’s your business, I suppose.”

                If he had to hear another word, Gaius thought, he might break down then and there. “Excuse me,” he snapped.

                All three men started. Both guards’ hands went to their swords. “You can’t be down here,” said the first guard brusquely. “King’s orders. No one sees the prisoner.”

                Gaius brandished his pass. “King’s newest orders,” he said, with some irony. “I’m to see to his health and general well-being.”

                The second guard, the one not holding a sticky bowl, reached for the pass and examined it. To his obvious disappointment and disapproval, it was in order. He nodded at his fellow, who fumbled for the keys and reluctantly let Gaius into the cell. The second guard visibly considered searching the physician’s basket for contraband, then thought better of it.

                  “You’ll behave yourself, if you know what’s good for you,” he told Merlin, saving at least some face.

                Merlin just nodded, not taking his eyes off Gaius.

                To hell with the hostile guards, Gaius thought, and immediately enveloped Merlin in a hug. “Oh, my boy,” he murmured. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”

                Merlin smiled at him, a little sadly. “Is this the part where you lecture me on how I need to be more careful?”  

                “I think we’re a little past that,” Gaius said. “No, this is the part where I tell you how proud of you I am.”

                “Thanks,” Merlin said. “I did my best.”

                “No one could have done better,” Gaius said. “Now, let me see you. How are you holding up?”

                “I’m all right,” Merlin said. “No one has laid a hand on me.”                          

                Yet. He didn’t say aloud, but Gaius heard it all the same. “Glad to hear it,” he said. “Are they feeding you regularly?”

                “Yes, you needn’t worry about that. Today was an anomaly. Usually they just spit in it.”

                “They do what?”

                “It’s not a big deal. Anyway, I’m positive the cook does the same before she sends it down to me. Her brother was killed by Morgana’s undead army; she hates magic more than Uther did.”

                “I see,” said Gaius. And he did, too, and wished he didn’t. He sighed and picked up his basket. Clean water, he now knew, was a lost cause, but he unwrapped the bread and cheese.

                Merlin’s face lit up. “Is that for me?”

                “No, I thought I’d have my lunch down here instead of eating at my own table. Of course it’s for you. Take it.”

                Chuckling a bit, Merlin did, and broke off a piece of bread. The movement drew Gaius’s attention to his wrists, which had been rubbed more than raw by the rough metal of the cuffs.

                “Let me see that,” he ordered. “Why on earth didn’t you say anything?”

                Merlin stuffed the bread in his mouth and extended his hands rather than argue.

                Gaius smeared ointment onto a piece of bandaging and snaked it under the cuff, trying not to cry. He wasn’t terribly successful.

                 “Enough about me. Tell me all the news,” Merlin said. Obviously looking for a way to change the subject. “How’s Arthur?”

                “He’s fine,” Gaius said. “He came to see me this morning. He had some questions he wanted answered.”

                Merlin looked apprehensive. “What kind of questions?”

                “Well, for one thing, he wanted to know if I knew about you,” Gaius said, moving to the second wrist. He didn’t miss the fact that Merlin’s hands had started shaking, but he chose not to mention it.

                “You told him no, I hope,” said Merlin, his voice almost believably light.

                “I did not. I told him I’d known since the beginning.”

                His eyes widened, and he involuntarily jerked his hands out of Gaius’s. “Are you out of your mind?”

                “Calm down,” Gaius scolded, and grabbed his wrists again, going back to work. “He took the news rather well. He gave me a pass to see you, didn’t he?”

                “I guess so,” said Merlin, not entirely reassured. “You’re sure he wasn’t angry with you?”

                “I’m sure,” said Gaius, who wasn’t. “I’m not the one you should be worrying about.”

                “I knew what I was doing,” said Merlin. “And I knew where it would get me. Worrying implies that there’s a possibility of a different outcome.”

                “There is,” Gaius insisted. “I truly don’t think Arthur is going to have you executed.”

                “On the one hand, he’s got the Council, half his citizens, and his father all telling him he has no other choice. On the other he’s got one clumsy servant who’s done nothing but lie to him for a decade. I’m a dead man, Gaius. Accept it.”

                “You’ve done nothing but save his life, not to mention his entire army. At least some of them have to be on your side.”

                Merlin, by that point, was the calmest man in the room. He jerked his head towards the stone-faced guards. “They’re not. It’s okay, Gaius,” he said. “I think I’m actually glad it’s over.”

                “No, my boy. No,” Gaius said, his voice finally breaking.

                “Yes. I’ve had enough of fighting a war where both sides think I’m the enemy. And I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of lying. I’m tired of sneaking around, and I’m tired of flimsy excuses that make me sound like a lunatic. I’m tired of pretending to be a coward, or an idiot, or a weakling, or a drunk,” said Merlin. “I’m tired of waiting to get caught, and I’m tired of wondering what will happen to me when I am. I’m tired of being afraid, Gaius. I am just so damned tired of being afraid.”

                “Oh, Merlin,” he whispered.

                “Well, I’m not afraid anymore,” he said, and he almost smiled. “I’m not. I’ve done what I was meant to do, and I’m proud of it. Now that I know you’re not going to be punished on my account, there’s not a single thing in the world left for me to be afraid of. I’m free, Gaius. I’m finally free.”

                “I’m sorry that this is what it took to make you feel that way,” Gaius said.

                “Don’t be. None of this is your fault. And Gaius— I couldn’t have asked for a better guardian. Or a better friend. Thank you for everything you did. And I’m sorry that all I ever did in return was make trouble for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t… better.”

                The few inches between them suddenly felt like a mile. Or maybe all that distance was just in Merlin’s eyes. “None of that,” he said. “I’ll speak with Arthur. He’ll see reason.”

                “No! Don’t. Please, don’t try to defend me. Don’t get involved. You had nothing to do with my crimes; you can’t give anyone reason to think you did. You can’t. I won’t let you. Please, Gaius. Please.” His voice finally caught, dropped to almost a whisper. “…I’m not worth your life.”

                I’ve failed you, Gaius thought. I should have gotten you out of Camelot the day you arrived. The moment I realized what you were, I should have sent you as far away as I could and warned you never to return. Before that wretched dragon filled your head with prophecies. Before you ever saw Arthur’s face. Before your so-called destiny broke you to the point where this feels like freedom. I’ve failed you in every possible way, Merlin, and I can never atone for it.

                “But there is something I would like to ask you to do. Tell mother… tell her I’m sorry. And that I love her. And that I wasn’t afraid. Could you do that for me?”

                “I will,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Of course I will.”

                “Thanks. And, um… take care of Arthur, all right? He needs a lot of looking after.”

                Arthur. Even here, even now, even after everything, Arthur was his foremost concern. Gaius bit his tongue hard. Gods, Merlin, what have we done to you? “I will,” he repeated.

                “Good. I… I guess that’s all I wanted to say,” he said, and for the first time, there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice. “Goodbye, Gaius. You should… probably go now.”

Gaius flicked a glance at the guard, who obviously agreed with that assessment. “I’ll return as soon as I can.”

                “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

                “Strangely enough, I wasn’t seeking your permission,” he said with an ironic quirk of an eyebrow. “Or your advice. But I will give you mine: don’t give up hope. I haven’t.”

                When he was finally gone, Merlin sat down, leaned against the wall and made himself as comfortable as he could, which wasn’t very, and tried not to think. About anything. There were no thoughts that didn’t hurt, because most of them were about the things he had irrevocably lost, and the rest were about the things that were inexorably on their way.

                He’d promised himself when he was six years old that when this day finally came, he would be brave; he wouldn’t cry. So he was. And he didn’t. 

*.*.*.*.*.*

                 King Lot didn’t send a representative. He came himself, with a small retinue of knights and dignitaries, and his mouth was twisted, as though tasting something bitter. Defeat always is.

                 “I have come to capitulate,” he told Arthur, with no ceremony whatsoever.

                 “I beg your pardon?” Arthur said, taken aback. “I wasn’t aware that we were at war.”

                “Pre-emptively,” Lot brushed that off. “You see, I am rather fond of my crown, but I’m even fonder of the head that wears it.”

                “Understandably so,” said Arthur, diplomatically. “What I fail to comprehend is why you seem to feel that I am in some way a danger to either.”

                 Lot snorted. “King Arthur. You are not a fool, and neither am I. If it has somehow escaped your notice that you managed to destroy the witch and her howling Saxon horde without taking a single casualty or even unsheathing your sword, rest assured it has not escaped mine. We share a border and a contentious history, and if you are in a mood to continue your campaign, I am likely to be the first target. I cannot hope to beat you, not with the power you have shown you can command. Therefore. You have Essetir’s full and complete surrender, and I am here to swear fealty to you as High King.”

                 Arthur didn’t let his jaw drop. “I see,” he said, playing for time.

                 “I am in no position to make conditions, but I hope you can be convinced to bargain, somewhat. I had hoped to maintain some level of autonomy rather than being simply absorbed into Camelot, but those are matters for the negotiating table, if you choose to allow such a thing.”

                 “I’m sure something can be arranged,” said Arthur. “In the meantime, please consider yourself my guest.”

                  “A pretty word for ‘hostage,’” Lot said ungraciously. “I appreciate the pretense.”

                  Arthur motioned to a nearby servant. “Please go to the steward and bid him prepare rooms for our honored guests,” he said clearly, a little annoyed with Lot’s attitude but keeping his expression as pleasant as he could until Lot and his entourage had left the room.

                 Once they had, he stood up and ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of complete stupefaction. “All right,” he said. “What the hell just happened here?”

                  Percival looked equally stunned. “I couldn’t say for certain. But I think… I think you just conquered Essetir.”     

                 “I wasn’t attacking them!”

                 “Presumably he thought you might consider such a course of action in the near future,” said Leon.

                 “Why would he think that?”

                  “Might have something to do with the man in your dungeons,” Gwaine said. “You know, the one who singlehandedly annihilated a Saxon army for you. It’s not much of a stretch to think he could be equally, shall we say, persuasive against an Essetirian one.”

                 “That was not my doing,” said Arthur with a grimace. He didn’t want to think about Camlann. Or Merlin. Or the dungeons, for that matter. “And even if it was, I certainly wouldn’t be doing such a thing to my neighbors.”

                 “I know that and you know that,” said Gwaine. “Lot doesn’t know anything of the sort. And he’s not going to be the only one; he’s just the first to arrive. Prepare yourself for a lot more royals looking to make a deal with you before you turn their countries into charred rubble.”

                  “High King of Albion,” Leon said thoughtfully, as though testing each word as he said it. “I can’t say I wouldn’t like to see peace among the five kingdoms, and there’s no one worthier of the position than you, sire.”

                  “How peaceful can the land be when four of the five kingdoms are expecting me to rain hellfire on them if I wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”

                  “Were you planning to?” Gwaine asked sweetly.

                 “That’s enough,” snapped Arthur, on his last nerve.

                 “It might be tense at first, but that should settle down eventually,” Leon said, doggedly trying to get the conversation back on track. “And with the Saxon threat, uniting Albion could be our only chance to survive.”

                 Percival shook his head. “I don’t know how quickly the Saxons are going to be able to regroup. They lost a lot of men at Camlann. They won’t be back anytime soon.”

                “But they will be back,” Leon said.

                That was hard to deny.

                “If only we had someone who could even the odds for us,” said Gwaine.

                 “Gwaine, I said that’s enough!”

                “That’s too bad, sire, because I’m not even close to finished,” Gwaine snapped back at him. “Merlin saved all our sorry hides at Camlann, gods only know how often he’s done it before, now he’s on track to make you High King, and his reward is to sit in your dungeons waiting to burn? How is that even sane, let alone fair?”

                 “When did you hear me say that it was?” Arthur asked, and walked out of the room before he could say anything more.

Chapter Text

                A day or two into the negotiations, Leon made the long trip down to the dungeons. Merlin was sitting quietly in his cell, napping or meditating, back against the wall, eyes closed, and chains pooled in his lap. Leon frowned. He was a little thinner than he’d been at Camlann, a little paler; his unshaven beard was beginning to look scraggly and there were bruise-like circles under his eyes.

                He’s been down here too long, Leon thought, and cleared his throat.   

                Merlin opened his eyes. “Leon?” He smiled, clambering noisily to his feet. “What brings you to these parts?”

                “There’s something I need to tell you,” Leon said solemnly.

                Merlin stilled, with one quick glance at the sword that hung by his side. “Oh. Is it time?”

                Leon’s eyes widened. “No! Good gods, no,” he said, horrified at both the thought of dragging Merlin to his execution and the nonchalance with which Merlin suggested it.

                “All right,” Merlin said. “What did you want to tell me, then?”

                “Lot of Essetir is here,” Leon said. “And we’ve received envoys from several other kingdoms in the last few days, as well—Mercia, Nemeth, and Gawant, if you’re wondering. More are probably on their way.”

                “Why? What do they want?”

                “They want to swear fealty to Arthur as High King,” Leon told him.

                Merlin stared at him, then began to laugh. “It’s happening! My gods, it’s really happening. I did it. I did it! It’s all going to be all right, now. Everything’s going to happen the way it should.”

                “What do you mean?”

                “I mean the prophecy is being fulfilled as we speak. Arthur is going to unite the kingdoms of Albion and lead them into a golden age. It’s all true.” Leon had never in his life, he thought, seen someone so literally transfigured with joy, and he hated to ruin it with what he knew he had to say next. Merlin beamed at him. “I can’t thank you enough for telling me. This makes it all worth it.”

                “Yes, but… Merlin, I’m sorry. The king still hasn’t pardoned you.”

                Merlin frowned, taken aback. “Did you think he was going to?”

                “Well, yes,” Leon said. “I should think you’ve more than proven that you’ve only had Camelot’s best interests at heart.”

                Merlin shrugged. “I still broke the law,” he said carelessly. “Arthur couldn’t pardon me even if he wanted to; the Council wouldn’t stand for it.”

                “They have been… less than helpful,” Leon said carefully.

                “I can imagine. Who’s leading the charge? I bet it’s Lord Humphrey, am I right? ‘Just because the boy was fighting against Morgana doesn’t mean he was on our side, hmm? We all know what sorcerers are; he was probably planning to usurp the throne himself once she was out of his way!’”

                Leon took an involuntary step back. “Almost word for word,” he said. “How did you know? Were you listening in by magic?”

                “Of course not. Who needs magic for that?” Merlin said. “I’ve been standing behind Arthur’s chair listening to those hidebound old relics for a decade. Half the time I know what they’re going to say before they take their seats.”

                “That’s impressive,” Leon said.

                Merlin grinned. “Thanks,” he said. “But honestly, most of the Council hated me before they knew about the magic. As things stand now, none of them are going to be happy until they’ve got my head on a pike.”

                “Then I’ll see to it that none of them are ever happy again,” Leon said grimly.

                “Arthur can’t afford to alienate the entire power structure of Camelot for the sake of one serving boy,” said Merlin. “Especially not now that he’s going to be responsible for four—or more—other kingdoms as well as this one. There’s probably no saving me, Leon; don’t torture yourself. I’ve… learned to be okay with it.”

*.*.*.*.*.*

                “He said what?”

                Leon looked Arthur dead in the eye. “He said that he understood that he was doomed and that he’d come to terms with it.”

                Arthur looked sick. “I’m… not going to kill him,” he said. “I thought he would have figured that much out by now.”

                “So you’re just going to leave him where he is? That’s no kindness. Arthur, you know what those cells are like,” Gwaine said. “They’re cold. They’re dark. They’re damp. They’re full of rats. It’s the kind of place you put a man for a day, maybe two if it takes that long to erect the scaffold. It’s been more than a month. I don’t know if it’s his magic or his luck, or, hell, maybe just his bloody-minded stubbornness that’s keeping him alive down there, but whichever one it is, it isn’t going to last forever, and sooner or later it’s going to settle the question for you. And if you weren’t the man you are, I’d be wondering if that wasn’t your plan all along.”  

                There was a long, horrible silence in the room at that. Arthur finally broke it. “Is that truly what you think of me?”

                “No,” Gwaine said immediately. “It’s not. Which is why I don’t understand what you think you’re doing.”

                “I’m trying to find a way to keep his head on his damned shoulders without making an enemy of every major landholder in Camelot! Not to mention the guilds, half the army, and most of the commoners!” Arthur ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Thirty years, Gwaine. Thirty years of fear. Of hatred. Of killings—on both sides. There’s scarcely a man, woman or child in Camelot who hasn’t lost someone to magic, and they’d be clamoring for his blood even if he weren’t the nearest thing I’ve ever seen to a god on earth. As it is… imprisoning him is the best I can offer, and I don’t need you to tell me that it’s not fair. Keeping him alive at all is a risk. Do you honestly think that they’re not all whispering that I must be enchanted and plotting to take matters into their own hands?”

                The blood drained out of Gwaine’s face. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted.

                “I know,” Arthur said. “You didn’t have to. You have the luxury of thinking only about what’s best for your friend. I don’t.”

                “Arthur… I’m sorry,” Gwaine said. “I was wrong to say what I did. I was wrong to think it, even.”

                “Your heart was in the right place,” said Arthur, dismissing it. It hurt, knowing that Gwaine—and the gods only knew how many of the others—thought he was willing to let Merlin die of exposure in a damp cell to avoid having to make a decision, but at the same time a twisted little part of him was oddly glad that his servant had so many people ready to risk their neck looking out for him. A little self-pityingly, he wondered what that felt like, then realized that he already knew. It was what Merlin did for him, day in and day out, Camlann being nothing more than a slightly more extreme example. Slightly.

                “Yeah, but my mouth wasn’t. I really am sorry. I’m just… worried. About both of you, if I’m really going to be honest.”

                “I’m fine,” said Arthur, abruptly tired of the subject. Then, as something struck him, he narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute. You said ‘his magic or his luck’ is keeping him alive.”

                “Or his stubbornness,” Gwaine agreed. “It’s got to be one of those.”

                “He’s bound in cold iron,” Arthur said. “He’s not supposed to have magic at the moment.”

                Gwaine’s face went blank. “You’re right,” he said. “He’s wearing those enchanted shackles.”

                Arthur glared at him. “And they’re not doing a damned thing, are they?”

                Gwaine thought about lying for a split second, then discarded the idea. Too many secrets had gotten them into this mess; he didn’t think more secrets would get them back out of it. “They’re keeping the guards from getting nervous, he said. Aside from that… no, I don’t think they are.”

                “So he’s not even being held prisoner,” said Arthur. “He’s just sitting down there playing the martyr in order to… what? What kind of point does he think he’s making?”

                “Why don’t you ask him?” Leon said. “Merlin was rarely at a loss for words.”

                “Most of which were lies,” Arthur pointed out.

                Percival shook his head. “Not the important ones, I don’t think,” he said quietly.

*.*.*.*.*.*

                “Arthur, enough is enough. Stop. He’s sorry.”

                Arthur, slashing furiously at what was left of a training dummy, stopped midstroke. He twisted his head around. “What?”

                Gwen pointed at the wreckage. “Him. He’s learned his lesson; I doubt he’ll attack you again anytime soon,” she said, with a little grin. “A glorious victory. Did he put up a good fight?”

                He pulled off his helmet, dropped it on the ground. His hair was dark with sweat. “Not particularly,” he said. “That’s the problem with fighting a dummy. How am I supposed to deal with an opponent who refuses to fight back?” 

                Gwen knew that they were no longer talking about the mannequin. “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose you just… win by default.”

                “He asked Gwaine to attend his execution so that he’d see one friendly face before he died,” Arthur said bluntly. “Somehow, I don’t feel like I’ve won.”

                Gwen winced.

                “Oh, and it gets better. He asked Leon if he thought I’d be willing to consider the block rather than the stake. Faster and cleaner, you know.”  

                She thought about that for a moment. “That’s not an unreasonable request,” she finally said. “Whatever else happened, he was your friend. I think he’s earned something quick.”

                Arthur stared at her. “Leon said something similar. Am I the only one in Camelot who doesn’t want to execute him? More to the point, why is everyone so convinced that I do want to? Am I really such a tyrant as that? What kind of monster do you all think I am?”

                She shook her head. “No one thinks that you’re a monster at all. Least of all him. But the law is the law,” she said, and shrugged. “And by law, all sorcerers are sentenced to death. My father was. Gaius was. I was. Twice. Gaius and I were lucky… but Arthur, we were also innocent of the crime. He’s not.”

                “I… that’s true, I suppose. But there’s no way I can send Merlin to the stake and still live with myself afterwards. Or the block.” He shook his head, helplessly. “I can’t, Gwen. I can’t and I won’t.”

                 “I don’t want that, either. But if you begin making arbitrary exceptions just because, this time, it happens to be a sorcerer you know, then the next arbitrary decision will be a bit easier to justify, and then the next, and sooner or later, you won’t even bother. No laws. You’ll just… decide who lives or dies on a whim. That’s not justice. And it’s not who you are.”

                “So you think I should kill him? After everything he’s done for Camelot—for me? Would that be justice?”

                “I’m honestly not sure. It might be. It would certainly be… simpler,” she said. “As things stand, it’s very black and white. Whether you’re murdering a man or growing a flower, all magic is illegal; all magic-users are put to death. That’s all there is to it. No exceptions of any sort. Motive doesn’t matter, method doesn’t matter, the end result doesn’t matter. There are no shades of gray. No one can say, ‘yes, but my case is different,’ because it isn’t. There’s nothing to interpret, or consider, or analyze. And ordinarily, I’m not sure any of us would have felt much need to try. Not after Morgana.”

                He was taken more than a little aback by her dispassionate argument. She was right, of course. Legally, sorcery was always treason, even when it was done for the benefit of king and country. And Morgana had been all the proof anyone could ever need that magic twisted even the kindest heart into something treacherous and cruel. If the sorcerer had been nearly anyone but Merlin, he would already have been ash on the wind. And it would all have been so simple.

                Uther and Gaius had been friends for decades. And the king had sent him to the fires without a quaver on the word of a corrupt witchfinder. Arthur, when faced with the same decision, and with far more proof of the crime than Uther had ever had, was, instead, frantically looking for a way out of it, and succeeding only in battering a training dummy into splinters in the process. Perhaps that made him a weaker king than his father had been. Merlin would have said that it made him a stronger one.

                Of course, Merlin had been fluently lying about everything else, so perhaps putting too much stock in anything he had to say wasn’t a brilliant course of action.

                Or perhaps it wasn’t that simple. Not so black and white. There had been lies—dear gods, had there been lies!—and they colored everything. But there had been truths, too.

                ‘I’m an open book.’ Lie.

                ‘You killed the monster.’ Lie.

                ‘I don’t know how (insert odd occurrence here) could have happened.’ Lie.

                ‘I was gathering herbs/at the tavern/hiding behind a tree/conveniently absent at the moment of crisis.’ Lie, lie, lie, and lie. 

                ‘There can be no place for magic in Camelot.’ Incomprehensibly self-destructive lie.

                ‘You’re going to be a great king. I know it.’ Flattery.

                ‘What’s the life of a servant, compared to the life of a prince?’ Debatable.

                ‘I didn’t want you to be alone.’ Compassion.

                ‘I’m happy to be your servant. Until the day I die.’ Truth.

                As hard as Arthur tried—and he really had tried—he couldn’t convince himself that the embarrassing earnestness, the shining sincerity in those two brief sentences were anything more than what they seemed.

                And there had been other truths, too. All the way back at the beginning, that fateful encounter in the marketplace, Arthur had goaded him into a fight he’d known Merlin couldn’t win, mostly for the pleasure of rubbing the country boy’s nose in his own powerlessness, an admission of which he was not proud. ‘I could take you apart with one blow,’ he’d boasted. And Merlin, completely unintimidated despite a night in the dungeons and a day in the stocks as punishment for their previous encounter, when he’d at least been able to plead ignorance, had just scoffed, ‘I could take you apart with less than that.’

                And he could have. At any time over the last decade, he could have. But he hadn’t. If anything, he’d built Arthur up. Made him more than he might otherwise have been. Made him want to be more than he might otherwise have been. While quietly polishing Arthur’s armor, doing his laundry, serving his meals, scrubbing his floors, and hauling in his bath water. Which was always hot. And in retrospect, that should have been suspicious.

                There had been a great many truths, in fact. Most of which Arthur had immediately belittled or blithely ignored, another humbling admission.

                ‘Agravaine is in league with Morgana.’

                ‘Gaius is possessed by a goblin.’

                ‘You still love Gwen.’

                 ‘Cedric/Sophia/Edwin/(insert malefactor’s name here) is up to no good.’

                  ‘The queen is a troll.’

                 ‘Mercy isn’t a weakness.’

                 ‘Your wine is poisoned.’

                 ‘We shouldn’t. I have a funny feeling about this.’

                 ‘I’ll always protect you.’ 

                 The more Arthur thought about it, the more he started to think that there had only ever been one outright lie. The lie he told everyone; the lie that had been beaten into him from infancy. The lie that kept him alive.

                 I am not a sorcerer.

                One lie. That was all.

                Was that really so bad, when you thought about it? Was truth as black and white as all that? Was anything?

                “But the world is made up of shades of gray,” he said aloud.

                Gwen’s smile was luminous. Belatedly, he realized that he’d arrived exactly where she’d hoped he would. “Yes,” she said. “It is.”

                “Which means the law has to be, too,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s just law. Not justice.”

                “I’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Gwen quirked an eyebrow. “Isn’t it lucky that we happen to know someone who has the power to change the law?”

                For the first time since… well, since, Arthur felt a laugh tickling the corners of his mouth. “It certainly is,” he said. “Now, before we get down to overhauling thirty years of legislation, I want you to tell me the truth about something.”

                “I always do,” she said.

                “One of the many reasons I married you. Now, be honest. What would you have done if I’d stuck to the letter of the law and handed down a death sentence?”

                “Nothing at all,” she said, surprising him. Then she laughed aloud. “I wouldn’t have had the chance. Between Leon tampering with the guard rotation to give him a clear path to the gates, Gwaine planning to get the guards either drunk, distracted, decoyed, or, if all else failed, bashed over the head and dumped in a corner, Elyan casting duplicate keys to the dungeon, Percival arranging travel supplies and routes with smugglers to get him out of the country, most of the other knights planning strategies to accidentally let him slip through their fingers if the patrol is sent after him, and trying to guess exactly how incompetent they can pretend to be before you catch on, Geoffrey searching law books all the way back to the founding of the kingdom for loopholes and technicalities to get him acquitted, and no doubt forging some if he doesn’t find any, the entire castle staff planning various diversions to give him time to run for it, and I honestly don’t know what else, I think it’s safe to say that there’s only one person in Camelot who isn’t busily plotting his escape even as we speak.”

                Arthur buried his face in his hands. “Of course there is.”

                Because of course Merlin wasn’t plotting his escape from the dungeons. For one thing, he didn’t need to. He could let his eyes flash gold and walk out any time he pleased, leaving as much or as little of the citadel as he chose in ruins behind him. He’d done it before; he could do it again, and they both knew it. That was the point. He could, and he wasn’t going to. He didn’t even want to. Not this time; not at Arthur’s expense. If the only way left for him to demonstrate his loyalty was a traitor’s death, then he’d walk to it without a quaver or a qualm.

                The idiot. 

                “Which is where Gaius came in,” Gwen continued, brightly. Her smile only widened when Arthur visibly suppressed a groan. “He brewed a sleeping draught that would stop a charging griffin in its tracks, so it would be more than sufficient for one stubborn imbecile. That’s a direct quote, by the way. Last I heard, he still hadn’t decided whether to slip it into his food, his water bucket, or just tip it down his throat by force. I think he was leaning towards that last one, and I think he’d have had his pick of volunteers to help pinion Merlin’s arms and pinch his nose closed to make him swallow. Anyway, by the time Merlin woke up, he was supposed to be halfway to Nemeth. If not Ultima Thule.”  

                “Wonderful,” said Arthur. “I must be the only man in the Five Kingdoms—no, no, in the entire world—with a prisoner who needs to be drugged and restrained to force him out of my dungeon. Only Merlin.” He laughed. There wasn’t much humor in it. “What did I ever do to deserve this?”

                She kissed his sweaty cheek. “I don’t know. But never quibble with good luck.”

                “Yes, yes, very clever,” he said, rolling his eyes. There was slightly more humor there, this time. “I still don’t know what to do, though. Maybe I should just let the lot of them carry out their little conspiracy and ship him off to the ends of the earth, after all. It would give me a few days of peace before he came storming back into my chambers to tell me off.”

                She grinned. “He would, too. That’s actually… I probably shouldn’t tell you this part.”

                “And yet you’re going to.”

                “I have to. It’s too good to keep to myself. Gaius made rather a lot of that potion,” she said. “I think his original plan was to dose you both, strand you out in the middle of nowhere, and make the two of you work things out before you got home.”

                He blinked, stone-faced. “…I’m beginning to lose count of all the different ways my closest friends and advisors are finding to commit treason,” he finally said.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Chapter Text

                Arthur waited another full week before making the trip to the dungeons. Long enough that the first shock had worn off, and taken most of the anger with it. Long enough to get an idea of what his life would be like without Merlin constantly underfoot, and more than long enough to decide that efficiency, acquiescence, and respectful deference were highly overrated.

                After a long night spent tossing, turning, staring at the bedhangings, and thoroughly disturbing his sleeping wife, Arthur got up at the crack of dawn, dressed himself, and went to the dungeons for a long-overdue conversation.

                Merlin was still asleep, curled into a protective ball on the cold stone floor, cushioned only by whatever dirty straw he’d been able to scrape together. There were no blankets in the cell. There was nothing in the cell, in fact; nothing but a stinking slop bucket and an equally noisome sorcerer who by rights should have been long gone. It made Arthur irrationally angry. He kicked the bars. “Rise and shine, lazy daisy,” he said mockingly. It was finally his turn to use the irritating phrase.

                 He’d planned out exactly what he wanted to say, and all of it went flying merrily out of his head the instant he saw that scrawny figure rise hurriedly to his feet, heavy chain clanking with every move. He just asked the first question that came to mind. “Merlin!” he said. “Why are you in there?”

                 Merlin cocked his head. “Um… I’m in here because you put me here. Remember? Camlann? Sorcery? Is your memory going already?”

                “My memory is perfect, thanks for asking. What I’m asking is why you’re still in there, since you could just… you know,” he said, and waved a hand in what was apparently supposed to be a magical way.

                Merlin gave Arthur a near-perfect replica of one of his own do-you-have-any-idea-how- inutterably-stupid-you-sound disbelieving stares. “Since I could just…?” he waggled his own hand in mocking imitation, chain swinging.

                “Yes,” Arthur said doggedly. “And don’t pretend that those manacles are actually doing anything, because we both know that’s rot.”

Merlin sighed. “Gwaine has a big mouth sometimes,” was all he said. His eyes flickered briefly gold, and the cell door swung open. “Is that what you had in mind, sire?”

                Arthur didn’t flinch. It took some willpower, but he didn’t. “Something along those lines, yes.”

                Merlin smiled. It wasn’t much like his usual cheerful grins, and with another flash of gold, the door slammed shut. There was a soft click as the lock reengaged. “Same answer, then. I’m in here because you put me here. If this is where you want me, this is where I stay.”

                “So you can do as you’re told after all,” Arthur said. “After all these years… If I’d known this was all it took, I’d have arrested you more often.”

                “Your memory really is going. You did. Regularly. From the day we met. I was on a first-name basis with half the guards, and the lower town nearly ran out of rotten vegetables a few times.”

                “You always did draw a crowd,” said Arthur, sitting down on a convenient barrel.

                “Guess we’ll see if that’s still true,” Merlin said, and followed suit, sitting back down on the floor and leaning against the wall. “One last time.”

                “You know that’s not going to happen,” said Arthur. His voice got small. “…Don’t you?”

                “I don’t think it’s what you want to do,” Merlin said. “I think that you think it might be what you need to do. And if… if it is, I understand.”

                “That makes one of us, then,” said Arthur. “Because I don’t understand any of this.”

                Merlin sighed again. “Your laws. Your beliefs. Your Council. Your father. They’ve all got to be telling you that I’m evil incarnate. That it’s your duty to kill me.”

                “They are,” Arthur said. “And you… I thought I knew you.”

                “You do, Arthur. Gods, sometimes I think you’re the only one that does. I’m still the same person. Just… with a talent you didn’t realize I had.”

                “A talent? It that what you call it?” Arthur barked a laugh. “You took down an entire army!”

                “Not because I wanted to,” Merlin said uncomfortably. “But… I had to.”

                “You had to. Well then. What am I supposed to do the next time you ‘have to’ do something?  It’s not like I could stop you.”

                Merlin didn’t answer directly. “You were going to die if I didn’t.”

                “Nice to know you have such faith in my military skills.”

                “It had nothing to do with your skills. Or your ego. It was prophesied. Mordred was your destined killer. It was going to happen. And now it can’t.”

                “I don’t believe in destiny,” Arthur said.

                “Destiny believes in you,” said Merlin, not missing a beat. “And take it from someone who knows—trying to thwart it doesn’t often end the way you think it will.”    

                “Then what do you think you’re doing?”

                “The best I can.”

                Arthur supposed he’d walked into that one. “But why?”

                “Because I wanted you to live. I didn’t care what happened after that,” Merlin said. “…I still don’t.”

                “I guess that’s the part I don’t understand,” Arthur said.

                Merlin took a rasping breath. “Because this is what I am, Arthur. This is how it works. I exist solely to do whatever you need done. If you need your socks washed, I wash the socks. If you need to fight whatever’s threatening Camelot this time, I fight alongside you. If you need magic, I cast the spell. If you need me to burn, I collect the firewood. That’s all there is to it.”

                Arthur shook his head. “But why?” he repeated. “What are you getting out of any of this, besides dirty socks and a death sentence?”

                “You,” Merlin said. “And Albion. The prophecies all say that you’ll create a golden age; that you were born to bring about a land that’s peaceful, and just, and united. And they say that I’m meant to help you do it. That I was created to help you do it. I want that.”

                “And I can’t do it alone. Is that what you’re saying?

                Merlin shook his head. “I’m saying you don’t have to. Look. Think of it like… like a tournament. Imagine yourself facing a big, ugly brute. He’s in full armor with a broadsword in his hand. You’re wearing what you’ve got on now, and all you’ve got is a table knife.”

                “I don’t like this story,” Arthur said, glancing down at the outfit he had hastily thrown on that morning. Linen was many things. Blade-proof was not one of them.

                “Me neither,” said Merlin. “So the fight starts. And Arthur, we both know you’re good enough that you might win, even with the odds stacked against you like that. I’ve seen you do it. But wouldn’t the fight be a lot easier if you at least had a sword?” 

                Arthur looked mulish for a second, then rolled his eyes in annoyance. There really wasn’t any way to deny it that didn’t sound petulant. “Yes. It would be easier that way.”

                “Okay. Now imagine this. This time, that same thug is stomping around, armed and armored; you’re somewhere else. And there’s a sword lying on the ground. There’s nothing wrong with it; it’s sharp and shiny and everything else a sword ought to be. But it’s not going to win that battle on its own, is it?”

                “No,” Arthur said. “Not unless he falls over his own feet and lands on it. Which I’ve seen you do.”

                “Only because Sir Balin thought it would be funny to trip me as I was trying to get you ready for a tournament.”

                “I remember that,” said Arthur. “I also seem to remember that he ended up with a broken nose during the melee.”

                “Lost a couple of teeth, too,” said Merlin. “You don’t always know your own strength. But that’s how things are. You’re the knight; you win—or lose—battles based on your own strength and skill. I’m just the sword in your hand. Your shield and armor. Or maybe something else entirely; the prophecies don’t say exactly how I help you. All I know is that I’m a tool made to be used. By you. And that means you get to decide what you want to do with me. If it’s dirty socks and a death sentence, then that’s the right answer.”  

                “Because the prophecies say so.” Arthur felt inexplicably hurt. Somehow, he didn’t like the idea that Merlin had only been at his side because he’d been told he had to be there. Despite the fact that they’d only been thrown together in the first place because Uther had done just that, much to their mutual dismay. “That’s the reason you came to Camelot. For this grand destiny of ours.”

                “No, I came to Camelot because I didn’t have anywhere else to go and I couldn’t stay in Ealdor. I didn’t find out about our destiny until after I got here.”

                “But the destiny is why you became my servant, isn’t it? Or at least, it’s why you stayed?”

                “At first,” Merlin admitted, in an eerie echo of his own thoughts. “Come on—you remember those first few months. The only reason you didn’t sack me—well, aside from that once—was because you were trying to torture me into quitting on my own. But things changed, Arthur. We both changed. Little by little, the destiny part stopped mattering.” He stopped, reconsidered that. “Well, no; not that it didn’t matter, because it’s important, it’s more important than anything in the world, but it stopped being the reason I’m here a long time ago. I’ll gladly serve you to my dying day, and it’s not because the prophecies say I’m supposed to. I’d do it even if they told me I shouldn’t. You’re worth serving. Not because you’re the Once and Future King, even though you are. Just because you’re Arthur.”

                “Which is why you’re voluntarily sitting in my dungeon waiting for me to decide when and how to kill you. Just because I’m me.”

                “Yes.”

                “You’re going to let me do whatever I want to you. Even though you could probably bring the castle down around my ears by snapping your fingers or whatever it is sorcerers do.”

                “Yes.”

                “Yes to which?”

                “Yes to both.”

                “…You’re an idiot.”

                “Yes.”

                “Merlin, do you intend to contribute anything more to this conversation than the word ‘yes’?”

                “Yes.” He paused, just long enough to be irritating, then continued. “…As soon as you stop asking questions you already know the answers to.”

                “Fine. Here’s a question. Why do you say that I was ‘born’ to create this great kingdom—”
                “Because you were.”

                “Let me finish. You say I was ‘born’ to do it. And that you were ‘created’ to help me. What’s the difference?”

                “Oh. That. The difference is… you’re human, Arthur. Destiny or not, you’re human. I don’t think I … I’m pretty sure I’m not. Not really.”

                Arthur thought about that for a long moment, stone faced. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say. And I’ve heard you say a lot of stupid things.”

                “The druids have a name for me, Arthur. From the prophecies. They call me ‘Emrys.’ Do you know what that means?”

                “It means they couldn’t be bothered to get your name right. I can’t say it fills me with confidence as to the accuracy of the rest of their prophecies.”

                “It’s not really a name, just a description,” Merlin said. “It means ‘Eternal,’ Arthur. I’m not a person with magic, because I’m not really a person at all. I’m magic incarnate.” 

                It was Arthur’s turn for the do-you-have-any-idea-how-inutterably-stupid-you-sound stare. His was better. “…I’ve obviously left you in here too long,” he said. “You’ve lost whatever remnants of a mind you ever had.”

                “You don’t have to take my word for it—”

                “Which I’m not.”

                “—You can ask anyone. Well… anyone magic. Anyone involved with the Old Religion will have some idea. The druids will know. Or Fre—er, the Lady of the Lake of Avalon. Her name is Freya. She might be willing to talk. She’s helped you before.”

                “Has she, now. Fascinating that I don’t remember any of this.”

                “You don’t remember it because I made sure you never knew about it,” Merlin said. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for all the lying.”

                “Now that you’re caught? I bet you are.”

                Merlin looked like he’d been slapped. “I was sorry before. I always hated the lies. I almost told you so many times… do you remember in Ealdor? I wanted to tell you then.”

                “But you didn’t. You let me believe it was your friend who conjured that storm.”

                “You’ve said it yourself a thousand times,” Merlin said. Now he just looked tired. “I’m a coward.”

                “Hardly that,” Arthur said. Fair was fair, after all. “I don’t know what I would call you, but that isn’t it.”

                “I would,” Merlin said. “I was so afraid that you’d be angry. That you’d hate me. You might have sent me away, somewhere where I couldn’t protect you. And I didn’t want that.”

                “It wasn’t about me. Let’s be honest about that much, at least. You were just afraid I’d burn you.”

                Merlin didn’t back down. “I can’t protect you if I’m dead, either. And you’re wrong. I don’t care what happens to me anymore, but I wasn’t about to let anything happen to you. Or Camelot.”

                “You should care,” Arthur said. “Why don’t you care?”

                “Because I’ve been a sorcerer since I took my first breath. And I’ve been told since my second breath how my story was likely to end. After a while you learn to live with it.”

                No man was worth tears, Uther had always told him, but Arthur was beginning to wonder if he’d been wrong about that, too. “Gods. If anyone—anyone­—in my life was going to turn out to be a secret sorcerer, why did it have to be you?”­

                Merlin, unbelievably, smiled at him. “Just lucky, I guess,” he said. “It’s all right, Arthur. Do what you have to. You don’t need me anymore. Neither Mordred nor Morgana can hurt you now, and the druids are on your side if you need a sorcerer, so the only problems you have left are the political sort, and you can handle those just fine without me. You’re going to be the greatest High King there ever was or will be, and I’m so proud of the man you’ve become.”

                “I’m so glad you are. I’m not going to be particularly proud of any reign that starts out with your blood on my hands.”

                Merlin had nothing to say to that.

                “Don’t need you anymore. Ha! You don’t get to tell me what I do and don’t need, Merlin,” Arthur snapped at him. “I tell you what I need and you bloody well fetch it for me; am I making myself clear?”

                He blinked. “Yes, sire,” he said.  

                Arthur shook his head, clinging to his anger, because the alternative emotion was unthinkable. “I have lost… so damned much. I have lost my entire family. I’m not losing you, too, do you hear me? Stop trying to be so noble; it doesn’t suit you.”

                “I’m not trying to be noble; I’m trying to be… practical.”

                “Well, don’t do that, either.”

                “I think what I’m really trying to be is brave,” Merlin said, mostly to himself.

                “Brave?” Arthur had very good hearing.

                “Do you honestly think I’m not frightened?” Merlin looked at him, some complicated mixture of emotions in his eyes. “This is my death we’re talking about.”

                “I thought you didn’t care?”

                “I don’t. I’m willing to die. But I guess I’m still human enough to be afraid of it.”

                “You don’t need to be afraid any longer,” Arthur said. “I’m not going to kill you. I don’t know what I am going to do with you, but it won’t be that.”

                Merlin smiled faintly.  “You’re a good man, Arthur.”

                “Yes, well,” Arthur said, uncomfortable with the praise. “So are you.”

                “…Arthur?”

                “What is it?”      

                “Not now, of course, but someday… do you think you might be able to forgive me?”

                Arthur looked at him for a long moment, then told the truth. “That’s another thing I don’t know.”

                “All right,” said Merlin, just barely audibly. “That’s fair.”

                No, it isn’t, Arthur thought, turning away. “And take off those ridiculous manacles. You’ve made your point,” he tossed back, over his shoulder, not meeting Merlin’s eyes. He didn’t want to see what might be in them—whether it was the disappointment Arthur knew he’d earned or, worse, the devotion he knew he hadn’t.

Chapter Text

                Arthur stomped his way up the stairs in a foul mood, pausing only to inform the guards that the prisoner had been relieved of his shackles and that anyone who cared to make an issue of it could do so while on indefinite latrine duty. Not surprisingly, no one took him up on the offer; he continued to hammer the point home by warning that he would be back, and that if the prisoner had so much as a stubbed toe when he did, life would become distinctly unpleasant for anyone and everyone deemed responsible or who had been in the vicinity of someone who could be.

                Satisfied that he had made his position clear, he returned to his chambers, where Gwen was just waking up.

                “Mmmm. Arthur? Is that you?” she mumbled into her pillow.

                “Yes, it’s me,” he said. “Sorry; didn’t mean to wake you.”

                “It’s all right. You didn’t,” she said, measurably more lucid by the word. She sat up, yawned. “It was time for me to be up, anyway. Where have you been?”

                “The dungeons,” he said glumly. “I went to see Merlin.”

                Gwen’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s wonderful,” she said. “Where is he?”

                Arthur hated to disappoint her; he looked away rather than have to see the expression on her face. “Still there,” he said.

                “I see,” was all she said. She climbed out of bed, walked over to her husband and put her arms around him. “My poor darling. This hasn’t been easy for any of us, but I think it’s been hardest on you.”

                Arthur, who had been expecting anger, let himself relax into the soothing embrace for a moment, then gently extricated himself. “I can’t quite agree with you on that score; I’m not the one in a cell. But I appreciate the sympathy. Guinevere, I went down there trying to figure out what I should do. And now, having talked with him, I’m more confused than ever.”  

                She chuckled wryly. “He’s good at that,” she said.

                “He certainly is, damn his eyes,” Arthur said. “We talked, and I left him knowing exactly what I did when I started. One, he’s a sorcerer, and two, he’d do quite literally anything for me.”

                “And did.”

                “And did,” Arthur agreed. “There’s no doubting his loyalty. I’ve tried and I can’t do it.”

                “But that’s not enough for you, is it?”

                “No. I did let him out of the manacles—they weren’t doing anything anyway, and the Council is going to have a collective fit when they find out about it—but that’s as far as I can go under the law as it stands. Not to mention that I’ve got a citadel full to bursting with foreign royals who all want to either kill him or recruit him, and damned if I can tell which is which.”

                  Gwen was fairly sure that Merlin could handle either eventuality with very little effort. She didn’t bother saying so; Arthur probably knew it as well as she did or better. “There’s one very simple way to find out,” she hinted.

                “I can’t let him loose, Guinevere.”

                “Why not? What are you afraid he’ll do?”

                “Knowing him? Probably turn up in my quarters at the crack of dawn and draw me a bath,” Arthur said bitterly.

                Gwen stifled a smile, because Arthur was right; that was exactly what Merlin would do.

                “It’s not funny,” Arthur said. “He’s just being normal. He’s acting like… well, acting like Merlin.”

                “Who did you expect him to act like?” Gwen asked, with a cocked eyebrow. “Morgana?”

                Arthur didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

                “Dear gods,” Gwen said. “You did, didn’t you?”

                “Can you blame me?” he said. “When have I ever met a magic-user who didn’t want me dead? Who ever heard of a sorcerer protecting anyone? Magic is evil, Guinevere! It has to be!”

                “Why? Because your father said so? Think about what you’ve seen with your own eyes. There was the Dolma,” said Gwen. “She saved me, and all she asked in return was that you consider that magic is only as evil as the one wielding it.”

                “The only reason you needed to be saved in the first place is because Morgana enchanted you.”

                “Magic saved my father’s life,” Gwen said quietly.

                “Magic took my father’s life,” Arthur shot back.

                “Your father was already dying,” Gwen said, her voice sharpening. “Maybe that old man wasn’t powerful enough to save him, but he didn’t kill your father. There’s a difference.”

                “Leaving that aside, look at what magic did to Morgana,” Arthur said, desperate to make her understand. “I can’t stand by and watch it happen again. Camelot can’t bear it. And neither can I.”

                Gwen didn’t argue. She couldn’t; not with the tiny catch in Arthur’s voice. “How long has he been studying magic?” she said, instead. “It must have been a long time for him to do what he did.”

                “He says he was born with his powers,” Arthur said. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

                “Neither did I, but I suppose it must be,” said Gwen. “Arthur… if that’s true, if he really has had magic the whole time we knew him… if he was going to turn on us like Morgana did, don’t you think it would have happened already?”

                “How should I know?” Arthur asked rhetorically. “I can’t take the chance. If the cold iron had worked, maybe, maybe I could have let him out on condition that he keep his magic locked away. But no—he has to go and be difficult even about that!”

                “What else could you expect? This is Merlin we’re talking about,” said Gwen.

                Her attempt at humor fell flat. Arthur just shook his head. “I can’t let him destroy himself,” he said. “He would, you know, if he thought it would somehow help me. With a smile on his face.”

                “He loves Camelot. Almost as much as he loves you,” Gwen said.

                “Well, I wish he loved me a little less and worried about himself a little more,” said Arthur.

                “He wouldn’t be Merlin if he did.” Gwen looked sad. “That’s been hard to swallow for all of his friends, you know. But we’ve had to accept it. And you do, too.”

                Neither of them said anything for a long moment.

                “I promised him that he wouldn’t be executed,” Arthur finally said.

                “Good.”

                There was another long silence.

                “I want him back,” he said. “I want the man I knew before all of this happened back. The one who used to barge into my chambers and make me feel like I know what I’m doing. Nobody has ever believed in me the way he does. Not even you. I want him back, Guinevere.”

                “He’s right there, Arthur. Waiting for you.”

                He let out a disconsolate breath that was not—quite—a sigh, but before he could respond, there came a knock on the door, which proved to be the damnably perfect replacement servant the steward had seen fit to torture Arthur with, and the day began in earnest.

                ‘Began,’ however, is not the same thing as ‘improved,’ and Arthur gritted his teeth through a council meeting that brought up the subject of the sorcerer in the dungeons no less than three separate times, an audience that seemed to last forever without including a single thing worth listening to, and a trial so petty Arthur was more than tempted to jail the prosecutor.

                It was when he was finally on his way to training, the thought of which having been the only thing keeping him sane throughout the endless morning, when it happened.

                There was a place in the lower corridor that jutted out, leaving a snug alcove where a person could stand and not be seen. Arthur had not intended to take advantage of that fact; he had merely stopped to adjust his clothing and take a few deep, calming breaths when it happened.

                “I still don’t know what the king thinks he’s waiting for,” someone said.

                Someone else scoffed. “Don’t tell me this is about that bleeding sorcerer again.”

                “It’s not a joke,” insisted the first voice. “The king’s got to be either enchanted or soft to have kept him alive this long. And he ain’t soft.”

                “He ain’t thick, either. Unlike certain other people I could name,” said the second. “The king is playing the long game on this one. You saw what the sorcerer can do, same as I did.”

                “Which is why he needs to die,” the first voice interrupted. “Before he can do it to us!”

                “No. Not before he can do it to Essetir,” said the second, smugly. “Or Mercia. Or anyone else that looks cross-eyed at Camelot. Can’t you see what we’ve got here? Camelot could conquer half the world before lunchtime if we want to, and the king knows it. And so do all the other kings who’ve been turning up at the gate with their hats in their hands, looking to make nice with us.”

                “Oh,” said the first voice. “I See what you mean. But you don’t see what I mean. How do we control someone who could do… that?”

                “Easy enough,” said the second voice, the scorn in his voice audible at having to answer such a simple question. “Beat him ‘till he obeys. Cut off a finger or two. Starve him if you don’t want to risk damaging the merchandise. Threaten something he cares about. He lived with the physician, didn’t he? Likely he’d do anything we wanted if the other choice was seeing his friend on the rack. All it takes is a little imagination.”

                Arthur thought he might be sick. He wasn’t sure if he was more horrified at the thought that two of his men could be that dishonorable or that they thought he was, but in either case his breakfast was threatening to make a surprise reappearance.

                “Maybe you’re right,” the first voice conceded. “I don’t like it; I’ll never like the idea of magic, whether it’s on our side or not, but maybe you have a point.”

                “Better we should have it than they should,” said the second. “Come on; there’s a new girl in the kitchen, and she might be willing to part with a meat pie for two of his majesty’s finest.”

                “I doubt it, but no harm in trying, so long as you’re the one getting your skull rapped with Cook’s wooden spoon,” said his friend with a coarse chuckle, and they went back the way they had come.

                Arthur stayed where he was, his mind a blur. Most of the images were of Merlin, and each one was worse than the last—Merlin whipped, Merlin hungry, Merlin staring at his own severed fingers lying on a stone floor… the few, crude threats his men had suggested were only some of the dreadful possibilities his own mind conjured up, and it was more than Arthur could bear.

                Because Merlin would let it all happen if Arthur ordered it. If he even thought Arthur had ordered it. He was letting it happen now. For a moment Arthur resented Merlin, resented his unshakable loyalty, then the moment passed, leaving him only with a sort of dogged determination. Merlin had protected him. It was time for him to protect Merlin.

From himself, if necessary.

                Arthur went to training; he was, as always, hard on his men and harder on himself, and he enjoyed every minute of it with a zest that life had not held since Camlann. He did not connect that with the conversation he had had with Merlin that morning, or the deep-seated relief that had accompanied his outright promise that Merlin would not be executed. All he knew was that it was a beautiful sunny day and he was going to enjoy it to the fullest before something else happened to ruin his mood.

                It was as he was having a hasty drink from the communal bucket, directly after a thoroughly satisfying spar with Kay, one of the younger knights, that it happened. Two knights and a squire came up to Arthur, looking apprehensive.

                “What is it?” he asked them.

                “I heard a rumor from some of the guards,” said one of the knights. Balin, his name was. He had not been overly fond of Merlin even before learning of his magic; the revelation had apparently not changed his mind. “About the sorcerer. They said you took the cold iron chains off. Is that true?”

                The practice yard grew eerily still. Arthur took another drink of water to moisten his suddenly dry throat, and nodded. “I did,” he said calmly. “They didn’t seem necessary any longer.”

                The knights traded looks. “With all due respect, sire,” said Balin, who was either brave or suicidal. “Do you think that’s… well… safe?”

                “Entirely so,” Arthur said. “He’s well-contained even without them. They were nothing more than superfluous cruelty.”

                “Thank you, sire,” said Balin after a moment, cutting off another prolonged session of look-trading. “I didn’t like to take such things from rumor alone.”

                “I should like to think my knights have better things to do than gossip in the first place,” said Arthur.

                Balin hesitated, then smiled politely, exposing the gap in his front teeth. “Of course, sire. I apologize for wasting your time.”

                “Forgiven,” said Arthur, uneasy and refusing to show it. Something was about to go very wrong; he could feel it.

                The rest of the training session was uncomfortable. It wasn’t that the knights were whispering to one another or anything like that; it was more like they were carefully not whispering, and it made the hairs stand up on the back of Arthur’s neck. It was the same in the afternoon audiences—rumors of Merlin’s release from the enchanted shackles had spread through the citadel like wildfire, and no one was willing to look Arthur in the eye.

                Well, almost no one. Gwen was openly supportive, and his original Round Table brothers were, too; Gwaine going to far as to throw an arm over his shoulders and rumple his hair. But that only heightened the contrast between them and the rest of the court, all of whom were watching Arthur like a cat at a mousehole. Dinner was a nightmare.

                A thought suddenly jumped into Arthur’s head—Gwaine saying that the shackles were keeping the guards from getting nervous. He couldn’t have said, later on, how he knew, but he did—he, Arthur, in releasing Merlin from his chains, had somehow signed his death warrant.  

                 He dropped his fork and stood up. Everyone at the long tables looked up, surprised. “Please, continue your meal,” he said. “I’ve some business to attend to.” He ignored the low hum of speculation as he walked out of the banquet hall, and he didn’t start running until he had closed the door behind him.

                And he almost made it in time.

Chapter Text

                There was a mostly empty bowl lying on the floor of the cell, a few smears of gruel still clinging to the sides and bottom.

                Arthur noticed it out of the corner of his eye; he’d been trained to take in a situation at a glance, and some calm, logical part of his mind noted that Gaius would need to see the bowl in order to know what he was dealing with.

                The rest of him was busy looking at Merlin’s still form—white as snow beneath the ground-in dirt and unshorn beard—sprawled gracelessly across the floor.

                Arthur knelt beside him and reached out to check for a pulse. His father had taught him well; his hand did not shake.

                For an endless moment, there was nothing, then he had it—it was slow, but it was there. A heartbeat.

                “You!” Arthur pointed at random guard. “Run for Gaius!”

                The man didn’t move.

                “Did you not hear me? I told you to get Gaius!”

                Another, braver, guard stepped forward, and his voice was gentle and kind. “Your majesty… you’re under an enchantment. It’ll be all right—as soon as he’s gone you’ll be yourself again.”

                This was not the time or place for an argument, but Arthur took the time to hiss, “You’ll all hang for this night’s work,” as he scooped Merlin into his arms. Not forgetting the empty bowl, he shoved his way through them and began the long trek up the stairs. Merlin seemed to weigh nothing at all—how much weight had he lost, these last few endless weeks?

                He clutched the unconscious sorcerer a little more tightly, as if his arms alone could keep him tethered to life, and picked up his pace. He didn’t waste his breath cursing the endless stairs, the useless guards, Camelot itself, or any of the other things dancing across his mind, nor did he apologize to Merlin for what he had done to him. As long as he didn’t say any of those things aloud, he thought crazily, it meant that there would be time to say them later, and he desperately needed there to be time later. It couldn’t end like this. It just couldn’t.

                He scarcely recognized his own voice, hoarse and gruff as it was, when he finally reached the infirmary. “Gaius! GAIUS! I need your help!”

                The old physician came running, then stopped short, aghast.

                “He’s still alive,” Arthur said, desperately hoping that it was the truth. “I think he’s been poisoned.”

                Gaius nodded, snapping himself back to reality with the discipline of a lifetime. “Put him down on the cot,” was all he said. “I’ll examine him there.”

                Arthur did as he was told, placing Merlin’s limp body on the cot, the bowl on a convenient table, then taking two steps back to give Gaius room to work.

                Gaius examined Merlin briefly, then picked up a quill pen from the desk and tickled the back of his throat with the feathery end until Merlin gagged, his dazed eyes opening as he retched. “Help me get him upright,” Gaius ordered, intent on his work.

                Arthur jumped to obey, and together they held him up as he vomited into a basin. “Good,” said Gaius, already reaching for a small vial from a nearby shelf as Arthur carefully lowered Merlin back down.

                Merlin, groggy and disoriented, groaned softly before letting his eyes slide closed again.  

                “Oh, no you don’t,” Gaius almost snarled, and waved the vial under his nose. Arthur caught a whiff—it was strong stuff, strong enough to shock Merlin back to something like consciousness. “That’s better. Now drink this!”

                ‘This’ was a thick black sludge. Obediently, Merlin swallowed the stuff, wincing at either the taste, his sore throat, or, most likely, both.

                As he was doing so, Gaius was sniffing at the remnants of the gruel, then, horribly, at the contents of the basin Merlin had emptied his stomach into. “I don’t smell anything,” he finally said. “Nor do I see anything untoward. It could be any one of a number of poisons; probably added as a tincture. Did you taste anything, my boy?”

                Merlin shook his head slightly, his eyes fluttering shut again. “Just tasted like ordinary dungeon slop. I don’t know.”

                “Merlin, think. Did it burn your throat, going down? Did you notice anything unusual?”

                Merlin didn’t answer, and this time the contents of the vial didn’t rouse him. Gaius looked at Arthur, still standing, forgotten, by Merlin’s bed, and his eyes had a helplessness in them that terrified Arthur. If Gaius didn’t know what to do, nobody would. If Gaius gave up… it truly was over.

                “There’s nothing more I can do,” Gaius said, and lovingly smoothed Merlin’s filthy, sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes in lieu of doing something productive. “Not without knowing what poison they used. Administering antidotes at random will do more harm than good.”

                “I’ll get it out of the guards. One of them will know,” Arthur said. “You… just tell him to hang on, all right?”

                Gaius simply nodded, looking old and defeated, and he turned away before Arthur could see the tears in his eyes.

                Arthur couldn’t have said how he got back down from Gaius’ tower; it was all a blur of self-recrimination and endless stairs. If only he hadn’t taken the chains off. If only he hadn’t put him in the dungeons. If only he’d sent him away at Camlann. If only Merlin had never come to Camelot in the first place. If only, if only, if only.

                When he reached the main level of the citadel, he turned, unthinkingly, towards the corridor that led to the dungeon stairs, then stopped himself. While he had no doubt that, given time, he could ‘convince’ the guards to tell what they knew, time was not something he had. Nearly two months in the cold and the dark, on little food and no exercise, had left Merlin weak, too weak to fight the effects of the toxin for long. Arthur needed to know what poison had been used and he needed to know now.

                Except… he wasn’t going to get any answers out of the guards by going down and asking politely. Not if they were so convinced that he was enchanted that they would disobey his orders to his face, which still rankled. No, he had to be clever about this. Besides, he doubted that they had come up with this little plot on their own; it reeked of conspiracy, and he wanted the originator, not his lackeys.

                He would go back and see to the lackeys later.

                For now, he strode into the banquet hall, where most of the court was still eating. He knew he looked disheveled; with any luck that would only corroborate his story. Gwen was the first to see him, and something in his face warned her; she dropped her fork with a clatter. “Arthur,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

                “Nothing’s wrong,” Arthur lied. “Everything’s right, as a matter of fact. The enchantment I’ve been living under has finally been broken.”

                Gwen looked horrified. “What enchantment?”

                “Gaius could explain it better than I,” Arthur said. “It’s been affecting my mind, my judgment—everything, at least since Camlann, and probably before. The important thing is that I’ve been restored to my senses. By one of you.”

                “Restored how, your majesty?” asked Geoffrey, his eyes wide.

                “The only cure was the death of the sorcerer who cast the spell. Once he was dead… it was like awakening from a particularly vivid nightmare.”

                Gwaine, his face white except for two red spots burning on his cheeks, shot half out of his chair, fists clenched. Leon, who was sitting next to him, seized him by the arm and pulled him back down to his seat. “None of that, Gwaine. It can’t help him now,” he hissed in Gwaine’s ear.

                “Then it’s done?” asked Lord Humphrey, eyes intent on Arthur’s. “He’s dead?”

                “Yes,” said Arthur, and this time he only hoped he was lying. “Someone killed him, setting me free. Whoever it is, I owe them a debt of gratitude I can never fully repay… although I intend to try.”

                “I didn’t do it for a reward, your majesty,” said Lord Humphrey, with ostentatious modesty. “I’ve known you since you were a child, and I could see with my own eyes how you’ve changed since the battle. It was my privilege to serve my king, and by extension, my country.”  

                Sanctimonious bastard, Arthur didn’t say aloud. “And it is my privilege to reward such service,” he said smoothly. “And such commendable loyalty. Tell me—how did you do it?”

                “It was simple enough, once I realized the nature of the problem,” Humphrey bragged. “Merely a matter of lacing the creature’s food with a tincture of hemlock and letting nature take its course.”

                “Hemlock,” Arthur nodded. “The very thing. How did you acquire such a tincture? From Gaius, perhaps?”

                “Oh, any apothecary can prepare it,” said Humphrey. “I had my manservant procure it somewhere in the lower city. I told him I needed it to rid my chamber of rats. And I wasn’t even really lying!” He laughed at his own wit; several others did, too. Arthur made a mental note as to which.

                “Ingenious,” Arthur said, chuckling a bit for form’s sake. “And how did you get it into his food?”

                “The guard tasked with bringing the sorcerer his meals added it. Simple.”

                “Did you pay him?” Arthur smiled. “I’ll reward him anyway, but I would prefer to know if he’s getting paid twice for the same job!”

                “No, your majesty; all your men are true patriots. He did it out of duty.”

                “How admirable,” Arthur all but purred. “Well, we’ll talk more of your heroism later. For now, though, Percival and Leon—please do me the honor of escorting Lord Humphrey to the dungeons. Oh, and do try to see to it that he’s mostly in one piece when he gets there? I really will need to discuss the matter further before he’s given his rightful due. And Gwaine—run to Gaius. As quickly as you can. Tell him hemlock.”

                Gwaine didn’t say a word, just nodded and bolted for the door. So did Lord Humphrey, but long years spent warming a seat at one sumptuous banquet after another left him in little condition to run, and Percival caught him before he’d gotten much past the table.

“You’re still enchanted!” he cried out, horrorstricken. “Your majesty! I was trying to save you!”

“Which is the only reason I may feel merciful enough to leave your thick head on your shoulders,” Arthur said coldly. “Merlin has done more for Camelot than you ever have, and he did it knowing that the only reward he could expect was the axe. I’m not enchanted. If anything, I’m seeing more clearly than I ever did.”

                “I beg your pardon, your majesty,” said one of the envoys, very, very carefully. He was in Mercian colors and probably had a name, but Arthur didn’t have the strength to remember it just at the moment. “Am I to understand that the sorcerer you utilized at Camlann is dead?”

                Arthur literally saw the moment every other envoy had the same thought at the same time; if Merlin was dead, Camelot was no longer the all-powerful juggernaut she had been a candlemark before. It meant that they were free to walk away from the bargaining table. It meant an end to a united Albion.

                “No,” he said firmly. “Merlin isn’t dead. He’s going to be just fine. This isn’t the first time an enemy’s tried to poison him, and it probably won’t be the last.”

                “Merlin?” Mithian, over with the Nemeth delegation, blinked in shock. “You never said it was Merlin who was your sorcerer!”

                “You know him?” asked Lot.

                “We’re acquainted,” was all she said. “He’s a good man.” And if it wasn’t for him, I might have been High Queen, Arthur could all but hear her thinking.

                “At any rate, he’s going to be fine,” Arthur closed the subject. He went back to his chair and gestured to one of the servants, who hurriedly filled a plate and put it in front of him.

                “No thanks, it would seem, to Camelot’s nobility. Or her men at arms,” Lot continued. “I was given to understand that his magic was part of your strategies from the beginning.”

                Arthur tried to think of a diplomatic way of shutting Lot up before Arthur had to admit that Merlin’s former role had involved polishing armor rather than wearing it. “Merlin has been a part of my household for some years now,” he said. That much, at least, was true. “His magic has played a major role in quite a few campaigns before this one.” That was something he only suspected to be true, but the more he thought about it the more logical it became. There had been too many strange coincidences.

                “And yet magic remains a crime,” Lot said.  

                “An injustice I am in the process of rectifying,” said Arthur before he quite realized he was going to say it.

                Was he? Was he truly going to dismantle Uther’s life’s work for the sake of his manservant? He thought, uncomfortably, about Uther’s ghost’s open disappointment in the way Arthur had chosen to rule his kingdom. If he had been so bitterly against Arthur’s marriage to a commoner that he would resort to murder, what would he have done had he known that Arthur was even considering allowing magic to return to Camelot?

                He had tried his utmost to kill Merlin, Arthur recalled. Perhaps he’d known.

                No. Of course he’d known, Arthur realized. His parting words had not been about Guinevere; they had been a warning about Merlin. Those last, cryptic words he’d shouted as Arthur sounded the horn—'Merlin has…’ Magic, he’d been about to say. Merlin has magic. Uther had known.

                 Magic had unleashed Uther’s vengeance-crazed spirit on Camelot, Arthur thought, mechanically beginning to eat and not tasting a bite. And more magic had sent him back to where he belonged. One good outcome, one bad one. Where did it end?

                Was it possible that magic was neither good nor bad, just… a power like any other, dependent on circumstance and motive to shape it towards good or evil? 

                The Dolma had said the same thing, he remembered. Magic was only as evil as the heart of the wielder, she’d said, or words to that effect. Morgana’s magic had stolen his wife’s soul; the Dolma’s magic—and that of the white goddess—had given it back.  

                Magic had allowed Arthur himself to be born. And taken his mother’s life in his place. Was that good? Evil? Neither? Or both? Nothing made sense anymore where once, it had all been so simple. Or perhaps it had never been simple, and he’d simply failed to see it.

                He needed Merlin, he thought miserably. Merlin was the one he turned to when nothing made sense, and Merlin was always the one who helped him unravel every knotty problem. He couldn’t be dead. Gaius must have been able to get the antidote into him in time. He refused to believe that the gods were cruel enough to allow any other outcome.

                The meal seemed to last a lifetime.

Chapter Text

                Gaius didn’t allow any visitors for the first two days after the poisoning on the grounds that Merlin was too frail for any such excitement. There are times when a physician outranks even a king, and he got his way, much to the muttered disappointment of roughly half the castle.

                Finally, on the evening of what was either the second day or the ten thousandth year of waiting, depending on who you asked, there came a knock at his chamber door.

                “Enter,” Arthur called.

                A pageboy opened the door, his eyes wide. “Your majesty,” he said. “I have a message from Master Gaius. He says that the sorc—that Merlin is awake and you can come and visit if you like.”

                Arthur was in the infirmary less than ten minutes later.

                Merlin was lying on the patient’s cot near the fire. He’d been bathed, shaved, and changed to a fresh white sleep shirt, and somehow it all made him look weaker and smaller than he had when he was unconscious. But he smiled when he saw Arthur, and that was enough for the time being.       

                “I understand I have you to thank for my life,” he greeted Arthur.

                “It was my fault you were poisoned in the first place,” Arthur said. “It was the least I could do.”

                “Gaius told me it was one of your councillors. How do you get from there to it being your fault? It’s not like you ordered him to do it.”

                “He thought you’d enchanted me because I haven’t been behaving as my father would have.” He frowned. “You didn’t, did you?”

                “You’ve picked one hell of a time to ask,” said Merlin. “But in any case, the answer’s no. If you were enchanted, you wouldn’t even have entertained the question.”

                “Have I ever been enchanted?”

                “A couple of times. Love spells, mostly. Gwen was able to kiss you back to coherence, or whatever passes for it around here.”

                Arthur nodded, then stopped. That hadn’t quite been the right question. Or answer. “Have you ever enchanted me?”

                He nodded, looking older than Gaius. “Once,” he said. “When Morgana took over the castle. You wanted to stay and fight a last stand. I changed your mind.”

                “You’ve been controlling my decisions for that long?” Arthur had been hoping, he realized belatedly, for a flat ‘no, of course not.’ He wasn’t sure how to handle this. Anger seemed unproductive.

                “No. I made you obey me for one night and never since. I hated it. I understand if you hate me for it, but I couldn’t let you throw your life away.”   

                “You’ve done a lot of things I’m not going to enjoy hearing about, haven’t you?”

                “Yes.”

                “You’re going to tell me about all of them.”

                “Yes, sire.” There was nothing sarcastic about the title. Merlin had no fight left in him, and it was bone-achingly wrong.

                “Not tonight. When you’re up for it. You’ll tell me everything. And then we’re going to leave it all in the past where it belongs.”           

                Merlin blinked a couple of times, his eyes bright with tears. “You say that now,” he said.

                “I’ll say it then, too. Damn it, Merlin, I just spent the last two days thinking that I was going to lose you. I don’t care to experience that again any time soon.”

                “I’m sorry. It’s only that… I just spent the last two months thinking of all the reasons I deserved what I was getting. It’s left me a bit morbid.”

                “So there’s worse than you taking over my mind, is there?”

                “Yes.”

                Arthur gritted his teeth, then relaxed as the missing piece of the puzzle came to him. Merlin was too focused on ‘deserving’ his punishment. If he’d been the sort of man who did deserve it, he wouldn’t have cared so much. “But there’s better, too, isn’t there? You’ve done as many, or, likely, more things that make you a hero as you have things that make you a villain. Haven’t you.”

                “I’m not a hero. I’m just a sorcerer who tried to serve king and country. And failed, mostly.”

                “That’s the first thing you’ve said that I don’t believe,” said Arthur.

                Merlin shook his head. “It’s true. You should have just let me die.”

                “Not this again.”

                “Wouldn’t it have solved everyone’s problems if you did?” Merlin asked, with a sad smile on his face. “You wouldn’t have had to decide what to do with me, the Council wouldn’t have been making trouble, the Guards wouldn’t have been rebelling—”

                “And what about you?”

                “I wouldn’t have had to go back to my cell.”

                It was so matter of fact, so devoid of self-pity, that it made Arthur sick. “You’re not going back there,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have put you there to begin with.”

                “You didn’t have much choice,” Merlin said. “I forced your hand. I’m… I’m what I am, after all. There’s no other place for me in Camelot except the scaffold.”

                “You’re not going there, either. You’re going to be at my side, just like always. Didn’t I already promise as much?”

                “You promised I wouldn’t be executed,” Merlin said. “Which I appreciated, don’t get me wrong. The dying part is bad enough, but the cheering audience just makes it all so much worse, you know? I just wasn’t sure if the poison wasn’t intended as mercy.”

                “You thought I did this?” Arthur was hurt. It showed.

                “I was grateful. There are far nastier ways to die than a quick poisoning. Quite a few, actually.” He grimaced. “I should know. I’ve prepared myself to accept at least half of them.”

                “Since Camlann?”

                “Since birth.”

                You poor tortured bastard, Arthur didn’t say aloud. “I’m almost positive I said that I wouldn’t kill you. That includes burnings, hangings, beheadings, extrajudicial poisonings, knives in the back, and ‘accidental’ tumbles from high places. Just so we’re clear.”

                “Oh,” said Merlin. “So… it’s to be drowning, then?”

                Aghast, Arthur stared at him for a moment. Then he saw it—a sly quirk at the corner of Merlin’s lips, spreading into a full-on grin the likes of which Arthur hadn’t seen in far too long.

                “No,” Arthur said, snatching the pillow from underneath Merlin’s head. “Suffocation.” And he hit him, full in the face, with the pillow. Not too hard. Just enough to make Merlin laugh, which he did. They both did. It was glorious.

                As it died away, Arthur sighed. “They’ll probably try again, you know.”

                “Yes,” Merlin said simply. “I know. I’ll be more careful.”

                “That’s not good enough. I’m finding you a food taster, for a start—”

                “You can’t do that! Someone could get killed!”

                “Yes, you. I’m not arguing about this one, Merlin. It’s happening. I have my food tested, and so does Guinevere.”

                “I know. By me.”

                “You what?”

                “I taste your food for poison.” Off Arthur’s stunned look, Merlin rolled his eyes. “Honestly. Why did you think I stole tidbits off your plate on the way from the kitchens?”

                “Well, that’s going to stop,” said Arthur, after a moment. “You’re getting a food taster, I’m getting a different food taster, and I’ll be assigning a knight to keep an eye on you. I thought Gwaine and Percival could trade off.”

                “Arthur, you can’t have your two best knights wasting their time guarding a servant.”

                “They won’t be wasting their time. And if you can introduce me to some other servant who can defeat entire armies, I’ll concede the point.”

                Merlin scowled.

                “If you didn’t want to become important, you shouldn’t have gone and shown off in front of your king and all his knights,” said Arthur. “Not to mention that word of mouth is making its way across the length and breadth of the land. Power like yours… every ruler, every person in Albion wants to either own it or neutralize it.”

                “You mean they want to own me,” Merlin corrected.

                “I suppose I do. That or kill you,” Arthur agreed. “‘If they can’t have you, nobody should’ seems to be the rationale. Sparing two knights for your protection is the least I can do.”

                “I can protect myself.”

                “—Says the man lying on a cot recovering from a near-fatal poisoning,” said Arthur. “Yes, that’s quite a testimonial to your guardianship skills.”

                “I’ve protected you all this time,” Merlin started.

                “Oh, I trust you to protect me,” Arthur said. “Or Guinevere. Or Gaius. Or anyone else in Camelot. Or stray cats and fluffy bunnies. I just can’t trust you to protect yourself, because you don’t.” 

                “I do... When it’s important.”

                Arthur shook his head. “Your life is important. And the fact that you don’t seem to get that bothers me more than anything.”

                “Because of my magic,” Merlin said. “I know the other kings and queens have been asking about it.”

                “To hell with your magic,” Arthur said. “I don’t care about that. I care about you, you idiot.”

                “…You do?”

                Arthur’s face turned to stone. “You have to ask?”

                “No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” said Merlin. “If you didn’t care, I’d already be dead.”

                Arthur thought about that for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “You probably would.”

                That was a bit of a conversation-killer, and neither of them said a word for a few minutes. “The other rulers have been asking about you,” Arthur finally said. “I don’t know what to tell them.”

                “Tell them anything you want,” Merlin said. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

                “All of a sudden you’re obedient? Will wonders never cease,” said Arthur. “I don’t know what I want to tell them; that’s the problem I’m having.”

                “What do they want?”

                “Their own personal battle of Camlann, mostly,” said Arthur. “Everyone has a foe they’d just love to see decimated.”

                Merlin looked down, biting his lip, then met Arthur’s eyes. “If it would help, I’ll do it.”

                “No,” said Arthur. “You’re not a weapon, and I refuse to treat you as one.”

                Merlin shook his head slowly, thinking it through. “Are you sure that won’t just make them think you want to keep me as your own personal weapon… to use against them if necessary?”

                “I’m sure that’s what half of them do think,” said Arthur. “Lot, for certain, and I can’t be sure about the others.”

                “You can’t let that stand. I refuse to be the reason a united Albion falls apart. This is what I’m for. What we’re both for.”

                “So you want to singlehandedly fight more battles?”

                “…No. I’m still having nightmares about Camlann. I’m starting to suspect that I always will.”

                Arthur, who had also had a nightmare or two about that battle, just nodded. “I suspect we’ll be utilizing your talents in the future. The Saxons aren’t going to just go away, much as we might wish they would, and there will be rogue sorcerers and magical beasts that need to be dealt with—speaking of which, I assume I have you to thank for a few of our ‘lucky’ escapes?”

                “Yes,” Merlin said, his cheeks getting pink with discomfort. “Um. More than a few of them, I’m afraid.”

                “Tell me later,” Arthur said, closing the topic for the time being. “The main point is that I don’t intend to deploy you against the rest of Albion. I’m not interested in empire-building.”  

                “You might have to be,” Merlin said. “The prophecy said you would.”

                “Ah, yes. The prophecy,” said Arthur. “To hell with that, too. If I’m meant to be High King of Albion, it will happen. And if it doesn’t, I don’t care. Camelot has always been more than enough for me, and that hasn’t changed just because my manservant has gone and confessed to sorcery.”

                 Merlin looked stunned. Clearly, the thought of disregarding the prophecy and letting the chips fall where they would had never so much as crossed his mind. In some ways, Arthur mused, Merlin was one of the smartest men he knew. And in others, he was a perfect imbecile.

                Arthur shook his head. “That’s enough for now,” he said. “Get some rest; you look like something the cat hawked up, and I’ve got a list of jobs for you that isn’t getting any shorter the longer you laze about in bed.” It was as close as he could come to saying Get well. I hate seeing you like this.

                As always, Merlin heard what he didn’t say. “Don’t tell me, let me guess—your armor needs polishing, the floor wants a scrub, the dogs haven’t been walked in who knows how long, and the horses are hock-deep in dung?”

                “Something along those lines, yes,” said Arthur. Plus, of course, a few treaties to write and a law code to overhaul, he thought, somewhat surprised at himself. Just when had he decided to soften his father’s laws against magic?

                When he’d picked Merlin’s limp body up from the ground, he decided. It was as good a catalyst as any. Merlin was right; letting him die would have been the easiest way out of the tangle in which he found himself. Instead he had raced like a madman through the citadel to save his life, somehow knowing that if his sorcerer was snuffed out, something bright and irreplaceable would go with him. Perhaps Albion itself.  

Chapter Text

                The next time Arthur braved the steps to the infirmary, it was to find Merlin dead to the world, with Gaius serenely leafing through a book.

                “How is he?” Arthur asked in a whisper.

                Gaius smiled. “He’s better,” he said in a normal tone of voice. “You needn’t whisper; after the sleeping draught I gave him you could stampede a herd of horses through the room and he wouldn’t stir.”

                “All right,” said Arthur with an answering smile. “I’m glad to hear that.”

                “Do sit down,” said Gaius. “What can I do for you, sire?”

                Arthur sat down. “Nothing, really. I’d originally come to see if Merlin was feeling up to telling me exactly what I’ve been missing for the last ten years, but that’s obviously not going to happen today.”

                “No, I shouldn’t think so,” said Gaius.  

                “Actually… you can help me. I don’t think I’m likely to get the straight story from Merlin. Perhaps you could tell me what he’s been up to.”

                “You think he’d lie to you?”

                “I think he’d tell me about everything he’s ever done wrong in the name of honesty,” said Arthur. “While conveniently skipping over the things he’s done right.”

                Gaius sighed. “You’re probably correct about that,” he said. “He’s not in the habit of taking credit for his achievements. He is, however, intimately familiar with taking the blame.”

                Arthur nodded grimly. “I need the whole truth, Gaius. All of it, good and bad. I’ve come to realize that I never got that from my father. Or anyone else, it seems. How am I supposed to make good decisions based on half-truths and lies?  I can’t be the king my people deserve if I’m never given the real facts of the matter.”

                “You’re right,” said Gaius. “And I am sorry for the part I played in keeping the truth hidden from you.”

                “You were protecting him,” said Arthur. “I can’t fault you for that.”

                “I thought I was protecting both of you,” said Gaius. “But I was wrong. There comes a time when protection from the world stops being a kindness.”

                “Then stop trying to be kind,” Arthur said. “Please. I need to know.”  

                Gaius steepled his fingers. “I suppose the story really starts when the Great Dragon was captured…”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                Arthur left the infirmary an hour later with his head spinning. Dragons, faeries, goblins, and magical beasts of every description were all warring for his attention; oddly enough, though, it was the little things that kept swimming to the front of his mind. Merlin had defeated the dreaded sorceress Nimueh in open battle, which was both impressive and slightly frightening, but it had only happened once. He’d lugged Arthur’s bathwater up the endless stairs, making magically sure it was at the perfect temperature, every night.  

                He hadn’t needed to do that. In fact, he shouldn’t have done it at all—every spell he cast was once more chance to be caught. But he had, and he had done it solely because he wanted Arthur to have every comfort. Because he cared.

                Cared about Arthur. Not just about the prophecy. He had to keep them distinct in his mind, he thought. Merlin might have gone to the Isle of the Blessed that day intending to trade his life for Arthur’s because of the prophecy, (and how Arthur hated the mere thought,) but he had most certainly attempted to save Uther’s life because he cared for Arthur.

                He walked to the training yard in something of a daze, thinking of what he had learned that morning; Gaius had told him quite frankly that he’d barely scratched the surface. He wasn’t sure how much deeper he could go before he drowned.

                “—thur? Arthur!”

                Arthur blinked, and wondered how many times Gwaine had had to call his name before he’d snapped out of it. Judging by Gwaine’s expression, it had been more than a few. “Are you all right?”

                “I’m fine,” Arthur said. “I was just… thinking.”

                “Dangerous pastime,” Gwaine said. “Anything I can help you with?”

                “Probably not,” said Arthur. “I’ve just come from seeing Merlin.”

                Gwaine’s demeanor shifted. The playfulness was gone. “How is he?”

                “Right at the moment, he’s drugged to the gills and sleeping like a baby,” said Arthur. “But Gaius says he’s better.”

                Gwaine let out a breath. “Good. That’s good to hear,” he said. “So what’s wrong?”

                Arthur shrugged. “I got Gaius to tell me a little bit about Merlin’s secret life. He’s done a lot more than I’d ever realized. Even after seeing him at Camlann, it hadn’t quite occurred to me that taking on entire armies was essentially a routine Thursday for him.”

                Gwaine chuckled a bit. “It is rather hard to believe, isn’t it? Even after all this time. Even after seeing it with my own two eyes. Our little Merlin a sorcerer.”

                Arthur grimaced. “And a dragonlord, if you please. Gaius let that little detail slip when he was explaining how Merlin stopped the Great Dragon from burning Camelot to the ground.”

                “I thought you killed the dragon.”

                “So did I. It turns out I was misinformed.”

                “Ouch.”

                “Roughly what I said,” Arthur said. He’d actually said a great deal more than that, starting with a ‘He did what?!?’ that might have woken the dead and getting a bit saltier towards the end of it, but he didn’t feel the need to go into any more detail for Gwaine’s benefit just at that precise moment.

                “I’ll bet,” said Gwaine. “Personally, I’m kicking myself for not figuring it all out years ago. Remember the bridgekeeper in the Perilous Lands?”

                Arthur nodded. “What about him?”

                “He called you Courage, and told you that you could never succeed in your quest without Strength and Magic. I may not be the sharpest sword in the rack, but I can usually count to three without using my fingers. I should have guessed.”  

                “What would you have done differently if you had?”

                Gwaine looked him square in the eye. “I have absolutely no idea. I swore an oath to uphold Camelot’s laws and I keep my word. On the other hand, I hold friendship damned near sacred and I consider him a friend. Honestly, I’m just glad I was never forced to make a choice.”

                “You should be,” said Arthur. “But the bridgekeeper was right. I’d never have gotten anywhere without Merlin, from the sounds of it. Maybe I should cut out the middleman and cede him the throne.”

                Gwaine scoffed. “Now you’re just feeling sorry for yourself.”

                “I’m serious.”

                “Well, it might not be such a bad idea. Assuming, of course, that what you’re attempting to do is create chaos, civil unrest, and probably the destruction of Camelot. Merlin’s a lot of things, but a king isn’t one of them.”

                “He could be. Power like his—”

                “Scares the piss out of most people. And anyway, leaving aside the completely irrelevant fact that he wouldn’t take your crown if you held him at knifepoint, he’d be abysmal at the job. He doesn’t have your gifts.”

                Arthur acknowledged this. Or tried to. “I’ll freely admit he’s no use with a sword—”

                “I’m not talking about that,” said Gwaine. “You have a way about you that I’ve never seen in anyone else. You make them believe in you, sure. That’s not so unique in a leader. But you also make them believe in themselves. And that’s rare. I mean, look at me.”

                “What about you?”

                “You turned me into a knight. The very thing I spent half my life swearing I never wanted to become, and you made me proud to do it. I didn’t stay in Camelot because of Merlin. I stayed for you. Oh, don't get me wrong; he was the one who convinced me to give you half a chance, but you were the one who convinced me he was right.”

                That was news to Arthur, who had always assumed that Gwaine was more Merlin’s knight than his. Something of his shock must have shown on his face, because Gwaine laughed, a bit ruefully.

                “Surprised you, did I?”

                “Well, yes. You did, rather,” said Arthur; there was no point in denying the blatantly obvious.   

                “For a man Merlin always says has a head so big it scarcely fits into his helmet, you’re remarkably insecure sometimes,” said Gwaine.

                “I’m currently in the middle of learning that every major achievement of my adult life was carefully engineered by my manservant. I think I’ve earned the right to a little insecurity.”    

                “All right; that’s fair. You have had a rough couple of months,” said Gwaine. “But don’t let it get the better of you.”

                “How am I supposed to do that? I’ve accomplished nothing, Gwaine! It was all him!”

                “And here I thought you were the one who, oh, just for instance, settled that matter with Mercia last year. You and your diplomats who hammered out that treaty and brought peace to that corner of the world.”

                “That hardly compares to taming a dragon.”

                “No, it was probably harder. The Mercians were anything but reasonable, the way I heard it. And what about that feud between those two idiot barons, what were their names?”

                “Argan and Lithwen,” Arthur said, with distaste. It had not been easy to unravel the long list of grievances the two had brought to lay before him, and there had been days he was tempted to let them just kill each other the way they had originally been set to do.

                “Right, them. My point is, you’ve accomplished plenty in the few short years you’ve held the throne. And you’ll accomplish more, I have no doubt.”

                “I didn’t defeat Morgana,” said Arthur. “He did that. I probably wouldn’t even be here if not for him.”

                “Probably none of us would,” Gwaine agreed. He was pensive for a moment then said, “You want to know something? I can’t cook.”

                “What?”

                “I can’t cook at all. It comes out half burnt and half raw whenever I try.”

                Arthur lifted an eyebrow. “So what?”

                “So I let tavernkeepers do it for me. Here in Camelot, I let the kitchen staff do it for me. When we’re out on patrol. I let Merlin do it for me. But I never do it myself, because I know I can’t.”

                “That’s very interesting,” said Arthur, his tone making it clear that he thought it was anything but.

                “Don’t you see? I know what I can and can’t do. I know what I’m good at, and what I’m not. I focus on my talents, my skills, and I let other people do the same. I’ll never be a sorcerer, and chances are, neither will you. But neither of us need to be, because we’ve got Merlin to do the metaphorical cooking for us.”

                “There’s a bit of a difference between making stew and battling the Sidhe, don’t you think?”

                “You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever tried eating my cooking, but you’re deliberately missing the point,” said Gwaine. “He’s a damn fine sorcerer who’d make a piss-poor king, whereas you’re a great king without a drop of magic in him. You complement each other perfectly when you both stick to what you’re good at.”

                “Two sides of a single coin,” said Arthur. Gaius had used the phrase.

                “Well put,” said Gwaine approvingly. “Very poetic.”

                “I can’t take the credit. Apparently it’s a direct quote from a dragon,” said Arthur.

                “I’ll take your word for it,” said Gwaine. “I’ve never spoken with a dragon, and don’t particularly want to start now.”

                “Neither do I,” said Arthur, sincerely meaning it. He still wanted to kill it, only now it was as much for the hell it had put Merlin through as it was the devastation it had wreaked on Camelot.

                “With any luck, neither of us will ever have to,” said Gwaine.

                “No, that’s why we have dragonlords,” said Arthur.

                “Better them than me,” said Gwaine, dismissing the topic entirely. “But back to my point. Merlin being a powerful sorcerer doesn’t take anything away from you being a great king, any more than your being a brilliant swordsman takes away from me being the handsomest knight in the Five Kingdoms.”

                “And the most modest,” said Arthur.

                “That too,” said Gwaine, and flipped his hair off his shoulder with an exaggerated flourish.  

                Arthur couldn’t help it. He chuckled. “You’re incorrigible,” he said.

                “I’ve always considered corrigibility to be highly overrated,” said Gwaine. “Whatever it is.”

                “Is that even a word?”

                “How should I know?” Gwaine grinned. “And why should I care? Feeling better about yourself?”

                “I think so,” said Arthur. To his surprise, it was true. Gwaine was no silver-tongued flatterer; he told the truth as he saw it. “Thank you.”

                “Any time, Arthur,” said Gwaine. “Now for the hard one. Feeling better about Merlin?”

                Arthur thought about it. “He lied,” he finally said, quietly. “He lied about so much that I hardly know what’s real and what’s not anymore.”

                “Surely you understand why, though.”

                “I do, and that’s the worst part of it. I can see his point of view, and I can’t really say he was wrong to do what he did. I just wish that weren’t so. I wish he could have just told me.”

                “Lies build atop one another,” said Gwaine. “They twist and tangle until it’s well nigh impossible to go back and tell the truth. They can strangle you, if you’re not careful, and sometimes even if you are.”

                “You sound like you know firsthand,” said Arthur. “Are you a sorcerer, too?”

                Gwaine looked at him for a long time, as if making up his mind about something. “No,” he finally said. “But I am a knight’s son.”

                “You’re what?”

                “A noble. A blue-blooded aristocrat with a seal of nobility to prove it. I renounced it all when I was barely more than a child and I don’t regret it, but it’s still a fact. A fact I’ve tried very hard to keep hidden, mind you.”

                “Why are you telling me now?”

                “To show that I know a few things about keeping secrets. Mine’s nothing like as dangerous as his was, but it was still mine to keep, and it wasn’t always easy.”

                “I see.”

                “Do you? Do you think of me any differently than you did five minutes ago?”

                “I don’t know,” said Arthur. “No, probably not. Nothing really changed.”

                “I lied, too,” said Gwaine.

                “Yes, you did.” Arthur felt his lips twisting into a bitter half-smile. “Why should you be any different from anyone else I know?”

                “I’m not. Everyone has secrets, and everyone shows the world the face they want people to see. The night before Camlann, Merlin told me—”

                “You knew about his magic?”

                “No. He confused the hell out of me by asking me to remember that what he is isn’t who he is. I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about until the battle. I’ve been trying to do that ever since. It’s been difficult, I have to admit it, but I’m trying. Maybe you should do the same. He’s been showing us all who he is for years now.”

                “I know exactly who he is,” said Arthur. “Right now I’m not quite sure who I am, that’s all.”

                Gwaine nodded. “You’re the man we all followed into certain death for the love of a kingdom that some of us weren’t even born in. That ought to do for a start.”

Chapter Text

                Mithian paused outside the infirmary, her hand on the latch. “You wait outside,” she told the knight guarding the door. “I won’t be long.”

                “Yes, your highness,” he said obediently.

                She opened the door and walked in, closing it carefully behind her. The room appeared to be empty. “Hello?” she called.

                “Hi,” came a voice. Merlin popped up from behind a table and smiled at her. “I’m afraid Gaius is out at the moment,” he explained. “Is there something I can do for you, my lady?”

                She took a calming breath, then smiled at him. “I certainly hope so. It’s you I came to see,” she said.

                “Anything I can do to help, of course,” he said. “Are you feeling ill?”

                “No. That wasn’t the sort of help I meant,” she said. She hesitated, then visibly changed her mind about what she was going to say. “What were you doing back there?”

                “Oh. Nothing too exciting,” he said. “Truth be told, I was scrubbing the leech tank for Gaius.”

                She wrinkled her nose. “Why would you be doing such a thing?”

                “Um. Because it was dirty?”

                “I meant, why not use magic to do the job?”

                “Because Gaius always says the gods gave me two good hands for a reason.” Merlin shrugged whimsically. “And because I was bored. Cleaning the leech tank is a disgusting job, no question about that, but I can do it sitting down, and it beats lying in bed waiting for the ceiling to do something interesting. I’ll tell you a secret; it never does.”

                “I don’t imagine that it would,” Mithian said, and smiled, a little. “At least, I’d hope not.”

                “I guess we’ll both have to just wait and see,” said Merlin, smiling back. “But, my lady, what can I do for you if you’re not here for medical advice?”

                “Why is there a man guarding the door?”

                Merlin sighed, and the smile faded. “I think he’s here as part of what you might call a gentleman’s agreement. So long as I stay here in the infirmary, he won’t stop me from leaving.”

                “And you’re permitting that?”

                “It’s not for me to say one way or the other. It’s the king’s choice.”

                “The king is choosing to keep you prisoner. His close councillor chose to poison you. And you’re going to meekly allow that?”

                “I may be a sorcerer, but I’m still a loyal citizen of Camelot,” he said simply. “It’s hardly my place to do otherwise.”

                She pounced on the opening like a cat on a particularly fat mouse. “It could be,” she said. “Nemeth has never formally banned the practice of magic. Come to Nemeth, and everything will be different. No guarded doors or poisoned goblets. I promise that.”

                “My lady,” said Merlin. “I am honored by the offer, but I—”

                 “I have not yet made my offer,” she cut him off. “I’m not asking you to be satisfied with mere promises. I am offering you my hand and my crown. Come to Nemeth, and you will come as her king.”

                Merlin stared at her for a moment, then bit his lip, obviously uncomfortable. “Your highness. Believe me when I say that I am… overwhelmed by the honor, but you must understand why I can’t accept.”             

                “I’m not asking you to stand against Camelot,” she said. “Camelot is Nemeth’s ally, and Arthur is my friend. I would never go to war against him; that isn’t why I’m here.”

                He thought about that for a while. “Then who are you asking me to stand against?”

                She gave a quick, sharp nod. “The Saxons, naturally, and the Northmen, and any other foreign invaders. But more than that, I’m asking you to stand against famine when the rain doesn’t fall or magical beasts that my men can’t face alone. I’m asking you to guard us from the faerie folk and their tricks and dragons and their flame. Be the force for good I know magic can be, and do it openly, without fear. That is what I ask of you.”

                From the gleam in her eyes, it was clear that she knew she had just offered him everything he had ever wanted and felt sure of her answer.

                “My lady—”

                “Mithian,” she said, and took his hands.

                Gently, he pulled them back. “My lady. As you say; Camelot is your ally. You would have our assistance—my assistance—in all of those situations. There is no reason for you to lower yourself to marry a servant simply to obtain our aid.”

                “It would hardly be ‘lowering’ myself,” she said. “You’re more than just a servant.”   

                He shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

                “You’ll forgive me if I have my own opinion on that,” she said, and smiled, a bit sadly. “I will say that Arthur is a lucky man. I wish I had someone who gave so much and expected so little in return.”  

                Merlin didn’t have anything to say to that; the tips of his ears went pink.

                She stood up. “Think about it,” she said. “I will remain in Camelot for the duration of the negotiations. If you tire of scrubbing leech tanks, my offer stands.”

                With that, she left the infirmary.

                Merlin took a deep breath, let it out. All things considered, he thought, it could have gone worse. He was fairly sure that he hadn’t made an enemy, at least. Either for himself or for Arthur.

                As if that thought had summoned him, the infirmary door opened again and Arthur himself entered.

                “What did you do?” Arthur greeted him. “I just met Mithian on the stairs, and she didn’t look happy.”

                “No, I don’t suppose she would have been,” said Merlin. “She came here to ask me to marry her.”

                “She asked you to marry her?” Arthur parroted, dumbstruck.

                “It’s all right,” Merlin said. “I told her no.”

                “You told her—whyever not?” asked Arthur, brutally crushing the part of himself that was relieved to hear it.

                “Because she didn’t really want to marry me,” Merlin said. “You said it yourself; she just wanted to own me. Like everyone else; she was just willing to pay a little more than most. If she wanted to marry me, she had plenty of chances to ask when she knew me as Merlin. She didn’t.”

                “She couldn’t have,” Arthur said. “She’s the heir to the throne of Nemeth.”

                “And I’m only a servant. I know. Nothing has changed.”  

                Arthur laughed at that. “Everything has changed,” he said.

                “Not that,” Merlin said stubbornly.

                Arthur shook his head. “She would have made you king,” he said. “Why didn’t you want that?”

                “Oh, yes, I’m sure she’d have draped me in silks and jewels, had me wave to the crowd from the balcony, and probably even let me pretend to preside over a few Council meetings while she ran the country,” Merlin said, a cynical gleam in his eye. “A golden cage is still a cage. And anyway, I belong here in Camelot, with you. Not in Nemeth.”

                “I can’t offer you anything close to what she can,” Arthur said.

                “No, Gwen would probably object if you tried to marry anyone else,” said Merlin. “Look, it isn’t a big deal. We both know that all she wanted was my magic. It wasn’t anything personal.”

                “You’re right; it isn’t personal. It’s the same reason she came here courting me all those years ago. It wasn’t because she wanted me, just my crown. It’s how royal marriages work.” 

                “You’re making my case for me; you didn’t marry her, either. Look, she’s very nice and I hope she finds someone wonderful; it just won’t be me. If I was going to get married, it would have to be someone who wanted Merlin, not Emrys.” He chuckled, a tad bitterly. “So, basically, what I’m saying is that it’ll never happen.”

                “Did you ever want to get married?” Arthur asked.

                Merlin nodded. “Once,” he said. “But she died.”

                “I’m sorry,” Arthur said. “Was this in Ealdor?”

                “No. Here. It was a long time ago.”

                “I never knew. I’m sorry for that, too.” Arthur swallowed. “Who was she?”

                “A druid girl,” Merlin said, and a cold chill ran down Arthur’s spine. He knew, he just knew he wasn’t going to like hearing the rest of it. “But she was under a terrible curse. Do you remember the bastet?”

                “Yes, I killed—oh, dear gods,” Arthur said, eyes wide. “That was her? I killed the woman you wanted to marry?”

                “It wasn’t your fault,” Merlin said quickly. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault except maybe the woman who cursed her. I never blamed you, Arthur, and neither did she. I shouldn’t even have said anything.”

                “No. I’m glad you did. We need to get past the point of keeping secrets,” said Arthur, numbly.

                “I know,” said Merlin. “The truth is, I only knew her for a couple of days. Looking back, I don’t even know if we really loved each other or just loved the idea of each other—someone like us, who understood what it was like to be magic in a world that hated us. I’ll never know; we didn’t have time to find out. But there’s never been anyone since.”

                “Sounds like love to me,” said Arthur. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

                “You have nothing to be sorry for,” said Merlin, and it was clear that he meant it. Arthur tried to imagine forgiving the one who had killed Gwen, and couldn’t do it. “And besides, that can’t be what you came here to talk about. What can I do for you?”

                “Nothing,” Arthur said. “I just came to see how you were doing.”

                Merlin smiled. “I’m much better, thank you for asking,” he said. “Gaius thinks it’s just a matter of regaining some weight and getting my muscles back in working order now.”

                “Hence the leech tank?”

                “Exactly,” said Merlin. “Speaking of which. What with… one thing and another, Gaius is low on just about everything. May I go out to the woods and collect some herbs for him?”

                Arthur’s first, kneejerk reaction was to say no. Merlin in the infirmary with a trusted guard at the door was at least safe. Merlin roaming about in the woods was easy prey for bandits, slavers, or discontented nobles with a grudge against magic and a working knowledge of how to use a crossbow.

                Especially that last, if he was being honest.

                And more than that, letting Merlin go gallivanting out to the woods as though the last two months had never happened was tantamount to an outright pardon, and Arthur wasn’t positive he was ready for that. He hadn’t heard more than a fraction of the stories Merlin and Gaius had to tell, he was sure of that, and, with the exception of his tragic love story, he’d heard none of them from Merlin himself. He still didn’t know what he was expecting to hear, but he knew there had to be something that was going to rock his world to its foundations. He’d already decided to end the magic ban—at least, he thought he had decided that; there were still moments when he wasn’t sure it was a good idea—and he already knew he (probably) wasn’t going to return Merlin to the cells or worse, but the part of him that was still angry about the lies balked at simply letting things go back to the way they had been.

                Still, medicines needed to be compounded, Gaius was too old to spend his days trudging through the woods hunting for plants, and there was no one else to do it for him. And, presumably, Merlin could and would defend himself from bandits or slavers, not to mention hostile noblemen, so long as he thought Arthur wanted him to.

                “When did you want to go? Today?”

                “No, it’s getting late, I haven’t even finished the tank yet, and, honestly, I’m a little tired,” Merlin said. “Maybe tomorrow morning?” 

                “Take Gwaine with you,” Arthur said. “He’s not to take his eye off you for a moment. And you’re to come back here directly once you’ve finished picking flowers, you hear? No loitering in the lower town making conversation with whoever passes by or stopping in at the tavern for a drink.”

                “All right, Arthur,” Merlin agreed. “That’s fair. Thank you.”

                “Thanking me for letting you work. That’s a new one.”

                “Well, sitting around doing nothing all day is really boring. You’d know that better than anyone, right?”

                “I do not sit around doing noth—ugh,” he sputtered as Merlin grinned at him. “Keep it up and I’ll rescind my permission. No trips to the woods for you after all,” he threatened unconvincingly.

                “Aw, you wouldn’t do that to poor Gaius,” Merlin said. “He really needs those herbs.”

                “No, I suppose not,” Arthur said. “Merlin—be careful out there, all right? You’ve made a lot of enemies since Camlann.”

                “Just so long as you’re not one of them,” Merlin said, and he almost, almost made it sound like a joke. He paused, just a moment too long, then, when Arthur didn’t respond, hurriedly tacked on, “But yes, I’ll be very careful.”

                “Good,” said Arthur, and cleared his throat. “Well. I’d best be off, then.”

                “All right,” Merlin said softly. “I’ll see you later. And thanks again.”

                Arthur nodded brusquely and walked to the door, where he turned around; he was just in time to see Merlin, his head in his hands, visibly trying to calm himself down.

                Arthur left him to it.

Chapter Text

                It was Gwen who next broached the subject, because of course it was. Gwen, clear-sighted, common-sensical Gwen, who never let Arthur get away with being less than his best, braided her glorious hair into one long tail for the night and climbed into their bed with the air of a warrior heading into battle.                                       

                “What is it?” Arthur asked.

                “His Majesty King Lot,” she said. “Somehow he found out that Merlin is from Essetir, and he was making some rather pointed comments to the effect that Merlin is his by right and how unfair it was that Camelot had poached him. Nonsense like that.”

                “I see,” said Arthur. “Well, fortunately for us, even if that were true, which it isn’t, there’s not much chance of anyone taking Merlin anywhere he doesn’t want to go. I think we can cross that one off our list of things to worry about.”

                “Oh, I wasn’t worried. Just a bit annoyed. He sounded like a five year old who thinks his brother got the bigger sweet.”

                Arthur rolled his eyes. “When doesn’t he sound like that?”

                “Point taken,” she said. “I suspect that having him as a vassal is going to be the opposite of enjoyable.”

                “Having him as a neighbor already is. This can’t be much worse.”

                “Maybe not,” she said with a shrug. “Still, I won’t be sorry when the treaties are all signed and everyone goes home.”

                “Neither will I,” said Arthur. “Mithian tried to do some poaching of her own this afternoon. Offered Merlin her hand in marriage if he’d come to Nemeth.”

                “I thought she was up to something,” Gwen said. “Not a bad plan, actually.”

                “It didn’t work. He said no.”

                “Well, naturally.”

                “Oh, yes. Naturally he’d prefer to be a prisoner in Camelot than a king in Nemeth. I mean, who wouldn’t?”

                She chuckled, then sobered. “Is he still a prisoner, then?”

                “Yes. No. I don’t know,” said Arthur.

                “Oh, Arthur…”

                “I’m letting him go out to collect herbs tomorrow,” Arthur defended himself. “It’s not like I sent him back to the dungeons.”

                “I’m very glad to hear that,” she said. “But there’s only so long we can stall. You have to make some decisions, and you have to do it soon.”

                “I know. I… I just don’t trust magic, that’s the problem.”

                “Do you trust Merlin?”

                “Implicitly,” said Arthur, before he knew he was going to say it. It was, much to his surprise, true. Lies or no lies, he still trusted his idiot servant more than almost anyone else in the world. “It’s all the other sorcerers out there I don’t trust, I suppose.”

                “There was the Dolma,” Gwen began.

                “And Dragoon,” said Arthur. “I know. It’s no good.”

                “Why not?”

                “Because they were both Merlin in disguise,” said Arthur, and he laughed a little. “I can hardly believe it either, but Gaius swears it’s so.”

                “He what? How could that be?”

                “He changed himself to an old man—well, and once an old woman—as a disguise to throw me off his scent. And it worked.”

                Gwen digested that. “He saved my life, then,” she said slowly. “Twice.”

                “Probably more often than that,” said Arthur. “But that still leaves us with one trustworthy sorcerer against more inimical ones than I can count offhand.”

                “Maybe if magic wasn’t a crime we’d see more sorcerers who aren’t criminals.”

                “Or maybe we’d see even more vengeance-crazed sorcerers trying to raze Camelot to the ground.”

                “So long as Merlin’s on our side, I think that’s another worry we can cross off the list,” said Gwen. “And he is on our side.”

                “I can’t entrust the well-being of my kingdom to a single man.”

                “Why not? I can think of an entire audience chamber full of rulers who are doing just that. And rightfully so,” said Gwen. “Meaning you, in case I wasn’t clear.”

                “I appreciate your faith in me,” said Arthur.

                “Always.”

                Silence.

                “It wouldn’t have to be a single man, you know,” said Gwen, after a few moments. “You have a Round Table of trusted knights. Why not a Table for sorcerers as well?”

                “Did you miss the part where I said I don’t trust other sorcerers?”

                “To earn trust, sometimes you have to give trust.”

                “I trusted Mordred,” Arthur said darkly. “I trusted Morgana. Look where that got me.”

                Gwen swallowed. “All right,” she said. “That’s fair.”

                 “One good sorcerer. One. And all the rest of them are trying to destroy everything I hold dear.” Arthur’s voice was savage. “I won’t have him executed. But at the same time, I can’t make exceptions for one man, and that man my friend; that’s not justice, and it makes me a hypocrite of the worst kind, seeing as how I’ve already utilized him in battle, whether I knew it at the time or not. Sometimes I wish he’d had the courtesy to die at Camlann.”

                Gwen looked as though she’d been slapped. “You don’t mean that,” she said evenly.

                “No, I don’t,” said Arthur, readily enough. “It would have broken my heart. But he broke it anyway, and it would also have made things so much easier.”

                “Since when does Arthur Pendragon look for the easy way out of anything?”  

                “Since he got hit in the face with a problem that has no good answer.”

                She nodded slowly. “Well, for the love of everything holy, don’t say that where he can hear you, or you’ll have a corpse on the floor by morning.”

                “I know. And I won’t; I’m not that stupid. I don’t want him dead.”

                “What do you want?”

                I want the whole bloody mess to go away, Arthur thought. But that was childish, and he squelched the thought as soon as it came. “I want what’s best for Camelot. I just don’t know what that is anymore.”

                “Yes, you do,” Gwen said. “You’re right; you can’t make exceptions. That’s why you have to lift the ban on magic. Set him free for the first time in his life, and the rest of your people along with him.”

                “But—”

                “No buts,” she cut him off. “If someone uses magic to hurt someone else, then by all means, light the fires. I’m not saying sorcery should go unchecked, any more than any other sort of power ought to, including ours. But good magic… how can we continue to punish that and still call ourselves just rulers?”

                “…We can’t,” Arthur finally said. “I can’t.”

                “So it’s decided, then?”

                “It’s decided,” Arthur said. “We’ll lift the ban and see what happens. Worst comes to worst, we have to reinstate it and I look a fool, but we’ll try it.”

                “Good,” said Gwen, and gave him a little shove on the shoulder. “Go tell him.”

                “What, now?”

                “Yes, now. He’s waited his whole life for this. It would be cruel to make him wait any longer.”

                “He’s probably sound asleep,” Arthur protested.

                “So? Wake him up!” Gwen’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “How often have you complained about him waking you up in the morning? Go turn the tables.”

                “Gaius is probably sound asleep, too.”

                That took the wind out of her sails. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. “All right; first thing in the morning, then.”

                “Yes, your Majesty,” he said, mock-cowed. “Just as you say.”

                She leaned over and kissed him. “And don’t you forget it,” she said.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                Alas, even after an unconscionably early wake-up and a far-too-hurried breakfast, Arthur was chagrined to find that by the time he made it to the infirmary the next morning, Merlin was already gone, presumably for the day.

                Gaius was at the table, lingering over a cup of tea. He glanced up casually as the door opened, then smiled as he recognized who had come to call. “Ah, Arthur! A pleasure. Do come in.”

                Arthur closed the door behind him and came over to the table, where he could not help but notice the empty seat and the empty bowl in front of it. “I came to speak with Merlin,” he said. “Don’t tell me he left already?”

                “I’m afraid so.”

                “Ten years of running late, and he chooses today to get an early start,” Arthur grumbled. “I might have known.”

                Gaius chuckled. “He’ll be back soon enough,” he promised. “Did you want to hear more about his magic?”

                “No. Well, yes, but that’s not why I came,” Arthur said, and threw caution to the wind. “I came to tell him—and you, too—that I’ve come to a decision.”

                Gaius paled.

                “I’m lifting the ban on magic,” Arthur said quickly, before the old man could faint.

                “You’re… oh, Arthur,” Gaius said, and blinked hard. “I never thought I’d live to see the day. Thank you, sire. Thank you.”

                Arthur sat down. “This isn’t just about Merlin, is it?”

                Gaius shook his head, vainly trying to keep his control. “No, Arthur. It isn’t.” He stood up, went to the shelves, surreptitiously wiping his eyes as he went, and came back with a small book. He handed it to Arthur. “It’s about them.”

                Arthur opened the book to a random page. “Wulf son of Horsa… Aislinn daughter of Ralf… Eoin son of—Gaius, what is this? Who are they?”

                But he realized who it had to be just as Gaius said it. “Sorcerers, sire. The ones I couldn’t save. It isn’t much, as memorials go… but I thought it better than nothing.”

                Arthur flipped through the book. Page after page after page of names and execution dates. It was enough to boggle the mind.

                This was Uther’s legacy.

                This was the Pendragon legacy.

                “My gods,” Arthur mumbled, horrified, still turning pages.

                Gaius put his hands over Arthur’s, stopping him. “You’re putting an end to this, Arthur. Because of you, these people can rest in peace, knowing that what happened to them will never happen again. Be proud of yourself, Arthur. I am.”        

                “I… I was a part of this,” Arthur said numbly. “How can I be proud of that?”

                “You were a child. You believed what you were taught, and you did as you were told. And when you grew up and had the chance, you learned differently, and then you changed things. That’s strength, Arthur. That’s wisdom. And I am so proud. As well as grateful.”

                Arthur came to the last written page, and his imagination effortlessly filled in all the close calls of the last few years. Guinevere daughter of Thomas. Morgana daughter of Gorlois and/or Uther. Gaius son of Conan. And, of course, Merlin son of Balinor. His vision blurred.  

                “I should have seen it earlier,” Arthur said. “You should have shown me earlier. Both of you should have.”

                Gaius said nothing. There was nothing to say. Both of them knew why he had kept silent. Both of them knew that he had not really had a choice. Both of them knew that it had been unfair to Arthur, and both of them knew that both of them knew it.

                After a long moment, Gaius cleared his throat. “Be angry with me, if you’re going to be angry with anyone,” he said. “I was the one who counselled silence. Merlin wanted to tell you from the first.”

                “But he didn’t.”

                “He feared losing your friendship. More, I do believe, than he feared losing his head.”

                Arthur scoffed. “Sounds like him, yes.” Merlin’s brazen disregard for his own safety was one of the things Arthur most hated about his friend. In fact, now that he thought about it, it was part of why he was so angry with Merlin; not only had Merlin had magic, not only had he lied about it, but he had persisted in staying in Camelot, where the slightest misstep would have seen him dead, and he had done it for Arthur’s sake. It was enough to drive a man mad; the desire to simultaneously hug and strangle Merlin—and doing neither—was not easy to bear.

                Arthur’s first impulse was to keep the book for more detailed study later on, but he reconsidered. There were too many entries, especially on the earlier pages, where the handwriting was shaky and halting, the writer’s emotions clear to see. Gaius had obviously wept over some of the names, letting the ink run. It didn’t belong to Arthur, and he wasn’t heartless enough to take it.

                He didn’t need to. It was indelibly burned into his memory.

*.*.*.*.*.*

                Arthur would never admit it, but he checked back in the infirmary several times over the course of the day, growing more worried each time.

                The sun was touching the horizon when Merlin, half-hidden behind an enormous satchel full of assorted weeds that Arthur could only hope had medicinal properties, finally staggered in the door and dropped his burden on the table, only then seeming to realize that he wasn’t alone. “Oh—hi, Arthur.”

                “Where the hell have you been all day?”

                “In the woods,” said Merlin. “And the meadow. And the marsh, which is why Gwaine is in his chambers changing out of very wet trousers and a pair of squelchy boots. I told him to wait on the high ground, but did he listen to me? No, of course not. Why would he? It’s not like I knew what I was talking about, or anything.”   

                Arthur glanced downwards. Merlin’s trousers didn’t look any worse than usual, which wasn’t actually saying all that much, but they were, at least, certainly not wet. “How did you stay dry? Magic?”

                “Nah. I just took off my boots, rolled up my trouser legs, and dried myself off once I’d gotten everything I needed. I have been doing this for a while, you know. I’ve picked up a few tricks over the years.”

                “You have,” Arthur conceded. “Now that you’re finally back, I need to speak with you.”

                “So serious,” Merlin said, attempting to make light of it. “Is this a matter of life and death?”

                “Yes, said Arthur, not in the mood to play. “Yours.”

                “Then I’ll be quick,” said Merlin evenly, and upended his bag of plants onto the table. His eyes flickered gold, and an invisible hand scooped up the herbs, sorted them by type midair, tied them in neat little bunches, and hung them by the roots to dry. The whole display took less than a minute.

                “Am I supposed to be impressed?” Arthur asked, quirking an eyebrow to cover up the fact that he kind of was.

                “No, but it would have taken me an hour to do it the usual way. I was trying to be efficient.”

                “For a change,” Arthur commented, spurred on by old habit.

                Merlin smiled faintly. “For a change,” he agreed.

                Arthur grimaced. Merlin still wasn’t fighting back, and it was so utterly wrong that it made him want to scream. “I didn’t come here to talk about your work ethic; I came to talk about magic.”

                “Yes,” Merlin said, with a nod. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”  

                “Not now,” said Arthur. “I’ve already made up my mind. I’m ending the ban.”

                Merlin went stock-still for a moment, his eyes welling up. Then he lunged, arms outspread. And if Arthur had taken the time to think about it, he would have realized that Merlin was trying to embrace him.

                But he didn’t think; he reacted. And Arthur had been trained to fight since childhood—his reactions were those of a warrior. Hugs were not really in his lexicon.

                Effortlessly, automatically, he pivoted, caught Merlin’s right arm and used the man’s own momentum to twist it up behind his back. With his other arm, he had Merlin in a tight chokehold before his brain caught up with his reflexes and it dawned on him that this was Merlin, who would quite literally die before harming a hair on Arthur’s head. Merlin who, had he wanted to hurt Arthur, would never have done it with his bare hands when he had the entire might of the Old Religion in his fingertips.

                Arthur abruptly let go, horrified at himself, and stepped back. Merlin doubled over, dragging air back into his abused lungs, then straightened, and the pain in his eyes had nothing to do with his not-quite-dislocated shoulder.

                “I’m sorry,” Arthur said inadequately. “You… startled me.”

                Merlin shook his head. “Don’t apologize,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It’s my fault. I should have known… it’s too soon. You can’t trust me yet. If ever again.”

                “I do trust you,” Arthur said. “I’m changing the law of the land for you; what more can I do?”

                “If you’re only doing it for me, that’s the wrong reason,” said Merlin.

                “I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do,” said Arthur, half-amused and half-annoyed. Leave it to Merlin to nitpick his own salvation. “Does that meet with your approval, oh mighty Emrys?”

                His ears went pink. “Don’t call me that. I’m still just Merlin.”

                “Fine, just-Merlin,” Arthur replied. “But don’t you see? I have to do it for you, because I don’t know any other sorcerers that aren’t trying to kill me.”

                “There are others,” said Merlin.

                “So help me, Merlin, if you even mention Dragoon…”

                Now his ears were red. “I wasn’t going to. I know you know he was me. I meant the druids.”

                “You talk about the druids like they’re all of the same mind,” Arthur said. “How many druids do you actually know?”

                Merlin looked blank for a moment. “Only a few,” he admitted. “But as a group, they’re peaceful. And they support you.”

                Arthur shrugged. “I guess we’ll see. But I don’t know the druids; I know you. I believe you when you say magic can be a force for good as well as evil. Not some theoretical druid I may or may not ever so much as meet.”

                Merlin nodded, his face solemn. “Thank you. I’ll…I’ll try to be worthy of that trust,” he said.

                 “You already are.”

                That seemed to leave Merlin stunned. Arthur rolled his eyes. “Oh, for the love of—get over here,” he ordered, and threw his arms around the other man.

                Merlin hugged back. “Oh, Arthur,” he murmured in Arthur’s ear. “I can never thank you enough. But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying.”

                “Don’t thank me yet,” Arthur said, uncomfortable with all the emotion. “There’s going to be an absolutely ungodly amount of work involved, and you’re going to be doing the bulk of it. And there will be a lot of people who hate your guts for being my newest advisor, let alone a sorcerous one. I’ll protect you from as much of that as I can, but it’s not going to be all fun and games.”

                Merlin blinked. “Advisor?”

                “Yes, Merlin; do try to keep up. What did you think was going to happen?”

                “The most I was hoping for was my job back.”

                “Do you like washing my socks?”

                “Not particularly,” said Merlin.

                “Good. George does. I need to keep you out of trouble somehow, so he keeps his job and I find you a new one. Magical advisor or something similar seems to fit the bill to me.”

Chapter Text

                The council meeting the next day went about as well as it could have, which is to say not very. To begin with, Arthur chose that day to keep them waiting for a quarter hour, a royal prerogative he didn’t usually exercise. There were, he thought, extenuating circumstances.

                “You’re nervous,” Merlin had told him as he was tying Arthur’s cloak into place. “Is it about me?”

                Arthur wanted to lie, but he didn’t. “A bit, perhaps.”

                Merlin nodded. “We don’t have to do this today,” he said. “Or tomorrow, even. Not until you’re ready.”

                “I am ready,” Arthur said. It was mostly true. “I wonder about my councilors, is all.”

                “Ah. Them.” Merlin shrugged. “Some of them will never be ready. Some of them were ready years ago. Some of them will do and believe anything they think you want them to.”  

                “And some of them will try to poison you in the hopes of disenchanting me.”

                “Could be worse,” Merlin said with another shrug. “Could be the other way around.”

                “That’s not funny.”

                “It’s a little bit funny.”

                “You nearly died.”

                “Yes, but I didn’t,” said Merlin, consigning the whole affair to oblivion with an offhanded wave. “So it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters now is Camelot’s future.”              

                “That’s what I’m trying to ensure. That it has one.”  

                “I know,” said Merlin. “And it will. A golden future, if I know you… and I do.”

                “How can you be so certain?”

                “Because you won’t accept anything less. But you don’t have to have it all done by yesterday. Magic has waited for thirty years. It can wait another day or two.”

                “No. No more waiting,” said Arthur, and pushed past Merlin to the door. “We’re doing this now. Gods help us both. Maybe with both of us sitting there, it’ll at least make them have to decide where to throw the first knife. That’ll give us a minute to duck.”

                “Wait. Both of us sitting where?”

                “You’ll know it when you see it. Big, round, made of wood, lots of chairs, probably not dusty since we have competent servants tending to the Council room…”

                “You’re giving me a place at the Round Table?”

                “That’s where my advisors generally sit, yes,” said Arthur.

                “I thought you just meant that I’d tell you what I thought after the meetings, like I always do. You can’t seat me with all the important people; they’ll have conniptions. I’m just—”

                “Just Emrys,” said Arthur. “You’re just the most powerful sorcerer on earth. You’re just my closest friend. You’re just the person I trust most in the world, Guinevere excepted. And the ugly truth of the matter is that you should have been sitting there years ago and I’m a fool for not seeing it. Now come on; we’re going to be late.”

                Merlin stared at him. He did not move.

                Rolling his eyes heavenward as though entreating the gods themselves for patience, Arthur clapped his hand to the back of Merlin’s neck and steered him towards the door.

                They were, predictably, late for the meeting.

                                                                                          *.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                Most of the Council kept their faces blank when Merlin came in with Arthur for the first time since before Camlann. There were exceptions, most notably Gwaine’s pleased—almost smug—grin, which only widened as Merlin slid into the chair Arthur indicated and steepled his hands, seemingly overawed for quite possibly the first time in his life.

                  “Your majesty,” said one of the braver—or most reckless—of the councilors. He was an older man, a count, who Merlin had once memorably described as possessing more chins than sense. “What is the meaning of this? What is that… that creature doing here?”

                Arthur didn’t blink. “The same thing you are, I should think,” he said mildly. “Advising his king to the best of his ability.”

                “This is outrageous,” he sputtered, rising to his feet and slamming his hands on the table. “Your father would—”

                “I’m not my father,” Arthur said, and there was just the trace of an edge to his voice, this time.

                “No, of course not,” said the count, Dagan, in a manner that was probably meant to be conciliatory. “But sire. I implore you. Think about what you’re doing before you turn all of Camelot on its ear! It’s not just the magic—if word gets around that you’ve admitted a scullion to your council we’ll all be a laughingstock!”  

                “I was a manservant, not a scullion,” Merlin said to no one in particular. “There’s as much of a hierarchy below stairs as there is above it, did you know that?”

                “That’s very interesting, Merlin. Shut up,” said Arthur. “Count Dagan, that man has forgotten more about magic than anyone in this room has ever known. He stays. And anyone who cares to laugh at Camelot should think long and hard about Camlann before they do so. Am I clear?”

                “It’s Camlann that makes me bold enough to plead with you, sire,” said Dagan. “Surely that abomination did more than my poor words ever could to prove once and for all that your father was right about magic!”

                “I don’t much care for repeating myself,” Arthur said. “You have a choice. Magic has returned to Camelot. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to agree with it. But you can either tolerate it—and tolerate my sorcerer—or you can return to your estates and stay there.”

                Merlin glanced at Arthur, a glint of mischief in his eyes, and flicked a hand negligently. The heavy wooden doors swung open. Dagan wasn’t the only one to blanch.

                “You can go,” Arthur said. “Or you can stay. The choice is yours.”

                “Sire,” said Dagan. “I have served Camelot all my life. And you would cast me aside for… him?”

                “Not willingly,” said Arthur. “I value your counsel. I am not asking for your resignation. I am merely asking you to recognize that times have changed, and we must all change with them. Camelot must change with the times, and one of those changes needs to be the acceptance of magic.”

                “And when sorcerers have overrun the citadel, what of your loyal subjects? Are they to be trodden beneath the heel of soulless magic-users?”

                “No. If a man—or woman—uses magic to harm, they will be dealt with, just as we deal with all others who raise a hand against Camelot. Do you doubt my devotion to my people?”

                “Majesty, I do not. I do, however, question your devotion to that sorcerer, and I don’t think I’m the only one.”

                One could have heard a pin drop in the council room. Everyone went very still, simultaneously not wanting to draw attention to themselves and itching to see how everyone else was reacting.

                “If it wasn’t for ‘that sorcerer,’ none of us would be sitting here now,” said Leon.

                “I don’t care!” Dagan snapped.

                “Spoken like a true man who’s never risked so much as a hangnail in Camelot’s defense,” Gwaine said.

“No! There had to be another way! Something that didn’t make a mockery of everything this kingdom stands for!”

                 “Camelot stands for more than a hatred of magic,” said Arthur. “It has to, or we’ve already failed as a kingdom. I’ve already failed.”

                “Camelot is a promise. It stands for the hope of peace and prosperity for all her people,” said Merlin. Then, with a look at Dagan, he added, “Including sorcerers.”

                “Sorcerers aren’t people,” Dagan all but snarled. “They’re beasts.”

                “Beasts who pay taxes. Beasts who plow your fields and harvest your crops. Beasts who prepare your food and tend your horses and clean your chambers. Beasts who fight and bleed and die wearing your colors in wartime.” Merlin’s voice was still calm, still unruffled. Almost indifferent, which, paradoxically enough, made him sound even more dangerous. “Camelot is all of its people, or it’s none of them.”

                “Merlin is right,” Arthur interrupted, before things could get any more heated. “Camelot is all of its various peoples, and that has to include sorcerers. We’ve spent my entire lifetime trying to pretend that magic will go away if we only close our eyes and wish hard enough, and it hasn’t worked. I don’t care to spend the next thirty years repeating my father’s mistakes.”

                “Your father was a great man,” ventured one of the other councilors.

                “He was,” Arthur agreed. “He was also capable of being wrong on occasion. I believe his views on magic fall under that category. It is my intention to make things right, and admitting a sorcerer to this Council to speak for those with magic is the first step on that path.”

                The room went very quiet.

                Dagan looked from Arthur to Merlin and back. Both met his eyes unflinchingly. His glance flicked around the table as if tallying up potential allies; judging by his expression, he didn’t like the number he came up with. He swallowed.

                “You can stay,” Arthur repeated. “Or you can go.”

                Slowly, with great dignity, Count Dagan sank into his chair. “I thank you, sire. I will stay.” Unspoken was a very clear Someone has to save you from yourself, but he was canny enough to leave it unspoken, so Arthur let it pass.

                Arthur nodded decisively. “Good. Now, I hereby call this session of the council to order. Leon, do you have the grain reports?”

                If the sudden shift in topics rattled him, Leon didn’t show it. He cleared his throat, unrolled the paper in front of him and began to read in an even, dispassionate tone.

                And if Dagan’s gaze was studiedly neutral to the point of blankness every time he looked towards Merlin, no one mentioned it.

                                                                                                      *.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                When the meeting was finally, to the relief of all concerned, adjourned, the Council shuffled out, leaving only Arthur and what was left of his original Round Table in the room.

                “Are they all gone?” Merlin asked.

                “Looks like it,” said Gwaine.

                “Oh, good,” said Merlin, and slumped in his chair, his head falling into his hands with a thunk. “Can I go back to the dungeon now?”

                That made everyone laugh, which broke the tension. Even Merlin smiled, somewhat sheepishly.

                Gwaine clapped him on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Merlin. You were great.”

                “I don’t know. I could be reading too much into things, but I got the definite impression that Dagan doesn’t like me. And he wasn’t the only one.”

                “Oh, he hates you,” Arthur said cheerfully. “And probably me, too. I jerked the rug out from under him. You don’t have to worry about him so much; he’s being honest about his loathing. It’s the ones who smile to your face and sink a knife in your back you need to be wary of.”

                “I’m not cut out for this job,” Merlin said.

                “This isn’t the first time you got a job you didn’t want as a reward for saving the day. You weren’t cut out to be a manservant either,” said Arthur, clearly enjoying himself.

                “And you spent ten years telling me I was atrocious.”

                “Oh, you were,” said Arthur. “See? You have nowhere to go but up.”

                Merlin glared at him; Arthur laughed aloud. “Calm down, Merlin. You’ll be fine. You were fine. It just takes a little getting used to, is all.”

                “Easy for you to say. You were born to do this.”

                “So were you, if that prophecy is anything to go by,” Arthur said, and got to his feet. “Come on. It’s been a long morning and I’d like to hit something.”

                “I volunteer someone else,” said Merlin immediately, which got another laugh out of Arthur. It was going to be all right, he thought gleefully. If Merlin was feeling well enough to be snarky, he was back to his old self.

                “Oh, Merlin. Since when do I ask if you’ve volunteered?”    

                The look of dismay on his face was a thing of beauty.       

                                                                                              *.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                By the time they’d all gotten to the training field, Merlin had recovered enough of his equanimity to pick up a shield and take his position with nothing more than a theatrically put-upon sigh.  

                “No shield,” Arthur said, choosing a practice sword and twirling it to get a feeling for its balance.

                Merlin groaned, but obediently tossed the shield aside. “You know, if you wanted to kill me, there were easier ways to go about it,” he said, bracing himself for the onslaught.

                Arthur just laughed. “All right,” he said. “We’ll start with, oh, let’s see—three on one, how’s that? Leon, Gwaine, and Percival, you start. Merlin, hold them off.”

                “What? How?!?”

                “With magic, you idiot,” Arthur drawled. “Are you a sorcerer or aren’t you?”         

                Comprehension dawned. And, quicker than thought, all three knights dropped their swords as the hilts grew too hot to hold.

                “Hey! That’s cheating,” Gwaine said, indignantly shaking his burned hand.

                Merlin’s grin was wickedness itself. “Be glad I didn’t make your armor hot, as well!”

                “You could do that?” Leon asked, then shook his head. “Of course you could do that.”

                “I could,” Merlin agreed. “But I won’t. No matter how funny it would be to see you lot stripping to your braies in the middle of the training field.”

                But all the while he was talking to Leon, Percival was sneaking around behind Merlin, and for a moment it looked like he would succeed in taking him by surprise. However, the instant he seemed about to get a hand on Merlin, the sorcerer snapped out one short phrase and Percival went flying backwards. It was a move with which all of them were intimately familiar, but seeing it come from Merlin was disconcerting.

                Gwaine scooped up his cooling sword and the forgotten shield. He flung the shield like a discus; Merlin batted it aside with a wave of his hand, giving Gwaine and Leon the opportunity to attack from two sides at once. Merlin, his eyes positively glowing, threw up his hands and cast a shield that neither could penetrate, then swept his hand to the side, conjuring a wind that sent both knights sprawling.

                By that time, Percival was up again, and he charged. Merlin didn’t say a word that time; he just narrowed his eyes, summoned a piece of rope from the pile of equipment on the sidelines, and used it to tangle Percival’s legs like a bola. He fell flat on his face, effectively out of the fight.

                Gwaine and Leon tried again; Merlin seized Percival’s dropped sword and sent it against Gwaine. It hovered in mid-air, effortlessly parrying his every blow. Leon, without so much as glancing in his direction, kept attacking, or trying to. The grass grew around his feet, instantly tethering him in place.

                “Hold!” Arthur called, and immediately the sword fell to the ground and the rope untangled itself. Leon found himself suddenly able to tear his feet free, pulling up a chunk of sod with the grass. He kicked it away, vaguely annoyed, either with Merlin, Arthur, magic itself, or possibly all three.

                Merlin, damn him, wasn’t even breathing hard. He grinned. “It’s a lot easier when I don’t have to make it look like something that could happen naturally,” he said, obviously pleased with himself.    

                “You’ve clearly done this before,” said Leon, as Gwaine helped Percival to his feet.

                Merlin nodded. “Bandit raids, mostly,” he said. “All those times I was behind a tree during the attack? I wasn’t hiding from them; I was hiding from you. Didn’t want any of you to see, um…” He pointed at his own eyes. “…That.”

                “And here I’d always thought that Camelot just had some of the clumsiest bandits I’d ever seen,” said Gwaine, and laughed.

                Arthur didn’t laugh. “I see,” was all he said. “Well. I suppose I should thank you for that.”

                “For watching your backs or not making you have to deal with the magic?”

                “Both.”

                Merlin nodded again. “You’re welcome, then. On both counts.”

                Arthur cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “I can already tell that we need to train the men on how to fight a sorcerer. This was pitiful.”

                Gwaine groaned. “You mean we have to do this again? It wasn’t embarrassing enough the first time?”     

                “Better embarrassed than dead,” said Arthur. “And Merlin here would be happy to teach you how to take him down. Wouldn’t he.”

                “Is this one of those times where I get to say no?”

                “No.”

                “Didn’t think so,” said Merlin. “Oh, well. Leon, you and Gwaine had the right idea. Sheer numbers will wear most sorcerers down. And Percival, sneaking up on me from behind was a good idea, too.”

                “Most sorcerers. But not you, I take it?” Arthur said.

                “Um. Probably eventually?”

                Arthur swallowed, his face stony with the need not to shudder, remembering Camlann. And he hoped for all their sakes that there were no other sorcerers like Merlin that they would have to take down. Probably eventually was simply not going to be good enough.

Chapter Text

                Dinner that night was another fiasco. It started with Merlin, from sheer force of habit, starting towards his usual place behind Arthur’s chair, only checking himself when Arthur pointedly cleared his throat and pulled out the chair next to his own. His ears red, he sat down in the designated seat, not meeting anyone’s eyes. His plain, worn tunic and pitiful boots made him stand out like a crow among songbirds in the glittering court, and Arthur made a mental note to send for the tailor at the earliest possible opportunity. Merlin was overdue for some ‘formal livery’ that didn’t involve any ridiculous hats.

                 One of the servants came forward to fill their cups. Merlin smiled at the man.

                 He didn’t smile back, just turned to the business of pouring wine.

                 “Thank you, Alain,” Merlin said politely. Arthur could never be sure afterwards whether what happened next was an honest accident, perhaps due to surprise at the unexpected courtesy, or a deliberate statement of some sort. It almost didn’t matter. What mattered was that Merlin ended up with a lapful of wine and a good half of the Hall snickered.

                  Merlin kept his head; unbelievably, he smiled again. “It’s all right, Alain; think nothing of it,” he said, and casually, as if he performed magic in full view of the entire Court on a regular basis, he flicked his fingers at himself and the stains vanished. “There,” he said, a hint of challenge in his voice. “Good as new.”

                 Arthur waved the servant away before he could do any more damage. “Tell me you haven’t been doing my laundry that way all this time,” he murmured under his breath.

                 “I haven’t been doing your laundry that way all this time,” Merlin repeated obediently.

                 “That’s a lie, isn’t it.”

                 “No,” Merlin said, and his eyes glittered with mischief. “I said I didn’t do it that way all the time. And I don’t. Just the really big stains I would never be able to get out the normal way.”

                “You do realize that’s not actually reassuring? Someone could have seen you!”

                “Now you sound like Gaius.”

                “Gaius is wise,” Arthur grumbled. “You could have died over a dirty tunic.”

                “I was careful,” Merlin said with a fond glance in Arthur’s direction. “But it’s good of you to worry.”  

                “I’m not worried; I’m annoyed. They’re very different things.”

                “Yes, Arthur. Very different,” Merlin mock-agreed, not taken in for a moment.

                 “Oh, shut up and eat,” Arthur said.

                “I will,” said Merlin, tucking into his dinner. “It tastes better when it’s hot.”

                “Food usually does.”

                “I mean, this is a lot better than sneaking a scrap after someone else I could name is finished with it.”

                “I should think so. Get used to it.”

                 With that, Arthur turned his attention to his own meal and the other people at the table. Leon threw himself into the breach and began talking about the squires’ training session; there were several youths he thought particularly impressive—they had all the makings of good knights, possibly even attaining the Round Table itself one day. From there the conversation meandered its way towards horses, the likelihood of rain on the morrow, and the hunt that was scheduled for the day after.

                “And will you be joining us, Lord Merlin?” asked Mithian.

                Merlin wasn’t the only one who blinked in surprise at the unexpected title; Gwaine piped up before Merlin could even think of a reply.

                “Oh, of course he will, your Highness,” he said cheerfully. “Wouldn’t miss it. Our Merlin just loves hunting.”

                The knights all somehow managed to keep a straight face at that most monstrous of falsehoods.

                “I’m not surprised,” said Mithian, with a sweet smile that gave nothing away. “It’s the sport of kings.”

                Arthur managed a faint smile. “That’s what my father always said,” he lied. He couldn’t remember if Uther had ever mentioned hunting one way or the other. He probably had—he’d taken his noble guests out hunting often enough—but Arthur was at a loss as for what else to say. Mithian’s rejected offer to make Merlin a king was still uncomfortably close to the front of his mind.

                “I look forward to it,” she said, with another practiced smile.

                “As do I,” said Arthur, who couldn’t recall a hunt he’d dreaded more.

                                                                                        *.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                Merlin was delivering medicines the next morning when he ran into Alain. “Oh, hi, Alain,” he said. “How are you doing?”

                Alain didn’t look up from his work. “Fine, thank you, m’lord.”

                Merlin laughed. “I’m not a lord,” he said. “Come on, Alain! It’s just me.”

                “Yes, sir,” he said in a blank, courteous voice that Merlin recognized from times when he’d been the one interacting with a particularly obnoxious noble. “I’m sorry, sir.”

                “Sorry? For what? The wine?” Merlin shrugged. “That was nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’ve done far worse in my time.”

                That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back; Alain looked up at last, and the antipathy in his eyes was almost palpable behind the neutral mask. “As you say, my lord sorcerer,” he said, still in that empty, polite voice that invited the listener to go hang himself. “It’s not for me to judge.”

                “Ohhhh,” said Merlin, comprehension blooming like a particularly vivid bruise. “I see. Not fond of magic, are you, then?”

                “Hardly my place to have an opinion, sir,” said Alain.

                Merlin, who knew perfectly well what that meant, gathered the rags of his dignity around him and shrugged. “Fine. Hate me all you like. I’m still the same person I was when you taught me how to set a table—and for that matter, how to nick sweetmeats without getting caught. When you figure that out for yourself, you know where to find me.”

                With  that, he strode off, bottles clinking in his basket, and tried to tell himself that the eyes he felt boring into his back all the way down the corridor were nothing more than his imagination.

                                                                                        *.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                When all the medicines had been delivered, he went back to the infirmary, at something of a loss for what to do with himself. Before Camlann, he’d usually had a list of chores that kept him occupied from dawn till dusk. There had been days he’d have given just about anything for a few uninterrupted hours to rest. That had been before the dungeons and its long, empty days and longer, emptier nights; now he got nervous when he didn’t have something to do.

                He rummaged through the shelves of potions; they were low on several staples. He eventually decided to make up a batch of muscle liniment; the knights went through that like water. He’d gotten as far as shredding arnica into a mortar before the door opened.

                “Hello?” he called.

                “Hello,” said Gwen, looking green around the gills.

                He dropped the arnica and hurried over to her. “Good morning, Gwen— are you all right?”

                “I’m a little sick to my stomach,” she said, one hand on that part of her anatomy. “I was hoping Gaius would have something to help with that.”

                “Peppermint and chamomile,” Merlin said immediately. “Here, sit down and I’ll make it for you fresh.”

                She smiled faintly, and took a seat as he hurried to the fireplace. It was cold. He piled wood atop the ashes of last night’s fire, mumbled a word, and stepped back as the flame obediently leapt up. Pouring water into a large brass kettle, he set it to heat over the fire.

                “It won’t be long,” he promised, reaching for the requisite herbs.

                “No, I don’t imagine it will,” she said. “That’s a handy trick.”

                He smiled sheepishly. “It is,” he agreed. “Especially out on patrol in the rain.”

                She laughed, shook her head. “Why am I not surprised that you would take such a risk?”

                “Well, it was that or tell a bunch of cold, wet, cranky knights that there was no supper. That’s a death sentence all its own.”

                She caught her breath, no longer laughing. “You diced with death every day, didn’t you?”

                He handed her a steaming mug. “From the moment I was born,” he said. “You get used to it after a while.”

                She took a tentative sip, then a larger one when it stayed down. “I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like.”

                “Well, it’s over now,” he said, uncomfortably. “Sort of. I’ve lost a lot of friends since Camlann. Most of the other servants won’t even look at me.”

                She sighed. “I went through the same thing after Arthur and I married,” she said. “Like it or not, Merlin, you’re not one of them anymore, and they all know it. Add to that the fact that a lot of people are desperately afraid of magic, and you’d be having the same problem even without being raised to high office.”

                “I’m still just me,” he said. “Why can’t they see that?”

                “Some of us can,” she said. “Arthur does. I do. Your true friends do.”

                He nodded. “Lancelot did,” he said softly. “He knew about me, did you know that? He saw me use magic when we went to kill the griffin. And he never told anyone.”

                She took another sip of her drink before answering. “He was a good friend,” she said neutrally.

                “He was,” Merlin said. “And you should know—when he came back from the dead? That wasn’t him at all. It was a Shade—a kind of evil magical ghost sent by Morgana. She was the one who enchanted you to… well…”

                “To fall in love with Lancelot and get myself banished,” she finished dryly.

                “Yes. That.” Merlin sighed. “I tried to stop it, but I failed. I’m sorry for that. But at the very end, I was able to free his soul. He’s safe in Avalon, now.”

                “I’m glad of that,” she said. “And you have nothing to apologize for. It was Morgana’s fault, not yours. And it’s all been over for a very long time.”

                “I guess you’re right.”

                “I’m sure I’m right.” She reached over and patted his shoulder. “Don’t do this to yourself. You may be a sorcerer, and a powerful one, but you’re still only one man. No one expects you to do more than your best.”

                “My best is never good enough.”

                “You saved Camelot, and everyone in it, not much more than a few weeks ago. You’ll do.”

                “It’s what I’m for,” he said, shrugging off the credit the way he always did.

                This time she wasn’t having it. “No, it’s not,” she said sharply. “You’re not some kind of, of tool Arthur can use when things are at their worst and then put back on the shelf. You’re more than that, Merlin. You always were, magic or no magic.”

                “According to Kilgharrah, that’s exactly what I am,” he said. “And that’s okay. I’m not even sure I’m actually human anymore.”

                She put her empty cup down on the table with a decided click. “Now, that’s just ridiculous,” she said. “If Arthur were here, he’d give you a clout over the head for being foolish, and he’d be right. Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t realize that you’re still you.”

                “Maybe,” he said, and smiled faintly. “I’m sorry. Let’s talk about something else.”

                “No, I don’t think we should,” said Gwen. “You’ve spent too much time alone, brooding on prophecies and dragons and destiny and I don’t even want to know what else. But you’re not alone anymore, and the danger is past.”

                “Is it? Sure, we managed to avert the disaster at Camlann, but that just means we don’t know what else could be coming. It could be anything.”

                “You’re right,” Gwen said. “That’s called ‘life,’ Merlin. For all we know, any of us could die tomorrow. There could be monsters, or plague, or famine, or something worse. We can’t know.”

                He opened his mouth to speak; she held up a hand to stop him. “There could also be good things coming,” she continued. “Peace and happiness and prosperity. People will die; babies will be born. It’s all in the hands of the gods. Their hands, Merlin. Not yours.”

                He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to sound as though I thought myself any sort of god. I don’t, I swear it. I’m only too aware of my own shortcomings.” He snorted. “And I accuse Arthur of having a head too big for his helmet.”

                She giggled. “You do,” she said. “And sometimes he does. You’re a matched set.”

                “Two sides of the same coin, according to Kilgharrah.”

                “Yes,” said Gwen, her face sobering. “Look at what seeing the future did to Morgana. We’re better off not knowing.”

                “It wasn’t her power that drove her mad,” Merlin objected. “It was her fear. Her anger.”

                “I know. But being too certain that you know how things will happen leads to disaster.”

                “That’s true,” Merlin admitted. “I had times where trying to avert a prophecy only made it come true. The harder I tried, the worse things got.” He swallowed. “That was… very much on my mind at Camlann.”

                “I’m sure it must have been.” She gave him a fond smile. “But that worked out about as well as it could have.”

                “I still have nightmares thinking of how it could have gone,” Merlin admitted. “It was a closer thing than it seemed.”

                She nodded sympathetically. “But it didn’t happen. All those things you’re afraid of, they didn’t happen. You can let it go now. Focus on tomorrow instead of yesterday.”

                “I’m trying,” he said. “It’s just… strange. I’ve put so much of myself into the prophecies that, now that the future they speak of is here, I don’t quite know what I’m meant to do next.”

                “That future isn’t quite here yet,” she said judiciously. “There’s still a lot of work to do.”

                “I know,” he said, and chuckled. “Arthur says I’ll be doing most of it.”

                “Just like always,” she said. “See? Some things haven’t changed, Merlin.”

                He grinned at her. “You’re right,” he said. “How are you always right?”

                “Years of practice.” She smiled back. “Feeling better?”

                “Yes. How about you?” He nodded at the empty teacup. “Did the tea help?”

                She put her hand on her stomach again. “Yes, I think so,” she said. “Perhaps a little more?”

                “Oh! Of course. Sorry; I should have asked before.” He reached for the cup, then stopped. “Wait a moment. Nausea… Gwen, are you…?”

                She looked shyly downwards, biting her lip. “I think so.”

                “Oh, Gwen! That’s wonderful! Does Arthur know?”

                “Not yet,” she said. “I wanted to be sure before I told anyone. So don’t say anything, all right?”

                “Not a problem. I’m pretty good at keeping secrets,” he said wryly.

                She made a face. “I’m sure you are.”

                He refilled the cup, then, with a flicker of gold, reheated it. He handed it back to her. “Drink it slowly,” he said. “It’s better for your stomach that way, and besides, this one tastes better than most of the ones Gaius prescribes.”

                “I suppose you would know,” she said with a chuckle.

                “Oh, you would not believe some of the potions I’ve had to taste over the years. One in particular—this was when Uther was enchanted by the troll…”

                And he launched into the story, Gwen’s eyes round with wonder, the whole ridiculous tale taking on a new significance as she learned what had been going on behind everyone’s back. She spread her fingers over her as-yet flat abdomen, silently thanking every god in the heavens for the unassuming man before her.

Chapter Text

                That afternoon, Arthur sent a page for Merlin, who was duly shown to one of the guest chambers. Waiting there was Arthur, and, two paces behind him, the royal tailor and his apprentice, who was holding a large basket full of fabric.

                “There he is,” said Arthur, as if he’d been waiting for hours. “Do your best,” he told the tailor.

                “What’s this all about?” asked Merlin, more than a little confused.

                “Your wardrobe,” said Arthur. “It’s a disgrace.”

                Merlin looked down at himself. “What’s wrong with it? My mother made these for me.”

                “With no offense intended to your mother, what isn’t wrong with it would be a better question,” said Arthur. “They’re old. They’re worn. They’re faded. They’re mended in a dozen places. The fabric is coarse. Shall I continue? You dress like a peasant.”

                “I am a peasant.”

                “Not anymore, you’re not,” Arthur said. “Now you’re a royal advisor, and letting you trail around in rags makes me look bad. You need to dress to suit your new station.”

                Merlin glanced at the waiting tailor, then looked away, obviously embarrassed. “Arthur… I can’t afford this.”

                Arthur shook his head. “I can. Let that be the least of your worries.” As Merlin started to object, Arthur raised a hand for silence. “No. Let me do this much, at least. You’ve been in my service for years; you were owed proper livery a long time before this. But better late than never.”

                Merlin took a moment to digest that, as well as the unmistakable self-recrimination in Arthur’s voice, and he took refuge, as usual, in humor. “So… no feathery hats this time, then?”

                It worked; Arthur grinned, if a bit ruefully. “No feathery hats,” he promised.

                “All right,” Merlin said. “And thank you, Arthur.”

                “Thank me by wearing something decent for a change. Those boots have to go, too. You look like something the cat wouldn’t bother dragging in.”

                “Thank you, Arthur,” Merlin repeated in entirely different tones, rolling his eyes for good measure.

                Arthur nodded. “I’ll leave you to it,” he said, and made his escape as the tailor reached for his measuring string.

                *.*.*.*.*.*.*

                He was slightly disappointed when Merlin showed up to training in his usual gear. “What happened? I thought we were going to see you looking respectable for once.”

                “Apparently it’s going to take a few days to sew it all,” Merlin said. “Sorry to disappoint.”

                “We’ve been looking at that shirt for ten years. I suppose we can survive another few days,” said Arthur.

                “At least my belt has stayed the same size for the past ten years,” Merlin muttered.

                Arthur threw a glove at him. It stopped, midair, and floated daintily back to Arthur’s hand as Merlin smirked at him, eyes aglow.

                Arthur picked up the well-travelled glove and put it on, determined not to let the blatant show of magic throw him. Redirecting flying objects was a far cry from lightning bolts, but it was still more unnerving that he would have thought it could be.  

                It seemed to bother Gwaine not a whit. “That’s a handy trick,” he said. “How many of those do you think you could fend off at a time?”

                Merlin cocked his head and thought about it. “You know, I’m not sure. If there were likely to be a lot of things flying in my direction, like on a battlefield, I’d probably just use a shielding spell.”

                “Makes sense. And how much could that hold off?”

                “Well, it stood up to dragonfire, so quite a lot, I’d say.”

                The field went dead still, and Merlin knew immediately that mentioning it had been a mistake. “Dragonfire?” Leon finally asked.

                “Yes, the Great Dragon and I had a bit of an argument, and he, er… he flamed me.”

                Leon’s face was white. “And you lived,” he said softly. He had seen the dragons, at Camlann. Everyone had. He had known that there were still dragons in the world, and he had thought he was at peace with that, with his memories of dragonfire. He was not happy to find out that he had been wrong.

                Merlin understood. He just nodded, mutely, as everyone present pretended not to count the lives that might have been saved if he had shown his magic earlier.

                  And then counted the lives that would have been lost if he had. Gwaine rallied first. “That’s good to know,” he said, almost cheerfully. “Any chance you can teach me how to do that?”

                “I… don’t actually know,” Merlin said. “I guess I could try? I’ve never tried to teach anyone magic before. If it comes to that, I’ve barely studied magic. Never really had the chance. A lot of what I do is just… natural for me.”

                 “How about the glove thing?” Gwaine persisted. “What’s the spell for that?”

                “No spell,” Merlin said. “Moving things without touching them is one of the things that just comes naturally. Mother says I was doing it in the cradle.”

                “Your poor mother,” Arthur said. “You must have given her fits.”

                “You’re not wrong there,” said Merlin with a smile. “Bad enough trying to teach a child how to stay unobtrusive. Imagine trying that with a baby.”

                Arthur pictured it. An infant Merlin, making things fly around the tiny cottage, constantly on the verge of being caught… it sounded nightmarish.

                “What did she do?” asked Gwaine.

                “Kept me indoors and away from the neighbors, mostly. And drummed it into my head from the instant I could understand words that my magic had to be a secret.”

                No one had anything to say to that.

                Merlin smiled again, desperate to restore the mood. “I won’t say I didn’t lead her a merry dance, but it all worked out well enough in the end. No one ever did find out about me. Well, except Will, of course.”

                “Will,” said Arthur, thinking furiously. “He wasn’t a sorcerer at all, was he?”

                “No,” said Merlin. “He wasn’t. But he knew someone had to take the blame for conjuring that whirlwind, and he knew he was already dying. There was nothing more anyone could do to him… so he did something for me, instead. For all of us.”

                “He was a good man,” Arthur said, inadequately.

                “He was,” Merlin said. “I still miss him. Sometimes I almost forget that he’s not back home at Ealdor anymore, and I’ll catch myself thinking of something I’d like to tell him. And I remember all over again that he’s gone.”

                “Why didn’t you… use your magic to heal him?” Arthur asked, dreading the answer. If Merlin said ‘because of you’ he didn’t know what he was going to do about it.

                “Because I didn’t know how,” Merlin said, relieving at least one of Arthur’s concerns. “I didn’t know any spells to heal such a serious wound. Not then. And healing isn’t one of the things that comes naturally to me.”

                “Would you, if you could have?” asked Percival.

                “Without a moment’s hesitation.” Merlin shrugged. “What? He was my friend.”

                “It could have meant your death ,” Percival said quietly.

                 “I know.” He shrugged again. “But if only one of us was going to make it, I’d have preferred it to be him. I had been on the verge of confessing before the battle anyway.”

                “You were?” Arthur said, then remembered the awkward conversation just before the alarm was sounded. “Yes... You were! You idiot. I might have killed you!”

                “You might have. Then again, you might not have. We’ll never know. But either way, you deserved to have the choice long before I gave it to you. And I can never apologize enough for that. Everything might have been different if I had.”

                “It would have been different, all right,” said Arthur, after a moment. “But ‘different’ isn’t always the same as ‘better.’ It’s probably just as well that you waited as long as you did.”  

                To his own surprise, he meant it. On the one hand, finding out that Merlin had lied to him all these years had been agonizing. On the other, having to choose between Merlin and Uther would have been—and had been—more agonizing still, no matter which one he chose to betray. And it would have been a betrayal either way. It still was, despite the fact that he had unequivocally chosen his friend rather than his father. What he had said to Uther’s ghost was the truth; Uther had had his chance to rule. Now it was Arthur’s turn, and his decisions had to be his own.   

                True, Merlin had made some decisions for him by hiding his magic. But Arthur knew himself well enough to know that he had not been ready to accept that burden. There had been a time, not so very long ago, when he would have readily, if with a certain measure of sorrow, turned Merlin in and watched him die for it. And he also knew that he would have lived to regret it. Or rather, died regretting it. The battle at Camlann was only the most recent instance. Who but Merlin would have stepped up and used magic to save a magic-hating king and kingdom? Who else would be that loyal? That selfless?

                That mad?

                “Anyhow. Be that as it may, all this talking isn’t getting any training done,” Arthur continued, wrenching his mind back into the present. “Pair up. We’ll start with maces.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                The next morning was the hunt. Arthur had bristled at the sight of one of the foreign dignitaries holding the reins of Merlin’s usual mount for the split second it took him to realize that the courtier in a fine linen tunic and leather riding coat was Merlin, dressed like everyone else and with an air of quiet elegance he had never had before. He was chatting with one of Lot’s tame dukes as though he’d been born to the purple.

                And, in a way, he had. That’s how he was always meant to be seen, said a little voice deep inside Arthur’s mind. This is Emrys, not the Merlin you know. Your sorcerer, not your servant.                   

                The key word there being ‘yours,’ though, he told that little voice, and swung himself into the saddle. He didn’t need Merlin to polish his armor and pick up his room to know that he had the man’s undying loyalty, and he smiled to himself at the thought. Mithian had proved that for him.

                Speaking of whom… Mithian was not far away; mounted on a bay Arthur didn’t recognize and which she had probably brought from Nemeth, she was watching Merlin with that unreadable little smile on her face. She glanced towards Arthur, then away. She still wanted Merlin, that much was clear. And she wasn’t making any headway; that much was even clearer.

                Good. Let her get her own sorcerer. This one was taken.

                …Actually, she probably would, Arthur thought, the smile fading. Gwen’s suggestion that Arthur recruit more sorcerers crept back into Arthur’s mind. He wondered if she’d intended to hint that he should keep some measure of control over their magic, or to point out that if he didn’t, someone else would.

                Lot certainly would; Arthur was sure of that much. His seal on the peace treaties they were slowly and painfully hashing out would be worth precisely the cost of the wax if Lot ever thought he had the advantage. It was no secret that Cenred had commanded a small stable of sorcerers; presumably Lot had inherited them, or what was left of them, along with the throne.  

                The thought stuck with him like a particularly spiny burr as they set off into the woods. Part of him was making light conversation with his guests. A larger part was watching his surroundings, alert for game animals, bandits, or whatever else might be lurking in the shadows. And one tiny part was chewing on the question of what, precisely, he ought to do about magic and its place in Camelot.

                Aside from that increasingly familiar itch at the back of his mind, the hunt was going reasonably well. Everybody who mattered had bagged at least a grouse or two, so hopefully, there would be no going home in a sour mood that could taint the negotiations.

                Arthur glanced towards Merlin, who was holding a crossbow for form’s sake, but who had yet to loose an arrow. Nor would he, Arthur suspected; he had made no secret of his distaste for hunting. Sport hunting, at any rate; Merlin could and did trap rabbits for the pot when they were out on patrol, but that was different, somehow. Perhaps it was similar to the way he had unblinkingly slaughtered Saxons by the thousands on the battlefield but had to look away when Arthur shot a stag. Merlin killed when he had to. And, Arthur was willing to bet, it hurt him every time.                 

                Just then, there came a scream from one of the beaters, and an angry boar, his tushes bloodied, came darting out of the bushes. MIthian’s horse reared, unseating her. As he aimed, Arthur took a split second to be thankful that it was not a Camelot mount that had dumped the heir to the throne of Nemeth into the mud before loosing an arrow. It served only to enrage the beast still further. Arthur flung the now-useless crossbow aside and drew his sword.

                And with a flash of light, the boar’s neck snapped, and he fell, less than a foot away from Mithian. Merlin was out of the saddle a heartbeat later, looking frantically between the fallen princess and the wounded beater, clearly torn.

                “I’m fine. See to him!” Mithian snapped, dragging herself to her feet with what dignity she could and reaching for the reins of her horse.

                The injured man was moaning softly, his breath coming in sobbing little gasps as he tried to hold the gash in his leg together with his bare hands. Merlin knelt beside him, lay one hand on the man’s head and the other covering the wound.

                “This isn’t so bad,” he said, his voice gentle. “Let’s take a look, may I?”

                The man whimpered, then nodded.   

                “Right,” Merlin said, pulling a knife from his boot and cutting away the man’s trousers. “Water,” he said shortly, over his shoulder. “We need to get this clean.”

                Someone handed Merlin a waterskin; he took it with a brusque nod, not taking his eyes off his patient, and poured water over the wound, washing away some of the blood. “There, Cecil. That’s better, isn’t it? Now, I’m going to use just a little magic to start it healing, is that all right?”

                The man—Cecil, apparently, and was Merlin on a first-name basis with every servant in Camelot?—hesitated.

                “If you don’t want me to, I won’t. I’ll just bandage you up and we’ll get you to Gaius,” Merlin promised. “But I think I can make it better right here and now. If you’ll let me.”

                “…Yes,” said Cecil. “I don’t care. It hurts. Please do something. Anything.”

                Merlin’s nod this time was much gentler. “Okay,” he said, and murmured an incantation that no one else understood. Everyone standing around them gawked as the torn flesh drew together, until the wound looked days, not minutes, old. “There. Now, we’ll still want to get you to Gaius and have him take a look at it, but I think you’ll be as good as new in a few days. Let me go get my kit and I’ll bandage the cut.”

                Gwaine extended a hand and hauled Merlin to his feet. Merlin smiled at him, then went back to his horse and retrieved a small physician’s kit.

                “You brought that on a hunt?” Gwaine asked.

                “A whole bunch of people tearing around the woods waving pointy things around? You’d better believe I brought it,” Merlin said, rummaging in the bag, emerging with a jar of salve and some linen. “I don’t like to go anywhere without at least a few basic supplies.”  

                Gwaine shook his head as Merlin returned to his patient and made short work of wrapping the leg. “What would we do without you?” he said. “Besides die?”

                Merlin scoffed. “You’d manage, I’m sure,” he said lightly.

                “I doubt it,” Gwaine said seriously.

                Arthur did too. It just didn’t seem politic to say so in front of his fellow monarchs, so he didn’t. “It’s getting late,” he said instead. “Shall we call it a day?”

                “Might as well,” Mithian said. “I think my horse has pulled up lame. And it serves him right for spooking the way he did.”

                Merlin looked up. “Shall I take a look at him, my lady?” He smiled sheepishly. “Or you? That was a hard fall you took.”

                “He should know; he’s fallen off his share of horses,” Arthur said. Merlin grinned at him.

                “Haven’t we all,” said Mithian, smoothly. “No, I’m fine. My fool of a horse will be fine, too. That was… quite a performance.”

                “Well, I learned from the best physician in Albion,” Merlin said. “Something had to stick.”  

                “I meant the magic,” she said. “Who taught you that?”

                “Nowhere special. I picked things up here and there,’ Merlin said. “Anyway. If we’re going home, you can take my horse, my lady.”

                “And what about you?”

                “I have to make sure he gets safely to Gaius,” Merlin said, glancing down at Cecil. “He lost a good bit of blood.”

                She nodded, as if she’d expected that answer. Perhaps she had. By that time, the other beaters had constructed a rudimentary litter for Cecil and rolled him into it, and the ones not carrying their fallen comrade were shouldering their game bags.

                “Aren’t you going to take the boar?” Merlin asked. “We killed it; we might as well eat it rather than letting it go to waste.”

                They looked at it uneasily, and finally the bravest of them asked, “Is it safe?”

                Merlin looked bewildered. “It’s dead. How much safer could it be?”

                “No. I mean… the magic. Is it safe to touch it?”

                Merlin nodded, his eyes sad. “As safe as any other game you’ve hunted,” he promised. “Magic isn’t contagious.”
                Obedient if not convinced, they tied its legs together and ran a stout stick between them to carry it home. Merlin was fairly sure he heard one of them mutter, “Glad I’m not the one who’ll have to eat it,” but he tried to ignore that. Easing Camelot back into an acceptance of magic was never going to be easy.

                The trek back to Camelot was a quiet one. Whether that was because of the close call, the injury, or the magic was hard to say. It was only when the gates of Camelot were in sight that Mithian turned to Arthur.

                “You have no idea how lucky you are, you know,” she said.

                “I know,” said Arthur.

                She shook her head. “No. You don’t. You can’t. Not you, with your love-match of a marriage, your band of brothers at your Round Table, and a friend like that. You have everything that most people would die to have a taste of, High King. You have no idea.”

                Arthur caught his breath. “I do know,” he said quietly. “Because I remember what it was like having none of it.”

Chapter Text

                The feast that night was raucous, quite deliberately so. No one wanted to look as shaken by either the accident or the magic as most of them in fact were, so they masked it with loud laughter and jesting. Everyone made a point of at least sampling the boar, which was tender and delicious, but it was fairly obvious that they would have eaten if even if it wasn’t, just to show that they weren’t afraid of magical meat.             

                Merlin had changed into a fresh set of his new clothing, and he looked far less nervous than he had the night before. Arthur watched him, proud of Merlin’s ability to rise to the occasion. Not so very long ago, he wouldn’t have dreamed of sitting at the table rather than serving at it. Hell, not so very long ago, he’d been cooling his heels in the dungeon with little or no hope of seeing daylight again, Arthur reminded himself. Yet here he sat, serenely tucking into roasted meats and poultry as if he’d been doing it all his life, making polite conversation with two foreign knights and a Camelot baron who, Arthur knew for a fact, had been one of the loudest voices calling for his execution. And somehow, gods alone knew how, it was working. The baron was smiling, and it wasn’t the polite courtier’s smile that hid everything and meant nothing.

                That was magic.    

                Arthur shook his head and turned back to his own neighbor. Leon smiled at him. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes, but if he’s winning over Baron Landry of all people, maybe there’s hope for Camelot as a whole to be reconciled to sorcery,” he said.

                Arthur nodded. “My father must be spinning in his grave,” he said.

                “I daresay he could use the exercise,” Leon said, flippant in a way he usually wasn’t.

                Arthur snorted. “Probably.”

                “In all seriousness, though,” Leon continued. “What are you going to do about the magic ban? You know it’s only a matter of time before someone presses the point.”

                Arthur didn’t groan, but he looked as though he wanted to. “I’ve been so busy with the treaty negotiations I’ve barely had time to think about it,” he said. It was true. The fact that he’d quite deliberately used the treaty negotiations as an excuse to postpone thinking about it was even truer.

                Leon took a bite of pork. “That really is quite good.”

                “The treaty negotiations?”

                “The boar.”

                Arthur sighed. “I know, I know. I need to deal with this.”

                “I agree, sire,” Leon said gently. “Can I help?”

                “I don’t know. I don’t even know here to start. All I know is that I can’t have another Morgana on my hands. Or my conscience.”   

                “No,” said Leon, his eyes sad. “No, none of us want that. But perhaps if you begin by at least softening the laws that so terrified her, you’d make it that much less likely that another Morgana will arise.”  

                “Gaius might remember how magic was regulated before the Purge,” Arthur said. “I can ask, at any rate. That would at least give me somewhere to start.”

                “Or Geoffrey,” Leon suggested. “He might even have books on the subject.”

                “I can’t imagine too many magic books survived. My father would never have permitted that.”

                “Not magic books—law books,” said Leon. “And I think you’re underestimating Geoffrey’s dedication to his library. If he didn’t squirrel away at least some of the rarer tomes, I’ll eat my gauntlet. Without salt.”

                Arthur chuckled at the mental image. “You’re probably right. I’ll seek him out tomorrow.”    

                *.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                Tomorrow came and went. It left Arthur with a stack of musty books a foot high and Geoffrey’s overjoyed promise to root around a bit and unearth more for when Arthur had finished the first lot. Arthur piled them carefully on his desk—he had the sneaking suspicion, verging on a certainty, that, king or no king, if he returned the books in even slightly less pristine condition than he’d received them, his life would become supremely unpleasant—and groaned at the thought of having to read them.

                 Gwen walked over. “What are these?”

                “The law codes,” Arthur told her. “From before the Purge. Hopefully we can adapt at least some of them.”

                “Oh,” she said. “That’s a good idea.”

                “I can’t take the credit; it was Leon who suggested I ask Geoffrey how magic used to be ruled,” said Arthur, with a dark look at the books. “I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting quite so much of it. And this is only the first batch. Geoffrey’s threatened to find more.”

                She flipped through the closely-written pages of the top volume. “I see what you mean,” she said, closing it again. “This could take weeks to go through. Maybe months. And we don’t have that kind of time.”

                “No, we don’t.”

Gwen thought about it for a moment, then went to the door. She opened it; there were two guards. “Please fetch Merlin,” she said sweetly to one of them. “He’s probably in the infirmary.”

                “Now, your majesty?” he asked, a little surprised.

                “Yes, now,” she said. “Tell him I said it was important.”

                Arthur, no less surprised than the guard, wisely kept his silence until the door had shut again. He perked up as an idea struck him. “I assume we’re going to make him read the law books?”

                She laughed at him. “Maybe later,” she said. “It seems to me that we’re looking at this the wrong way around. We don’t need to have an entire law code written by morning. We just have to lay down some basic ground rules, and who better to ask? The legal details can wait.”

                “I can’t just say ‘oh, yes, magic is legal now’ and expect anything but chaos,” Arthur objected. “Those details can’t wait for very long.”

                “Everyone in Albion and his brother knows about Camlann by now,” Gwen said. “They already know magic is back, and it hasn’t been too chaotic yet.”  

                “Yet,” Arthur echoed grimly. “And that’s mostly because every royal in Albion is here, trying to steal a march on the rest of the country.”

                Gwen sighed, but didn’t contradict him. “I still think that that we should start with the broad strokes of the policies we wish to enact and fill in the finer points as we go along.”

                Arthur sighed in turn. “I suppose so. It’s a better idea than any I have.”

                Just then, there came a knock at the door.

                “Enter,” Arthur called.

                Merlin, flanked by the guard, opened the door and hurried in. “What’s wrong?” he asked, white-faced.

                “Why should something be wrong?” Gwen asked.

                “Because you sent a guard to yank me practically out of bed without a word of explanation,” Merlin said, fiddling with the strap of the medicine bag he had over his shoulder. “I figured either someone was deathly ill or you’d finally gotten around to re-arresting me.”

                “Aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine,” Arthur said. “We’re both fine. And you’re certainly not being arrested.”

                “Well, that’s a relief,” said Merlin, and put down the bag. “So what was so important that you needed to send out the troops to find me?”

                “We need to amend the laws against magic,” Gwen said.  

                Merlin nodded slowly. “That’s true,” he said. “I can’t be the only exception to the anti-magic rules. That’s not fair to anyone.”

                “I suppose that the first thing that needs to happen is some sort of general amnesty,” said Gwen.

                “For killers?” Arthur said, horrified.

                Merlin kept his voice level. “Like me, you mean?”

                “…You’re different,” Arthur said.

                “How? How am I any different? Because those deaths benefited you?”

                Arthur thought about that for a while. A flat ‘yes’ was not the right answer. “Not me personally,” he finally said. “Camelot. My knights kill in the service of Camelot. If my sorcerer does the same, so be it. It doesn’t mean anyone with a sword—or a spellbook—can just do the same. No general amnesty.”  

                “The first mention of magic and your mind immediately jumps to murder,” Merlin said. “That’s the real problem. There’s more to sorcery than killing.”

                “I know that,” said Arthur.

                “Do you? Look, I’m not blaming you; it’s pretty much all you’ve ever seen of magic. You and most of Camelot. And I’m including Camlann in that assessment.”

                “It’s not all I’ve seen,” said Gwen. “You saved my father’s life. And my soul.”

                Both men looked at her as if they had forgotten she was there, and the tension in the room lowered a notch. “Yes,” Arthur said. “And you must have saved my neck a dozen times or more. That’s the kind of magic we need to encourage.”

                “Perhaps instead of a general amnesty, we do it on a case-by-case basis?” Gwen suggested. “It would at least stop the sort of vigilantism against magic users we all know exists.”

                Arthur pictured it—audience after audience full of people dragging in suspected magic-users for Arthur’s judgment. The thought was not appealing. Then he thought about the woman he had saved from burning, the one who had gifted him the Horn of Cathbhadh. Might her story have ended differently if she’d been brought to Camelot to be tried? Or would he have simply taken the villagers’ place as her executioner?

                “It’s not just vigilantism. It’s judicial murder,” said Merlin. “Once you’ve been accused of sorcery, that’s it. You’re dead, and your property, however little you have, is forfeit. Do you know how many convicted sorcerers didn’t even have magic?”

                Gwen nodded, remembering her own ‘trial.’ “Rather a lot, I’m sure,” she said quietly. “And we need to make sure it never happens again.”

                “Well, you’re never going to see peasants from the outlying villages politely bringing in a suspected witch for a trial. They can’t. Sending someone on a journey that could take days or weeks on foot, a prisoner in tow, when every hand is always needed on the farm? Not going to happen,” said Merlin. “They’ll just keep killing us as they please, whether or not they pretend it’s legal.”

                Us. It should not have come as a shock that Merlin counted himself among the hunted, but somehow it still stung. “And that will be murder, and be punished as such,” Arthur said firmly.

                Merlin sighed and nodded, obviously not convinced but not willing to continue the argument.

                “This still isn’t getting us anywhere with regards to the main question,” said Gwen. “Magic will be legalized. We need to decide how that’s going to work.”

                “Not all magic. So… the problem is how to decide which sorts of magic can be forgiven,” Arthur said.

                “Good magic,” said Gwen promptly. “Healing or growing plants and that sort of thing. Magic that helps people, not hurts them.”

                “It’s not that simple,” said Merlin, who by that point looked like he’d just spent a week on the rack and would have happily stayed there if he’d known that the alternative was this conversation. “Healing spells don’t always work, any more than ordinary medicine does. Not even just healing; no kind of spell works every time, not even for me. How do you distinguish between magic that kills and magic that just… doesn’t save?”  

                Uther’s presence seemed to fill the room for a moment, and Arthur swallowed bile, trying not to remember a white head bent over a dying king. And trying not to remember his own reaction when magic failed to save his father. Merlin was right; it wasn’t simple at all. Arthur had immediately assumed evil intent, and, without a second thought, would have cut him down then and there and called it justice. He’d tried to do just that.

                Uther’s war on sorcery had begun when magic failed to save his wife. One spell— just one— that had not worked as intended had led directly to hundreds or thousands of innocents dead, and to a stain on Camelot that might never entirely wash away. Arthur tried to tell himself that he, at least, had only lashed out against a single sorcerer, not sorcery in general. He didn’t find himself overly convincing. “That’s a problem,” he conceded. “Perhaps tying magic in general to direct royal service, like the knights?”

                “Mmmm. That’s coming perilously close to slavery,” said Gwen. “A choice between conscription and death is no real choice at all. Not to mention that it would be hard to trust someone who’s only serving you to keep his head off the block.”

                They both glanced at Merlin.

                “That wasn’t the reason,” he said, sounding a little hurt. “Anyway, there are places that do forcibly conscript sorcerers. Essetir’s one of them. Leaving me with exactly two choices for my life; I could be Uther’s prey or Cenred’s property.”

                 “Oh,” Gwen said quietly.

                 “Yeah. Personally, I’d prefer the block. Not that I want to die, but at least you can only kill me once. I wouldn’t have to get up the next day and do it all over again. And I can think of a lot of things that I really, really wouldn’t enjoy being forced to do.”

                “I’m aware,” said Arthur, with heavy irony. “You tell me about them. Incessantly.”

                Merlin didn’t smile. “You make me muck out your stables and polish your boots. You’ve never made me collapse an enemy’s stronghold on top of him, control his mind, burn him from the inside out, call lightning down on his family, cause a plague, blight his fields, or dry up his wells. Or worse. I don’t even like hunting animals. Imagine me hunting people.”

                Arthur imagined it. Then he took a moment to try and erase the image from his mind. And then another to quell a horrified impulse to ask if Merlin could actually do any of those things. Presumably the answer was yes.

                Gwen frowned. “But you would, wouldn’t you? If we asked you to. If it was in defense of Camelot… wouldn’t you do all of those things and more?”

                Merlin bowed his head, shame and weariness and misery warring for prominence in his expressive face. “Yes,” he finally said, not looking up. “I would.”

                No one said anything for a moment. His head dropped a little lower, as though awaiting the axe. Or hoping for it. His voice was thick with self-loathing. “And I’d be good at it. You saw me at Camlann. I could do worse.”

                Arthur put a hand to his slumped shoulder, gripped it firmly. “I wouldn’t ask it,” he said. “Never, Merlin. And I’d certainly never force you.”

                “I know you wouldn’t. That’s why I’d do it for you,” Merlin said immediately, still staring at the floor. 

                Arthur wasn’t sure if he meant ‘the fact that you wouldn’t ask means you’re honorable enough to be trusted with the capability,’ or ‘I’d take the initiative, and the guilt, so your hands would be clean,’ and couldn’t decide which possibility he liked less. The second was disturbing for the obvious reasons—the idiot was, in essence, offering to damn himself if he thought Arthur needed him to, and they were going to have to discuss that little notion, at length, when Arthur had more time, more energy, and possibly a blunted practice sword in his hand to help him illustrate precisely why it was unacceptable. But that was for later.   

                The first, though… that wasn’t so easily solved. A bit of yelling and a clout or two over the head weren’t going to make it go away. Nothing would. The kind of power Merlin wielded—the kind of power he was handing Arthur on a plate—was genuinely terrifying, and Arthur didn’t want it. He didn’t want that level of power to exist at all, if he was being completely honest. Not in his hands, not in his enemies’ hands, not in anyone’s.

                If anything, while Arthur was devoutly, humbly grateful to whatever god watched over arrogant young princes that, by some probably undeserved miracle, he faced Merlin as an ally, rather than an enemy, he was almost more troubled by the thought of what he might do with that power than he was by the idea of what could be done to him. He didn’t want the temptation to use it, because he knew he would, and his motives would be so pure, so admirable.

                At first.

               There would always be a good reason to go just a little bit further, and once he ran out of good reasons, the mediocre ones would start sounding better and better. And if… when… he decided that the ends justified the means, even the bad reasons would serve well enough. Between his father and his sister, he’d seen the bitter truth of that for himself; Camelot could not survive a third such tyrant. He wasn’t sure how far over the line Merlin would let him go, and he didn’t want to find out.

               It scared him.

               Gods. Merlin scared him.

               …Well, no. Not really. Merlin didn’t scare him, he corrected himself; the idea was laughable. Merlin was… he was himself. Softhearted and selfless, ridiculously brave, doggedly loyal, kind, clumsy, stubborn, and sarcastic, and he still looked as though a stiff breeze would knock him over. What he represented, though… that, Arthur thought, would make anyone sane a little uneasy. He was a force of nature wrapped up in faded homespun, and it really was more power than anyone ought to hold. Arthur didn’t want the temptation, or the risk, or the responsibility. And, it suddenly occurred to him, maybe Merlin didn’t, either.

              He wondered if Merlin used their so-called shared destiny as a way of keeping himself from going as far over the line as he so easily could. If his singleminded devotion to Arthur was intended at least in part to tether him to his morals—his very humanity. Almost before he’d finished asking the question, Arthur was certain that he did and it was, that he hooded and jessed himself like his namesake falcon, for fear of what he might do if he ever lost that steely self-control. Arthur swallowed hard, and wondered if Merlin even realized that he was doing so. He doubted it.

                He wondered, too, what might happen if the hood ever slipped off. And, if ever it did, he wondered if there would be any survivors to describe it afterwards. Somehow, he doubted that, too.

                Arthur was reluctant to see himself as Merlin’s falconer, the one who loosed him to catch Arthur’s chosen prey and mewed him back up afterwards, but perhaps they were all safer that way. Because, to be blunt, the other alternative was putting him to death for fear of what he might do. And—heartbreakingly, horrifyingly—if there was one thing Arthur didn’t doubt, it was that Merlin would let him. 

Chapter Text

                George gave the door three perfunctory raps and, when it, as usual, garnered no response, let himself in without waiting for a summons. Arthur was a heavy sleeper.

                So were the others. The king, the queen, and their erstwhile servant-turned-mage were all three of them face down on the table, heads pillowed on the books they had obviously fallen asleep while reading. Arthur was the worst off of the three; it seemed he had been writing something and fallen asleep on it before the ink had dried. His cheek was one large smudge.

                George squelched a smile before it could turn into a snicker and shook Merlin’s shoulder.

                “Wake up,” he said conversationally. Merlin did not frighten him—not the way he frightened some of the other servants. George had seen Merlin trip over thin air. He had seen Merlin tend the sick and the dying. He had seen Merlin carrying heaping baskets of soiled linens down the narrow servants’ stairway so that the laundrymaids would not have to do it themselves. Merlin was capable of great kindness. Great loyalty. Great foolishness. The fact that Merlin was also capable of appalling feats of magic, so far as George was concerned, did not cancel out all of the other things he was.

                Even if one of those things was being a piss-poor servant, in George’s opinion. Far better to have him casting spells and advising the king than trying, and failing, to dust a room properly. Everyone had to be good at something, and no one was good at everything. Some things were just too important to do badly.

                Merlin stirred. “Ugh. It’s too early to be this early,” he mumbled.

                “That’s what you get for staying up so late,” said George. “Now help me clear off a space on the table for his majesty’s breakfast.”

                Merlin yawned, stood up. “All right,” he said amiably enough, and began stacking the books to the side, quite as if he wasn’t a terrifying magician and probably either a lord or about to be one. “You would probably know the schedule,” he said. “Do either of them have anything important to do this morning, or can we let them sleep a little more? It was a really long night for all three of us.”

                George shook his head regretfully. “No, we can’t. There’s another treaty negotiation meeting directly after breakfast. In fact, unless I’m very much mistaken, you’re supposed to be there, too.” George smiled, just as he had in the old days when Merlin was running late for whatever reason. It was a friendly smile, with just a hint of fond exasperation. “If you hurry, you can probably get yourself changed and freshened up before it begins.”

                Merlin grinned back at him. “Thanks, George,” he said cheerfully. “You’re a lifesaver.” He reached for the breakfast tray; George slapped his hand away. Just like always.

                Chuckling, Merlin loped towards the door, let himself out. George, shaking his head, turned to the task of pouring warm wash water into the basin and dampening a napkin. He could hardly let the king go out with ink all over his face, after all.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                It took quite a few late nights; George started bringing breakfast for three on the working assumption that he would find a snoring warlock on Arthur’s desk in the morning, and Gaius began to gripe that Merlin was never around when he was needed.

                (“If he’s this unhappy that I’m not around to do the chores now, what on earth did he do while I was in the dungeon?” Merlin once asked after a particularly full-throated complaint from his mentor.

                “Pretty much the same thing he’s doing now,” said Arthur. “Except with a lot more sighing and meaningful looks in my direction. He was not happy with me, and he didn’t care who knew it. I didn’t dare so much as ask for a headache remedy the entire time.”

                Merlin threw his head back and laughed.)

                The end result was deceptively simple. If it was illegal to do something mundanely, it was equally illegal to do it with magic. In other words, no killing. No stealing. No deception. Et cetera. Page after page of details had been painfully hashed out to cover every permutation they had been able to think of, but that was the meat of it. It had not been an entirely pleasant process. None of them had come to blows, but it had been a near thing once or twice, and there had been more than a little yelling.

                Killing someone who had magic, simply because of their magic, they had all agreed without a whisper of argument, was murder and would be punished as such.  

                It made for a punishing schedule—hammering out treaties and trade agreements with the other kingdoms of the dawning Albion in between handling the rest of Camelot’s day-to-day affairs, then retreating to Arthur’s chambers to fight about magic until their heads hit either the pillow or, more often, the tabletop was wearing on all of them.

                But the day finally came when it was done. Arthur put down his quill, stared at the parchment, then slowly looked up, an expression of utter disbelief on his face. “I think that should do it,” he said. “Good gods, I think we’re finally finished.”

                Merlin’s smile was blinding. “Hardly, Arthur,” he said. “We’re just starting. This is a beginning, not an end.”

                “If it means I can get a night’s sleep, then I’m more than happy to call it anything you like.”

                “It’s both,” said Gwen, ever the peacemaker. “it’s the end of the Purge, and the beginning of a new Camelot.”

                Arthur’s smile was a little strained. “My father… well. He did what he thought best, and I have to do the same.”

“Anything I can say would be biased—I mean, it’s obvious why I happen to think you’re doing the right thing,” said Merlin. “But you are. Think of all the people who are going to wake up tomorrow without fear. Because of you.”

                “Because of us,” Gwen corrected him. “You’re part of this too. And not just because you chance to have magic. We couldn’t have done this without you.”

                “She’s right,” Arthur said. “I’d like to think that I would have seen how unjust the ban was even without your help, but… I don’t know how long it might have taken me. I owe you a debt I can never really repay. You’re making me a better king. And a better man.” 

                Merlin, blushing, changed the subject to evade the compliment. “When are you going to announce it?”

                “What’s wrong with tomorrow?” Arthur said with a shrug. “If the outraged masses are going to rise up and massacre us all, a day or two on either side won’t matter.”

                “No one will lay a finger on you, I’ll promise you that much right now,” Merlin said fiercely. “I won’t let them.”

                Arthur looked at him fondly. “I know you won’t,” he said. “I know.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                After Merlin had been shooed off to bed, Gwen turned to Arthur. “The repeal isn’t the only thing we have to announce to the people,” she said shyly.

                “I know,” he said absently. “There are the treaties, but I don’t want to announce those until we’ve officially set seal to parchment. Lot will take any chance he gets to wriggle out of some of the—”

                She put a hand on his arm. “Not that,” she said. “It’s something else.”

                He groaned. “Oh, gods. What have I forgotten? Was it important?”

                “Well, I thought so,” she said, dimpling. “It’s about the prince.”

                “That doesn’t narrow it down much. Which one?”

                Her hand slid down his arm until she was holding his hand. She brought it to her stomach. “Camelot’s,” she said simply.  

                He stared at her in utter incomprehension for a moment, then a wild joy filled his face, his voice. “Oh, Guinevere!” He caught her around her still-narrow waist, lifted her up and spun her around, then panic-stricken, put her back down. “Are you all right? I didn’t hurt you, did I? Or him? Do I need to get Gaius?”

                She laughed. “Yes I am, no you didn’t, and absolutely not, in that order.”

                Arthur didn’t look convinced. “Has he seen you? Are you sure you’re all right?”

                “I’m sure,” she said. “I feel wonderful.”

                He still didn’t look convinced, but he nodded. “Still, I’ll have him look you over first thing in the morning,” he said, and it was obvious that he would brook no argument on the subject.

                It was going to be nine very long months, Gwen thought, then chided herself. Arthur had lost his mother in childbirth; it was only to be expected that he would be a bit nervous and overprotective for the duration. “All right,” she said.

                He beamed at her, his eyes just the tiniest bit shiny. “We’re going to give him a better world than we had,” he said. “He won’t need to be taught to kill before he knows his letters. We’ll make sure of it.”

                She lay her head on his shoulder, told herself fiercely that she wasn’t going to cry. “We will,” she promised.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                The next day was sunny and beautiful, the perfect sort of day to go hunting in the woods, and Arthur wished that he could do just that. Sadly, he knew he was more likely to spend the day arguing with his councilors over a fait accompli, ending up with a splitting headache and a murderous temper.  

                He thought about Merlin, then about Gwen’s news, and brightened up. No matter what nonsense the afternoon brought, this was going to be a good day. A momentous day. A day that would, in all probability, color the rest of his life and his reign, and he was determined to enjoy it.

                Merlin met him outside his chambers. “Good morning,” he said.

                “No ‘up and at ‘em, lazy daisy’? You’re losing your touch,” said Arthur.

                “You’re already awake; no fun in that,” said Merlin.

                “So you were amusing yourself all those years. I knew it.”

                Merlin grinned. “Maybe a little…”

                “Never mind that now. Are you ready for this? It’s going to change everything.”

                “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You’re the one making the announcement.”

                “I’m ready,” Arthur said. “How about you?”

                “More than ready,” Merlin said. “For ten years I’ve been living for this moment, the time when you united Albion and returned magic to the land. Now it’s here. I… I’ve done everything I was meant to do. It’s overwhelming.”

                “I’m sure I can come up with something more for you to do,” said Arthur. “And before you ask, no, I don’t mean mucking the stable, either. Maybe without the bloody prophecy hanging over our heads, things will be a little easier.”

                “Let’s hope so,” Merlin said, and smiled. “If nothing else, maybe Gwaine can stop having to follow me around every time I go out to pick herbs.”

                “That reminds me,” Arthur said. “Come into my chamber. I have something for you. To mark the occasion.”

                “For me? You didn’t have to get me anything.”

                “Yes, I did,” Arthur said, and grabbed him by the wrist rather than argue the point. “Come on.”

                Inside the room, Arthur went to the wardrobe and emerged with a folded square of red cloth. He handed it to Merlin. “Here. This is yours. Put it on.”

                Merlin shook it out and stared at the golden dragon disbelievingly. “But… but Arthur, this is a knight’s cloak. I can’t… I’m not…”

                “You can. You are,” said Arthur. “I don’t know if there was a magical equivalent of a knight back in the old days, but I say there is now. You fought like a knight; you can damn well dress like one.”

                Merlin didn’t say anything, for fear that his voice would shake. He just swung the cloak over his shoulders and gave a knight’s salute, looking every inch the nobleman.

                Arthur smiled proudly. They had come a long way from a bratty prince and a mouthy serving boy, he thought. And Camelot was all the better for it. “All right; now we can go.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                Arthur’s voice had never sounded so regal, Merlin thought. He was standing at the king’s shoulder, keeping a wary eye on the crowd with half of his attention and trying to keep his demeanor suitably serene with the other half. It was not easy when what he really wanted to do was shout for joy, or possibly dance a wild jig. Something. Anything. It was almost too much to bear.

                Arthur finished his speech to a heartbeat of dead silence, then the cheers began. Sporadically, at first, as though the people expected some sort of trap if they showed too much enthusiasm, but building to a crescendo when nothing happened.

                As the applause gave way to cries of ‘Long live the king!’ Merlin stole a glance at Arthur, who was still basking in the crowd’s obvious approval, and thought to himself that he had never been so purely happy. This, he thought, made everything he had gone through to reach this shining moment worth it. Closing his eyes, he could almost imagine that Balinor was standing at his side, proud and tall and finally free. That it was Lancelot’s hand clapping him on the shoulder in congratulation. That Will was grinning his impudent grin and Freya her breathtaking smile at this culmination of everything Merlin had fought for. Finna, Alator, Tom the blacksmith, even Daegal were there. Hundreds or thousands of dead sorcerers and druids seemed to swell the crowd, and they were all smiling, triumphant. Even Morgana was there, but Morgana as she had once been, as she was supposed to have been.

               We did it, Merlin thought to them. You can rest, all of you. Everything is going to be fine, now.

                It wasn’t the end, he knew that. There were months if not years of work ahead of them, and changing hearts and minds and attitudes would probably take longer still. But it was a beginning. It was a good beginning. And that was enough for the time being.

The arrow came out of nowhere.

Chapter Text

                  It was no one’s fault, really.

                 That fact didn’t make anyone feel any better about it.

                  The audience had ended. Merlin, the king and queen, and their guards, had all turned to step back into the citadel when it happened.

                 There was a dull thunk as metal and wood met yielding flesh, and Merlin stumbled forward into Arthur’s back, his eyes wide and shocked.

                  “Easy, Merlin,” Arthur said, with a good natured smile. “We can’t have you tripping over every speck of dust in Camelot—”

                  “Arthur…!” Merlin took a gasping breath as his knees buckled beneath him.

                 Arthur turned, and caught him before he could hit the stone floor. “Oh, gods,” he mumbled as he saw the arrow sticking out of his friend’s back. “You!” he snapped to one of the guards. “Get the queen to safety. Now! And you! Find the man who shot that. Where’s Gaius?”

                 “Not much he’s… going to be able to do,” Merlin said.

                 “Shut up, Merlin—you don’t know that,” Arthur said. They both knew Merlin was right. Arthur had seen enough battlefields to recognize a hopeless wound when one was bleeding out in front of him.

                Merlin twitched a shoulder in an abbreviated shrug. “Guess I really did… do everything I was meant to,” he said, and he tried to chuckle.

                Arthur blinked hard. “You’re going to be all right,” he insisted. “There’s still a lot of work for you to do right here. You can’t expect me to do it alone.”

                “Won’t be alone,” Merlin said. “Trust the ones who love you… You’ll be fine.”  

                 Arthur shook his head desperately. “Use your magic, you idiot. Heal yourself!”

                “Trying,” Merlin said. “Can’t.” As if to demonstrate, he mumbled what was presumably a spell. His eyes flickered, but only for a moment, like a guttering candle.

                 Deep inside, Arthur was moving past desperate and well into frantic. He pressed harder on the wound, trying to keep Merlin’s blood inside him where it belonged. “Where the hell is Gaius?”

                “They’re looking for him, sire,” said one of the guards surrounding their little tableau, his hand clenched tight on his swordhilt.

                “Arthur… You’ll be fine,” Merlin repeated, with as much emphasis as his fading voice could manage.

                Arthur swallowed, then let out a breath, and the rest of his hope with it. “Yes,” he said. “We all will. And that’s entirely due to you, old friend. Thank you. For everything.”

                Merlin just smiled at Arthur. He was still smiling when Arthur lay his lifeless body on the floor and stared down at his bloodied hands, trying to understand how everything could have gone so very wrong, so very quickly.

                “Let me through!” Gaius shoved his way past the guards with surprising strength for an old man. Or maybe not so surprising given the circumstances. He dropped to his knees next to Merlin.

                “You’re too late,” Arthur said, and scarcely recognized his own voice. “He’s already gone.”

                “He can’t be,” said Gaius, and reached to check Merlin’s pulse.

                Arthur let him. “He is,” he repeated. “I’m sorry. I know how you loved him."  

                “I did,” said Gaius, when, some minutes later, he was forced to admit that there was no heartbeat to be found. “Arthur… what happened?”

                “Someone took a potshot at him after the announcement,” Arthur said, still numb. The reality hadn’t quite hit him yet. “He’d already turned away; he didn’t see it until it was too late. He could have stopped the arrow if he’d seen it, but he didn’t. He didn’t see it.”

                Somehow that was the worst part of it. It wasn’t only that his friend was dead, that he had been shot down like a stag for the spit as some belated casualty of Uther’s mad war on magic. It wasn’t only that he had been murdered before he could learn how it felt to be truly free. It was that he could have stopped it if the killer hadn’t opted for a coward’s shot in the back. If he had seen it, Merlin would have been able to stop it, as he had so often before. But he hadn’t, so he couldn’t. For some reason, that was what broke Arthur’s heart. It could all have been so easily avoided.

                Arthur raised his head as noisy footsteps drew near. It was two of the guards, dragging a third guard between them. “Your Majesty,” said one of them, forcing the bound man to his knees. “We’ve found the shooter.”

                Arthur stood and looked down at him. “You? One of my own men did this?”

                The first guard held up a crossbow; presumably the murder weapon. “He did it, right enough.”

                Arthur nodded. “I want to hear it from him. Did you do this?”

                The man kept his eyes straight ahead. “I did, your Majesty.”

                “Did you not hear me saying that killing a sorcerer unprovoked is legally murder?”

                “Yes, your Majesty. I heard you.” 

                Arthur had to clear his throat before he continued. “Why, then?”

                He met Arthur’s eyes at last, and his voice was level, rehearsed. This had not been a spur of the moment decision; that much was clear. “I lost my mother to Nimueh’s plague; my father to Morgana. My brother was killed by the army of the undead. My betrothed by Cornelius Sigan’s gargoyles. Both of my sisters died when the dragon burned our house around them. I can’t tell you the number of my comrades who were killed fighting sorcerers. Shall I continue?”

                “And Merlin’s only involvement in each of those disasters was to put a stop to it,” Arthur said.

                “Magic is death, sire,” said the man. “Only death. I did what I had to do, and I will accept any punishment you decree. I have nothing left to lose but my life, and I give it gladly. For Camelot.”

                There was no arguing with a fanatic; Arthur knew that better than most. “Take him away,” he said. “I’ll decide what to do with him later.”

                Gaius gently closed the staring blue eyes as the guards dragged the killer away. “Can someone help me get him back to the infirmary? I’ll need to… to clean him up. For the funeral.”

                “I’ll do it,” said Arthur. “And someone… fetch the queen and my knights. They should have the chance to say goodbye. He was their friend, too.”

                Was. Was. Not is. Arthur gathered Merlin’s limp body in his arms and stood up, his eyes burning. The long red cloak brushed the floor. Had it really only been a couple of hours since he had presented it to Merlin? It was ruined now, a large bloodstain partially effacing the golden dragon and a small tear where the arrow had pierced it. Ruined, just like the bright future they had envisioned together.

                The tiny part of him that was mechanically evaluating the situation like a king and a strategist wondered dully how long it would be before Lot invaded, now that Emrys was dead. As dead as the dream of a united Albion.  

                Gwen and the inner circle of the Round Table were waiting for them in the infirmary. Gwen waited until Arthur had laid Merlin down on the patient’s cot before moving to his side. “Oh, Merlin,” she murmured. “What will we do without you?”

                It was Gwaine who spoke. “We’ll do what he asked us to do. We’ll remember him. Remember who he was, not what he was. And we’ll do everything we can to bring about the future he died to establish.”

                There didn’t seem to be anything more to say after that.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                Merlin opened his eyes to a gloriously blue, cloudless sky and an even bluer lake. He knew, without having to be told, what lake it was.

                “I’m dead,” he said out loud, trying to get used to the idea. It didn’t seem real, but then, which made up for it somewhat, it also didn’t seem so horrible. What he had said to Arthur was true; he had done everything the prophecies said he was supposed to do, and he was proud of what he’d achieved. It was enough for any man, he thought. Well, maybe not enough, because there would always be something more to do, but he was satisfied with what he’d had. “Huh. I’m really dead.”

                A speck far away from shore soon proved to be an approaching barge, and he grinned when he saw the slim figure at the helm.

                “Freya,” he breathed. There were so many lost friends that he wanted to see and speak with again, but she was at the top of the list. There would be time now—all the time in the world—to truly get to know the gentle girl he had fallen in love with so long ago.

                He couldn’t wait. He hurried to the shore, prepared to wade in.

                “Stop!”

                He froze, one foot in the air. Slowly, he lowered it to stand at the very edge of the lake. “I just wanted to see you,” he said inanely.

                She shook her head. “That’s as far as you can go,” she said sadly, poling the barge to the shallows some feet away from the shore. She did not alight. “You can’t enter Avalon.”

                “Why not?” he said. “Did… did I do something wrong?”

                “No,” she said. “Never that. But Merlin… you aren’t dead.”

                “I’m not?”

                “No, my love,” she said. “Merlin… you are Emrys. You are magic itself. You can’t die.”

                “Pretty sure whoever shot me would beg to differ,” he said. “Freya, I felt my heart stopping. I felt myself die. How can I still…”

                “You may have died for a moment, but you’re more than mortal. You won’t stay dead.”

                He stood stock-still, trying to take that in. “Not ever?”

                “So long as there’s an earth and a sky above it, so long as there’s a sea lapping at the shores of the land, so long as magic endures… so will you. For you are the child and the culmination of all of those things.” Freya bowed her head. “I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

                “I’m going to live forever,” Merlin said slowly, heavily. “While everyone around me dies? I’m never going to see Will again? Or Lancelot? Or—” he stopped himself short.

                “That’s right,” said Freya. “For what it’s worth, they miss you, too.”

                Merlin covered his face with his hand, half-turned away while he fought to master his emotions. “Why me?” he finally whispered.

                Freya heard him. “Because you’re needed,” she said. “You will always be needed.”

                “What about what I need?”

                She didn’t answer. What could she have said?

                Merlin took a deep breath, then another. “All those times I thought I’d had a close call—the poisoned cup, the fight with Sophia, Ismere, the Dorocha, all the others—they weren’t close calls at all, were they? I actually died and came back, didn’t I?”

                “Yes.”

                “I see.” Merlin squared his shoulders as if physically taking up the great burden he would carry for eternity. “Well. If I’m going back, I guess now is as good a time as any.”

                “There’s one more thing you should know,” said Freya.

                “Oh, gods. What now?”

                “It’s about Arthur. You know he’s the Once and Future King. But do you know what that means?”

                “…Not really, no.”

                “It means that he will live, and he will die, and then, when Albion’s need is greatest, he will return to you. It may not be much comfort now, but it’s all I have.”

                Merlin was too numb to feel much of anything at that moment, let alone feel comforted, but he managed to nod. “Thank you for telling me,” he said politely, by rote.

                She wished, more than anything, that she could step out of her boat and embrace him. It wouldn’t change anything, but she wished she could, anyhow. If it gave him even a moment of knowing that he was not alone, it would have been worth it.

                “I am sorry, Merlin,” she said softly. “Goodbye.”

                “Goodbye, Freya,” he said, just as softly.

                She dug her pole into the sand and pushed off before he could see the tears dripping down her face. She glanced over her shoulder, but he was already gone.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                The group in the infirmary stood about, uncomfortably looking at one another or, for variety, the floor. Arthur finally cleared his throat and spoke. “I’m going to have to change out of this tunic before I cause a panic,” he said gruffly. He held out his hand to Gwen; somehow, he didn’t want to let her out of his sight for a while.

                She took his arm and they left the infirmary, walking back to their chambers. Halfway there, Arthur saw that the trail of bloody footprints he had left behind were being assiduously mopped clean by some anonymous servant and he had to look away.

                “Sire?” said the man timidly. “Your Majesty… is it true about Merlin?”

                Arthur forced himself to look back, and he recognized him; it was the man who had spilled the wine all over Merlin. Allen or something. No—Alain, that was it. “What did you hear?”

                “They say he was shot, sire.”

                “They’re right,” Arthur said.

                “Is he going to be all right?”

                “No.”

                “Oh.” He gulped, clutched his mop as if for balance. The strands of the mophead were a dirty pink. “I’m sorry, sire. I… I don’t trust magic, but I never wished him dead.”

                Yes, well, someone did, Arthur managed not to say aloud. “It isn’t magic that’s the problem,” he said instead. “It’s the magician. And magicians are just people—some are good, some not. Merlin was good.”

                He watched the man absorbing that little thought as he walked away.

                “I wonder if it’ll make any difference,” Arthur said. “The decree, that is. We’ve got the minds of an entire kingdom to change, and they won’t all have known Merlin personally.”

                “No, but nearly everyone knew someone with magic, I would imagine,” said Gwen. “From what we’ve been reading, I’d guess that magic used to be rather common. It can’t all have disappeared.”

                “Maybe it will now,” Arthur said. “Magic incarnate is dead.”

Chapter Text

                In the infirmary, the silence was becoming overpowering. Gaius sighed softly. “I had better get him cleaned up and dressed before he begins to stiffen,” he said.

                Gwaine swallowed hard, and nodded. “I’ll help you.”

                “I’d appreciate that.”

                “I’ll just go fetch you some clean water,” Percival mumbled, and left.

                Gwaine walked over to the cot where Merlin lay, decently shrouded with his cloak, and prepared himself for what he was going to see when he pulled it away.

                Gently, carefully, he pulled back the covering. Merlin’s face in repose was peaceful, untroubled—he looked far younger than he had for some years now, more like the cheerful boy Gwaine had met in that tavern than the overburdened man he had become.

                Gwaine bit his lip, wishing that he had done more to keep those burdens from Merlin’s shoulders and the pain from his face. He pulled the cloak all the way off, frowned, and touched the fabric, then Merlin’s hand. Then he said a word for which his mother had once washed his mouth out with soap and spun around, his eyes wild. “Gaius!”

                “What’s wrong?” Gaius said, startled.

                “He’s warm. He’s warm!”

                “Well, it’s a hot day,” Leon started.

                “Not like that! Come here! I think he’s breathing!”

                “That’s impossible,” Gaius said and clutched at the edge of the table, his face paper-white.

                “Have you met Merlin? The man redefines the word impossible. Come see!”

                Gaius hurried over and shoved Gwaine out of the way, holding a knife to Merlin’s mouth with hands that only shook a little. The blade obligingly misted over. “Good gods,” Gaius breathed, and it sounded like a prayer. Maybe it was.

                He snatched a little vial from the shelf and almost ran back, uncorking it and waving it under Merlin’s nose. “Come on, my boy,” he murmured. “It’s time to wake up.”

                For a moment there was nothing. Then Merlin groaned softly and turned slightly away from the pungent scent. Gaius thought that he had never seen anything so beautiful.

                Merlin opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, then pushed himself into a sitting position. “Hi, Gaius,” he said, very, very softly.

                Gwaine had a good view of Merlin’s back through the large tear in his tunic. There was no wound. The skin was impossibly pristine. “Did you… did you magic yourself back to life?”

                “Something like that,” Merlin said, still in that subdued voice.

                “You gave us all a bit of a scare,” Gaius said.

                “Sorry,” said Merlin. “I wish I could say it won’t happen again, but it probably will.”

                “Not too often, I hope,” Gaius said. “My heart can’t take it.”

                “I’m sorry,” Merlin said again.

                “Wait,” said Leon, his hand on his swordhilt. “I want this to be real as much as anyone, but are we even sure that this really is Merlin and not some sort of ghoul possessing his body?”

                Merlin looked at him. “At Camlann. When you were chaining me up, you said that while you couldn’t condone my methods, you were grateful for my intervention. That I had saved a lot of lives, including yours, and you thanked me.” His mouth turned up in the saddest smile Leon had ever seen. “No one else did. It meant a lot to me.”

                Leon blinked. “I never told anyone else about that,” he said slowly.

                “Neither did I,” said Merlin. “It’s really me. I swear it.”

                “There are spells to bring back a semblance of a dead man, but none to revive one,” Gaius admitted painfully. “However, it would take a sorcerer of great power to do it, and the spell is long and complicated. There simply hasn’t been time to perform such a ritual. This has to be Merlin.”

                “I’m not a Shade,” Merlin said. “And there was no spell that brought me back. I just… didn’t really die, is all.”

                “But you did,” said Gaius. “Dear boy, I examined you myself!”

                Merlin nodded. “I saw the Lake of Avalon,” he said. “But I never crossed over. I was close, but I didn’t quite die.”

                Gwaine and Leon traded looks. “The king needs to know about this,” Leon finally said. “I’ll fetch him myself.”

                “Don’t run,” Gwaine said. “Take it slow and cautious. And keep this quiet until you’re actually in Arthur’s chambers with the door closed. Rumors are already flying around the citadel; don’t do anything to make them worse. Or that would make you the next target.”

                Leon nodded appreciation for Gwaine’s shrewd advice, and left.

                “And I will go head off Percival,” said Gwaine, tactfully giving Merlin and Gaius a moment to themselves. “With any luck I’ll get him before he’s actually fetched the water.”

                He closed the door behind himself with a soft click and Gaius looked at Merlin’s solemn face. “Are you all right?”

                Merlin nodded, then shook his head. “The Lake was so beautiful,” he finally got out. “So blue.”

                Gaius didn’t try to answer that. Or even to understand it. He just put his arms around Merlin and held him as he cried.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                Leon, taking Gwaine’s advice, didn’t hurry, but he didn’t dawdle, either. He marched directly to Arthur’s chambers with a brisk, businesslike stride that, he hoped, didn’t stand out as anything unusual. He knocked on the door.

                “Enter,” Arthur called.

                Leon did, then closed the door behind him. “Sire… there’s something you need to see.”

                Arthur ran his fingers through his hair irritably. “I’m not really in the mood for business. Is it really so urgent that you can’t deal with it yourself?”       

                “I’m afraid so, sire,” said Leon. “It’s about Merlin.”

                Arthur’s face went blank. “What about him?”

                Leon swallowed. “…He’s alive.”

                The bloodstained tunic Arthur had taken off was lying crumpled on the floor between them. Arthur stared at it until he thought he could keep his composure. “If this is some sort of joke, Leon, it’s in damned poor taste—”

                “Arthur… it’s no joke. Do you honestly think I would joke about this? I don’t pretend to know what’s going on, but he woke up perfectly well, without a scratch on him. He’s alive.”

                “Magic,” Arthur said, tasting the word as he spoke it.

                “Probably,” said Leon. “He doesn’t seem to know how he did it, but he says he wasn’t really dead at all. And he does know things that no one else could have told him. I think it’s really him.”

                 Arthur shook his head, clearly fighting against the hope that was dawning in his eyes. “He can’t be. It’s impossible. Remember Lancelot?”

                “I know, but Gaius doesn’t think it would have been possible to bring him back wrong, the way Lancelot was. There wouldn’t have been time to do it, he said.” Leon took a breath. “He thinks it’s real, too.”   

                “…I have to see for myself,” said Arthur.  

                Leon nodded. “Yes, sire,” he said. “Yes, I think you should.”

                Gwen, who had sat down hard when Leon had dropped his bombshell, (and blushed, ashamed, when Lancelot had been mentioned,) stood up. “I’m coming too,” she said firmly. 

                “Yes, please,” said Arthur. “We need to be sure it’s him, and you might catch something I miss.”   

                “We should keep calm,” Leon advised. “Keep his resurrection quiet if we possibly can. The last thing we need is people swarming the infirmary in a panic.”

                “If he really is alive, we can’t keep it a secret for long,” Gwen said. “I suppose we can just say that he wasn’t really killed and Gaius pulled him through. Not that many people saw it all happen.”

                “No, but the ones that did are probably spreading the rumors like wildfire,” Leon said. “That’s what Gwaine said.”

                “Gwaine knows?” said Arthur.

                “Gwaine was there. He saw it all. Percival had already left on an errand. He probably knows by now, though. He was coming right back.”

                “I see,” said Arthur. “Well, they both know how to hold their tongues when necessary. You’re right. It could be very interesting to see how people, especially our foreign guests, react to the news both of his death and his return. In that order, with some time in between.”

                Gwen lifted an eyebrow, then nodded. “Yes, fine, but for now can we go and make sure our friend isn’t really dead after all?”

                “Yes… but be prepared, Guinevere. It may not… may not be him,” Arthur said.

                “I know,” she said. “But it might be. This wouldn’t be the first time I watched him come back from the dead.”

                Both Arthur and Leon did a double take.

                “You what?” sputtered Leon.

                “It was when he was poisoned. You remember. The mortaeus flower,” said Gwen serenely. “I was helping Gaius tend to him. His heart stopped for a moment after we gave him the antidote. He died, and then he came back.”

                “You never told me that,” said Arthur.

                “I didn’t think too much about it at the time. I was so relieved to see him up and talking that I suppose I assumed that Gaius had made a mistake. It didn’t actually occur to me that he’d really died until just now.”

                “Even a cat only has nine lives, and my guess is that he’s gone through more than just the one death you saw,” said Arthur, gruff with stifled emotion. “Two, at the very least. Magic can only do so much; he’s got to run out of miracles eventually. Don’t get your hopes up too far.”

                “I won’t,” she promised. “Now come on. Let’s go.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                Merlin only let himself cry for a minute or two, then he pulled away from Gaius and pulled himself together. He knew that Arthur wouldn’t be gone for long and he had enough pride left not to want his friend to see him feeling sorry for himself.

                Gaius let him, and said nothing as Merlin roughly wiped the tears from his eyes and cleared his throat.

                “I’m all right,” Merlin said, unnecessarily. And untruthfully.

                “I know,” Gaius said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

                “Wait until Arthur gets here,” Merlin said. “Might as well tell all of you at once rather than repeating myself a dozen times.”

                That made sense, and Gaius didn’t push him, but he sensed that it was not the whole reason Merlin was stalling. Something had happened; something so terrible he was dragging each word out by force, and Gaius’s heart was in his throat worrying about what it might have been. He busied himself making a cup of soothing mint tea, more as a distraction than anything else.

                By the time the door opened, Merlin was fully in control of himself again, and he even managed to smile as Arthur walked in, followed closely by the other four.

                “Hi,” he said. “I guess you have questions?”

                “You might say that,” Arthur said. “You were stone dead not an hour ago. What happened?”

                Merlin took a deep breath. “I didn’t quite die,” he said again. “I’ll grant you, I was nearly dead, but not quite. I saw Freya. The guardian of Avalon. And she told me…” he trailed off.

                “Yes?” said Gwen, who stepped forward to take his hands in her own. “What did she say, Merlin?”

                “She told me that I’m immortal,” he said. “I can’t die. Ever. No matter what happens to me, I’ll always come back.”

                Arthur’s first reaction to that was jubilant relief. I can never lose him, he thought. Then that thought stopped short as the other half of it came crashing down. He’s going to lose all of us.

                “That’s not possible,” he said, as if saying it would make it so.

                “Apparently it is,” Merlin said. “It always was, to hear her tell it. She said I’ve died a number of times already.”

                Arthur and Gwen traded a look. “Yes,” she said again. “I was there for at least one of them.”

                He looked confused for a moment, then his face cleared as he remembered. “Oh, right. The poison. I probably should have figured it out then, but what can I say? I guess you’re all right and I’m an idiot.”

                Arthur let that pass. There was something more important he needed to ask. “Back in the cells, you told me something that’s kept me up nights. You said that you were willing to die if I wanted you to. When you said that… did you know that it wouldn’t be for real? Is that why you were so at peace with your fate?”

                “No. Of course not,” Merlin said. “I thought I was as mortal as anyone. And I was afraid.”

                “You said yourself that you weren’t really human, that you were magic incarnate. You’re telling me you had no idea?”

                “None,” Merlin said. “I thought I’d been lucky up until then, was all.”

                Arthur nodded, thinking that it had to be true, because any evil creature trying to fool him for their own advantage would have come up with a better story.

                “I see,” Arthur said. “Well. I’m glad you’re alive.”

                Merlin gave him a tiny smile. “I know; you’d have been lost without me.”

                It was a joke, and everyone in the room knew it was a joke. Arthur’s reply was completely serious, and everyone knew that, too. “You’re right,” he said. “We would have been.”

                And to hell with decorum. To hell with pride; to hell with Uther’s standards of proper knightly behavior. Arthur reached out and hugged Merlin as tightly as he could.

                And it took a moment, but Merlin hugged back. “It’s all right,” he said into Arthur’s ear. “I’m okay. I’ll never leave.”

                Arthur, who was not stupid, recognized that two of those statements—possibly all three—were lies. He made the split-second decision to let Merlin think that he had gotten away with them and said simply, “I know.”

                They let go at the same time, suddenly bashful, and Merlin was more or less stampeded by the knights, passed from one embrace to the next in a cathartic display of joy he was clearly trying his best to mimic.  

                “All right, that’s enough,” Gwen finally said. “Merlin has been through a terrible experience, and he needs his rest. You can hug him some more tomorrow.”

                “And keep quiet, all of you,” said Arthur. “Don’t tell anyone that he’s alive. In fact, don’t lie outright if you can help it, but try to look sad.”

                Gwaine’s smile was wicked. “You got it, Princess,” he said. “Come on, boys. We have some grieving to do.”

                As the door closed behind the knights, Gwen took Merlin’s hand. “Now tell me the bad part,” she said. “I can tell from your face that there is one.”

                “I told you everything,” Merlin said.

                “For someone who kept such a big secret, you’re a terrible liar,” she said. “What’s wrong, Merlin?”

                He shrugged, turned half away. “It’s nothing. Just… I was so afraid of dying for so long. And now that I know I’ll never die… I’m afraid of that, too. I’m going to lose everyone I’ll ever meet. Forever.”

                She swallowed, her eyes sympathetic. And she tried to be as comforting as she could. “Yes. Yes, that’s true, and I’m sorry. But think of the other side of it, too. You’re always going to meet new people to love. Forever. And new people will love you back.”

                “And… well… you don’t have to stay in Camelot forever,” Arthur said. “You can see the whole world. Go anywhere you like. There’s a big world out there beyond Albion.”

                “I’ll certainly have time for all of that,” Merlin said, with some bitterness that he tried to hide under a rueful smile.

                She hugged him one last time in lieu of doing something useful. “And for now, we still have treaties to sign tomorrow morning. Get some rest,” she said.  

                “In peace,” Merlin wisecracked, in something approaching his usual tones.

Chapter Text

                It would not be polite to say that Lot looked gleeful, or smug. It would not be truthful to say that he looked sad. Not like Mithian did, beneath her queenly demeanor. Even the other representatives looked, if not personally devastated, a bit crestfallen at the thought that the man who had single-handedly bested the Saxons was no longer available for a repeat performance.

                Lot, however, had the look of a man who thinks he finally has the upper hand, and he watched Arthur and his entourage entering the room like a cat at a mousehole.

                Arthur took his seat and cleared his throat. “I don’t think there’s much left to discuss,” he said pleasantly, and unfurled the fair copy of the finished treaty on the table, where pen and ink, ribbons, wax, and a lit taper were ready and waiting. “Shall we get on with it?”  

                “I hate to be the one to say it,” Lot said, and he had the audacity to smile a little. “But I must. Camelot is no longer in the position she was yesterday. Is it still fair, I ask you all, to place Camelot and its king so far above us? We are all sovereigns in our own right; who is Arthur Pendragon to rule us?”

                Some of the other rulers shifted uncomfortably in their padded chairs. Nobody met Arthur’s gaze.

                Arthur lifted his chin a fraction. “You all came to me,” he pointed out. “I never asked for the High Kingship; it was thrust upon me, and I have claimed no more than the right to unite our separate lands against the foreign invaders that threaten our beloved island.”

                “Because we thought you could protect us!” Lot exploded.

                “And so I shall,” Arthur said, and there was the faintest edge in his tone. “Why are you suddenly doubting me now?”

                “Your sorcerer,” Lot hissed. “The one we all feared, the reason we are sitting in this room today, well, he is—”

                “Terribly late, I know; I am sorry, your majesties,” said Merlin, who knew an entrance cue when he heard one, and he breezed through the door, heading straight for his seat.

                Lot looked as though he had swallowed a live frog and was just beginning to feel it wriggling its way back up. “…You’re dead,” he finally said. “Everybody knows you died!”

                “Mmm; not quite, your majesty,” said Merlin, ducking his head politely. If he was hiding a smile, no one could be sure of it. “But I thank you for your kind concern.”

                 Slowly, deliberately, Lot sat back in his seat, his eyes never leaving Merlin for a moment. With very poor grace, he finally sighed and twisted his seal ring off a meaty finger. “So be it,” he said. “Give me your treaty, Pendragon. I will sign it.”

                *.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

                That evening, Arthur and his Round Table read over the treaty one more time; none of them quite believing that it was all real.

                “We did it,” Arthur said, still stunned. “We have united the kingdoms of Albion. All of them.”

                “Under your leadership,” Leon said, proud as a new father.

                Arthur glanced at Merlin, then around at the rest of his companions. Under our leadership, he did not say aloud. “Of course, you all know what this means,” he did say.

                “A coronation banquet to end them all,” Gwaine said immediately. “With wine flowing like water and celebrations in the streets.”

                “I meant after that,” Arthur said. “It’s going to mean five times the work. Grain reports from the length and breadth of Albion. Patrol schedules to match. Taxes to be collected and disbursed each year. It’s going to be exhausting.”

                “We’ll manage,” Gwen said. “Don’t forget—the other kings and queens have their own systems in place to deal with all of those things. We can build on what’s already there rather than tearing everything down and starting fresh. I’m sure they’d prefer that, in fact.”

                “Probably,” Arthur said. “Well, that’s a problem for tomorrow, anyway.”

                Merlin was paying no attention to the conversation; he was staring dreamily out the window, his face unreadable.

                Arthur leaned over and tweaked an ear. “Care to join the rest of us?” he asked.

                Merlin glanced at him, then gestured at the window. “Look,” he said simply. “Look how beautiful it is tonight.”

                They all peered at the window, which looked out at what they all had to admit was a rather spectacular sunset. It gilded the citadel walls and the lower city, turning them all a bright, burnished gold.

                “This is the beginning of a golden age,” Merlin said. “Everything that came before was just leading up to this moment. Our story starts now.”

                “It’s going to take a lifetime to build Albion as she ought to be,” Leon said. “She looks golden now, but what’s going to happen in the morning?”

                “Who cares?” Gwaine said. “And what does it matter? We’ll face it together, whatever it is.”          

                Percival smiled at him. “Yes. We will,” he said. It sounded like an oath.

                “For the love of…Albion,” Arthur said, trying out the words for the first time. He decided he liked the sound of it.

                “For the love of Albion,” the others chorused in reply. It sounded even better that way.

                Merlin just smiled at them all, and said nothing. His eyes were the slightest bit sad, as if he was already seeing the losses that would come. They had been since he’d woken up on Gaius’ patient cot. There seemed a decent chance that they always would be.

                Arthur watched Merlin watching the rest of them, and quietly promised himself that he would make this new kingdom a place where everyone, even deathless sorcerers, would feel wanted and loved. Perhaps that alone would be enough to make it a truly golden age.

                There was a great deal of work ahead of them; that was undeniable. Arthur was suddenly eager for the morning so he could get on with starting it.   

*****Fin*****