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The moment the grass turned from green to yellow beneath their feet, Merlin stumbled.
Only Arthur’s grasp on him kept Merlin upright as he hissed, his injured ankle flaring in pain and black spots blooming across his vision. He had to close his eyes for a long moment and wait for the bout of light-headedness to recede.
“All right?” Arthur asked.
Merlin managed not to flinch. They were the first words Arthur had spoken in hours.
“Fine,” he replied tightly. Disbelief radiated off of Arthur, but no argument came. The prince merely adjusted his grip on Merlin’s arm and pulled them onward.
Their first chance of shelter from the rain was close now. It came in the form of an abandoned castle at the top of a low rise, the sole sentinel for miles of rolling grassland. They made their slow, painful way up the final hill, and Merlin glanced back out over the landscape as Arthur went to pull open the doors, noting the distinct line where the grass changed color, the way it seemed to stretch in a circle around the castle. Some strange blight that had originated here, maybe?
A flash in the distance, soon followed by the low rumble of thunder. Closer than last time, Merlin thought.
“What is this place?” Merlin asked once they’d made their way inside.
Arthur didn’t answer until he’d closed the heavy wooden doors behind them again, Merlin deposited against the wall nearby. “I’m not sure.”
Nothing else followed, and Merlin looked away to take in the space in which they now stood. It was small, as entrance halls went, a dim room with few windows and only meager light filtering in from the larger chamber beyond.
“I don’t remember it on any of the maps,” Merlin tried.
Arthur ducked back under his arm. “Nor do I.” A shiver ran through Merlin. Arthur glanced at him and quickly away again. “We should find a hearth.”
They hobbled forward into the next room, Merlin’s broken ankle searing with pain with every jolting step. He grit his teeth. He’d made it this far. He could make it a few more feet.
This space was much larger, perhaps once used as a dining hall or an audience chamber. Little remained in the way of furniture—just a few rotting chairs scattered about and small bits of detritus littering the floor. Faded green banners sagged from the walls. The dark stone floors seemed to swallow the light that strained in through the tall windows, leaving the room dimmer than it should have been even on a stormy gray afternoon.
They had to cross the entire length of the hall in order to get to the large hearth at the other end. Arthur was a quiet, steady presence beside him, as he had been over the hours they’d spent stumbling through the hills, praying for some respite, not only from the muddy ground and open skies, but from the silence growing like a tumor between them.
There had been a moment, before all of that, when the pain in Merlin’s ankle was still new, when instead of silence there was shouting, a tiny, horrifying split-second in which Merlin had thought Arthur might actually just leave him there. Arthur had seen it in his eyes and closed down instantly, refusing to speak another word to him, no matter what Merlin said. Instead he’d set Merlin’s ankle as best he could, pulled him to his feet, and tugged them both onward.
And now they were here.
Arthur lowered him to the ground, then turned back toward the door. “Where are you going?” Merlin forced out.
“We need wood.”
Merlin looked at the broken chairs.
“It’s all rotted,” Arthur said. “It won’t catch.”
Merlin hesitated. “I… I may be able to help with that.”
Arthur stared at him. Then he scoffed and shook his head. “Of course,” he muttered even as he moved to the nearest chair. “I should have known.”
Merlin said nothing. He should be angry, he thought, but he was simply too tired. The remainder of his strength seemed to be draining into the cold flagstones beneath him. His ankle throbbed with white-hot flashes of pain, even as his wet clothes leeched the warmth from his skin. He wanted only to warm up, pass out, and forget everything that had happened until the next day.
Perhaps it was a sign of how exhausted he was that the sound of wood breaking jarred him, too loud in the otherwise hushed stillness of the castle. Arthur gathered up the pieces, along with some detritus to use as kindling, and piled it all in the fireplace. Then he sat back, crossed his arms, and looked at Merlin expectantly.
Merlin exhaled. He raised his hand.
As he did so the very air thickened, his ears popped, and a heavy shroud of stillness descended over the room. “What—“
“Shh,” Arthur hissed. His hand was resting on the hilt of his sword, and he had rocked back on his heels, prepared to leap to his feet.
They sat in silence for a long moment, listening, but nothing disturbed the heavy air. Merlin’s eyes wandered the room.
“Do you hear anything?” he asked softly.
“Nothing.”
“Not even the rain.”
Arthur frowned, and followed Merlin’s gaze to the windows that were, very clearly, being lashed by rain and wind. Lightning flashed, but no thunder followed.
“That’s… how thick is that glass?”
“Not that thick.”
“We could hear it before,” Arthur said. “I think—we must have.”
Merlin’s magic was growing agitated. He focused, trying to sense if there was malevolent magic nearby, maybe enchantments or curses, but found none. It was possible whatever it was didn’t have bad intentions, though, so he expanded his search to find—
Arthur’s head whipped around at his gasp. “What is it?”
“It’s…” He felt exposed suddenly, sitting there in a room that was far too still. “Something is very wrong here.”
“What?”
“This castle. It’s… it’s a void.”
Arthur’s eyebrows creased. “A void?”
Merlin swallowed. “There’s no—there’s no magic here.” Before Arthur could say something stupid, Merlin added, “There’s magic in everything. In the air, the ground, the water, in life itself. It’s all around us, always. That’s the magic most sorcerers tap into. But here there’s just…”
“Nothing,” Arthur finished. His face was blank. “I take it that’s unusual, then.”
“It’s impossible. Magic isn’t—it’s not a well that can dry up. This doesn’t make any sense.” Now that he’d noticed it, Merlin’s skin was crawling with the absence. It was as if half the air had vanished and left him struggling to breathe—not that he needed the air, per se, but more because he’d grown accustomed to the pressure.
“You can’t do anything, then,” Arthur said.
Merlin pursed his lips. “I’m… not like other sorcerers.”
“Meaning?”
“I’m a warlock. I have my own magic.”
Arthur’s eyes bore into his, his expression unreadable. Merlin didn’t look away. He didn’t know what Arthur wanted from him, but he wasn’t about to apologize for what he’d had to do to survive in Camelot. Arthur clearly didn’t want him dead, which he supposed was a good sign.
“In that case, you should get that fire started,” Arthur said finally. “Not like we have anywhere else to go.”
Merlin would have liked nothing better than to leave this place and its strange dearth of magic behind, but Arthur was right. Dark would fall soon, and getting caught out in the cold and the rain overnight would do neither of them any favors. He lifted his hand once more, and again felt that unsettling thickening of the air as his magic rose to the surface. Doing his best to ignore it this time, he directed a spell at the wood.
Nothing happened. No flame, no spark, and in the next breath a wave of dizziness swept over Merlin, and he swayed.
“Merlin?” Arthur grabbed his shoulder to steady him. “What was that?”
“I—” Merlin squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. The dizziness was already gone, but he still felt a bit faint. “I don’t know. Sorry.”
Arthur’s eyes flicked down to his ankle, then over his water-logged clothes. “You haven’t caught a fever, have you?”
“I don’t think so,” Merlin said. His ankle twinged as he shifted slightly, and he bit back a wince. “Hold on.”
He aimed his hand at the wood again, this time giving voice to the spell. His magic cascaded through him more forcefully than he’d intended, and the room was flung into motion around him, intense vertigo blacking out his vision.
“—lin! Merlin!”
Merlin blinked the dark spots out of his eyes. Arthur’s face was pale where it hovered in front of him, his eyes searching Merlin’s with an intensity that made Merlin want to lean away from him. But Arthur had both hands on his shoulders now, keeping him upright, and Merlin’s muscles had gone weak and shaky. He had the sneaking suspicion that he might not be able to catch himself if Arthur let go.
“I’m fine,” Merlin managed. The room wasn’t spinning quite so badly now, but his magic buzzed under the surface of his skin, like steam trying to escape a boiling kettle. A glance at the fireplace confirmed he had failed again.
“Sure you are,” Arthur said. “Does this usually happen when you use magic?”
“Not really, no.” Pressure was building in his chest, accompanied by a slow dread. “We need to leave.”
“What?”
“We need to leave,” Merlin repeated. “If I can’t protect us—”
Arthur leaned away from him. Merlin swayed as his support disappeared, but managed to remain upright. “What, exactly, is it you think you need to protect us from?”
Another shudder ran through Merlin, and he caught himself on a shaky hand. “I don’t know, but this is place is wrong. You feel it too.”
Arthur looked away, but didn’t deny it. “There’s no one else here. Better here than out in the storm.”
Merlin swallowed. The dull light from outside seemed to already be fading. “Let me try one more time, then.” He turned back to the fireplace.
“What? No, Merlin, wait—” Arthur grabbed his shoulder, but Merlin was already raising his hand. He had to know his magic would respond to him properly if he needed it to. If it wouldn’t… well, at that point he’d rather they took their chances out in the storm.
Merlin closed his eyes. He forced his magic to settle, to ignore the emptiness of his surroundings, to focus solely on his intent.
Fire. Flame. Warmth.
It was like tearing down a dam. Magic flooded through him with the force of a tidal wave, furious and raging and completely out of his control, and there was nothing Merlin could do to save himself from getting swept away in its wake.
“Merlin!”
It was too late; Merlin’s eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped, boneless. Arthur caught him and lowered him to the ground, careful not to jostle his injured leg.
“Merlin?” Arthur tapped him lightly on the cheek. “Merlin, you idiot, wake up!”
Nothing. He was breathing, but his pulse when Arthur checked it was erratic and weak. “Damn it.” Arthur shook him again. “Merlin!”
But it didn’t matter what he did; Merlin was well and truly unconscious. Arthur sat back on his heels. Despite Merlin’s best efforts, the fire was still unlit, and they were both soaked and liable to become hypothermic if they didn’t find a way to get warm. Whatever was going on with Merlin’s magic—and wasn’t that an incongruous thought—would have to wait.
Arthur glanced toward the door. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Merlin here, alone and unconscious in a place that was clearly off in some indeterminate, magical way, but they needed usable wood.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said to Merlin’s uncaring ears, and stood.
The castle was quieter than a tomb. Arthur’s steps were muted by the dust layering the floors, and the particles stirred by his movement drifted unusually slowly through the air. It didn’t feel quite as heavy as it had back in the main chamber, but there was still an undeniable weight to it that slowed Arthur’s progress.
He thought about what Merlin had said, about how there was an absence of magic here. Was that what Arthur was feeling? It was… disturbing, the idea that he could sense such a thing. But even more disturbing was Merlin’s claim that there was normally magic everywhere, in everything, all the time.
Then again, prior to several hours ago, putting Merlin and magic in the same sentence would have been ludicrous to Arthur. Right up until the moment he’d stopped a charging horse from trampling Arthur, sending its rider flying from twenty paces. Their eyes had met for all of half a second before another bandit brought a club down on Merlin’s shin.
The fight was over less than ten seconds later, mostly thanks to Merlin, and Arthur hadn’t paused, had simply exploded. He didn’t even remember half of what he’d shouted now, but he did remember the flicker of doubt, of fear, in Merlin’s eyes. It wasn’t something he ever wanted to see again.
Arthur emerged from the first staircase into a long hallway. The wall sconces were strangely clean, he noticed, free of any spiderwebs, though the metal was as dull and muted as the rest of this place. Some had tapestries hung between them, fraying and so faded it was impossible to tell what they had once depicted. How long, exactly, had this place been abandoned?
The first room off the hall was a small meeting room, not unlike his own small council chambers. It was completely devoid of any furniture, however, and only a couple of sad green banners, the twins of those downstairs, broke up the monotony of the stone walls. Arthur moved on.
The next room was larger, likely a dining hall if the positioning of the collapsed table and several chairs were anything to go by. Arthur moved toward them, hoping—but no, this wood too was rotted. He placed a hand on the table, feeling for damp, but was surprised to find the wood was dry.
That was strange. Now that Arthur thought about it, he realized the air too was dry, with no moisture to start the rot. No leaks, either, as far as he could tell, and those would have been obvious given the rainstorm outside, which—yes, it was still raining, and he still couldn’t hear it. He looked away from the windows quickly; the incongruity hurt his head. Merlin would probably tease him about thinking too hard, if he was here.
Several rooms and a short staircase later, Arthur came across a workshop. It looked like a compressed version of Gaius’ chambers; half the size and ten times messier. One side of a large table had collapsed, sending vials and books scattering everywhere. Baskets of what might have once been herbs sat haphazardly along one wall, but their contents were so dry they were nearly dust. Arthur’s shoulder brushed against a wall sconce as he turned away from them, and it creaked and fell, landing not with a clang but a dull thump, the metal collapsing into little more than rust as it hit the floor.
Arthur swallowed. He stepped away, careful not to breathe in any of the resulting flecks drifting sluggishly through the air.
The table was as rotted as everything else, but perhaps the books and loose papers would be burnable. Not that they’d last very long, but it was something. Arthur knelt to gather some of the scattered pages, and stopped short at what he saw.
Sorcery. It wasn’t even subtle. There were incantations written out, along with their effects, and diagrams of some sort of device. Many notes in the margins, too, in several different hands, such as “How to increase capacity?” and “Still need a controlled way to access afterward.”
Arthur inhaled shakily. The revulsion that had been drilled into him as a reflex at the mention of sorcery was weak. Perhaps it was that he’d dealt with so much sorcery today already that he had grown somewhat accustomed to it. Or maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t in Camelot, that he was alone, that there was no way for his father to know what he’d done—or rather, failed to do. And of course there was Merlin, and Merlin… well. Merlin had always been good at defying Arthur’s expectations.
There was also, he found with mild surprise, a part of him that was curious. Morbidly so, but perhaps that was unfair; after all, he had scarcely seen two pages. What would the sorcerers here have needed to build a device for? What was even possible? As prince, was it not Arthur’s duty to understand? He pulled the pile of papers toward him and began to read more carefully.
The notes were difficult to comprehend, to say the least. Arthur muddled through mentions of power concentrations and access flows and storage capacities, and it wasn’t until he came across a page mentioning his father’s Purge that he began to understand what he was looking at. The near-unintelligible scribblings took on a more desperate skew, as did the thrice underlined and circled notes in the margins. Notes such as, “How long will supply last?” and “Ensure fastest rate of collection!” and “Can’t use so many defenses—NEED to be able to control flow in and out.”
Arthur put the papers down. He could almost see it: these sorcerers, some twenty-odd years earlier, rushing around this very room, working and reading and feverishly planning, experimenting. How much time had they had? How much warning? Had all of this been done in a matter of weeks? Days, even? Arthur had no familiarity with magic, but even he could see the enormous complexity of what they’d been trying to do. They must have known their chances of success were slim.
And, if Merlin was right, if magic wasn’t a well that could run dry, but they had feared that it could… perhaps it had all been pointless anyway. Pointless, and resulting only in an abandoned, dying castle.
Arthur gathered the papers quickly. Hopefully Merlin would have recovered enough by now to wake, because Arthur was certainly going to need his help to fix this. He didn’t know what would happen if they simply left, if the effects would remain contained to the castle or if they would, over time, spread even farther. It would be best not to leave it to chance.
Merlin was exactly where Arthur had left him. Arthur dropped to his knees beside him, tried to push away the worry that stabbed through him as he took in Merlin’s labored breathing. “Merlin.”
Merlin’s eyelids twitched.
Arthur shook his shoulder. “Merlin. Come on, wake up. I’ve found something.”
To his surprise and relief, Merlin began to stir. He blinked groggily up at Arthur for several moments before taking in the room around him. “Oh,” he sighed. “Right.”
“Look.” Arthur held up the papers. “I think I know why your magic isn’t working.”
Merlin stared at him blankly for a long second. Then he shot upright, and would have fallen over again if Arthur hadn’t steadied him. “Sorry,” he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut. “Bit—bit dizzy.”
“Probably not a good idea to go lurching about in your condition,” Arthur agreed.
Merlin squinted at him, and Arthur was glad to see the hint of a glare in his eyes. “What—you said you know…?”
“I found these,” Arthur told him, shoving the papers into Merlin’s hands. “I think it’s something the sorcerers who lived here began working on once they heard about—about the Purge.”
Merlin’s eyes flicked to him and back down to the papers. Arthur watched as the pained pinch to his brow slowly morphed into incredulity. “Arthur, this is… if they made…”
“It would explain things, wouldn’t it? If this device is meant to draw magic in and store it for future use, then that must be why your magic isn’t going where you want it to go. It’s going to that thing instead. Which means it’s still here somewhere, and still active. We need to find it. I doubt it was meant to continue drawing power indefinitely, but if that’s what’s happening, I’m willing to wager it’s why all the wood in the castle is rotted, and why the air feels strange, and maybe even why we can’t hear the rain. Assuming what you said about magic normally being in everything is true.”
By the time Arthur finished speaking, Merlin was staring at him, gaze wondrous. “You—you believe me about that, then?”
Arthur frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I thought it bothered you. The idea that there’s magic everywhere.”
“It… it did, at first,” Arthur admitted, looking down. “But if magic is what makes the world work and—and feel the way it does, and this is how things would be without it…” He met Merlin’s eyes. “I’d rather have it.”
Something complicated passed over Merlin’s face. “So you want to find this device—”
“And destroy it.”
Merlin exhaled shakily. “Your father would probably love to have a device like this at his disposal.”
“I know.”
“If he ever learned what you’d found—”
“We’ll burn the notes, too.”
“This is—Arthur, if we do this, you’d be committing treason.”
Arthur shrugged. “Technically, I already have.”
Merlin opened his mouth, but no words came out. Arthur felt like he was standing at the very edge of a cliff, reckless, high winds buffeting around him, ready to snatch him away into open air. His mind was already spinning with plans, years into the future, threads of thought that tangled and flew away from him almost as quickly as they occurred.
Later. There would be time, later, to sit down and think about everything that needed to be done.
“Arthur,” Merlin whispered finally. “Thank you. I… you can’t know how much… thank you.”
“They were scared,” Arthur said in response, nodding at the papers in Merlin’s lap. “They were scared, and they were desperate, and all they succeeded in doing was hurting themselves. If I know you at all, Merlin, you’ve likely done that a time or two. It stops now.”
Merlin closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, they were shining. “You’re going to be the greatest king Albion has ever known.”
There it was, the full brilliance of Merlin’s stubborn belief shining down on him. Arthur had never felt deserving of it, but he wanted to be, wanted to earn it with everything he had, and he swore to himself then and there that he would do everything in his power not to let Merlin down. “Let’s go find that device, shall we?”
The notes, unfortunately, didn’t make any obvious mention of where the device might have been set up. Merlin read through them more carefully while Arthur paced around him, occasionally running a hand along a wall or the mantle.
“Would you stand still?” Merlin finally snapped.
Arthur scowled. “Find anything?”
“No,” Merlin said shortly. “But I might be able to go faster without your pacing to distract me.”
“This room is very central,” Arthur said. “There might be a door with the device right—” He stopped, expression becoming thoughtful. “You could probably hide a door with magic, couldn’t you?”
Merlin blinked. Just this morning he couldn’t have imagined Arthur speaking so casually about magic. “You could,” he said slowly, “but if there was any such spell the device would have stripped it away a long time ago.”
“Right.” Arthur sighed. “Why don’t I just go searching while you finish looking through those?”
“You’re not sensitive enough. You won’t feel it just by walking past it.”
“But I would feel it.”
Merlin shrugged. “Eventually. Like I said, there’s magic in everything. Being in close proximity to this thing for too long would likely mean some weakness and dizziness, even for you.” He didn’t mention how his own headache had been steadily growing worse since he’d woken, how the exhaustion in his muscles ran deeper than even an hours-long trek through the rain should warrant. The device wouldn’t kill Arthur, wouldn’t kill most people, sorcerer or not, but Merlin… well, if they didn’t destroy this thing soon he wasn’t sure what it would do to him.
Arthur studied him for a long moment. Merlin looked back down at the notes. “So we really only have one shot at this,” Arthur said. Merlin nodded. “All right. Is there anything in there we can use, then?”
“There are some defenses around this thing. That’s what half of these notes are about—how to set up magical protections without the device rendering them useless. I’m not… entirely sure which of these ideas they ended up using, but a perimeter to keep people from getting too close seems likely. I’ll have to dismantle that before anything else.”
“And finding it?”
Merlin bit his lip. “I… I have an idea. I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
Arthur sighed. “Let’s hear it.”
“I told you that I’m not like other sorcerers. That I have my own magic. This device, the closer I get to it, the more I’ll be able to feel it, even if it’s just for a moment.”
To his credit, Arthur didn’t seem surprised. “You feel it now, don’t you?”
Merlin nodded. “The longer we sit here, the worse it’s going to get.”
“And how are you going to destroy it, or the defenses, if it just sucks in all your magic?”
“It must have a limit. I can try to just… overpower it.”
“Overpower it.”
“Yes.”
“So it will stop at some point, then,” Arthur said. “It won’t keep taking more and more magic from the world.”
“Probably not, but it’s been taking magic for twenty years now and still hasn’t reached its limit. For all we know it could go for another hundred years, and there’s no telling how far the effects will spread.”
“And yet you think you can overpower it.”
“I know I can.”
“Without killing yourself?”
They stared at one another, Arthur standing there with his arms crossed, Merlin on the floor with his hands full of desperate paper plans. “Yes,” Merlin said.
Arthur closed his eyes briefly. Merlin could see the conflict in every line of his body, every twitch of his face. A sad smile pulled at Merlin’s lips. That moment of doubt he’d had felt like it belonged to someone else, like it was impossible that Merlin could have ever considered Arthur leaving him behind.
“Like you said, we need to destroy it,” Merlin said gently. “I know I can do it.” He held out a hand. “Help me up?”
Arthur sighed. “If you do get yourself killed, I’ll make sure everyone knows just how big of an idiot you were.”
“You try that now and it doesn’t work,” Merlin retorted. Arthur rolled his eyes, but clasped Merlin’s arm and pulled him up onto his one good foot. The pain in his head sharpened and the room swayed, spinning for several long moments before settling again.
“Merlin?” Arthur asked. He moved to slide an arm around Merlin’s back.
“Fine,” Merlin managed. “Let’s go.”
They made their slow, limping way around the ground floor. Merlin tried to concentrate, but the throbbing in his head made it difficult to focus. His ankle screaming at the abuse it had been through the last few hours didn’t help. Arthur was taking more of his weight now than he had been before they’d arrived.
Concentration, it turned out, wasn’t necessary. In the hallway around the backside of the great hall, the pain in Merlin’s head spiked.
“What is it?” Arthur said at Merlin’s hiss.
“It’s close,” Merlin managed. He noticed a door on their right. “There.”
Arthur pushed the door open. A set of stairs spiraled down into darkness. “Well, this looks promising.”
“Come on.”
They didn’t have to go far; just one full circle and they were stepping into a long, low-ceilinged room. The only light, apart from what little filtered down through the open door above them, came from what appeared to be a glowing box set on a stone altar at the other end of the chamber. It pulsed gently with an unearthly blue-white light. Merlin’s vision blurred as he stared at it and next to him, Arthur stumbled slightly.
“Is that it?” Arthur asked, his voice strained.
“That’s it,” Merlin said. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to breathe through the pain in his head and ankle, through the weakness in his body. The device tugged at his magic, and though Merlin couldn’t stop it from taking entirely, he was doing his best to obstruct the flow. But the device only pulled harder, as if frustrated. Merlin was probably the biggest meal it had encountered in years.
“Merlin?”
“I need to do this quickly,” Merlin managed. “Get—we need to get closer.”
“Must we?” Arthur muttered, but he took a shaky step forward, and Merlin limped with him. Hopefully it would become clear quickly which defenses had been set up, and if Merlin could hit them with enough force to actually get through them before the box sucked in all his magic…
Arthur stopped suddenly. “I can’t go farther.”
Merlin raised his hand; it hit something solid and invisible. The barrier didn’t feel like anything, no different from the air around them; they just couldn’t move forward.
“I’m going to hit it with a lot at once,” Merlin warned Arthur. “Just… be ready.”
“For what, exactly?”
“I’m not entirely sure.” His magic was stabbing at the underside of his skin, like shards of iron being attracted by a lodestone; Merlin grit his teeth and clamped down on it with all his will. He only had one shot at this. This, and then the device itself. He briefly considered trying to go straight for the device, but he could feel the fine threads of power woven into the barrier under his hand. It was doing more than simply stopping them from getting closer. No, it had to come down first.
“If I pass out,” Merlin said, “get out of here.”
“What?” Arthur blinked at him. “No.”
“You can’t stay here for long, Arthur. If I fail…”
“You won’t fail.” Arthur’s voice was firm. “You said you could do this. Were you lying?”
There was a sharpness to the word. Merlin swallowed. “No. I wasn’t.”
“Good. Now, like you were saying, the sooner the better, right?”
Merlin nodded. “Right. All right. Hang on.”
He closed his eyes. And, rather than concentrating on the barrier, Merlin turned his focus inward.
Slowly, so slowly, he coaxed his power to gather. His magic buzzed inside him, wanting to obey but struggling against the pull of the device. The surface of his skin crackled, sharp pinpricks of pain as more of his magic leaked away. His head pounded, his lungs felt like they were being compressed. He had to act, and quickly.
Merlin opened his eyes. He drew back his hand, and, with the might of all the magic still in his control behind it, slammed it into the barrier.
A blinding flash of golden light, a sound like metal tearing, and the barrier came down, singeing the air with the scent of ozone. They stumbled, but Merlin barely registered the searing pain in his ankle. The device was gorging greedily on his magic now, and Merlin fed it even as his vision went gray. If he could overwhelm it, get it to spew up everything it had taken from this place…
It was too much. With a horrible, agonizing snap, Merlin’s magic failed him, and like a puppet with its strings cut, he collapsed straight into darkness.
Arthur’s eyes were burning.
The flash as the barrier came down still hung like a ghostly film over his vision. In front of him golden light was streaming into the device, even as the blue halo around it expanded outwards, growing paler as it went. But the device itself continued to brighten, and Arthur had no idea if that was a good thing or not, if Merlin’s plan was working.
He could feel Merlin trembling with the effort. Arthur’s own head was spinning, and there was a pressure in his chest, like his lungs were filling up with water. He was losing something, he could feel it, but there was nothing he could do stop it.
A sudden, sharp jolt, and Merlin dropped like a stone. Arthur went down with him, weaker than he should have been but managing to save Merlin from cracking his head against the floor.
“Merlin?”
Merlin’s skin was clammy and gray; he looked dead. Arthur fumbled for his wrist, found a pulse that was weak and slow. Carefully, he lowered Merlin to the ground and leaned over him. “Merlin!”
No response. Arthur squeezed his eyes shut, tried to breathe through the sudden nausea that swept through him. His head was starting to throb. He looked back toward the device.
The last strands of golden light were disappearing into it. The blue glow pulsated, diluted but still very much alight.
Arthur doubted he had any chance of waking Merlin, not now. He himself was growing shakier by the second. They were running out of time.
With a steadying breath through lungs that seemed barely able to expand, Arthur forced himself to his feet.
For a long moment the room spun around him, streaks of bright blue and dull gray flashing across his vision. Arthur rode it out, managed to stay standing. He drew his sword and stumbled to the altar.
The pull of the light was almost a physical thing, drawing him closer, drawing something deep inside of him out. Each breath was painful now. Merlin had said the device would affect him, but this strongly? Was it even more powerful than they’d thought?
One of Arthur’s knees gave out. He caught himself on the altar, blinking against the light. This thing was dangerous, he reminded himself. It knew his intentions. It was trying to protect itself.
Arms trembling, Arthur raised his sword. Blue light—magic—swirled around him, pulling harder, squeezing his lungs, his heart, driving daggers through his brain. Something was wrong. More wrong than either of them had expected, because Arthur didn’t have any magic, and yet he knew without a doubt that the device was killing him.
Impossible. Unless…
A memory, long since buried, discarded as a trick too painful to return to. Blonde curls, kind eyes. A smile he had missed his entire life.
Arthur dropped his sword.
He did not have the capacity for anger, not now. He and Merlin would both die here if he didn’t do something, killed by the very thing Uther would prize above all else, the thing that was meant to be a saving grace for a terrified people. But the device had never been built to consume magic, only to store it. Hide it. And once it was safe, hidden things were meant to be set free.
Arthur’s vision was flecked with black spots now. He reached forward, leaning heavily on the altar. The device allowed it. Perhaps it knew what he meant to do.
The box was cool to the touch. Arthur could barely see it for all the light, but he could feel the intricate metalwork along its surface, wondered if it was a calligraphy of magic he was feeling. Merlin would be able to tell him.
Merlin, when he woke up.
With arms that weighed as much as boulders, Arthur opened the lid.
The blue glow vanished, blown away as if by a harsh wind. Arthur’s ears popped half a second before golden light exploded from within the box, streaming outwards in all directions. Arthur stumbled from the force of it; not physical, but something deeper, something that eased the pressure in his chest, the pain in his head. The dizziness began to recede, and though he still felt shaky his muscles were no longer on the verge of collapse. The air felt crisp and fresh suddenly, and Arthur breathed it in gratefully.
When he opened his eyes again the device was dark and cold, just an empty metal box sitting on an altar. Arthur stared at it for a moment, indistinct in the meager light coming in through the doorway upstairs, before turning and dropping to his knees.
Merlin was still unconscious. But his pulse seemed stronger than it had before, and though it was hard to tell in this light Arthur thought he no longer looked quite so gray. He sighed and sat back, running a hand over his face.
It had all been true after all. Arthur’s birth, his mother’s death, his father’s unrelenting persecutions. And Merlin—whether by fib or by ignorance—had stopped Arthur from acting on his anger then. The seed of it was back, but it was a low, smoldering fury this time. He would need to consider things more carefully, give thought to how to proceed. But his father could not be allowed to escape responsibility for what he’d done.
He looked at Merlin. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.
Merlin began to stir not long after. Arthur leaned forward. “Merlin?”
It was several moments before Merlin opened his eyes. His gaze was unfocused at first; Arthur waved a hand in front of him several times before Merlin seemed able to follow it. “Arthur?”
“How are you feeling?”
Merlin moved his injured leg and winced. “Confused.” He blinked up at Arthur. “What happened?”
Arthur hesitated, gathering his words, and that was when he noticed. A smile spread across his face. “Listen.”
Merlin frowned at him, but his expression smoothed as he realized what Arthur was talking about. They could, even down in this windowless basement room, hear the rain.
Merlin’s magic was a bit of a roiling mess.
It burbled under his skin, agitated, still trying to settle after having been pulled in too many different directions at once. Merlin had the unpleasant feeling that any careless thought could set it off and bring the castle crashing down around them.
His strength was still mostly gone. Arthur helped him sit up, then had to all but carry him up the stairs and back into the main hall. They settled once more in front of the hearth. The air felt lighter than it had before, and the room seemed brighter, like color they hadn’t even known was missing had seeped back into their surroundings. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the cold and the fact that their clothes were still wet.
“What are you thinking?” Arthur asked. They were both staring at the rotten wood in the fireplace.
“That I’m either going to barely make a spark or burn the entire place down.”
Arthur looked at him. “That would be quite a feat, considering this place is made of stone.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Shouldn’t the wood have become usable again?”
Merlin shook his head. “It’s too far damaged. Magic can’t do everything.”
Arthur pursed his lips. “I could look around the castle some more, see if there is any we can use.”
“Don’t bother. I doubt there’ll be anything.” Merlin raised his hand, then paused. “You may want to step back.”
“Is that really—”
At Merlin’s sharp look, Arthur sighed and stepped away. Merlin closed his eyes, trying to calm the churning mess of magic inside him. It would settle eventually, but right now he just needed a single thread to cooperate.
Very gently, he pushed his magic forward. Something bright and hot flared in front of him, and Merlin opened his eyes to find an enormous fire blazing in the hearth, licking out around the edges. Arthur’s hands landed on his shoulders, making to pull him away, but then the fire settled to a more normal size.
“Huh,” Arthur said.
Merlin snorted. “Suppose I’m useful after all.”
The expected rebuttal didn’t come. Merlin turned as Arthur sat down beside him, eyes on the fire. There was a strange look on his face.
“Arthur?” Merlin said cautiously.
Arthur gave a long sigh. “Why do you—” He stopped, seemed to fight with himself. “The device. Why did you think you needed to overpower it?”
Merlin stared at his profile. “We thought that would stop it taking magic,” he said slowly. “I thought I could… but I failed.” He paused, but Arthur said nothing. “What actually happened down there?”
“It was killing you,” Arthur said. “It was killing me, too.”
“But you—”
“I’m not like you, no. My mother,” he began, and the air left Merlin’s lungs in a whoosh. “She wasn’t a trick. Everything she told me was true. About my birth, and how my father…” Arthur shook his head. “It was all true.”
“Arthur—“
“Did you know?” Arthur’s gaze was sharp when he looked at Merlin. “When you… talked me down, did you know it was all true?”
Merlin lowered his eyes. “Yes.”
“But you still—”
“He’s your father, Arthur. You wouldn’t have been able to live with yourself.”
“He killed—”
“Yes, he did.” The flames burned at Merlin’s eyes. “I—your father scares me, Arthur. He does. But what kind of king would you have made if your reign began like that?”
Arthur was quiet. “You thought I was going to leave you there. Right after.”
Merlin exhaled heavily. “I don’t think I did, not truly. I was just… I’ve been afraid, the entire time I’ve lived in Camelot. And you were angry, and I…”
“You’ve been battling magic for a long time,” Arthur said. “For me.”
“I suppose I have.”
Arthur turned to him, his gaze serious. “I don’t want you to do that anymore.”
“There’s going to be another threat sooner or later—”
“That’s not what I meant.” Merlin frowned at him. Arthur sighed. “Do you know what I did to that device? I thought at first to destroy it, like you meant to. But if I did it right then, there was no telling what would happen to the magic it was safeguarding. Perhaps it would have been damaged, too, or lost. It wouldn’t have been right.”
“What did you—”
“I opened it,” Arthur said. “That’s all. I let it go free.”
Merlin swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. “So now—”
“Now we can destroy it, so it can’t be misused again. My point was—don’t do things that will hurt you because you’ve convinced yourself it’s what’s best for me. The best thing you can do for me is help me understand magic, help me work with it, so that we can make some real change. Can you do that?”
Slowly, Merlin nodded. “I can try.”
“Good.” Arthur turned back to the fire.
“What are you going to do?” Merlin asked. “When we get back to Camelot?”
Arthur sighed. “I don’t know yet. I need to… I need to speak with my father. I won’t—I won’t kill him,” he added quickly. “But if I can gather some support from the other nobles, maybe we can get him to step down.” He looked at Merlin. “You can help me think about it on our way back.”
“I don’t think it should be up to me.”
The corner of Arthur’s mouth twitched. “Well, I haven’t promised I’ll listen to you.”
Merlin shook his head. “I’m biased.”
“So am I.” Arthur shrugged. “I think it probably evens out between us.”
That was probably true, Merlin had to admit. “There will be a lot of chaos.”
“I know. But it’s either that or…”
Or continuing to let innocent people die. And Merlin knew Arthur would not rest until things had been put right.
Part of him couldn’t believe he was having this conversation with Arthur, expecting at any moment to wake and find it had been a dream. But this was real. Arthur knew about his magic, and was asking for his help to finally, finally change things.
They settled in for the night as comfortably as they could. Despite his injured ankle, despite his fluttery magic, Merlin slept better than he had in some time. In the morning, the storm had cleared, and Arthur retrieved the device from the room below.
Merlin ran his hand across the top of the box. It was beautiful; silver metal carved into runes and symbols, chained together into cascading series of spells. Even inert, Merlin could feel the potential power thrumming behind them. It would be almost a shame to destroy it, but there was no purpose to something like this. It could only cause harm.
“What are you going to do?” Arthur asked.
Merlin glanced up at him. “It won’t explode.”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “Well, that’s a relief.”
Merlin placed both hands on the box. “There’s a simpler way.” Beneath his palms, the metal began to flow. The runes deformed, becoming shapeless, losing purpose, losing power. Soon enough Merlin was left with a simple silver box, flat on all sides, good for nothing apart from storing perhaps a few scarves or some books.
“That’s it, then?” Arthur said.
“That’s it.”
They both looked at the box for a long moment. Merlin had already thrown the notes into the fire the night before. The idea of chaining spells together intrigued him, but those notes were too dangerous to leave lying around, here or in Camelot. If Merlin ever needed to do such a thing, he’d figure it out himself. He had, he thought somewhat giddily, the freedom to experiment, now that Arthur knew the truth.
“Ready to go?” Arthur said finally. Merlin nodded, and Arthur helped him to his feet. They made their slow, limping way into the entrance hall, and when Arthur pushed open the front doors, Merlin couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across his face.
The grass in all directions was a brilliant, vibrant green.