Chapter Text
A replacement for Merlin was given for the morning. Then the afternoon. Then for the night. Arthur waited anxiously for any updates from Gaius yet he received nothing. Unfortunately, his day was full with duties he couldn’t skip to check in on his manservant and he didn’t have much time to pull someone aside to check on his behalf. Around dinner time he sent a servant to get some sort of update but they returned only to tell him Gaius refused to give anything. He forced himself through every meal, unable to savour any of the meat's richness or the wine's smoothness. It all tasted sour against the guilt he felt. He knew it was his fault. It had to be his fault, didn’t it?
Finally, as the sun set, Gaius sent word that he wanted a meeting to discuss the condition of his manservant. It wasn’t only with Arthur, thank goodness. The king doubted he’d survive it if that were the case. The knights of the roundtable, Gwen and Morgana were also asked to join it. Perhaps there was a quest they needed to go on or their involvement in keeping his secret meant they needed to be privy to the knowledge. Arthur could feel the anxiety build in his chambers as they waited for the physician to arrive. Some paced, others remained glued to their seats. He took vigil by the window, looking out at the kingdom he helped secure. Merlin helped in that too.
Gaius entered the room wordlessly, carrying a thick old-looking book and a heavy look wearing down his expression. He looked exhausted so it was safe to assume the illness took a long time to find alongside tending to his ailing ward.
“Have you found what it is?” Gwen asked, hopeful for an answer. Why else would a meeting be called? Well, there was another reason but she’d swiftly dismissed any notion of Merlin not making it. He simply couldn’t die. Gaius nodded solemnly and opened a book, placing it on the table for everyone to see.
“It’s a curse of extortion,” he began. “For as long as the conditions aren’t met, the person will continue to grow ill until they are no more. He’s in the first stages of the curse where he is awake but showing symptoms of illness.”
“So it’s curable,” Gwaine said, breathing a sigh of relief.
“It is but only if the condition is met.”
“How do we find out the conditions?” Morgana asked. The physician seemed to age considerably more as he produced a piece of parchment and placed it on the book. Immediately, they recognised Merlin’s handwriting since he’d been writing speeches and schedules for years. For a moment, they refused to come to the conclusion they were expected to. Merlin wouldn’t do that to them. He wouldn’t force them to choose between meeting the terms of the curse or losing their friend. Yet there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. The note was written clearly so no one had him at swordpoint and someone hadn’t forged his hand either.
I have grown tired of waiting for the day Camelot is free of the purge. I know my place as her protector and my place as protector of her ruler but I no longer know my place living behind her walls. Arthur reminded me of such. He has forced my hand by prosecuting others who share my crimes without the mercy he showed me. Well, I had hoped it was mercy but I’ve come to understand it was self-preservation.
In fairness to those who were fooled by a disguise so powerful I fooled myself, I apologise for what my suffering may do to you but I hope in time you find it worthwhile either as a self-imposed punishment for myself or as work for a good cause.
To fulfil my destiny and perhaps to rather selfishly punish myself for my naivety towards what I am, I have cast a curse upon myself. Until magic is free to use in Camelot without persecution, I will grow iller by the day until I die.
If you find it in your heart to accept magic as a tool as you found it so easy to accept me as your weapon then I will be glad to see it.
Perhaps this monster can be a martyr or my life will just be another monster’s you ended.
Your servant till the day I die,
Merlin
“He can’t die,” Arthur argued immediately before anyone could comment. “He’s magic, he lives as long as there is magic therefore he cannot truly die.”
“Exactly,” Gaius replied thickly. “The curse will follow him through. He will continue to die, resurrect and die again until the condition is met.”
“Arthur,” Morgana began, finally drawing her eyes away from the letter and settling them on her brother. “What did you say to him?”
“What? How am I to blame for what the fool did to himself?”
“He had an argument with you yesterday,” Gwaine stated, now sure the king had lied that night at dinner. He’d been questioning it before, hoping that it was only an offhanded comment that had hurt his boyfriend, but this only confirmed this definitely happened. “He said you reminded him of his place. I thought you had told him he was just a servant or something along those lines. Did you call him a monster?”
“No! I called him,” his sentence trailed off. No, he’d done something equally as bad, perhaps even worse, and they knew it. He knew it. “I called him a weapon. He got upset, the fire grew and I instinctively drew my sword-”
“You drew your sword?” Gwaine roared. “Against your most trusted friend, against the man you made me jump through hoops just to court, the moment he got upset, you drew your sword?”
“Instinctively! I didn’t mean to,” he insisted.
“You called your friend a weapon,” Gwen repeated. Her hands shook by her sides with anger and if she wasn’t half the woman she was, she would’ve hit him by now. “The man who would sooner die for you than see you hurt and your conclusion was that? That he is just some emotionless thing for you to own rather than a person who does all he can for you?”
“He was sort of made for me though,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?” Gwaine shouted, looking five seconds away from murdering the man. Percival swiftly stepped between them and grabbed his fellow knight’s shoulder tightly.
“Sire, I don’t like to speak out of turn, but that’s possibly the worst defence you’ve come up with and I’ve heard the “practising poetry” excuse,” Leon admitted.
“Merlin came up with that one.”
“And you went along with it.”
“Sorry, I’m still hung up on the fact you called Merlin a weapon made for you!” Morgana snarled. “His request is not unreasonable and I’m shocked that it’s taken not just his admission of magic but months later it has to take his life for you to even consider it.”
“I never said I’d consider it. Let him play martyr until he finally sees that I will not bend to the will of magic. He’ll learn his lesson quickly.” The tension in the room could be felt and the temperature seemed to drop to that of ice.
“You’d let him suffer?” Percival asked his soft voice a great contrast to his harsh glare. When Arthur didn’t answer he looked like he took a physical blow to the face.
“You’d let him die ?” Morgana gasped. They all waited for something, anything! Yet he remained stubbornly silent. Her hand went to her mouth the stifle the sob that escaped her. Merlin had been the only reason she held out hope for her brother and look where it got them. The poor man was on his deathbed hanging on to his last thread of faith in Arthur and it was snipped in half. “The druids were wrong about you. You are no great king and you are certainly no brother of mine.” She nodded to Gwen to signal who saw no issue with leaving, glaring at Arthur one more time before joining the princess’s side. “Uther would be proud of what you’ve become,” she added before making her exit with Gwen following soon after.
When the doors closed, it felt like a connection became severed and Arthur wasn’t sure how reversible the damage was. He looked at his knights, expecting at least some of them to see how unreasonable this was. Magic had attacked them plenty of times, it had killed some of their best friends, and yet they stared at him as though he’d personally signed Merlin’s death warrant. He looked to Gaius for some support since the man was always so level-headed but was met with a furious glower.
“You are not the king I thought you were sire,” Gaius stated. “Even worse, you’re not half the man Merlin thought you were.”
“How can I reinstate magic when it can do things like these?” he argued.
“How can you persecute magic when Merlin has saved your life with it so many times?” Gwaine countered. “I can’t believe this is a discussion we’re having, I can’t believe it even got to this point. I never thought you’d push him to do this and still not think that your ways may be wrong.”
“When you were crowned, he looked at you like you hung the moon and stars themselves and now you’re digging his grave,” Leon sighed. “I thought you were a man of compassion and I had hoped you were waiting for the right time but you were going to leave him in fear every day that he would be the next body we tie to a pyre?”
“I have not burned anyone in my time as king and I assured him that I would never hurt him!”
“Because you are kind or because he’s your weapon?” Elyan questioned. He opened his mouth to answer before it clicked shut. “Wow. To think I let you anywhere near my sister.”
“Elyan, this is a complicated matter. Let’s say I thought about repealing the ban, do you know how many enemies I’d make? How many allies rely on our strict ban on magic? There could be a coup against me!”
“But you would have your beloved weapon to dispose of them,” Gwaine growled through gritted teeth. “I need to leave or I’m going to be arrested for treason.” With that, he left, likely on his way to see Merlin before the curse progressed too far.
“It was once an honour sire,” Lancelot said before following.
One by one, the knights left either to pay their respects to Merlin whilst he was still in the first stages or to find some way to ease their frustrations. It came down to just Arthur and Gaius.
“The ban has only been around for twenty years. The people who attack you with magic lost their livelihoods, their parents, their partners, and their children. Could you imagine let alone comprehend such pain?”
“I can’t lift the ban, Gaius. People have been hurt.”
“Do people with magic not scream when their bodies burn? Do their mothers not shriek for their children? Do they not plead for mercy just like you and me?” The physician collected the book but left the letter. “Am I not a man to you?”
“Of course you are.”
“Yet I performed magic many times before your birth.” Arthur knew the point he was trying to make but remained stubborn by not rising to it. “If you are so willing to let Merlin suffer now, you should’ve run him through when you had the chance.”
“He can’t be killed.”
“On the contrary, you wield the only thing that can end his life permanently. You wear it on your hip every day. He hands it to you every morning.” He licked his lips nervously like his body was telling him not to say what he did next. “If you are to remain stubborn in your decision then you can be kind enough to end him with that blade although I hope it doesn't come to that. If it does, then you can tell Hunith herself what became of her son.”