Chapter Text
Merlin set off further into the camp to find his errant knight. It wasn't an easy feat. The camp felt both incredibly familiar and brand new. He would almost swear that each time he wandered around the encampment the path twisted and changed. New stalls appeared and new landmarks rose from the ground as if they had been there the whole time. It was if the very camp was trying to throw him off. It was incredibly easy to become lost in the whirls of colour.
Closing his eyes he tried to focus. Letting his magic ripple out of him and guide his feet. The air was thick with woodsmoke and something sharper. There were protective herbs burning in little iron braziers that lined the main path he walked. Each brazier carried a different scent: rosemary, sage, lavender. The soft din of voices, the clatter of pots, the cry of a child chasing another through the trampled grass, and music being played echoed loudly and joyfully. Merlin slowed, letting his eyes open and sweep across it all.
How could anyone look upon this and see danger?
Canvas tents, some patched with bright fabrics, dotted the clearing in uneven clusters. A group of women in long shawls bent over a cauldron at the centre, steam curling up into the crisp air. Nearby, two dwarves argued over the best way to tether a stubborn mule, while an older warlock with bright purple hair traced sigils into the dirt for a circle lesson, children crouched around him wide-eyed and silent.
He passed a group of younger sorcerers sparring with sparks of lightning crackling between their palms, the energy lighting their grins. One of them paused to glance at him. A boy no older than sixteen. Merlin felt the quick prickle of recognition looking at the boy. They knew him, even if they could not name him. There was something in the way the boy dipped his head, half-respect, half-curiosity.
Merlin’s stomach tightened. He hated the mask of Lord Ambrose and yet loved it all the same. It was becoming part of him as much as Merlin the Servant was, or Emrys the Warlock. Different facets of the same being. Merlin wondered if anyone could really know him anymore. Even him.
At the far edge of the clearing, the rowdier sound of voices reached him: laughter, a lute string struck off-key, the boisterous tone of men drinking as though the day’s shadows did not matter. Merlin allowed himself the faintest smile. That was where he would find his errant knight.
Gwaine, it turned out, was not with the raucous revellers. Nor was he with the collection of beautiful forest nymphs chatting up the blacksmith.
Merlin found the man about an hour later. He almost missed him due to the fact he had forgotten that the man still bore blonde locks on his head. The knight was seated cross-legged on a patch of grass with yarn wound around his forearms as an older woman nattered happily beside him. Two other women perched on chairs winding their skeins, one using the horns of a bemused Minotaur, the other keeping her strands taut with small flickers of magic. Judging by the pink flush on Gwaine’s cheeks, the conversation had been lively enough to fluster even him.
Their eyes caught across the field. Gwaine started to raise a hand in greeting, only to be rapped smartly on the crown by his captor for moving.
“Good to see you back,” Gwaine called out, grinning as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “Thought I’d been abandoned to Selena and her wiles for the rest of my natural life.”
“You think we’d let you escape that easily?” chuckled the woman Merlin assumed was Selena.
“Once down, stay down,” rumbled the Minotaur in his deep, accented voice. “Learn to live in service. Happy spouse, happy house.”
“Awww, Asterius,” one of the women cooed, leaning over to kiss the tip of his horn. The Minotaur endured it with grave dignity.
Merlin couldn’t help laughing. “Will you be freeing him anytime soon? I need to get him home before someone notices he’s missing.”
“Not for another few hours, Your Lordship,” said the witch winding her yarn without magic. “Though I doubt you’ll be leaving before then either. The Council is making its final preparations for the trial tomorrow.”
At that, Merlin became uncomfortably aware of the weight of his cloak. He shifted beneath it. “Yes. The trial.” The words tasted heavy. “Will you be all right alone?”
“I’ve lasted this long,” replied Gwaine with a smile that was too sharp to be anything but a mask. It stung to look at.
Merlin frowned but let it drop.
As he left, Merlin deliberately slowed his steps, taking in every sound, every flicker of magic around him. He realized with sudden clarity that this might be the last time he’d walk through such a place. No matter what tomorrow brought, the Council was called rarely. This gathering might be the only one of his lifetime.
Only days ago, the very thought of opening using magic without fear was absurd. The idea of being surrounded by people just like him. But now...now he saw what was possible. Not just getting a chance to be openly magical without compromise, but to see a whole world that could never exist. A world where Minotaurs and humans in good humour sat at the mercy of witches knitting.
It wasn't real.
Even as it happened in front of him. A fragile bubble of happiness. A dream already dissolving even as he walked through it.
The Council’s tent was busier than he had ever seen it. Scrolls and tomes were piled high on every surface, the air thick with ink and the smell of hot wax. Morgana moved like a general among her soldiers, directing a train of elves who carried in still more documents. Cadmeus looked uncharacteristically severe as he bent over a massive leather-bound tome. Eley’am hovered in constant flux, form rippling in agitation as they spoke with Posey.
“Ah, Ambrose!” Cadmeus bellowed the moment he spotted him. “We weren’t certain you’d come. Pull up a chair. The Watchers have finished their reports.”
“The Watchers?” Merlin echoed, lowering himself beside Posey.
“Did you not read the Rules of Governance?” she asked, though the gentleness in her tone kept it from sounding too scolding.
Merlin winced. He thought of the untouched book lying somewhere in his tower room. “Er… not all of it.”
Eley’am’s laugh tinkled like glass. “The Watchers observe in our stead. When a trial is called, they arrive first. They record. They listen. So when we deliberate, we do not come blind.”
“Usually,” Posey added quietly, “we read their findings during the trial itself. But this time…there was too much. They’ve had days to gather evidence, and it fills volumes.”
Her voice wavered. Merlin glanced at her properly then, noticing the streaks of tears down her cheeks.
“I’m fine,” she murmured, waving his concern away. “It’s just…really sad.” She pushed the open scroll towards him.
Merlin leaned over her shoulder and felt his stomach hollow out.
The parchment listed objects.
A dolly.
A scarf.
A pair of boots.
Each line noted where the item had been found, its approximate value, and whether it had been sold, stored, or destroyed.
A child’s dolly—burned.
A woman’s scarf—auctioned.
A man’s boots—taken by guards.
They weren’t inventories. They were what remained of people.
The entries went on and on. Box after box. Page after page.
“There’s no defending this,” Morgana spat, voice trembling with fury. She looked almost ill, her skin tinged a sickly green. Merlin suspected he looked no better.
“We are debating,” Cadmeus said, straightening from his tome, “who else must be brought before us. Some of these men and women will be hunted down after the King’s judgment. Others must stand beside him in chains.” His tone was all relish, like a man already sharpening his blade.
Merlin’s mouth worked before his thoughts caught up. “What about the innocents?”
The room stilled.
“Innocents?” Morgana hissed. “How can anyone be innocent in the face of this?”
Merlin forced himself to meet her eyes. “Servants. Cooks. Stable hands. People who had no choice in the lives they were born to. Maidservants.” His voice softened deliberately. “I heard you were close with yours, Lady Morgana. Would you condemn her alongside the rest?”
For a heartbeat, something flickered in her gaze. Perhaps hurt, perhaps a memory. Then her expression shuttered, sharp as a blade.
“The servants are being evacuated,” Posey broke in. “The Watchers confirmed it in their last report. They aren’t the priority. The guilty are. If names come later, we’ll hunt them then.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, teeth too sharp in the lamplight.
Merlin’s chest tightened. “So the trial’s over before it begins? They’ll stand, but no words will matter?”
Cadmeus slammed the tome shut. “They’ll have the chance to argue. If they can explain the deaths of thousands, perhaps they escape.”
The silence that followed told Merlin how likely anyone thought that was.
Merlin sat frozen, the parchment still before him. He wanted—needed—Uther to pay. The man had left ashes where families once stood. He’d hunted down magic with fire and steel, never once flinching. Uther deserved this reckoning.
But Arthur. Gwen. Gwaine. The knights. If the Council decided guilt was contagious, if they deemed Camelot itself complicit...what then?
His pulse thudded in his ears. He could not stand by and watch Arthur fall. But how could he allow Uther to continue with this?
The words kept echoing in his head like a chant.
A child’s dolly—burned.
A woman’s scarf—auctioned.
A man’s boots—taken by guards.