Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I.

There are some things in this world which large, brash men are not built to accomplish. Arthur is a warrior; he can attain stealth and speed of foot upon battlefields of any condition, to the extent that stealth is possible while armed and armored. It’s just that this is Camelot’s castle, amid outright calamity. Not a battlefield, but his home. And this sort of silence, this sort of sly speed, bordering upon a need to become simply invisible? Arthur was not built for these things.

Necessity makes him a diligent student.

It’s an entirely unsociable hour when he finally slips from his chambers. Still dressed and tightly laced from the day, he makes his way out with a rushlight burning in one hand and a linen for his mouth and nose folded in the other, just in case he should need it.

It isn’t unusual that he’s dismissed Morris early – this latest of his manservants does far more work for Camelot’s new Regent, truth be told, than her Crown Prince – but it’s gratifyingly unusual that the corridor leading to his chambers should be empty of Agravaine’s standing guard.

For all that’s changed in the year since Uther Pendragon’s death, at least George is still reliable.

The castle is quiet and eerily dark as Arthur moves down the corridor, navigating only by the weak light in his hand. To preserve candle wax, the wall sconces have all been cleared out and left empty, no longer in use unless by urgent necessity – which dictated two of Arthur’s first lessons: that an oil lamp bears good light but is easily dropped; and neither a shattered ceramic nor a puddle of oil make for effective sneaking.

There were actually two great shifts to the world the year before, one leading neatly into the other, triggering a great wealth of lessons Arthur could never have foreseen. First, between Beltane and Pentecost, there was the death of the King in battle; and then, the body barely laid to rest, what was quickly named Uther’s Wrath: the thickening of the sky above them not with cloud but with something grayer, as if some deity had stretched a hide clear across it, so that the air grew unseasonably cold and sour, and became sometimes difficult to breathe. So that the light of the very sun seemed sometimes brownish and sometimes bluish, depending upon how very much was there to hold the life-giving gifts of the gods away from the earth.

By late summer, the first harvests were all spoiled; and famine, too, came to Camelot, as well as to every kingdom within reach of it, bringing sickness and wasting and death to all manner of people of every station. There is not a single place Uther’s Wrath has not touched in the year since, that Arthur is aware of, which means that he is also aware of the many people eager to see him come of age, and to see him take his destined place upon the throne. (And it's fair, he supposes, that the people should have their prophecies and their superstitions. He only wonders if these will do more harm than good, since no crown has ever gifted a king divinity on the order of ending famine and brightening the sun.)

On the smaller scale, in the matter of his own daily life, the problems make far more sense – are man-made, caused chiefly by his uncle’s expansive and violent influence, with solutions Arthur can seek and eventually action himself, no matter the degree of difficulty. Even if he must engage in a series of treasons, great and small, in the process.

It’s impossible to spend any length of time with Morgana and Gwen during the day, so moments like this must be leveraged at every opportunity – nights free of otherwise diligently observant witnesses – despite the inconvenience. (And Arthur does maintain this distinction in his mind: between those who intentionally spy for his uncle, who is Regent for only a few months more; and those who merely witness, only passing along what they see because that is what one must do here, now, to survive.)

That was the next lesson in the matter of stealth. Early on, he was seen too often approaching the ladies’ residential wing of the castle, which inspired an intolerable line of questioning when it came to light.

“I was given to understand you’ve never been one for having your bed warmed,” Agravaine announced, over dinner. Blinking perfectly innocent eyes from his end of the table. “Or is it only that you prefer the beds of others, little bear?”

A cruel question, but like all of his uncle’s social contrivances, skillfully made soft in the delivery. Like he’d never called Arthur ‘little bear’ from the warmth of his own.

The rest of that memory is gone now, leaving only the understanding that it didn’t matter who exactly supported his uncle’s regency to the point of treason. Regardless, he could not allow himself to be seen by anyone.

Unfortunately, it can also be the case in Camelot’s castle that no amount of discretion or preparedness is enough.

Sometimes, there is nothing to be done but blunder forward, which is exactly what Arthur does as he emerges quietly from his own residential corridor only to come face to face with his uncle, whose expression twists in a rare form of consternation and surprise in the soft glow of the rushlight.

There’s a boy with him, whose name is Mordred, and whose youth is made morbidly obvious by the size of Agravaine’s hand upon his shoulder. (Mordred needs no candle and he wears no iron cuff or collar; a weak ball of light floats above the pair of them, white-blue like the moon used to be, a sure enough indicator itself that they’d expected to encounter no one else in their travels.)

“Arthur,” Agravaine says, in brusque greeting.

“Uncle.” Arthur is unable to take his eyes from Mordred. They’re both still dressed in day clothes as well, but Mordred’s lips appear purple in the poor light. From a staining wine, Arthur prays, hopelessly.

The air is awkwardly still for a breath; if none of them moves soon, Agravaine will have too much time to think.

“It’s good I’ve run into you,” Arthur says, scrambling for an excuse to be out of his chambers. “I’ve a need for Morris, but something seems to have distracted the guards. Mordred, do go and fetch him, would you?”

Mordred startles at the address, eyes big and blue and affronted under shiny curls before they narrow to slits.

“I’m not a servant.”

“Don’t be disrespectful,” Agravaine snaps, quietly. His hand tightens upon the boy’s shoulder with this gentle rebuke, which has the obvious effect of causing pain. With a sharp glance at Arthur, he adds, “We can help our young Prince, can’t we? Go on, now. And spare me a light, if you would.”

Unhappily, Mordred goes. His little ball of sorcerous light splits into two, so that one piece of it may follow him while the other remains.

“I appreciate that, uncle,” Arthur says, lowly, with a slight dip to his chin – a show of deference his father would have despised. (He’s not been alone with this man for a very long time, though, and believes he can be forgiven for that even as his palms grow damp.) “I didn’t mean any insult.”

“It’s no matter. Mordred should be happy to serve his betters.” There’s a short pause, in which Agravaine eyes him up and down, and Arthur studiously ignores the pounding of his own heart. In far more private a tone, which carries equal parts wistfulness and gentle disappointment: “I must keep reminding myself how much you’ve changed these past few years. It’s so easy to forget, when you keep no boy of your own.”

As if such a thing could be tolerable in even the smallest measure.

But this is as much like battle as like a dance or a game, and Arthur knows what part he is meant to act out here – suspects, too, that Agravaine has only guided the conversation in this direction so it will not wander toward Mordred’s flagrant and treasonous use of magic out where anyone might see it.

Eyes lowered, he can only answer with a truth. “I’ve told you I shall take no one into my bed.”

“Yes. Still such a sweet boy, aren’t you, under all that bulk? My little bear.” Agravaine sighs, reaches out; Arthur’s whole body stiffens. None of those muscles release when it is only the rushlight his uncle’s fingers run over, as if the flame is a soft head of hair to be pet. Arthur’s scalp prickles with memory. “But men have needs, and I expect you’ll understand that quite soon now. You must not fear to satisfy those needs as the gods intended, especially in times like these, when so little of the world offers comfort.”

(Never. Arthur will never.)

“Of course, uncle.”

“Well.” Agravaine slowly takes his hand back to himself. “The night is hardly spent. I’ll wish you a restful sleep, nephew.”

They part ways.

The blue-pale cast of Mordred’s sorcery follows behind Agravaine, fading at the turn of the corner.

Not a soul in Camelot now would dare now to be wasteful, and it is for this reason and this reason only that Arthur finds himself swiftly moving back toward his chambers: more than half the rushlight remains, and he’ll not stand there letting it burn for nothing while his mind spirals over painful memories, even if he personally has more dried rush at his disposal than he can ever hope to use on his own.

It’s not until he’s returned to his chambers, secure and untouched behind locked doors, that he realizes how the tension of his back and neck and shoulders has failed to release. That his breathing is tight and strained. He wishes for daylight and the satisfaction of exercising himself on the training grounds.

Even finding occupation with some correspondence he’s put off answering, it’s some time before his heart calms in his chest.

When Morris finally comes, Arthur invents the need for a sleep aid from Gaius. Might as well get use, he thinks, out of the understanding his actions will be reported back to Agravaine.

It takes the better part of a few hours to plan a new trip to the ladies’ wing, and two nights later, there are no surprises.

Arthur isn’t sure if it’s his sister’s presence that brings him so much comfort, or the fact that these chambers haven’t changed since before each of their mothers died. (Every time he settles down into a soft chair before her fire, he can recall having done so as a child with his mother, before all their lives went wrong. These are among the simplest and most pleasant memories he has.)

Morgana delivers her news from the chair to his right, already in nightclothes, as Gwen sits in its mirror to his left, close enough that she can set a soft hand upon the brocade cuff of Arthur’s heavy, close-tailored surcoat.

At the end of it, there’s a heavy sigh. “I really am – ”

“Morgana,” he cuts in, “if you are about to apologize, just… refrain.”

It would be better – or easier to find words that might comfort her, at any rate – if there were not still so many secrets among them. If he could explain that he knows about Morgause, and about the way Morgana had been tempted, long before Uther’s death, into acting against Camelot, though she’d never followed through. If he could tell her that she has no reason, truly, to apologize.

“What does this mean for us?” Gwen asks, when Morgana does not – and that’s the question, isn’t it?

The news itself is not ideal: that infighting among the Blessed – those Celts or Britons cast out by their respective peoples for the use of sorcery, together with those Akielon dragonkin still willing to leave the north, and with those lingering adherents of the Old Religion, whose priestesses live and practice their craft at the Isle of the Blessed – has significantly worsened. That they are besieged by the same unnatural weather and yet suffer no famine only compounds the matter; and worse still, just days ago, a rider came into Camelot bearing news of the rumored death of the druid Emrys at the hands of the High Priestess Nimueh.

Arthur is no stranger to Emrys as a prophetical concept, having been provided with more than one treasonous tutor over the course of his youth, and to learn in one day both that the title had been attached to a living man and that this living man was now deceased was a trying thing. To say nothing of the questions it raises: if magical people are surviving well through this time of darkness, why kill who is supposedly their most powerful sorcerer? (Was he threatening their survival? Has some shift of power occurred, as they move from winter into spring? If Arthur learned of a reason, would it even be one that he, never a magic user himself, could understand?)

I don’t know is not a phrase Arthur ever likes to use, but never has he come closer to freely admitting so. Instead, he very gently pulls away from the touch of Gwen’s hand (which, while lovely, makes him want to crawl out of his skin) and leans forward, elbows heavy on his knees.

The warmth of the hearth is reassuring against his clammy forehead.

“It means nothing,” he answers, finally. “It’s a rumor.”

“Rumors often have a grain of truth to them.”

And maybe Morgana’s right to point that out, but Arthur appreciates the huff Gwen aims in her direction all the same.

“Grain of truth or not, it’s only a rumor.” He looks at Morgana, at the heavy circles under her green eyes, at the bow of her shoulders, the dullness even of her hair under the weight she carries. “I think we should proceed until we have it confirmed from someone in Glywysing that Emrys is dead. And even if it is confirmed, I’d say we should proceed anyway. What Agravaine is doing is wrong and must be stopped. We can’t wait until I’m crowned king, and we can’t assume Emrys would help a Pendragon even if he does still live.”

Arthur won’t be crowned King until he reaches the age of majority, which is only a few months ahead for him, if Agravaine or his people don’t kill him first.

Morgana visibly hesitates, scratching nervously at the skin of one thumb with the nail of the other. She asks, very quietly, “What if I’m wrong again?”

Arthur shrugs. “That’s not a concern to me.”

“It should be.”

“There’s no reason for that,” Gwen tells her, and Arthur can easily hear in the tone that this is a well-worn discussion between them.

“Gwen’s right. Your visions are brief: only glances into the future. You can’t know everything. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ when it comes to what you see. There’s only supposition. Presumption, at best.”

“My presumption killed your father,” Morgana snaps, “and who knows how many others.”

And that’s – it’s not literally true, since Uther Pendragon was struck down on the battlefield by a dark-haired, golden-eyed young dragonlord, who still sometimes appears in Arthur’s nightmares. But Uther’s death came to pass while Morgana acted to prevent a different set of tragedies, and although there’s no way to know the cause for sure, she’s since blamed her own interference for the loss… and for everything that came after.

Arthur wishes she wouldn’t.

“It’s saved my life,” he says, resolutely. “Several times. That’s valuable. And you’ve said yourself that what’s happening out there has nothing to do with my father. The sky, this famine, these deaths – they’re of nature, not magic. There was nothing you could have done to prevent this.”

Objective truth is usually the way to settle these fears of hers, and surely enough, she sits back with a small frown instead of offering a retort, bringing thin legs up under her nightshift.

“Do you – ” She stops, restarts, and stops again. Finally, she asks, not looking into Arthur’s eyes but somewhere in the vicinity of his ribs, “How has it been with Mordred?”

The air feels a bit stale in his chest, suddenly. Not even a deep breath can clear the feeling.

“He’s asked me not to intervene.”

Morgana nods, eyes glazing a bit. Remembering a vision, maybe. She hugs her own knees, now, and Arthur recognizes these signs: the pulling in of herself, the hiding of all her weakest places. It’s a child’s instinct, one Arthur still feels himself from time to time, to become as small as possible in the face of some almighty peril. (He has no desire to know what vision is responsible for this shift, and doesn’t ask.)

“I think you should listen to him, Arthur,” she says, quietly. “Whatever he asks of you.”

Since the last attempt to liberate Mordred from Camelot left Arthur with two bloody bite wounds and several jagged lines down each forearm, gorged by sharp fingernails, he is indeed more inclined to listen. Pink lines still decorate his skin, fading more every time he looks at them, reminding Arthur of his own time at Agravaine’s side. Reminding him of how special he’d felt, how treasured, even while his soiled insides rotted with the shame of it all. Reminding him that once, he would have killed for his uncle. (He’d have fought, too, he thinks, to stay – which is why he can’t give up entirely.)

This is not a thing to be explained aloud, though, so Arthur only nods.

“Well.” Gwen clears her throat. “I have some good news, if we can bear such a thing.”

Morgana laughs in a weak huff.

“Please,” Arthur says. “Is this about your father?”

Gwen nods. “He’s accepted your offer. He can only provide in small batches, though. People notice when the forge is too active. The smoke makes them nervous.”

It is indeed good news. Relief floods Arthur’s system almost as sweetly as a wine, though he’s not unaware of the danger Tom’s decision brings with it – the danger Gwen clearly still has in mind, brow lightly furrowed over her small smile.

But this is the way rebellion works: quietly; all the dangers here at home, to be faced by anyone and not just by knights upon some far-off battlefield.

“That’s understandable,” he says. “We expected as much. Leon will have an order to pass along to him within the fortnight. Please extend our thanks as well for taking the risk.”

“He’s already said not to thank him… he doesn’t understand why so many people won’t even consider fighting back, if they still have the means.”

It’s not polite to speak ill of the dead, so none of them do – but Arthur knows that if his father’s brutality in the persecution of magic is not to blame, then the spiteful aftershocks of his death are: he’d charged Agravaine with both the regency and the final blows of the Purge, so that Arthur might grow to rule a kingdom truly cleansed of magic. Though, fatefully, little had Uther understood the depths to which Agravaine would take that charge, or the extent of Agravaine’s ambition. (Arthur’s heart starts to rush just thinking of it. There were more than a few things Uther never thought to question about his dead wife’s brother.)

He lets a few beats pass, fruitlessly striving to take deeper, steadier breaths.

“I must return to my chambers,” he says, when the trembling starts.

Morgana startles in her chair, frowning – “So soon?” – but Gwen, dearest Guinevere, shares a look with him that says she understands completely.

“We’ll see you the day after tomorrow, sire.”

Which shall be a feast day, or what remains of feast days in these darker times. A show of power and strength, such as it lingers, with the added benefit of feeding people who starve. With any luck, there will be no ill-fated marriage proposals at this one… for himself or for Morgana.

When Arthur doesn’t move right away, Gwen rises to prepare another rush for him, lighting it at the hearth. She slips the iron nip carefully into his hands with a sad smile.

“Good night,” Morgana says, staring deeply, with unfocused eyes, into that flame.

Gwen watches her with concern, but since the vision might as easily end in one hour as in one minute, Arthur still takes his leave.

These may be very small steps, he tells himself as he walks carefully back to his chambers, but each night like this one moves them forward. Each ally gained. Each prisoner freed. Small but impactful; quiet but enduring.

This is the way he will take back his kingdom. This is the way he will lead his people out of the many darknesses which have descended upon them.

Merlin awakes to the most visceral agony he has ever experienced in his life, centered at the point of an icy branding about his neck, hard and tight along the skin. He can barely draw breath to scream.

A hand slams down over his mouth.

“Take it off,” someone hisses in Brythonic – the language of the druids. “You’ll kill him like that.”

The agony recedes immediately. Merlin is blind in the lightless room, shaking and sweating and struggling for breath through his nose as waves of his own magic bury him. No sooner does he flail against unwelcome touch than it all begins afresh – from the point of his right wrist this time, wrapped where he once felt the lick of Akielon dragonfire and still bears the scarring. The pain is less, though, here. Manageable.

He begins to understand that his magic is being stripped away from him.

“Please be calm, Emrys,” comes that same whisper from the left side of his mattress, leaking frustration, as if Merlin is in the wrong here.

The druid lifts his hand, suddenly, to let Merlin speak.

“What are– you’re killing my magic,” he gasps, reaching desperately for their language over his own, not even capable of fear or horror now. There is only the single-minded drive to escape, to not let this advance any farther; but the cuff is doing strong, steady work.

Merlin feels heavy. Dizzy. He can’t feel his face or his fingers or his toes.

“We’re not killing anything,” the other man assures him, also in a whisper. “We’re saving your life.”

There’s no sense in that, but Merlin isn’t in a place for sense. He went to sleep in the spare bed of his mother’s home at the Isle, and if he’s waking in agony then it means– it means–

“Mother,” he slurs out, in his own tongue, shortly giving way to a guttural, wordless groan that pushes up from his belly as a second cuff is locked around his other wrist. He can’t control his mouth, can’t make his lips form the right shapes. His whole body seizes, back arching, limbs cramping.

“Your mother is safe, Emrys,” the first druid tells him, setting a cool hand to his forehead – at least, that’s what Merlin thinks he says, over the pounding of his heart and blood in his ears. “Only sleeping. She’ll wake unharmed. Listen to me, now. Listen well.”

And the circumstances are explained quickly, concisely, delivered in a series of blunt facts that don’t feel even half real: that Merlin has been sold by the High Priestesses to the near King Cenred; that Merlin’s disappearance is meant to look like an act of aggression by some external party, because that is the simplest way for Morgause and Nimueh to eliminate the threat of Emry’s influence upon the Blessed as they prepare for the war Merlin refuses to support; and that the druids here now have been the architects of the plan involving Cenred, but would allow no others to touch Merlin, with their deepest apologies.

“The Priestesses preferred to destroy you outright. We couldn’t stand for that,” the other druid says. “We’ve seen ahead, and at least this way, you’ll soon be united with the Once and Future King. Destiny is not lost to either of you, no matter how dire things may seem in this time of dark and dying things.”

If Merlin were in a place to form speech, what left his mouth might have been violently explicit in nature. (He lived part of his life in Ealdor, which persisted through all the heaviest marks of the Roman-Gallic invasion, and of the rise and fall of Vere; he knows what Cenred does – what Uther did; what Agravaine and Arthur and many other nobles also still do in those lands – to users of magic.)

As it is, he can only pant into the rolling crest of what feels like a wave of death itself.

The sun will brighten, Emrys, and the skies will clear, he hears in his mind. Mother Goddess will make the way for you.

“I think he’s ready,” the first druid says to the other. “Try it again.”

A cold, thin band of iron is snapped in place then around Merlin’s neck, and it isn’t like what woke him at all.

It’s worse.

It may well be that the days are sepia-dim and the air often sour, but Camelot’s need for fighting men has not waned, and so Arthur persists in training them.

No kingdom can war effectively while famine persists, but what hovers there in counterbalance is the threat of what happens when the needs of the people become too great – when they have too little and suffer too much. History carries this lesson: the Roman-conquered Gauls were quick to invade and shatter what was once the kingdom of Albion, leaving much of their own culture behind them when eventually they in turn fell to invasion; the languages Arthur now speaks are testament enough to the ways of the warring world, and he refuses to stand next in that line of ill-fated kings. Camelot must stand ready to defend herself against bandits and raiders, yes, but most especially she must resist the knights of those neighboring kingdoms which might yet make war out of desperation.

The morning after his talk with Morgana and Gwen, training takes a turn. The winds are too still and the air too poor in quality, even through a mask of fabric. The men who can’t breathe grow too easily dizzy; the men who haven’t eaten enough are too lethargic.

Arthur’s at about wits’ end when Gwen appears at the end of the training field, long strips of linen fixed over her nose and mouth.

“What is it?” He takes care to look agitated at the interruption, even if he can’t bring himself to sound outright intolerant of it. The knights – Agravaine’s knights in particular – observe with interest.

Angling herself away from their audience, Gwen answers quickly. “It’s Morgana. Cenred has sent some sort of gift. She’s making too much trouble.”

Since Morgana and trouble have long been bedfellows, Arthur assumes the gift is something dire. His sigh gutters out on a hacking cough.

As if having to hide her visions and magic is not enough, Morgana has also had to contend with Agravaine’s excessive attention. (Neither carnal nor excessively inappropriate, fortunately – Mordred’s presence is a continually sobering reminder of the cause for that – but since the matter of Morgana’s parentage came to light, she’s been of rather transparent interest. If Arthur is killed, Morgana would be the last living Pendragon; and who would protest, amid the worst famine in recent memory, if the sitting Regent then crowned himself King and took her for his Queen? The fact that Morgana herself would oppose him is, unfortunately, beside the point.)

Agravaine’s obvious favor usually protects her, but if Gwen has come…

“The gift,” Arthur whispers, doing his best to look unbothered, “is it pets? Sorcerers?”

Not that the keeping of pets in the old Veretian tradition is not itself sometimes appalling, but Arthur doesn’t think Morgana would risk her own safety over men and women who would at least agree to the length and terms of their contracts. It must be sorcerers, he thinks – sorcerers who will be made into slaves.

“Sorcerers. At least seven, and it seems only half of them are speaking,” Gwen answers, which means, at best, that half won’t understand either common Latin or Veretian, and won’t know what’s happening around them. “She’s delaying the presentation, but she can only do so much.”

Arthur nods. “Run ahead for me and I’ll follow directly. If they won’t allow for delay, tell the Warden I will exercise my Right of Firsts. Don’t let Agravaine see you.”

A complicated expression crosses Gwen’s face, but she only nods, and runs ahead as ordered. Arthur has never owned a slave. His every encounter with slavery in the past was either to hear it denounced or, as a knight, to condemn and eliminate its practice. Uther never permitted it, though it wasn’t unheard of under the Roman Gauls or even still, outside of former Vere.

Without question, in Arthur’s opinion, the reintroduction of penal slavery to Camelot is the most reprehensible change Agravaine has brought about in the last year. Those found guilty of using magic now face an impossible choice: to lose their lives for it, or to keep their lives but lose their freedom. Agravaine didn’t even have to push very hard to implement his new scheme, speaking convincingly and with haughty confidence to councilors and subjects who were desperate after a hard winter, so that now it is phrased like this: that magic users are lucky to have this option, to be useful to their neighbors instead of dying a useless death; that Agravaine is generous to have offered it.

Unprecedented suffering made people nervous and fearful, and the rumors about magic users – most prominent among these, that they prospered while the rest of the world wasted away – killed off almost the last of all opposition. The general attitude, as Arthur understands it, is that people are too concerned with managing their own perils to bother about anyone else’s. This is why Arthur needs Tom’s work at the forge, now more than ever. This is why they must smuggle as many prisoners from Camelot’s dungeons as possible.

This is also why the Crown Prince claiming his Right of Firsts is not a good idea, and he hopes he hasn’t spoken too carelessly in his haste to protect Morgana.

Arthur ends his training session quickly, without dramatics, which he’s discovered is important when more than half the men are now deep within his uncle’s pockets. Only Leon lingers, with Lancelot and Gwaine not far behind. Three of his most reliable men.

“Sire?”

“I may need you later,” is all Arthur can say. He goes directly to where he’s needed from there, mail and all.

Most of the castle’s dungeons are subterranean, but there have always been two large, open chambers left empty at where the grading of the land slopes downward enough to allow direct access from outdoors. In Uther’s time, these were considered weaknesses to be disguised and defended. Now, they are used for the detaining, crude bathing, dressing, staging, and formal presenting of slaves.

By the time Arthur arrives, Morgana is nowhere to be seen; neither is Gwen. That’s one piece of trouble to be revisited.

The more immediate trouble is this: that Arthur’s eyes immediately fall to the line of prisoners kneeling naked at the center of the room, and that his father’s killer is among them.

Balinor’s son, whose name Arthur never learned.

Balinor’s son.

And he’s lost for a moment.

For just this moment, he’s eight years old again and his father is away at war, so long that his uncle has come to watch over him. He’s eight years old and has stumbled bleeding from his uncle’s bed, and Balinor is there in the hall to stop him. To see him. To take him to Gaius.

“What are you doing there, boy?”

Arthur stopped short; held himself perfectly still, like a statue. His heart pounded so heavily it seemed to shake his entire frame. He couldn’t see – but that must be Balinor, by the foreign sound and the fuzzy shape of him.

“Whatever I like,” Arthur said, chin high. Numb. “This is my uncle’s corridor. What are you doing here, Dragonlord?”

“I was invited,” Balinor answered, shifting one hand to move something shiny under his long woolen chiton. “Don’t you remember my name?”

“Your people are fighting against my father. Why should I use your name?”

That was only half true – even Arthur, at his age, knew not all dragonkin were at war – but saying something vicious felt right. Felt like venting a little of the sharply aching pressures building in his chest and behind his eyes and back between his legs.

Balinor drew closer. “Arthur. Why are you crying?”

Arthur’s hands flew up to his face, and sure enough, the cheeks were wet.

“I’m not,” he insisted, wiping frantically at himself. “I’m not.”

But each denial came out thicker and thicker, and the next thing he knew, he was sobbing silent rasps into Balinor’s warm shoulder, mouth open and wet and ugly as the dragonlord took him up and carried him away.

The way some people tell the story, Uther’s purge was an immediate shift. An irrational response to his wife’s death. Arthur knows that’s not the case.

Arthur knows it was the secret he failed to keep. The thing Balinor learned that Agravaine could not stand to let be known – that Agravaine poured poison after poison into Uther’s ear to defend himself against, piling evil after evil atop magic and the death of the Queen, until Balinor and his people were chased entirely from Camelot on pain of death.

What Arthur also hates to remember is this: that just moments before his own death last year, Uther stuck his sharpest blade between Balinor’s ribs.

It was over in a moment. Arthur hadn’t even raised horrified eyes from the wound before the boy was there screaming for his father in one of the ancient tongues, eyes shining golden and devastated – before he struck Uther down, and Arthur with him, with a blast of magic. Arthur survived, of course, though scarred across his torso and the tops of his thighs… and now Balinor’s son is here kneeling at the center of a line of gaunt, bone-thin young men, all of whom have been bound with a collar and cuffs of cold iron. Enslaved. Stripped of power as easily as of clothes.

The air has been perfumed, no doubt to cover the fact that none of them has been washed. Arthur can barely stand to breathe it, even at this distance, looking in from the corridor.

The boy hasn’t noticed him. Neither has Agravaine, nor the three councilors with him, only one of which, Sir Ector, had also been his father’s man. Mordred, who usually sticks close by the Regent, is thankfully nowhere to be seen.

With a fortifying breath, Arthur straightens his back and raises his chin. He walks confidently into the room.

“Arthur, welcome,” Agravaine says, benevolently enough. “We’ve heard you’re to claim your Right. It’s about time, I suppose. Though really, you could have washed first.”

Deep, deep breaths. Arthur knows the rules of this game well enough; there’s no point in rising to meet each little jab. Indeed, he must strive to land a few of his own.

“Yes, well. Training is harder work when we accept knights of this caliber. I hear Cenred has sent a gift?”

“Several,” Agravaine replies, far more curtly.

“And what does he gain in exchange?”

“Nothing, nephew.” His uncle aims a barbed smile in his direction, a patronizing thing, folding arms calmly over his robed chest. “Don’t you understand the concept of a gift?

Instead of acknowledging that, Arthur wanders over to the line of kneeling sorcerers – not too close, but enough that some risk to raise their eyes to meet his. Balinor’s son is one of those, neutral-faced under thick, dirty hair.

If he recognizes Arthur, there’s no indication of it. His natural eyes are blue, like Arthur’s, but a bit lighter. Warmer. Clear like a summer sky. They will never shine gold as long as he wears the iron, and that seems like a tragedy. (Arthur feels no shame to admit to himself an objective truth: that whether blue-eyed or golden-eyed, whether soiled by the trials of warfare or the indignities of slavery, this boy is the most beautiful he’s ever seen.)

Agravaine notices his preoccupation and, for a moment, Arthur is fiercely glad he deferred so readily the other night. Something tells him that this is about to become the most challenge he’s offered his uncle in a very long time.

“The two on the far end look most suited for your Right. The rest have a bit of a feral nature about them, I fear. Not suited for the hand of a prince.”

Arthur doesn’t move from where he stands.

“This one bears an Akielon’s mark,” he counters, nodding down at the boy, who turns his eyes quickly back to the stone floor. No amount of dirt could hide the sigil at his neck. “There will be no one more suitable for me than a dragonlord, uncle. Don’t you agree?”

Slightly light-headed, it occurs to him that he doesn’t need Agravaine to agree with him. The Right of Firsts says he can take any pet or slave for any length of time, regardless of their status or any contractual agreement. (Technically, it says that any ruler of Camelot may do so; but Agravaine had written that into law when he believed himself to be the only ruler who would ever take advantage of it.)

“I’ll have him,” Arthur says, decisively.

A heavy pause.

“You?” And it’s impressive, really, how politely disdainful Agravaine makes this question sound.

“I’m Camelot’s Prince.” Arthur gives a well-practiced, bordering upon insouciant shrug. “He’s a dragonlord. Wouldn’t you agree I deserve the best?”

“You haven’t yet taken a slave. You argued against the practice.”

Arthur nods. “And it’s been months now since it’s begun. What better time to start?”

The councilors shift nervously in the face of this challenge. It’s clear enough that they don’t know what their role is: whether they should speak against their Prince to support their Regent, or whether they should stay silent until informed of the opinion they should have. Ultimately, none of them speak. They let Agravaine have the span of silence he spends surveying Arthur.

Fortunately, Arthur is not incapable of withstanding his uncle’s attention.

“I’d thought to take him for myself,” Agravaine says, at length.

“Oh?” Arthur makes himself placid. Calm. A mountain unmoved by any force of nature. “I’d have thought this one quite too old for your taste.”

The boy is obviously no older than sixteen; this is the closest Arthur has ever come to making any sort of accusation aloud and in the hearing of others. His heart races in his ears. He must breathe through his nose, grounding himself through the rancid scent of unwashed bodies, to keep steady.

There’s some more nervous shuffling among the councilors, but no outrage – which tells Arthur that these men are either uncomfortably accepting of Agravaine’s inclinations or unwilling to recognize them for what they are. Agravaine himself only spares Arthur a shallow smile which spreads wide under baleful eyes.

“Well, by all means, take him on. Your appetites run rare enough that I never mind indulging them... just be sure not to abuse him. A dragonlord killed your father; there would be no excuse to take that out upon the boy.”

The implications aren’t important, Arthur tells himself. What’s important is that he’s won this round. Balinor’s son is safe with him. (Or, at the very least, as safe as it can be for a sorcerer in Camelot. As safe as anything can be for anyone, these days.)

“Stand,” he says to the boy, who only looks at him blankly.

Arthur frowns. He knows that dragonkin speak their own language, but Balinor never stumbled with Arthur’s, and it doesn’t make sense for his son not to have any grasp of it. If language is a barrier here, this will be excessively difficult.

“Stand,” he tries again, this time in common Latin; then again in Brythonic, and a last time in his best estimate of the draconic Akielon, to no response but the slightest of frowns.

He asks, circling back to his own Veretian, “Do you truly not understand me?”

Agravaine gives an impatient tut, steps closer – close enough that a few of the other boys turn their eyes obediently back to the ground – and says, silk-smooth, “He’ll understand the whip perfectly well.”

There’s no disguising the way the boy’s eyes dart to Agravaine, wide and outraged at that, which betrays his understanding. His defiance.

“Look at me,” Arthur says, in the hard voice he uses with his knights. This time, the boy obeys. Maintaining eye contact with his father’s killer is possibly the most trying thing Arthur has had to do since all of this started. “You will be whipped if you disobey me. You will not be whipped if you follow my direction. That’s a very clear distinction, and I assure you, there will be no exceptions. I am a man of my word. Now – stand.”

The boy glances once between Agravaine and Arthur. Slowly, he stands.

Arthur does not look at the nakedness; he looks at Agravaine, who is staring hard already back with beady, unhappy eyes over a false smile.

“I thank you, uncle, for allowing the interruption.” To the boy, Arthur says, “Come with me.”

There’s nothing he can do for the others, he tells himself. Not yet. Not when he’s made such a nuisance of himself already.

“Take a few of my men with you,” Agravaine calls as Arthur leads them out of the room. “It would hardly do to ruin any part of Cenred’s gift the day we receive it.”

It’s a short matter of procuring a spare linen for Balinor’s son, to grant him some dignity as they trek through the castle – though Arthur supposes, if he remembers correctly, that if the boy was raised in the Akielon tradition, nakedness will matter as little to him as it does very much matter to Arthur.

Flanked by two guards that Arthur half expects will attack them outright for what he’s done, the walk to Arthur’s chambers is silent and quick, which is fortunate.

The Prince is tired, and hungry, and has no idea what he will do with this king-killer now that he’s claimed him.

Waking up came in stages for Merlin, the first time.

To begin with, there was the shock of being alive: the realization that he still had a body and could feel every aching piece of it, including a stomach wracked with hunger and a throat so dry he couldn’t even swallow. Next, the numb understanding of the loss of his magic, all the roots of it dug out of him, unlike anything he’d ever known before. (It went beyond physical feeling, this loss; he was simply no longer himself.) And last, the burden of having eyes to open, and sight to take in his surroundings: outdoors; himself in a cart large enough for his own body laid flat alongside six other men who had room only to sit; and an array of mounted knights cloaked in the colors of Cenred’s kingdom.

“Look who’s decided to join us,” one of the other prisoners said, in common Latin – to one or two unenthusiastic scoffs, but to far more blank faces.

Merlin pretended not to understand him.

“Where are we?”

He used his own tongue to ask, having decided immediately that a little deception in the area of language could only benefit him. More blank faces met that question; either no one understood Akielon, or no one could give him an answer.

One of the knights brought his horse alongside the cart, then, so as to kick at it. Merlin felt the impact deeply in his throbbing skull.

“Shut up,” the knight snapped in Veretian, which was telling for a knight from Essetir – though there was no time to pick that information apart, because, seeing Merlin awake, the knight struck him heavily enough to remedy that condition entirely.

Some part of his reputation, apparently, had preceded him.

Waking the second time was only slightly less painful, and came with the fortuitous appearance of knights cloaked in red, all evidence of Cenred’s men gone. At least the druids hadn’t been overly long-sighted, for once: he opened his eyes indoors, now naked in what looked like a bathing chamber, surrounded by cowed, emaciated bodies whose faces were familiar from the cart.

The best thing about that room was the water he was given to drink, which he sipped at slowly, so as not to lose it.

Merlin knows most of the history of Albion’s demise. In that stone chamber alone he could see the tells of it, particularly in how the small, shallow baths were maintained. In the strong Veretian artisanry which was descendent of older, more violent times. (Merlin is admittedly not the finest historian – there are steps and whole centuries, he remembers his father telling him, between the Roman Gauls invading and the advent of Vere and Veretian customs, and shortly later, the breaking of Albion entirely into all the smaller kingdoms – but in fairness, he has had only the verbal histories to rely upon, and the stories his father told him of the court at Camelot.)

And this certainly is Camelot, where he finds himself. Cenred has apparently tossed him directly into slavery, which feels profoundly ironic, as Merlin’s stance on the response to this practice is one of the things upon which Morgause and Nimueh disagreed with him the most.

But even after the debacle of being claimed by Camelot’s Prince – who seems not to recognize Merlin as the killer of the late king – and as he quietly limps after Arthur Pendragon across his castle, flanked by guards, Merlin still doesn’t think more bloodshed is the answer.

Or, he thinks he doesn’t. He’s rather distracted now by the notion that the slavery here could be in any way sexual, as the Regent implied downstairs. (It’s the concept of a pet, isn’t it, that bears the connotation of sexual servitude here in Camelot? For a slave to serve that purpose is quite out of line with what Merlin thinks he understands of their culture, otherwise confirmed by the way the Prince immediately procured a linen for Merlin’s nakedness, which bothered Merlin not at all. Surely he won’t be made to warm anyone’s bed?)

Also immediately distracting is clear evidence of the way the false winter’s famine has also hit Camelot, conflicting with reports that the Regent now forces his sorcerer-slaves to use their magic for his own benefit. That, at least, seems to be an unfounded charge.

Up flights of stairs and down several poorly-lit corridors, they finally come to what looks like a short residential wing, softened with colorful tapestries upon the walls, the color and detail of a wealth Merlin has never seen with his own eyes. The Prince leaves his guards at one end of this corridor and wordlessly bids Merlin to follow. As they approach a set of broad double-doors, here is another distraction, waiting with a cold demeanor: a curly-haired, blue-eyed young druid, who regards Merlin with the sort of distaste and distrust most children don’t know how to wield.

He's dressed finely, this boy, in the style of Camelot’s Veretian nobility, and does not bear the indicators of hunger as severely as others they’ve passed in these halls. Though there is a druidic mark on his neck, indicating magic, he wears no iron. Merlin doesn’t immediately understand how this is possible. Short of slavery, there are not many reasons for a druid in the possession of magic to be a valued guest within this castle.

The lack of iron worries Merlin, in fact, far more than he is worried for himself.

What are you doing here? He tries to ask, mind to mind in the druids’ tongue, only to recall that his magic has been cut away from him.

“Mordred,” the Prince greets, warily – too warily. Merlin doesn’t understand what passes between them, why the child’s eyes look so angry and so betrayed as they glance between Arthur Pendragon and his new slave.

“You’re a liar,” Mordred spits back at him. “You’re a liar and a hypocrite. Never speak to me again.”

He seethes vitriol in nearly palpable waves; Merlin finds his breath stalling in his chest just to be standing here in the line of fire.

When neither defense nor explanation comes, the child turns and runs in the other direction, as if for his very life.

The Prince doesn’t look at Merlin as the echoes of pounding feet fade away. He turns back to glance far behind them and seems relieved that the guards linger back at the end of the hall, backs turned, seemingly unaware of what just happened.

“Come,” he says, and pushes into his chambers.

These are large, Merlin notes, and divided into two parts: a sleeping chamber at the rear, containing a bed and beautiful windows and all the royal trimmings, from the little Merlin can see of it from here; and at the front, a chamber meant for business and socializing and the like, separated by a partial wall of delicate arches and columns. There’s a table and chairs here, a hearth with a tame fire lit and another set of softer chairs before it, a desk at the wall ahead, and a sideboard under even more beautiful windows.

There was never glass for windows at the Isle. Before the false winter, Merlin would have preferred that, to be always open to nature and her gifts, as was the old Akielon way. Now, though, he sees the benefit in a barrier between a home and the outside world. (That they are handsome helps, too. He adores how the colors in each pane catch even the low light; how the iron-wrought shapes please the eye. They must be absolutely stunning in direct sunlight. These must be the most Veretian thing Merlin has ever seen, now; more so even than the tapestries.)

On his left stands a dressing screen, which hides what Merlin is sure are the usual unmentionables; and before that, a decently sized wooden tub, into which two servants are currently dumping a few last buckets of lightly steaming water.

“My lord,” greets one of them, a young man with brown hair and a pinched, unkind face. When he turns and spots Merlin, his eyes go wide.

“Morris, this is – ” the Prince pauses, frowning. Turns his keen eyes to Merlin and asks, “What’s your name?”

There’s no reason, really, to withhold it. Not the real one, at any rate.

“Merlin.”

There’s an awkward pause at that. The Prince sighs, deeply, and briefly digs the knuckles of one hand into his left eye. This stance makes the hardness of him, of his sweaty grit, the worn mail, the world-weary strength, seem a bit like an illusion. Like there might be something else underneath all that.

Morris scowls at Merlin, who isn’t quite sure what he’s done to deserve it, aside from arrive dirty and in the obvious possession of magic, however useless.

“This is Merlin,” the Prince says. “He is now a part of my household. Ensure the Steward is aware. I’ll be determining Merlin’s duties myself but will consider any recommendations he’d like to make in the meantime.”

“Yes, my lord,” Morris says, staring at Merlin as he pointedly emphasizes the honorific.

Ah, Merlin thinks. Yes. They do that here.

He’s not sure he’ll be able to refer to the son of Uther Pendragon by anything but his title, and, perhaps a bit petulantly, decides that adopting the Veretian idea of cordiality is not one of his priorities.

The Prince gives Merlin a cold once-over, then adds, “Any requests the Steward has should bear in mind that Merlin is not accustomed to having to conduct himself around nobility. My preference is to keep him off the whipping post for now.”

It takes Merlin a moment to confirm that he has not misheard or misunderstood this – but no, the Prince spoke clearly. It’s a testament to Merlin’s exhaustion that he can’t be bothered to wonder more about it. Camelot’s Prince has every reason, after all, to bear animosity toward a dragonlord.

“Have a meal brought up for him,” the Prince goes on to say. “Find him some clothes. And arrange for the antechamber to be made up for his quarters; I am not unaware of his parentage and I will keep him close until I can be sure no one will harm him. Let this be known, too: that Merlin is my property now, and I expect that he will be attended to with the same care and diligence a servant might reserve for anything else that belongs to me.”

“Y– yes, my lord.”

It’s interesting that these directions don’t land as easily as the others.

“That will be all, Morris,” the Prince finishes, pointedly.

The servants leave without another word; the second was never even addressed directly.

Merlin is not put off by his circumstances, or by any of this royal posturing, or by the harsh judgement of a servant. He waits only for the doors to close behind them to stand tall and announce firmly, in his best Veretian:

“I am neither a slave nor a whore. There will be no whipping or bedwarming. I will do whatever you ask, within reason, as long as you request it respectfully. Those are my terms for remaining here without a fight.”

And the Prince lets him say it.

The Prince lets him say it, wandering in closer, calmly, as he speaks, until the last word leaves his mouth – only to strike Merlin with an open hand, hard across the face. Hard enough that Merlin’s neck cracks at the twist of it; hard enough that the world shakes, that his stomach churns, that his breath comes in short gasps. His eyes water, instinctively. Pain doesn’t even have a chance to set in before the Prince is gripping Merlin tight by his dirty hair, straightening his head and pulling it back, so their eyes can meet. Merlin has no control over the sounds this pushes out of his throat.

“I don’t care how you speak to me when we’re alone,” the Prince says, cool to the point of indifference, “but if you were to speak like that before Agravaine, he’d beat you to within an inch of your life with as little hesitation as I’ve just shown you, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. If you were to speak like that to any noble aside from myself or the Lady Morgana, you’d have ten lashes by the whip at the very least – so it’s for the best, I think, if you don’t get into the habit of speaking like that at all.” Slowly, he releases him and steps back – very slowly, frame all tense lines and stiff muscle. “I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, Merlin, but there are hard lessons ahead of you if you can’t understand the part you must play here to survive. Excuse me.”

It’s the smoothest shift from callous to cordial that Merlin’s ever seen, but somehow, not an incongruous one; not even the mention of Morgana can distract from it.

The Prince stalks then straight past the full tub to behind the changing screen, from where Merlin promptly hears a shuffle, a heavy drop, and the unmistakable sound of a thick, wet heave.

Any other prisoner might have taken this opportunity to try the doors, to flee, or to find a weapon. That might have been the smart thing to do, but for the first time in days, Merlin takes the opportunity to think, to breathe, and to slow his racing heart. To make a choice for himself, assessing his meagre options.

He chooses to stand and listen as Arthur Pendragon is violently sick into what must be his own chamber pot.

At length, when silence has fallen but no movement follows, Merlin chances to ask, sounding waspish even to himself, “Have you died over there?”

“Unfortunately not,” the Prince replies, flatly, from behind the screen.

Merlin snorts. In Akielon, he mutters, “Would you like some assistance with that?”

Unexpectedly, there’s a thick huff of a laugh, and then, in passable Akielon: “Have you forgotten already that I speak your language, dragonlord?”

And truthfully, Merlin hadn’t assumed that a simple command to a slave conveyed any command of the language itself. He finds his cheeks flushing more in embarrassment at being caught out than in fear of any repercussion.

“And no,” the Prince adds, in Veretian again. “No assistance needed, unless you’d like to do Agravaine a very special favor.”

A pinch of reality sobers the mood. Merlin draws the linen even tighter about himself, ignoring how his cheek and skull throb. He’s known for several months now that the subject of the Pendragons’ future in Camelot has become a tense one, but he’d never have imagined that the Regent’s desire for the throne – and what he might do to secure it – would become something the Prince might mention so flippantly.

He doesn’t quite know what to do with this man’s unflinchingly candid nature.

“Are you… ill?” Merlin asks, reluctantly, after another few breaths. He’s heard lately of starvation sickness, plague sickness, breathing sickness; and then there’s the potential for the non-natural sicknesses. Too many options to consider.

“Are you actually an idiot,” the Prince shoots back, hoarsely, “or should I give you the benefit of the doubt?”

“No need to be a prat about it. Just wondering if I ought to call for your physician. Or– or is he not to be trusted?”

There’s another thick laugh, which pleases Merlin to hear, and a low grunt before another retching sound, which, confusingly, does not please him at all.

“No need for that,” Arthur croaks, when he’s finished. “And Gaius is a decent man. He does what he must do to survive Agravaine, so don’t be overly trusting. But you can go to him for anything you need while you’re here. Which I imagine will be very much, if that mouth of yours is any indication.”

And Merlin isn’t sure if that sounds like a threat or not, but any chance to press on that front is cut off by the swinging open of the chamber doors, through which stumbles someone unfortunately and surprisingly recognizable.

“Oh,” Guinevere gasps, stopping short, one surprised hand flying to her throat – and Merlin is sure he must look no different, eyes wide upon her and what she carries: a tray holding a cup, a small bowl of what looks like pottage, and a half-palm-sized portion of dark, nutty bread.

Merlin has not tasted bread for more than a month, but he knows that outside the Isle, many have not had it since long before winter, when harvests across all the lands were fouled and died. To see it here at the castle in spring should not be a surprise, maybe, given the wealth of nobility, but he’s stricken by it anyway, his mouth watering even as his stomach cramps at the smell.

Then, of course, there is Guinevere herself.

She looks different to the last time Merlin saw her, but perhaps that is only because this time, she is not a prisoner. She’s lost some weight, though not so much yet that her bones show with any unhealthy depth. Her soft yellow dress highlights the far healthier glow of her dark skin. The scar at her cheek has reduced to something almost unnoticeable. She was already beautiful, of course, but that’s all the more obvious now, with the signs of her confinement by Morgause all but gone.

“Go,” Merlin whispered. The girl stared with wide eyes as his magic cleared the way for her, heavy boulders crumbling to dust without a sound, leaving nothing more than sand for her to wade through. The sun shone brightly at the end of the cavern’s tunnel. So close.

“But – ”

From deeper within, Morgause’s men were rallying. A horn sounded somewhere nearby.

“Your freedom is reward enough for me, if that’s your concern,” Merlin said, shoving her forward. “Go, now. Please. And don’t let the High Priestesses put you in this position again. That’s all I would ask of you in return.”

Of course, he couldn’t have known who she was when he freed her. That she was Morgana’s servant; that Morgana wasn’t quite as on board with Morgause’s agenda as it had always appeared she was. At the time, he only knew that she’d been held against her will and unfairly treated.

“Good day,” Merlin cautions to offer, unsure how to proceed. Very aware that he smells; that he’s dirty, and shackled in cold iron, and clearly out of his depth. Such a reversal of roles as to be comedic, in any other circumstance.

“Good day,” she parrots back. Staring. Staring especially at where his face is now swollen and hot with the impact of Arthur’s hand.

He can’t blame her. Throughout her short captivity, they’d hardly spoken at all. Hardly acknowledged their respective positions on opposite sides of the war… and they certainly hadn’t exchanged names while they were at it. He only learned hers later, because of Morgana.

And the Prince did just mention Morgana, so really, Merlin should have considered that this might happen.

“Gwen?”

The croaking of that royal voice takes on something relieved in its undertone, something almost soft, and Guinevere shakes back into action, first setting her tray on the table to make sure the doors are bolted, and then studiously ignoring Merlin to disappear behind the changing screen as well.

Because Merlin is not an idiot by any means, he listens carefully.

“You shouldn’t be back so soon,” the Prince mutters, in a voice thick enough to tell Merlin he’s not quite finished back there. “How is Morgana?”

“Confined to her chambers, but otherwise well,” she replies, quietly. “And Morris sent me, this time. I think he’s trying to make a point, though I’m struggling to see what it is. I’m also meant to get a look at – Merlin, is it? – since you didn’t leave him to wash with the others. My brother’s cast-offs will fit him, I think. And I can have someone ready the antechamber for him this afternoon.” A pause, and then, softly: “Are you well?”

“I’m well enough.” There’s a brief pause, and when the Prince goes on, he does so far more quietly, and in common Latin. “The last thing I need is another pair of eyes in these chambers, but I don’t think there’s anywhere safer to keep him.”

“Safer?” Guinevere’s confusion is palpable even unseen. The way she stumbles over her words, struggling to follow the Prince’s lead, is what tells Merlin this language shift is not a casual one.

“Agravaine wanted him. I asserted my Right anyway. That’s not the sort of challenge my uncle will leave unanswered.”

The next few moments are heavy with the obvious abnormality of an outsider’s presence. They continue to speak, lower still, so that Merlin can’t make out the words at all. There’s a light shuffle of fabrics, too, and then the sound of a pot shifting across stone. A spare burp and hiccup. Another round of heaving… dry, this time.

Finally, Guinevere reappears from behind the screen. She puts on a determined smile that largely belies the worry still shining in her eyes.

“Merlin, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she says, in Veretian again, and very politely, as if they’ve never met. “My name is Guinevere, but everyone here calls me Gwen. You may do so as well when we’re alone, but please understand that as a– I mean, please understand you’ll have some freedoms that traditional prisoners do not, but outside of this room, you ought not to be too familiar with anyone of any position, myself included. For your safety, while we– while you’re here, that is – you ought to use honorifics for nobility, and titles for more highly-ranked commoners like the Steward or the Marshal. And full names for everyone else.”

Merlin nods, not wanting to appear like he doesn’t value this input. “Understood. Thank you, Gwen.”

Nervously, she swipes her palms down the side of her skirt.

“Have you served anywhere before? In any capacity?”

Merlin shakes his head.

“Right. Well. You must know that with the state of things, there are rules and rations in effect. The kitchens will mind your food rations for you daily, as long as you remain in the Prince’s service, and the Steward will mete out wood for his hearth only once every sennight, so use it sparingly, if that falls within your duties here. No candles or lamps should be lit unless absolutely necessary, day or night. There are rushlights now if you need to move about anywhere at night, but be sure to save them if you don’t burn the whole in one use. Prince Arthur will determine your duties in due course. And– ” She pauses, looking him up and down. “Well, I suppose that’s it, for now. I’ll be back with some clothes for you. In the meantime, please eat – slowly, so you don’t get sick. And use the bath to clean yourself. The Prince won’t be needing it today.”

None of this comes as a surprise to Merlin except for that last addition, spoken so casually he almost misses it.

He doesn’t want to think this is a trick, but it’s just– he’s been stolen away from his bed, cleaved from his own magic, chained, stripped naked, starved, beaten; only to be saved from further cruelty by the son of the king he killed last year and struck again. His head is splitting. And now he is to fill his stomach with pottage and bread and then have a warm bath… a bath all to himself, because the prince won’t be needing it.

“Thank you,” he manages to say, throat tight.

“There’s no need for thanks, Merlin.” The Prince is lofty but brusque again as he, too, emerges from behind the screen, smoothing his tunic down. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I’ve simply no need to bathe.”

Guinevere excuses herself with one last glance between the two of them, leaving Merlin to somewhat critically eye his new master up and down. He doesn’t even have to say anything; the man is still in his mail, dirtied from a knight’s training and fresh from illness. There is sweat there clear across his brow.

“That,” the Prince adds, slowly, “is not the way you look at your betters, while we’re speaking on etiquette. Outside this chamber, it should be eyes to the ground at all times. Unless you’re directed otherwise.”

“For someone so seemingly opposed to the concept, you seem to be very clear about what it should entail."

Merlin doesn’t lower his eyes; the Prince narrows his own.

“As I said, I’ve no wish to see you strapped to the whipping post. But by all means, if you’d like to see it yourself, feel free not to listen to what we tell you.”

Which is not an unfair thing to say, really. It is clearer to Merlin now than it could ever have been otherwise that to leave the grasp of slavers was not in any way to reemerge somewhere more civil. Camelot may still be new to this practice, but Arthur Pendragon is warning him that doesn’t mean it won’t be brutal – showing him, too, where the lines are.

The Prince has been an almost unfailingly honest young man in these first few moments of their acquaintance, if also a bit of a prat, and despite the discomfort it brings, this is useful. It will help Merlin very much in planning his eventual escape.

“If I’m not to thank you for the bath,” he says, after a beat, “then I’ll thank you for the advice.”

“Fine.” A stiff nod is all the acknowledgement the Prince spares for that. “Bolt the door again, then, and don’t open it for anyone but Gwen. I’ll tell you freely that most of the standing guard and many of the knights at this point do not comport themselves honorably, and will certainly abuse you if you leave these rooms unattended. So, wash now and eat what she’s brought for you. And see that I’m not disturbed for the next hour. I have business this afternoon for which you will remain here, but then we’ll discuss what your service will look like for the foreseeable future.”

He doesn’t wait for acknowledgement, but from there turns and heads back toward the bedchamber, disappearing to the part of the room Merlin can’t see before the sounds of shifting mail and fabrics make their way out to him.

Well. All oddities aside – the honesty is unexpected but valuable, and the state of the Prince’s health and cleanliness is hardly Merlin’s business, anyway – this is far from the worst it could be. There is time ahead to get a better grasp of the layout of the castle and the quality of its remaining resources. Time to think, as well as to plan. To gather information about what’s happened on the Isle in his absence; and about the druid boy, Mordred, too.

His cheek and neck are new aches, though these rate rather low in comparison with his other pains, and at least he won’t starve here. All said, this is not a terrible way to begin an imprisonment.

Because the tides of time stop for no man, Arthur’s stolen hour is ruthlessly shortened. The midday bell tolls far sooner than he feels it should, and since he’s just given up his bath – he patently refuses to fully disrobe, or to stray too far from his sword, with his father’s killer in the room – he must quickly wash himself over the basin beside his bed.

It’s a relief to realize that the sounds of water and bathing have ceased, and to find that this is because Merlin has fallen asleep in the wooden tub. Arthur pulls his tunics and breeches from the wardrobe quickly, hyperaware of the boy’s gentle snoring. Once he’s well covered, he can take his time with the rest: selecting a surcoat humble enough to wear before who will be the hungriest of his people, though not so humble that they lose confidence in his authority; finding and lacing up his boots; and lastly, pinching some life back into his thinned cheeks, so as not to look in any way too unhealthy.

The ghosts of old nurses remind him that it is dangerous to fall asleep in any level of water, so he prods Merlin awake, eyes carefully averted from the nakedness, before he leaves. (And he deliberately ignores the quiet, bitter voice which tells him he ought to have held the dragonlord down under that water while given the chance.)

“You may sleep before the fire,” he tells the boy instead, who hums a drowsy acknowledgment, “or in the antechamber, once it’s been prepared. To rest yourself and recover from your travels is your only duty until I return. Do not cause me trouble in the meantime, Merlin, or you shall regret it.”

He means to deliver that last with a firm glare, but Merlin’s face is still very soft with sleep, and his bare shoulders are still pink with heat, and there’s something so vulnerably open about the way he blinks up at Arthur that the Prince must simply flee.

Down in the throne room, the line of petitioners is so long as to nearly wrap the room.

To hear petitions in times of extended famine can be difficult, but this is a responsibility Uther had already begun to share with Arthur before his death, and which Arthur was adamant from the start should be his own, because his uncle was terrible with the common people. (And that is indeed what likely won him the responsibility in the end, since his uncle’s intolerance of the needs and weaknesses of others could only earn him the people’s ire, and the people’s ire is not what makes Regents into Kings.)

“Good day, sire,” the Steward, whose given name is Lucan – and who is one of Arthur’s few allies among the more highly-ranked staff – mutters at the threshold… pointedly enough that Arthur knows the old man must already have several choice thoughts about Arthur’s having taken a slave. Instead of saying more, the typical announcement is made to the room: “His Highness, Crown Prince Arthur.”

There is a short silence, as there always is, while Arthur takes his place upon the throne. At his right, set at a distance far enough to be unobtrusive, the Steward follows to settle down at the small desk they’ve set up for the purpose of reasonable rationing, ready to make his notes and calculations as needed.

The few standing guards largely ignore them; only the knights who stand near to the throne, Elyan and Percival, greet Arthur with respectful nods.

Then, of course, there are the faces of the petitioners – gaunt, anxious, desperate. Hopeful, though, too.

“Let the first man come forward,” Arthur says, and quickly enough, the first becomes the fifth becomes the fifteenth.

The common theme is hunger, which can not be resolved but can at least be offset by rations from what remains of the castle granary stores, which the Steward will manage in finer detail – and which will hopefully continue to be possible through springtime. Arthur can do little but give his approval there; it isn’t until mid-afternoon, about halfway through the line of petitioners, that something arises which captures his genuine attention.

Two men step forward, one a lord, whose name is Olwen, and one a peasant, who Arthur has seen here before. Who he only remembers because he’d expected Olwen to go directly to Agravaine about the aftermath of that petition.

It started simply: “My lord, I have a wife and two young sons. We’ve not received our rations for two days. Can you spare anything for us?”

Arthur blinked down at the man – a tall brunet in the prime of his life, strong but showing signs of hunger, like everyone else – and frowned. For most of the people in this position, the rations provided by their lords were simply not enough, or were stolen, or soured unexpectedly; or perhaps they labored for no lord and were destitute. The reasons varied as to why a supplement might be needed, but not once had Arthur yet heard of food having been withheld entirely… though perhaps he should have expected such a thing, sooner or later.

“Tell me more,” he said. “From where have you come?”

Olwen is grim-faced and resolute, an older man with fine, fair features. That he does not look healthy himself does him immediate credit; so too does the fact that he’s come directly to Arthur, going so far as to petition alongside commoners in order to do so.

“Sire, I have a grievance with this man,” Olwen says, gesturing to the peasant, whose face is pallid and drawn.

As the lord explains it, the matter of the withheld rations was neither cruel nor punitive, but practical: he has only so much left to spare in the time remaining before harvest, and he can not give it to people who do not meet the terms of their obligations to him and his land. Arthur doesn’t have to verify or question this; the peasant was clear enough, at their first meeting, that he and his wife had been too ill to labor for at least several days before the rations were stopped.

When he has finished his explanation, Olwen is frowning deeply. “I want nothing from him myself, but it is an insult both to me and to you that he should come begging the crown for what he has not earned – for what all others must earn – and so, I have made him available to you for recompense.”

Arthur feels a headache tunnel sharply in behind his left eye. He leans back upon the throne, wishing it could be in any way more comfortable, and puts a valiant effort into seeming unbothered.

“I hear your grievance, Lord Olwen,” he says, evenly, “but the situation was not unknown to me when I heard his petition, and I require no recompense.”

“But sire– ”

There’s a low murmuring, a breakout of whispers across the hall, at the lord who dares to speak against a prince. Arthur, who is neither his father nor his uncle, does not appreciate that.

He waves away the misstep with a dismissive hand. “I understand your thoughts on the matter, but my decision is the same. If a man falls sick in these times and is denied food because his labor has ceased, he will not recover in order to resume that labor. If you lack the resources to provide for him, the crown can provide in your stead.” Here he pauses, though, and considers Olwen more carefully. “If, however, you do not lack the resources, to the extent that you can spare the standard rations for your people without undue burden, you are obligated to provide those whether or not they have fallen behind in their duties. I want to make that very clear to you.”

The peasant looks like he wishes nothing more than to disappear; he looks nowhere but at the stone floor, where small streaks of dirt have trekked in under the boots of the people who came before him.

Olwen’s neck has begun to flush deep crimson above its scarf.

“Sire. Are you telling me I must fund the survival of people who have stopped honoring their obligations to me?”

“I’m telling you that your tenants are not slaves,” Arthur counters, “and that if you have a grievance with any one of them, that should be brought before me to be arbitrated, and never taken out of what you have already agreed to provide for them. Camelot must remain a place of honor and integrity, no matter the circumstance, and we keep it that way by standing by our own word.”

Olwen scoffs. “This from a man who took a slave himself this morning, after standing so long against such a thing?”

There are no whispers this time. Silence sweeps the hall at that declaration, and Arthur supposes that anyone who has not already heard this news – gossip, at least, still travels fast – will shortly have heard it now.

He feels each pair of eyes upon him like little knives cutting gently into his skin.

“It is not for you to question the motives or seeming actions of your future king,” he says, “especially as a means to distract from your own. You will feed who is contracted to toil upon your land, or you will find yourself relieved of that land. Am I understood?”

Olwen’s flush has expanded into a high, angry spatter across both his cheeks. He nods, stiffly, lowering his eyes as well. (Arthur has to clear the lump from his throat, because this is how men had looked so often before his father, and to receive such a look himself is beyond sobering.)

There’s no need to raise his voice to announce the rest; it’s still as silent as death all around them. “We are living through a time of unprecedented need. You have all watched your neighbors suffer and die; you fear to suffer and die yourselves. At no point should this mean that anyone is withholding the resources of Camelot for any reason, including for their own benefit. And while we’re close to the subject, let this, too, be a warning, in these last few months before the first harvest: if I hear that any lord, or any empowered freeman, is using the threat of starvation to take advantage of the labor of their lessers, that will be the last day that lord or freeman enjoys the privileges which enabled him to do so.”

Even as he speaks these words, Arthur knows they will make him enemies – that any offending lords in particular will be more likely now to support his uncle’s efforts to usurp the throne, lest they come to face the consequences of their actions. He doesn’t care. He will not abandon his morals to assure his own ascension.

“You who work the lands of your lords,” he adds, “do not fear to make it known to me if such a thing has happened to you. You will be protected. We must not lose any more life to famine than the gods have deemed absolutely necessary.”

The peasant beside Olwen is wide-eyed now, shaking his head, moving to speak. In a gentler tone, Arthur cuts him off.

“That’s not what’s happened here, I know. It was worth saying all the same.” And to Olwen, he says, “I do appreciate the difficulties you face in providing for your people, even if it may not sound like it. Speak with the Steward before you leave, and he will see what can be spared for you. Speak with the Marshal, too, if you feel you’ll need protection in your travels home.”

A more prideful man might have declined this invitation, but as most in this room now know, these are not times in which prideful men survive. Olwen and his tenant both move off to see the Steward, and a woman and her child take their place.

By the time the room is cleared of petitioners, Arthur’s head feels like to burst. He digs hard knuckles into the eye, trying to ease it, until a throat clears at his side.

“My lord.” The Steward holds his book closed over two fingers, and Arthur already knows, by the dour expression, that what’s calculated inside does not favor them.

“How much longer?” He asks, anyway.

“If you continue to grant so many requests? Barely a month, if you wish to retain enough to feed every mouth in the castle through summer.” The old man makes a visible effort not to scowl too deeply. “You are generous, sire, but if you will hear some advice… generosity is worthless if not balanced with good sense. The Regent has inquired, too, about the grain in our remaining stores.”

Arthur takes that in stride. “My uncle would have me deny all of them.”

“Your uncle would deny his own mother, I suspect. You shall have to find a middle ground. Gaius may be able to assist on that point, if you require clarification on how to determine the severity of a man’s need.”

Neither one of them bothers to voice the inevitable conclusion: that dozens more people will die before the first harvest, and there is very little that anyone can do about it.

“That sounds like wise guidance, Lucan.”

Since a Pendragon has likely never uttered the words thank you in this hall, that is the closest Arthur will come to it. The Steward bows as deep as his aging back will let him, and departs with one last request.

“Please let me know, sire, when you’ve decided what you’ll do with the young sorcerer. The Regent has also inquired about that.”

Already and impatiently are the implications to that last, but Arthur can only nod. He’s been thinking on it and has come to no conclusion.

Not much later that day, unfortunately, Arthur is left to conclude only one thing: that Agravaine was right, and Balinor’s son really is a feral sort of creature.

It’s not that he can’t understand a Veretian command – his Veretian seems, embarrassingly enough, to be far superior to Arthur’s Akielon – but rather more that there seems to be something critically lacking in him, which prevents him from acting in accordance with even the most basic tenets of service, even cleaned and rested and outfitted in some of Elyan’s castoffs. It goes beyond what can be classified as childish, threatening to stray into the idiotic, and it is infuriating, because Arthur can not keep up the farce of a slave if that slave can not make busy in any traditionally productive way.

“No, stop,” Arthur snaps at him, having thought to find something the boy might be good at, and so far failing. “Are you truly this incompetent at everything, or are you being difficult on purpose?”

Merlin sits before Arthur’s chainmail and pauldron at the table, legs folded under himself on his chair, polishing cloth hanging loose in his hands.

“It’s not on purpose,” he grumbles, earnestly leaning back into the task as Arthur demonstrates it.

They work by two oil lamps as tawny light fades from the sky, and though the fire is low, it’s not yet low enough to bother with tending. Merlin’s downturned cheeks have gone pink with embarrassment, and Arthur would be lying if he said that the wide, open neck of Elyan’s tunic, which is only just too large for Merlin’s narrower build, didn’t make him want to see how far that flush might spread.

The thought burns in his chest and stomach. It feels like swallowing thorns. Physical attraction is an extremely rare thing for Arthur to experience – to say nothing of who the object of this attraction is; of all people, the king-killer – and he’s not managing it well. It sours his empty stomach. Makes him irritable. Impatient.

He takes a deep, steadying breath.

“I suppose you don’t have much use for armor of iron, where you’re from,” he offers, though he knows otherwise. “Or finery at all. Or any need to polish it.”

Merlin pauses at that. Speaks in a very careful tone, eyes on the oiled fabric in his hands.

“Do you really not know?”

And that’s almost certainly an invitation, but Arthur is very tired, and very hungry, and has no desire to admit that he knows whose son Merlin is, or to talk about his own father. (Indeed, has never desired anything less than to discuss Uther with the boy who took his life.)

“Know what?”

The boy shrugs. Bites his plush lower lip so hard that Arthur must look away for just a moment, to settle his stomach.

“Never mind,” Merlin says. “It’s not that we don’t have things to polish, anyway. It’s that I’m used to handling that with magic. Not with my hands.”

“Well. I can’t remove the iron from you; there’s someone here who watches for that and reports it to Agravaine. You’ll have to learn to use your hands, or you’ll be useless to me.”

Merlin’s gaze snaps up, expression surprised, confused, suspicious, perturbed… the quick succession of shifting emotions across his shadowed, fey-featured face is enough to distract Arthur entirely from the point.

“The druid boy, Mordred.” Merlin’s throat works for a moment, seeming to struggle for the first time with his Veretian. “He wasn’t wearing iron. He isn’t– he doesn’t– ”

Arthur spares a short nod. “I’m afraid he does.”

“But he’s just a child.”

“I can guarantee you that being used in this way is not the worst thing that child has endured here.” But then – because to hold Merlin’s anger against him is not a fair thing to do when that anger is justified – less harshly: “If you’d like to be in a position to help him, learn a servant’s duties. Learn how to speak and behave around nobility. Make an effort to blend in with the other servants, to the extent they let you.”

There’s a stretch of silence as Merlin considers the linen in his hands, and then, with frustration: “Am I confusing your words? I thought I was a slave, not a servant.”

“You certainly don’t have the manners of either,” Arthur sighs. Impulsively, though, he seizes upon where that thought takes him. “But I have no use for a slave, if you must know, and it’s well known that my current manservant spies for Agravaine at every opportunity. Perhaps I’ll replace him with you.”

Merlin frowns. Starts to ask a question, then stops. Finally asks, “Wouldn’t that make Agravaine angry?”

Furious, Arthur thinks. It would make Agravaine absolutely furious. But that would be better for Arthur, all said, because a furious Agravaine is also one who makes errors.

He nods as he considers what next steps his uncle might take at that, aside from simply killing Merlin and having over with it. Agravaine never killed if he could bend a thing to his own advantage.

“Maybe even angry enough to try to bribe you into his employ,” he says, after a moment. “Which you will accept, with some haggling, and then manage at my discretion, so I might finally have some measure of peace.”

It’s not a terrible thought, though part of Arthur deeply resists the idea of having Merlin here in his own space any more than absolutely necessary. (He doesn’t care to examine what it means that even so, his father’s killer feels more trustworthy than any of the men in Agravaine’s service.)

“Oh.” If Merlin is opposed to that, it doesn’t show in his face. In fact, he looks… almost pleased, though his eyes remain vaguely troubled. “Alright, then.”

It’s Gwen who returns with dinner plates, not long beyond full dark. She sets those on the table and finds Arthur at his desk, where he’s moved to dedicate himself to wasting a good candle, struggling and failing to focus on correspondence, because Merlin is… distracting.

Very distracting. Especially where he sits now, legs tucked up beneath him again in one of the soft chairs by the fire, staring into the flames like he can see worlds beyond. His hair is thick and has curled slightly since it fully dried, much like Balinor’s always did. His eyes are a warm blue, also like his father’s – so unlike that cool gold from Arthur’s nightmares. Firelight plays beautifully upon his cheekbones, his neck and shoulders, his hands as they worry at a fold of Elyan’s borrowed trousers.

It feels like a terrible joke that this nearly waifish, ethereal thing was the one to end Uther Pendragon’s life. That those hands spilled mighty blood without ever having to touch it.

“The Steward sends a reminder about the nature of Merlin’s duties,” Gwen says, drawing Arthur’s attention back. “He’s also asked me to let you know that Agravaine has settled business for the others.”

That it’s happened so quickly brings on a hint of foreboding.

“Where are they being sent?” Arthur asks, though he fears he knows already.

“Two to Sir Pellinore’s estate, another two to Lord Accolon’s, and the last three to – ” she pauses, glancing, very briefly, over to Merlin “ – to the lower town.”

Which is another way of saying to the brothel.

Arthur was wondering how long it would take for this to happen, since slaves are not something any commoner could afford outright. He’d been hoping for longer, but Morgana was right when she’d guessed both that it would be soon and that it would start with men: likely they wouldn’t immediately be made to serve there in a sexual capacity, made only to use their magic to clear the air or to keep the ale fresh, or even perhaps to make things grow; but this only paved the way to send more, and once the practice was established, it wouldn’t be long before one kind of service was considered trade for the other, with not a contract to be found.

This is how Agravaine forces people along with him, in small steps forward over time. In acclimating one first to the small evils, one just slightly darker than the next, and eventually to the larger ones, which by then don’t seem very large at all.

“That will not happen,” Arthur says firmly, moving them over to common Latin again for what he does not want overheard. (Merlin’s head jerks at the shift, just slightly, the eavesdropper that he is.) “There’s never been a group this large before. It’s a test. I won’t allow any of them to be moved under these circumstances – not to the brothel nor to any lord’s estate.”

Gwen steps closer, a frown drawing her brows together tightly.

“Are you certain about this, Arthur? Morgana is willing to help make distraction again, but– it will surely come back to you.”

“I’ll deal with the repercussions as they come,” he says. “If I don’t put a stop to this now, it will only get worse. When will they be moved?”

“Tomorrow.”

Horrific timing, after the scenes today with both Merlin and Olwen, and with the feast day tomorrow to cover it all, but it will have to be done.

Arthur’s ascension only grows closer, and they are now at the time of reckoning: when Agravaine will either back down, deferring to Arthur’s leadership as he is meant to do; or commit to a course of violence, to take the throne himself.

“Alright.” Arthur runs a hard palm down his face, letting out a long breath. Committing himself to what must happen. “Yes. Find Leon and Lancelot. They’ll know what to do.”

“Yes, sire."

Gwen bows her head deeply before she leaves.

Chapter Text

II.

Merlin doesn’t ask where Gwen has gone, or about what he overheard before she left. He knows well enough what subversion looks like, having engaged in it himself, and it won’t serve him if the Prince believes Merlin to be a threat after all.

What he does ask, once he gets over the dual shocks of not only being invited to sit at the Prince’s table, but also seeing and smelling bread a second time, is this: “Are you ill in a way I should worry about? Or in a way that will affect me?”

Arthur does not look up from his own pottage when he speaks, tone dry and disinterested. “Did I not tell you, dragonlord, to avoid the habit of addressing me as an equal?”

“I am avoiding it,” Merlin shoots back. “No equal of mine has ever been such a prat.”

They sit at an angle, the Prince at the table’s head with Merlin neither across from nor directly beside him, but still within a long arm's length. Most of Merlin expects to be struck again for that, so it’s more surprising when the Prince only snorts, eyeing him before his next bite.

“Be careful. One might think you actually want to whipped.”

“Can’t say I do.” Merlin finds himself smirking. “Not outside the bedchamber, anyway.”

The Prince’s spoon pauses halfway to his mouth. He lowers his hand.

Looking not at Merlin but at somewhere midrange of the table, nearly straight at the lamps lit for their meal, he says, “You’re very young to have such a mouth. Do not let anyone hear you speak like that within the walls of this castle.”

Merlin blinks, unsure that he understands. He’s barely three years younger than the Prince.

“Even in these chambers?”

Arthur turns a cold glare upon him, made only fiercer by the play of shadows across his face. “Do not let me hear you speak like that at all.”

This doesn’t seem to be a joking matter anymore. Merlin’s stomach churns. His heart lurches, little spikes of fear and guilt driving his eyes down to his bowl. Such topics are openly discussed among dragonkin, but Merlin does know it’s not like that everywhere – it wasn’t like that upon the Isle, and he’d learned that lesson the hard way. He supposes it’s not like that here, either.

“I understand,” he says, as levelly as possible. “It won’t happen again.”

At length, with far less intensity, the Prince speaks again.

“To answer your question, no. I am not ill in a way that need concern you.” He sits back, lips pressed together in a grave expression. “Nothing about my health will be of concern to you unless enemies of Camelot succeed in ending my life before I’m crowned king. If that happens, Gwen and the Lady Morgana will be the safest people for you, as well as Sirs Leon, Gwaine, and Lancelot. You can trust any one of them to help you in that case, if I’m not first in the position to liberate you myself.”

And that’s– Merlin’s taken aback, really, both by that commitment and the assumptions behind it.

The Prince holds Merlin’s gaze more intently as he goes on. “On that point: do not forget that these are not your lands. Mordred may be a druid, but he is not a friend to you. Do not confide in him anything you would not wish Agravaine’s ears to hear; and if you do have the opportunity to safely leave this place, do not tell him, and do not try to take him with you. Mordred’s is… a very complicated situation. If he suspects you of trying to remove him, he will hurt you in any way he can.”

He turns his shadowed face back down to his bowl, then, as if this information isn’t disturbing in the slightest.

Merlin can only sit blinking for a few moments, taking all of that in. Wondering how much of the young druid’s situation has to do with Morgana, and how much, in turn, the Prince even knows about Morgana’s relation to Morgause. It’s safest to assume nothing, but if he did… that would explain very much.

“You keep surprising me,” is all Merlin admits, erring on the side of caution. “I didn’t expect that you would have any sympathy for a sorcerer. For any user of magic, actually.”

“I’m not my father,” Arthur replies, with the air of someone who has had to say this more times than could possibly be counted.

I know, Merlin wants to say. I killed him, and nearly killed you. Do you really not remember?

“I can see that,” he answers, instead, and slowly savors the last taste of his bread, rough and nutty though it is. “I didn’t expect you to be kind, either. Thank you.”

“Do not mistake opportunism for kindness, Merlin.” The Prince sits framed by firelight and those dark, glistening windows far behind him; and Merlin can’t be blamed, he thinks, for appreciating this more and more, the longer he looks – even if Arthur sounds hard and unfeeling, and nothing like a friend. “Both in and outside of these chambers, I will do what I must to survive to become king. If I seem kind when we’re alone, that is only because nothing else serves me better toward that purpose. I’m sure you’ll see my cruelty soon enough.”

They don’t speak again except for at the end of the meal, when Merlin quietly asks where he will sleep.

“The antechamber is through there,” the Prince says, pointing to a small door Merlin didn’t notice earlier, set modestly into the wall not far from the changing screen. “Someone should have made it up for you by now.”

Merlin nods, uncertain in an odd way. Guilty, even, for having these accommodations when none of his fellows downstairs will be receiving the same. (And when the Prince evidently doesn’t know what he’s done, in extending these comforts to his father’s killer.)

Feeling very awkward about it, he tries his hand at something servile.

“Do you… need anything from me? Before I go?” He eyes the Prince’s surcoat, all those complicated ties down the front and sleeves in particular. It’s not readily obvious whether they’re ornamental or the type of thing one might need assistance undoing, and it’s not escaped Merlin’s notice that the servant named Morris never returned.

“No,” Arthur quietly replies, the fingers of one hand briefly playing with the ties at the opposite wrist. He turns away, toward the bedchamber, and the long line of his back is not any deterrent to all those sweltering thoughts which come along with the idea of undressing a man – even a man who is his enemy. “That will be all, Merlin.”

As much as Merlin would like to sleep again, he can’t. Not for a long time.

The next morning, the dragonlord is gone.

Arthur hopes, surveying the empty antechamber by the light of an oil lamp, that there will be no iron-bound body found at the depths of the castle today. It wouldn’t be right for his father’s killer to meet so simple an end, he thinks, whether by Merlin’s own doing or anyone else’s. (If he’s lucky, the boy will have escaped with no one the wiser; if he is not… well. None of those outcomes are worth dwelling over.)

The sky is as ashy thick as ever out that easternmost window, a ruddy sun barely lighting up along the horizon. Since to bring immediate attention to the disappearance would only complicate it further, there is nothing else to do but begin another hungry morning as if nothing is amiss. If Balinor’s son has indeed run away, Arthur can at least buy him time enough to make it well outside the citadel.

Today is one of scheduled appearances: there will be no training with the knights, and instead he shall spend both morning and afternoon either in council chambers with his uncle or in the throne room hearing more petitions, this time from a series of nobles preselected by his uncle’s councilors; and in the evening, there will be what passes now for a feast, as the social niceties apparently persist in all times and through all perils. In other words, this shall be yet another day of showing his living face to Agravaine, his councilors, and the public, and of only being permitted to offer his opinion in ways his uncle has pre-arranged and therefore also, in a way, pre-approved. (Lord Olwen, had he gone this route, would likely have had a far different answer to his grievance, and Arthur still isn’t quite sure why he didn’t.)

There is a high likelihood, in the course of all that, of also having to pay for the interferences with Merlin’s enslavement and Morris’ service – to say nothing of the matter with Olwen, which will surely have reached his uncle’s ears by now, as well as the pending matter of what Leon and Lancelot are at this moment organizing for the sorcerers sent by Cendred. Accordingly, Arthur makes sure to dress for battle of a different kind: in several intimidating layers finished with one of his finest and darkest high-collared coats, which he laces tightly closed with fingers he does not allow to shake.

There can be no weakness today, he tells himself. No more sickness born of the tight grip of nerves inside him.

A quarter hour later, two firm, familiar knocks sound out at the door.

“Come,” he calls, to be rewarded with none other than George, and also Merlin.

The former walks in just the same as ever, as if he was only here yesterday and Arthur has not truly missed how utterly boring and trustworthy he is. The latter, by contrast, follows as if he’s never seen these chambers a day in his life.

Merlin wears another of Elyan’s tunics today, this time a dark purple, open at his neck with the sleeves rolled up, and balances a small tray of food with so serious a face bent to this task that it’s nearly laughable. His dedication draws Arthur’s gaze to where the iron cuffs and band sit along his pale neck and wrists – one of these scarred in a familiar pattern up the arm.

“Good morning, my lord,” George says. “The Steward has found another duty for Morris. I took the liberty of assuming you’d like Merlin to start immediately as your manservant, given his residence in the antechamber, and offered my services to assist him these first few days.”

Spoken without even the slightest hint at the dramatics which must have come with that development, and with all the quiet competence of a genuine servant to the crown. (Arthur will have a word with Lucan later about the forcing of royal hands, but on the whole, this is perfectly in line with what residence in the antechamber typically signifies – the reason, truly, neither Morris nor any of those appointed predecessors has yet slept there – and there is no use in pretending no part of him understood that yesterday.)

“Excellent, George. That was well done.”

George is fortunately also not one for theatrics; there’s a pleased flush and a quick dip of the head at that, and then he gestures to Merlin, who has not yet set the tray down, and who fails again to do so because he is now staring. At Arthur.

Something Akielon leaves the boy’s mouth which is unrecognizable to Arthur, but soft enough not to require translation. There’s no missing, either, how Merlin’s eyes are slightly widened, features slack as they take in the picture of a prince dressed sharply for the perils of court.

For the first time in a very long time, Arthur remembers that his manner of dressing might serve a purpose other than to intimidate.

“You look well this morning,” the boy hastens to say, then, in proper Veretian. To anyone else, his flustering innocence might have been endearing.

“Merlin,” George chides, immediately, “one does not address the Crown Prince with such informality. You know the appropriate greeting.”

“But you’ve already said it. Is it really to be every single time?” His regard shifts into an antsy sort of playfulness. Pure nerves – and Arthur is starting to see the pattern, now, to how Merlin behaves when he is nervous or uncomfortable. “Are you really so vain, or is it forgetfulness? You need to be reminded of your own rank that often?”

George looks sheer moments away from apoplexy, but a crisp “Merlin” is all the censure Arthur can spare. No one has ever spoken to him like this in his life, frankly, that wasn’t immediately sent to the pillory or worse. The only thing saving the boy from this course is that slaves do not go to the pillory; they go directly to the Warden for whipping, which seems like far too severe a punishment for boyishly excessive nerves.

“My apologies, sire.”

Utterly disrespectful, and yet. There’s something about him.

“George,” Arthur says, long-sufferingly, “I’m sure you’ve been made aware that Merlin apparently comes to us from the depths of a truly uncivil wilderness. I find I can forgive him his ignorance, just for the moment, while he learns.”

The poor man looks positively browbeaten as he nods an acknowledgement.

When it can be helped, Arthur doesn’t like to be watched while he eats. Without prompting, George takes Merlin off toward the hearth in the meantime, taking the moment to instruct him in its maintenance, which is another thing the boy has likely only ever done by magic. Arthur has never before been in the position of having a vested interest in the training of a new servant; and certainly he’s never taken advantage of a servant’s hesitance or incompetence to watch them, to learn the visible marks on their skin and to observe how they move within it, the way he watches Merlin from his table.

He killed your father, he must remind himself, watching the long, thin fingers take hesitant hold of the iron George holds out to him. He’s a dragonlord, and a sorcerer, and not to be coveted. (The unwelcome attraction sits uncomfortably in his stomach and boils up into his chest with all the comfort of an acid, even now.)

Arthur escapes them once he’s fed and watered to George’s liking, only to abruptly encounter his first trial of the day: at the end of the dim corridor outside his chambers, where a pair of guards should be, Mordred’s sullen form leans back against stone. He’s alone, for once, dressed modestly rather than for showing, and smells of stormy skies, curls slightly frizzed to match.

Arms crossed and eyes narrowed, he looks ready for the kind of attack that Arthur wouldn’t be able to counter. He shoots ramrod straight the moment he sees his quarry. It’s a relief that those eerie eyes are still blue.

“You can’t keep him,” he says, as Arthur draws closer.

“Good morning to you as well, Mordred.”

“If it were a good morning, I wouldn’t have had to see you.” Ever a vicious child, now, so unlike when he’d first come to Camelot – but for once, insulting Arthur isn’t Mordred’s purpose, and he goes on: “He isn’t to be owned. You can’t keep him. You must let him go.”

Arthur sighs, grateful for the tight hug of his surcoat. “I can’t do that. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand perfectly. Does he suck a cock that well?”

After so many years, Mordred’s combative crudeness should be expected. Familiar.

It isn’t.

It carves deep like a blade, and Arthur has to take a series of shallow breaths to keep that knowledge to himself before he speaks. If losing ground to his uncle is a terrible experience, to lose ground to Mordred is absolutely intolerable.

“You know very well that I would never command such a thing of any member of my household.”

“Do I?” Mordred eyes darkly him up and down, then looks back toward Arthur’s chambers. “He looks very much like me. Should I be concerned? Is that why you won’t leave me alone?”

Arthur shakes his head. “I have left you alone. You asked me to stop; I did.”

“Only because I made you bleed.”

And if the child underlines that by bearing his teeth, then Arthur feels entitled to correct him without mercy: “Only because you made it very clear that freedom would cause you nothing but pain. My interest is exclusively in ending that for you.”

“I’d rather you had no interest in me at all.”

“You might try saying that to my uncle. Would that we both leave you alone.”

Mordred scoffs, then. “Just because you found serving him intolerable doesn’t mean the rest of us do. I find it quite pleasurable, myself.”

Arthur closes his eyes, briefly; feels himself losing the stamina required for this kind of sparring.

“You aren’t old enough to find it pleasurable,” he says, flatly. “And speaking like that doesn’t make you any more a man.”

“Does fucking like one? Ah, no – I suppose if it did, you’d be king already, wouldn’t you?”

Arthur takes one breath in through his nose, deep and cold, and then another, and finds that there may be no amount of breathing today that will take him to a place of detachment.

Very quietly, he says, “There will come a day very soon, Mordred, that you will go to my uncle’s chambers and find the way barred to you. He’ll make some excuse or another, but you’ll wonder... you’ll have grown a half-inch; you’ll have lost just a bit of that softness he so loves to touch. You won’t blush the way you did. You’ll have left your childhood behind. And you’ll see, like I did, that loyalty means nothing to a man like him, and that the childhood in you was what he truly craved to master. Nothing more.”

Mordred’s face becomes something ugly, twisted with rage and bitterness and all the understanding in the world.

“You have no idea who he is,” he says, jerking his chin back down the hall, in Merlin’s direction. “I take it back. I hope you do keep him. I hope you get him killed, and I hope you don’t figure it out until after. I hope you live the rest of your short, stupid life knowing what a useless monster you are. Your father’s son to the end.”

“And I hope you can find some peace for yourself today. Cruelty is easy, but it doesn’t feel very good, does it?”

The child sneers at that, wet-eyed though he is. “I hope your death is as painful as I’ve seen it in my dreams.”

Arthur nods, supposing that’s fair enough.

“Regardless, I’m here for now. There is nothing you can say that will change that.”

“I hate you,” Mordred hisses anyway, and he has never looked so young.

For the second time in two days, he runs like it’s Arthur who’s done him wrong.

George surprises Merlin by being exactly the same man both before and apart from his prince, if vastly more talkative. There is nothing else about him that changes when Arthur leaves them alone; he is of the same fastidious nature whether or not there is a noble-born person in the room to benefit from or remark upon it, which is… disconcerting, but also quite endearing. Service is neither an obligation nor a meaningless performance for a man like George, Merlin realizes. Rather, in its own way, it seems a point of honor.

Merlin decides very quickly that he likes George, which makes the matter of having to quietly interrogate him a small shame.

Not that he gets very far.

They’ve moved from the hearth over to the wardrobe, to start the day with something about folding and laundry care. It’s been barely half of an hour, and Merlin has been very proud of the few seemingly innocuous questions he’s sprinkled into the largely one-sided lesson. When he risks another, though – about the location of the kitchen relative to the knights’ quarters, if he must ever find or serve any of them – George pauses, hands and attention still entirely upon the hose in his hands. (For this task, Merlin has been permitted only to watch and to hold up an oil lamp, so the insides of the wardrobe’s drawers and shelving can be seen, along with the results of George’s preternaturally gifted folding techniques.)

“If you have specific questions, you ought just to ask them,” he says, plainly, “and not try to make a fool of me.”

Merlin winces. “That’s not– ”

“Fooling me into providing you information leading to your freedom would in fact be making a fool of me, Merlin.” He raises an eyebrow, but for the severity of the words, doesn’t actually seem half bothered. “I don’t know what I would do in your place. Maybe the same. I’ve been in service my entire life, as my father was before me, as well as his father. To serve His Highness is an honor and a privilege. The idea of enslavement…”

He trails off, likely because to speak against Agravaine must now be some sort of treason, and quickly finds a new course.

“If I were to disagree with the practice of slavery, then this is where I might inform you that while the knights’ quarters are at the northwest wing and nowhere close to the castle kitchens, the boy Mordred has placed a number of wards about the grounds and the citadel to prevent the escape of slaves. The only weaknesses I’ve observed in those wards are that they do not travel down to the places children fear to wander alone.”

That stumps Merlin for half a breath before he remembers Kilgharrah’s story about his attempted imprisonment: that there are depths of caverns and catacombs beneath the castle that might serve well enough as an escape route, if he can find a way to navigate them, and manage to divine a way not to starve on his travels.

So hasty an answer to the question of escape sheds light upon a deeper problem, however: he isn’t sure he wants to. He isn’t sure he can.

“You ought not to go too soon, though, if you can stand it,” George adds, as if Merlin is not having a small, silent crisis about the nature of his sudden hesitance to leave. “It’s not good between the Prince and his uncle at the moment, and if you’re caught, you’re sure to catch the worst of it.”

“Has it ever been good between them?”

That earns an expression too complex to be deciphered. “No, unfortunately – but it’s especially difficult what with the ascension so near.”

And that does make sense, Merlin supposes, even as a large part of his mind is still stuck on the matter of his staying or going.

“Can I ask,” he says, on a whim, “if you’ve had any news in the last fortnight? Anything from outside Camelot?”

George shrugs, but then frowns, and carefully eyes the iron upon Merlin’s wrists, as well as the mark upon his neck, which was put there by his father at the start of his training, indicating he is dragonkin.

“Only rumors. But maybe the sort you’d want to hear: they say a druid named Emrys, a very powerful man, was killed at the Isle of the Blessed. And that in his place there are two High Priestesses who want to make war.”

“Ah.” Merlin does his best to keep his expression even. “I suppose that would only make things more difficult for Arthur.”

With a deep sigh, George corrects him: “For the Prince. Never refer to him by his given name.”

It isn’t until this slip, truthfully, that Merlin realizes he has begun not to think of Arthur as only the Prince. (And this is one correction he will eagerly accept, since Arthur Pendragon is not someone to whom he can afford to get very close.)

But whatever he means to say after that is drowned out by the bursting open of the Prince’s chamber doors.

Three armed guards storm in; George is quick and careful to turn with his hands raised, in perfect, calm subservience.

“Prince Arthur is not in, I’m afraid. Is there– ”

“Shut up,” says the first, a man twice George’s size. He turns hard eyes on Merlin. “You. You’re wanted before the Regent's council. Move.”

Unexpectedly, at least to Merlin, George gives a high-pitched, uncomfortable little laugh, and rounds his shoulders down, and bows his head, like he’s afraid.

“Well, I see I’m not needed here. Excuse me.”

None of the guards make an effort to stop him as he leaves.

It’s uncharitable to think, but Merlin decides that perhaps he doesn’t want George as a friend after all.

“Out with you.” A fair-haired guard gestures toward the now-open doors.

“My master told me to stay here,” Merlin lies.

“Your master will be seated among the council.”

It doesn’t feel good to become a plaything between two powerful men, which is what Merlin imagines he is, now, if Agravaine has ordered these men to drag him downstairs without the Prince’s knowledge. The thought of what might await him turns his stomach; he feels foolish, suddenly, for having been anything but eager to escape this place at the earliest opportunity.

“All the more reason I shouldn’t appear against his instructions,” he hedges. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“You’re making trouble now,” the last guard says.

The first draws his sword, and it’s incredibly frustrating that Merlin can’t respond to that in kind.

Remembering what Arthur told him about these men, though – that they’d abuse him without hesitation – he decides it’s better not to antagonize them any further.

He goes without further delay.

The council chambers are gravely quiet, made almost grim by sepia daylight filtering weakly in through the windows. Arthur is among the last to arrive, having first stopped to speak with Lucan.

Few people would have described Uther’s rule as either lenient or affiliative, but in comparison, what Agravaine has done with the regency makes near mockery of what came before: council sessions convene with the expectation that no one will offer an opinion not previously solicited in private; and anyone who dares to breach that tacit understanding finds himself promptly stripped of whatever wealth or power brought him to the position of councilor in the first place. It’s difficult to keep count of the new faces even just a year on.

“Ah, nephew.” Agravaine welcomes him from the king’s chair at the head of the table, an open hand held out to the seat at his right. “Join us. We were just about to begin. You’ve an opinion on Cenred’s gifts, I’m sure.”

Their numbers have fluctuated over time, but today it’s a line of five men seated up one side of the long table and six down the other. None of them rise or bow as Arthur comes in and seats himself; they’ve long since learned not to show him any respect in excess of what Agravaine can be shown.

A lingering source of bitterness, no doubt, that no matter what the Regent accomplishes, he is still not royal by birth.

“I do have opinions, uncle,” Arthur says, acknowledging the lure, “but I trust you have something to share with us first.”

“Indeed.” Agravaine generally maintains a placid, pleasant sort of easiness in his expression no matter what the circumstance – so the slight twitch of the corner of his mouth downward at Arthur's deflection is heavily informative of his disappointment. “Well. I do have a proposition for this council, if I may?”

No one voices opposition. He nods as if he’s been invited to continue.

“The threat of magic has been nearly eradicated from these lands, but that doesn’t mean it poses any less of a threat than it did decades ago. It is in fact at the highest it has ever been. We are now in the time in which users of magic will fight the very hardest against their own extinction, using their unnatural power to soften the blows of famine and plague while the rest of us whither and die. The Blessed have overtaken that Isle which sat empty before the war, and we know now that there are dragons still at large, gathering there too under the command of their dragonlords.”

It chills Arthur to hear of dragons and dragonlords out of his uncle’s mouth, but he stays attentive. Keeps his face a mask as this scene is laid out.

“What we now contend with,” Agravaine goes on, “is the desperation of our peoples to survive. We are a civil people here in Camelot, and with all of this death over the past year, we can certainly continue to make a place for magic, to avoid further loss of life. That magic users know that place is of crucial importance. It seems to me that more can be done here to ensure magic has neither the desire nor the capability to thrive where it is not wanted, and to that end, I’ve been negotiating with our neighbors.”

There is a ripple of discomfort down the table as several of the older councilors shift uncomfortably. Arthur feels the weight of several glances traveling tightly between himself and his uncle.

That Agravaine is willing to engage in such action on his own, so close to the end of his regency, is telling.

“Before we agree to final terms,” Agravaine finishes, “I offer this for your consideration: that Kings Caerleon, Bayard, and Cenred have agreed to cede small parts of their lands to Camelot in exchange for the service we do in eliminating the free use of magic within and across our borders; and that Camelot, upon those lands, will expand the reach of the service scheme so as to benefit all four of our kingdoms together, through these perilous times.”

More than telling, this action – which will not by any means be easily undone – is a patently flagrant abuse of temporary power.

The ensuing silence is almost painful to bear.

“That is quite a piece of negotiating, uncle,” Arthur says, at length. 

He keeps his fisted hands beneath the table, out of sight.

“I thought so, too,” Agravaine replies, lightly. “So you see, Cenred’s gift was given freely and in good faith. A contribution toward the successful cooperation of our kingdoms for years to come. Your father’s charge to me was to ensure for you a successful and peaceful reign, my dear nephew, free of the perils and pitfalls of tolerance, and I will do so at any risk – which is why I mention this only now that it’s a viable path forward. It would not have done to raise anyone’s hopes, if this course should not have been possible.”

The game has changed, and unfortunately, Arthur isn’t sure how to play this part.

He can see the trap where it lies waiting – if he is his father’s son, how can he oppose a course that will both benefit his kingdom and expand its reach? That will bend magic to the use of the people, for their benefit and survival, at least until the skies clear and the sun brightens again? (And there is a sort of brilliance, too, he can acknowledge, in the way tolerance has here been painted as a threat. For how can he continue to argue against slavery when both its use and an unflinching condemnation of magic is now crucial to Camelot’s successful expansion?)

Looking around the table, absorbing the silence around him, Arthur realizes that he no longer sits, if he ever did at all, among men willing to fight for him to rule the way he wishes. He sits among men who will accept this Regent as their King without question, if it should come to that. Who will abandon their morals without hesitation. Who think only of themselves and their own survival.

“Well,” Agravaine says, brightly – smugly, in a way no one else would be able to understand – when Arthur fails to respond. “It’s a complicated matter, isn’t it? Let’s return to that presently. I have another concern for the council’s consideration, if you’ll oblige me.”

And he surprises Arthur by turning away from the table to signal at one of his new guards, who opens the doors to the chamber with unnecessary flourish.

Through them stumbles Merlin, then, driven forward by an almost harried Sir Leon, who immediately seeks out Arthur’s gaze. There can be no words exchanged as they approach the head of the table, but Arthur knows that look well enough. (He also knows Leon is not meant to be here; Leon is meant to be out helping Lancelot prepare to interrupt the movement of slaves into the lower town today. Every moment of delay here risks that outcome.)

With a deep breath, he disconnects from himself. Commits to whatever course will save the most lives, even if one of those lives is not Merlin’s.

“I didn’t ask for you,” Agravaine is saying to Leon, a slight pout turning his lip.

“My apologies, Your Grace.” The knight offers a slight bow. “I relieved your guards of their duty. It’s my responsibility as First Knight to handle the affairs of the Prince’s household.”

“What’s the meaning of this?” Arthur asks, calmly, though he thinks he can already see the pieces coming together.

“The meaning,” Agravaine says, glaring now at Merlin, who for his part is looking perfectly servile and innocent, eyes tight to the floor, “is that the dragonlord is the first this court has encountered since the death of your father, the King. Surely he must know something about the man who took Uther’s life.”

And it’s impressive – truly impressive, especially in a boy so young – how indifferent Merlin is to this suggestion. As if he knows nothing about it at all.

“Surely?” Arthur makes a skeptical show of looking the boy up and down. “Surely not, I’d think. There was no place on that battlefield for children.”

“He doesn’t look like a child to me,” Agravaine counters. “Would you deny me the opportunity to question him, nephew?”

“No, uncle. I do wonder, however, why you would fail to respect the ownership I took of him yesterday. If this is the way you appropriate the property of a prince, how is any other noble meant to feel secure in his own acquisitions?”

Agravaine’s eye twitches. “Don’t be petulant. The sorcerer is a dragonlord and it’s this council’s right to question him.”

“The sorcerer is a slave and is mine to do with as I please,” Arthur retorts, flatly. “Or do you mean to say that the will of your council now supersedes mine?”

The very air of the room has gone cold. Arthur’s heart is pounding agony in his chest, over every careful breath. He holds his uncle’s gaze steadily.

“This slave – ” Agravaine stresses the word distastefully “ – is not fit to serve royalty. You show him too much lenience if you’d favor him with protection over allowing this council to do its work.”

Arthur’s head jerks; he’s unable to help the way one of his palms presses tight to his thigh. Tight to the scars beneath the material there.

“Lenience.” When Arthur looks at Merlin now, he’s grateful the boy isn’t looking back. Grateful he won’t have to see the hatred Arthur is aiming in his direction. “Have you forgotten that I was maimed by my father’s killer?”

He speaks quietly, but it’s enough to capture the gaze of every man in the room.

This is not something he’s ever spoken of publicly, but if trotting it out now will contribute to saving a life, Arthur will do so.

“The scars he left will never fade,” he says, lowly, shifting his gaze, cooling it, so that when it finds his uncle’s, he hopes there’s little there to be used against him. “If this boy knew anything of value, I would pry it from his throat myself. What I do with my property is my prerogative, both as Uther’s son and as Camelot’s Prince, and has in fact been quite far from lenience – unlike what you have shown young Mordred, incidentally, in return for his services.”

It’s too far to press, too quickly; Arthur knows that as soon as the words leave his mouth – knows his uncle better than anyone else – but he couldn’t stop himself, and he certainly can’t stop the way Merlin’s gaze shoots upward, or the way that false servility promptly drains out of him, too unnatural to be maintained.

Agravaine notices.

Agravaine notices and seizes upon it with all the smooth grace of a well-practiced courtier.

“Interested in that, are you, boy?” A pause, during which Merlin neither lowers his eyes nor bends his head. “And what interest would a dragonlord have in my Mordred?”

Horror threatens to break through Merlin’s steady expression – Arthur can see it well enough in the wobble of that frown and the tightening of those eyes, and if he can see it, so too can his uncle.

He makes himself feel absolutely nothing when Merlin, unintimidated, goes so far as to answer.

“What services? What else is it that Mordred does for you, other than use his magic?”

Agravaine doesn’t answer; nor does he acknowledge the ripple of contempt that rolls down the table away from them, the whispers and shifting of councilors who for the first time this morning have before them something they’re absolutely certain they can speak out against.

The Regent turns, that horribly smug smile back easily upon his face. Arthur already knows what’s coming.

“He’s quite disrespectful, isn’t he? To bathe and to dress a savage thing, Arthur, is not the same as to tame it. Tell me again how you’ve shown him no lenience.”

“I certainly haven’t.” Arthur steels himself, heaving a short, put-upon sigh. To Merlin, he says, “I told you what would happen, didn’t I, the next time you spoke out of turn?”

“You did, sire.” Merlin doesn’t exactly cower, but the shift toward cowed is clear enough in the bend of his spine, the lowering of both his head and gaze, the softening of his voice. The bruise blossoming dark upon his sharp cheek makes it all the more believable an act. If it’s an act. “Please accept my apology. It won’t happen again.”

No matter how pretty it sounds, it won’t be enough. Arthur stands and strides calmly over toward him, holding one open palm out to Leon.

“Your belt, Sir Leon.”

To his credit, the knight doesn’t hesitate.

Merlin’s eyes widen, though they remain lowered. His breathing audibly picks up as Leon’s leather belt finds its way into Arthur’s hands, stripped of its weapon and purse.

“I know it won’t happen again,” Arthur says, “because I know you will believe me, now, when I tell you I’m a man of my word. Step forward. Put your hands on the table.”

It’s as if every breath in the room is held but Merlin’s, so loud is each one of his to Arthur’s ears.

The nearest councilor, Ector, quietly shifts his chair to the side and moves to stand behind it. Arthur isn’t sure whether this is in protest or only to make more room, but no one else pays the action any mind, and the effect is to make a space for Merlin that is more than wide enough to be witnessed by all, right before Agravaine.

Merlin approaches the table in halting, hesitant steps, but pauses beside it, head still bowed.

“I’m sorry, my lord, truly.”

Arthur nods. “That you can recognize you’ve done wrong is valuable to me, but as I said, I am a man of my word. Can you be a man of yours?”

With an infuriating earnestness: “I can, sire. I want to be.”

“Then you will take ten strikes of this belt, which you have earned, and you will never embarrass me like this again.” When Merlin only stands frozen, staring at the floor with flooding eyes and death-gray cheeks, gasps coming quick and shallow through his nose, Arthur loses his patience. “You can take the belt now, or I’ll send you to the dungeons and have the Warden break you under his whip.”

The boy swallows audibly, then sets trembling hands to the table.

Thinking of all this like a game, in turns against his uncle that he might win or lose, has always worked better for Arthur than admitting what it has always been: a series of battles in a war waged against his will since childhood. Thinking of it like a game made it feel safer, he supposes; games never end for children in a way that feels real.

This feels real, though. The belt in his hands is real. The bruise upon Merlin’s cheek is real. Agravaine’s smirk, deepening the longer Arthur pauses, is real. Leon’s eyes; Ector’s eyes. Every silent witness in this room. All real.

It’s not that Arthur doesn’t want to hurt Merlin. A small part of him wants that very much – to visit back upon this sorcerer, with extreme prejudice, the violence which was done upon him and his father last year; to scar Merlin, in turn; to terrify him; to take from him what Arthur will never be able to recover himself. The problem is that objectively, Merlin can’t be blamed for injuries made overly complicated not by what he did, but by what had preceded it… nor can he be blamed for avenging his own father.

It happens as if by someone else’s hand. Someone else putting their shoulder into that swing. Someone else ignoring the gasps and groans each impact elicits from the boy whose hands are now white-knuckled fists upon the table.

Ten strikes later, Merlin is breathing in small, wet gasps.

“Stand,” Arthur says, flatly. “Apologize to the Regent for your disrespect.”

A small hiccup; a sniffle.

The boy wipes his face clear in two rough swipes, keeping his head bowed as he turns stiffly to face the head of the table.

“Please accept my deepest apologies, Your Grace,” he rasps – cowed now beyond any doubt.

Agravaine gives a short, dismissive grunt, sharp gaze quickly roaming the table. Arthur can see him thinking, evaluating, understanding that he has lost something here. That Arthur’s display has taken command of the room.

“Yes, well. Away with you, for now,” he barks, at Merlin. “Collect yourself. And perhaps you’ll be more cooperative tomorrow.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” Merlin bows deeply, first to Agravaine and then to Arthur. “And thank you, sire, for the correction.”

Arthur swallows with great difficulty.

“It’s alright, little bear,” Agravaine said sweetly, holding him close. “You’re only small still – no one expects you to get everything right. You can trust me, though, to correct you when you need it.”

Arthur’s small hands trembled as they clung, skin still smarting. Wanting to press his face in even closer; wanting desperately to run.

“Thank you, uncle.”

He holds out Leon’s belt.

“Take him back to my chambers,” he says, turning away from the table and from Merlin as well, so he might set a firm hand to Leon’s shoulder. “See that he stays within them.”

Leon offers a short, simple bow, then gestures for Merlin to walk ahead, like a prisoner, until the heavy doors to the chamber close behind them.

“Well.” Agravaine seats himself, all overwrought bluster and showmanship. “That was quite a distraction, wasn’t it? Where did we leave off, then?”

“The perils and pitfalls of tolerance,” Arthur answers, as dryly as he can manage, “and how you’ve helped me to avoid them.”

He has no idea who’s won this round, but his uncle isn’t happy, and that’s… it’s certainly something.

Allies are a game Merlin knows well only by watching; he’s never bandied his own weight about like that, like his father used to, leveraging his power or his favor or whatever else it might be that people wanted. Barely a day shouldn’t be enough time to make allies in a place he should strictly be hated for what he is, but Merlin has somehow in this time, with little effort, found several. It surprises nearly as much as it vexes him.

Earlier, before any harm could be done outside the Prince’s chambers, a knight came to intercept them: a curly-haired brunet with blue eyes and a noble look about him. He took one look at their small group, saw Merlin urged off the staircase by the harsh points of drawn swords, and planted himself firmly in their way.

“I’ll take him from here, lads,” he said, one hand firmly on the pommel of his sword. The tone had even Merlin’s back straightening.

“We were told– ”

“I am telling you,” the knight interrupted, sharp as anything, “that I shall take him from here.”

“That imbecile of a servant ran straight for you, didn’t he?” One of the guards spit violently at the ground; another scoffed. “The coward.”

Merlin was forced to admit that he might have found a friend in George after all, despite the brief doubt.

But then, of course, there was Arthur, who before Agravaine and his council was both the same person and entirely different – more familiar, at least, for his hands and the weight he can put behind them.

It was right, Merlin thinks, to pretend. He only worries, pacing Arthur’s chambers as he waits alone after the fact, the length of his back swollen and throbbing, that perhaps he pretended too well.

The tears were a touch overdone, maybe; and when Merlin hears himself thanking Arthur for the correction – the words echo in his ears, over and over, as he paces – all his trembling insides cringe fiercely. It was manipulative to pretend frightened subservience to men susceptible to that sort of thing, and he doesn't know what he'll do if the Price also falls into that group. If the Prince turns out to be one of the men his father once warned him about.

Balinor's arms tightened around Merlin’s small frame. “Do you understand what a violation is, my boy?”

Merlin’s fingers loosened from the folds of his father's soft chiton, but didn’t release it entirely, taking comfort from its warmth. He found himself frowning. It wasn’t that the word was new, he thought – maybe just that he’d only heard it in a different context.

“Is that like when the Druids say desecration?” And though that bit of Brythonic was still very awkward in his mouth, he managed.

“It’s similar,” Balinor said, heart pounding hard against Merlin's ear. “You are getting older, Merlin, and there are people in this world who would take advantage of your goodness. Who would depend upon both your belief in their authority and your compliance with their will, for nothing but their own gain. You must be prepared for that. Your trust is a precious thing, and you must never give it unthinkingly. You must guard against who would violate it.”

Merlin was taught very early in life that he owed trust to no other person but himself; that he could decide to trust or not trust any other person at his own discretion; and that, especially when it came to the people who would call him only sorcerer or dragonkin, or who might seek to leverage in their dealings the title of Emrys, he must never feel compelled to trust who had not, in his own judgement, truly earned it.

That he feels himself compelled to give his trust to Arthur Pendragon, even after this morning, leaves him conflicted.

And this, too, keeps replaying in his mind: the way the life drained from Arthur’s eyes the moment Merlin entered the room. The way he said, I told you what would happen, like this morning’s scene was the only natural complement to you’ll see my cruelty soon enough; but also like he had no concept of the way this treatment protected Merlin from Agravaine’s scrutiny. As if Merlin couldn't see or hear for himself the true reason for the belt.

The next time the doors to Arthur's chambers swing open, it is Sir Leon who steps inside. Merlin freezes where he is before the fireplace.

Gwen and the Lady Morgana will be the safest people for you, he remembers the Prince saying, as well as Sirs Leon, Gwaine, and Lancelot.

The knight isn’t armed this time, but he did just lend his belt for Merlin’s punishment, and Arthur’s endorsement is hardly trustworthy when Morgana’s name is also on that list. He doesn’t think it’s wise to take the chance, so Merlin bows deeply as the doors are once more bolted.

“There’s no need for that,” Leon says, when he turns. He lingers at the wall instead of approaching. “I’m here for your protection.”

A beat passes, during which Merlin decides he’s willing to chance a disrespect after all.

“To protect Prince Arthur’s property, you mean.”

“As far as Agravaine is concerned? Yes.”

“And how shall you protect me with no weapon aside from your belt?”

Like Arthur, Leon is not an overly expressive man. The accusation there doesn't seem to shake him.

“There’s more than one kind of protection we carry out here on the Prince’s behalf,” is all he says.

Which is confusing, though deceptively simple as an answer. Unwilling to press, Merlin changes course.

“Where’s George? If the Prince has sent you, he could also stand to send who already belongs here.”

Again, a frustratingly minimal response. Not even a single curl twitches out of place where Leon has planted himself.

“I have my orders,” he says, adding to this non-answer a pointed look about the chambers – and belatedly, Merlin realizes he doesn’t exactly belong in here himself. He ought to be in the antechamber, making himself unseen the way servants do.

It’s a struggle not to roll his eyes.

“What about George, then?”

“He’s been detained by Agravaine’s men for his intervention this morning.” The knight catches Merlin’s gaze and holds it, killing his protest even as it kindles hot into life. “You must understand that George is protected by both the length of his family’s service to the crown and his good reputation, neither of which you can claim yourself. And, consider this,” he adds, more quietly: “He came for me even knowing that to do so in your defense would cost him something. Don’t dishonor his choice when we both know that’s not unlike what you and Arthur just did downstairs.”

“That’s not the same at all,” Merlin snaps, hot in the face, “and I didn’t ask George to do that. Are things like this really so common? Is violence the only language anyone here knows how to speak?”

One of Leon’s eyebrows rises. “Do they not also speak it where you come from? Or are you asking me to believe you enslaved yourself?”

A fair and deflating point.

“How did you know?” At Leon’s frown, Merlin clarifies: “How did you know I was playing along earlier?”

“You’ve spent a single night here. Arthur’s never even broken a horse. I suppose the better question is, what do you expect to get out of it?”

If it bothers Leon that Merlin doesn’t answer this, the knight doesn’t show it. He maintains a formal stance at the doors to the Prince’s chambers like this is a standard post, ignoring Merlin from that point forward in the way guards do.

Absent any gainful employment – and unsure he appreciates Leon’s presence – Merlin returns to his antechamber. His back aches to the point of throbbing, so that when he lays down on the narrow mattress, he must do so on his stomach. It’s a small miracle that he finds rest for long enough that his heart can stop racing.

Less of a miracle: he falls asleep.

Feasts are a rare observance in these days of Uther’s Wrath, which makes them all the more difficult to avoid. Where before holding such a thing publicly spoke mostly of indulgence, it is now far more practical a demonstration: that Camelot’s Regent is alive and well; that Camelot’s Prince stands strongly but quietly in support of him; that Camelot’s lords and ladies are fed enough to travel; that Camelot’s stores are filled with enough yet to spare an extra ration for each visitor. This is possibly the one thing Arthur reluctantly admires about Agravaine’s leadership, that the man knows how to position himself and everyone around him to appear to greatest strengths at nearly all times.

It’s a responsibly managed affair – no one eats in excess; not a soul will leave with a full stomach – but the simple show of it is powerful enough. To not participate is not an option, and that is how Arthur finds himself seated at Agravaine’s right hand at the head of what for royalty is a humble table, his body present but his mind wholly occupied with who currently lies recovering in his chambers.

While Agravaine largely ignores him, Morgana, seated at Agravaine’s left, has not stopped glaring at him since he sat down.

“Tell me you have not actually taken a slave, Arthur Pendragon, or I swear I shall – ”

Just outside the Hall wasn’t a safe place to talk, though, by any means; instead of shouting, she lowered her voice to nearly a whisper. “They’re saying you belted him before the council. I didn’t want to believe it.”

“He spoke disrespectfully. I did what I had to do. He’ll be fine.”

“Fine,” Morgana repeated, eyes narrowed. Calculating. “What I’ve Seen of him was not fine.”

It sat poorly with Arthur that he might have struck Merlin too harshly, or harshly enough to disturb Morgana by the sight of it alone.

“Then a distraction would benefit his recovery. Wouldn’t you agree?

Slowly – so slowly, at first, that Arthur feared he would have to speak more plainly – the lady nodded.

To be fair, this is not the sort of distraction Arthur had in mind. Half the room stares between Uther’s children as if their animosity might be the night’s entertainment, while the other half watches Agravaine, who has so far borne his place just shy of the center of attention with all the grace one might expect of such a man.

Mordred, who is not permitted to linger by the Regent’s side at such events, glares balefully from his seat beside Sir Ector’s eldest son. Arthur is not immune to the number of watching eyes and listening ears, but here at the feasting table he feels a sort of immunity to the invasive attention. This is long familiar, from the days of sitting beside his father, and gives him little trouble.

No, this is when the trouble comes:

Servants comes around to fill goblets with a few splashes of wine each, making ready for Arthur to stand and speak his few words about perseverance and resilience and making room for celebration, now that the food has been scraped from every plate; and Agravaine follows with something of the same, sounding nothing like a man planning to turn the kingdom over to its rightful King; and everyone cheers and swallows bitter wine in full gulps; and Arthur knows the moment he gulps down his own that it was not only wine in his goblet. Not only wine at all.

He sits down too heavily, palms tight to the sides of his chair. He’s been too long underfed. Has lost too much weight to hold off whatever this is.

“Careful, nephew,” Agravaine says, solicitously. Loudly. (Ominously.) All eyes are upon them. “I keep forgetting how young you are, for all your size. So little wine will still go to a boy’s head, won’t it?”

Uneasy laughter follows – the Regent has never before risked to patronize the Prince in front of his subjects – but Arthur’s head does indeed spin, and he can’t immediately speak in his own defense. He can’t even look in Morgana’s direction, or for his knights. Any public admission of weakness in this moment will stay with him.

Something is happening to his body, though, that he knows with abrupt certainty can not be permitted to happen in public. He braces himself, remembering his father.

“A knight goes fearlessly to battle, as is his duty,” Uther said, shifting so that young Arthur could take a place in front of him, looking over his desk like any of the maps upon it would make sense to a child’s eyes.

“But Father– ”

He was hushed with a soft hand, and Arthur ground his teeth and bore that touch for no other reason than it was his father’s.

“That is a knight’s duty, Arthur. The duty of a King is that and more: not only to fight honorably, but to lead honorably. To understand that some battles can not and should not be fought. To pursue intelligently only those which either can be won, or those which can not be avoided.”

“Avoid this one,” Arthur begged, quietly.

Uther smiled at him sadly. “I’m afraid I can’t. You must practice being brave for me, now.”

Before this moment, Arthur isn’t certain he’s ever truly understood what it is to make that kind of a choice. To assess two terrible options and to find that one is made tolerable only by the abject impossibility of the other.

“I’m afraid you’re right, uncle,” he says, striving to keep his expression clear and unbothered. Sweat already prickles at his temples and all down his spine. His heart feels unreliable in a way it never has before. With a short, breathy laugh, he pushes himself up onto rapidly weakening legs. (He must leave immediately, and this is worth whatever it will cost him.) “A younger man might stay to prove himself, but I fear I’ve no longer a stomach for wine at all. Peace and a festive night upon all of you.”

It’s certainly the least ceremonious exit he’s ever made, but scandal isn’t what concerns him in the corridor outside the Hall, as he searches out a face he trusts and finds none.

“Having trouble, my lord?” A near guard jeers – and it isn’t until he asks it that Arthur realizes he is leaning heavily against the stone wall not five paces out from doors he barely made it through upright.

He makes no reply, but pushes off the wall and forges his way forward, until his balance is so poor that he must lean against cool stone with every step.

It’s not a poison, he thinks, or he would be dead already. (Or maybe not all poisons are deadly? He doesn’t know much about them. Gaius would know.) It’s just that his blood is heating, and he can’t breathe, and his body feels like it doesn’t belong to him anymore, the way it used to feel when his uncle came to lay beside him under heavy bedclothes and use his hands to make Arthur’s body do things he didn’t want it to do, things it wasn’t meant to do, and –

“My lord?”

It’s too tentative to be mean-spirited. A servant. A man Arthur knows by sight but not by name, who used to work in the stables but now works inside because of a sickness in his lungs. Arthur has immense empathy for that, right now, as he can’t breathe either. No words can come when his whole throat is tight, air barely clawing its way in and out.

“My lord, you aren’t well,” the servant says, quietly. Kindly, the way Balinor used to speak. “Let me help you.”

Another battle to choose. To allow someone to touch him, or to collapse.

Arthur reaches out for the man.

Halfway to his chambers, they are stopped. A sandy-haired young guard named Madoc approaches and says something low to the servant, something Arthur can’t make out through the roaring of his blood in his ears. The servant says something back, and Arthur feels a strong arm tighten around his waist. He tightens his own arm in turn.

“This isn’t your place, old man,” Madoc says, raising his voice. “Hand him over.”

The servant doesn’t shout, but it is very clear to Arthur when he says, with feeling, “Fuck off, Madoc,” and keeps them moving.

Some part of Arthur knows that will have a cost, too. No part of Arthur believes he is worth it.

Agravaine’s guard follows them all the way to his chambers.

Waking without free access to magic feels like suffocating. No part of that experience is improving with time.

Merlin isn’t sure how long he’s worn the iron in total, now, but it still takes a monstrous few seconds to remember what’s been done to him. He breathes haltingly through the pain in his back, wondering frantically why his efforts to fix it himself amount to nothing, until reality takes hold, and he recalls that he is no longer Emrys – or at least, he’s not Emrys for now.

He’s still fully dressed, which is good, but he’s bitterly hungry, and thirsty, and his head aches fiercely. Has he slept the entire day?

He hasn’t woken alone.

“Up,” says the guardsman looming above him, who is neither Leon nor any of the men from this morning. This is someone entirely unknown to Merlin. He has dark hair and cruel eyes, and his face is cut into sharp shadows by torchlight – real torchlight, the resin for which Merlin knows with certainty is meant to be conserved at all costs – shining in from the outer chamber, where another new guard stands, taller and fairer. They’ve both drawn their swords.

Merlin sits up on his bed, slowly, ignoring how his stomach cramps. Ignoring how wrong this feels.

“Where’s the Prince?”

“You’ll be attending to him directly,” the closer guard says, gesturing to the door. “Out.”

“Where’s Sir Leon?”

That hand flies back to crack Merlin across the mouth before it gestures again to the open door.

“Stand and get out.”

Tasting blood, Merlin stands and goes out.

Disconcertingly, it’s long past nightfall. He doesn’t readily understand how he’s been allowed to sleep for so long. The windows of Arthur’s empty chambers are all soaked in liquid darkness, only refracting back the flickering of that torch and the roaring light of a fire that is entirely too high – wasteful, all of it; careless in a way that feels nightmarish. Merlin wonders if he isn’t still asleep.

The second guard doesn’t speak, but points his torch, and the direction is clear: Merlin is being directed back into the bedchamber, which has too many candles lit, and where, unmoving upon the fancy bedclothes, Merlin can see a familiar boot-clad body laid out.

“I’m a slave,” Merlin says, loudly, pulse racing. “I’m bound to the Prince’s will. I can’t go where he hasn’t commanded me.”

“Enough of that,” the dark-haired guard says, and uses the point of his sword to urge Merlin forward. “If you know what’s good for you, dragonlord, you’ll obey.”

Briefly, Merlin fantasizes about setting that hair afire. About feeding that squat frame to Aithusa, who’s old enough now to swallow him whole.

“Come now,” the taller guard says, taking the lead. He goes so far as to wink, grinning viciously as they go. “And don’t fret. You’ll have a turn as well.”

Merlin doesn’t know what that means and doesn’t think he wants to. His aches and pains fade away into nothing under the swift flow of fear that compels him to follow.

In the bedchamber, it’s immediately clear that something has already happened to Arthur. He’s quietly trembling head to toe, breath shallow, eyes unseeing and ears apparently unhearing. There’s no indication that he understands anyone else has entered the room. He’s in the same trousers from earlier in the day but has been stripped of the tight outer layers up top, left in an overlarge tunic with the neck pulled undone; and his skin, from his chest to his neck and up into his face, is all flushed a deep, unnatural crimson. One of his hands grips the open material at his neck, holding it together as best he can, while the other clutches at his trousers’ still-fastened laces.

“You first, or me?” The taller guard asks the other. He lodges the torch into the grip of a near sconce and turns back to the bed, hand falling to his own laces. “Can’t say I haven’t been thinking about it.”

“Be my guest,” the dark-haired one replies.

Merlin draws himself up. Forgets the ruse. Forgets to pretend he is less than he is.

“What have you done to him?”

There’s the sound of rustling fabric, of helplessness, as Arthur struggles against whatever poison he’s been fed – as he grunts, responsive to Merlin’s voice, trying to turn but failing either to move or to manage any more than an indecipherable slur of noise.

It’s one of the most disturbing things Merlin has ever seen.

“He can’t even speak,” he snaps, scowling deeply. “What have you done to your future King?”

The dark-haired guard scoffs. Spits back, “That weak-hearted sodomite will never be my king.”

And Merlin’s entire world burns with fury.

“No wicked Akielon sodomite shall ever darken these halls,” the cleric said, as if Merlin was not right there listening. “I don’t care who you claim him to be. There is no earthly man with a greater power than that of our Almighty God.”

There is a deep well of feeling inside him, buried under considerable pressure. To hear that word wielded so nastily pierces something critical. Triggers an unfathomably demanding release.

There have been very few times in this life that Merlin has been able to afford true rage – to afford flaring so hot that he can see nothing and feel nothing else, so forcefully overtaken that he really could be magic itself – and that’s what strikes up in him now: that’s what bares his teeth and narrows his eyes and readies his body to fight, so that when the sword comes at him, it is only a matter of focus and of parrying just the right way, so the iron cuff is what deflects the strike instead of his own flesh.

Merlin has that sword in his own hands, is sinking that blade deep into skin and muscle, before it even occurs to him what he’s done. What he’s still doing; the second guard is bested even faster. He leaves the sword inside that one, to try to keep the blood where it won’t be a nuisance.

They don’t understand how lucky they are that his magic has been strangled away from him.

On the bed, Arthur is blinking lost, watery eyes up at the canopy, in clear distress. The line of blue in them is so thin as to barely even be visible. Despite the severity of the flush, his skin is cool and damp as Merlin kneels beside him.

“Arthur? Are you with me?”

Merlin had been abysmal with the magics related to healing in his youth. His apprenticeship had lasted barely a fortnight; he never found a way to mitigate how deeply it disturbed him to see other people in pain. He would be useless, here.

He considers, very briefly, ways he might remove the iron anyway.

“Arthur? Can you hear me?” He shifts his touch down from Arthur’s forehead, thinking to examine his throat – if there’s no damage or thickening there, it might be safe to run for the physician – but Arthur resists.

What leaves the Prince’s mouth isn’t intelligible right away, but he thrashes so violently against any examination that Merlin must hold him down by the shoulders, and those same syllables, gasped out over and over, begin to make sense.

Stop.

Don’t touch me.

Uncle.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin gasps, releasing him. Throwing himself back, the moment he realizes how it must look. How it must feel to Arthur. And it fractures something inside Merlin’s chest that even knowing the man might prefer him dead, it’s still Agravaine who Arthur calls out to in his moment of need.

Sitting back brings a distraction with it, then. A new sort of horror.

Merlin’s eyes run down the Prince’s trembling form, noting the tight way he gasps each breath, the way his fingers now grasp at the bedclothes; he’s about to conclude that Arthur is suffering some sort of lung injury from whatever he’s ingested, and then he sees it: the thick bulge rising at the top of the Prince’s legs. The frantic way those thighs press together to hide it. The way Arthur turns fully to his side instead, hugging his knees up tight to his chest, the gasping even worse, wet now as he buries his face in them, and Merlin –

It's not a breathing problem, he realizes. Stunned.

It wasn’t that kind of poison.

Those guards had– on purpose– and they’d planned to–

Sound echoes out suddenly from the main chambers, and there is only time to react.

Merlin scrambles off the bed, heart in his throat. He pulls the blood-drenched sword from the chest of the near guard just in time to raise it against a new intruder – a knight this time, with long brown hair and what in any other circumstance would appear to be a kind face.

“I’ll take the life of any other man who would harm Prince Arthur,” Merlin shouts, for him and for anyone listening behind him. “And if you send more men than I can manage with this sword, I’ll remove this iron, too, and you’ll see exactly who it is you’ve let inside these walls with you.”

An empty threat spoken powerfully, his father said once, can strike just as well as a sword. Merlin relishes the way the knight blinks back at him. Empty hands held high, the man looks desperately confused.

“Step back,” Merlin commands, hoping he sounds at least half as savagely murderous as he feels.

The knight steps back.

Arthur tries to speak from the bed. Merlin doesn’t allow the distraction, sword still held at the offensive, moving to preempt the way the knight twitches in that direction.

“Your physician,” he snaps, keeping the knight’s eyes on him. “Go get him. And Sirs Leon, Gwaine, or Lancelot. Or all three. Nobody else.”

“I’m Gwaine.” The knight pauses, looking at Merlin with fresh eyes, and then at the bodies of the guards, and then back at Merlin. “Is this how you make friends?”

Merlin is too numb to decipher whether or not this is a real question. Hard shivers roll across his body now that the immediate threat is gone.

“The physician,” he says again. “Now.”

The knight named Gwaine sneaks one last look behind Merlin, but then promptly turns and goes. As easily as that. A quick check of the main chamber reveals no other visitors. By the time Merlin returns to Arthur’s side, the Prince has shifted again; has opened, slightly, too. Still hiding his averted lower half, but twisted back so he can look up at the canopy, breathing more easily than before, though still in a laboured way.

He says something indecipherable.

“I didn’t hear that,” Merlin says softly, standing at the edge of the bed this time instead of sitting.

“Big talk,” Arthur slurs out in small bursts of breath, overloud for the effort it takes to articulate. His eyes are still wide and straining – Merlin can see how he’s struggling to focus them. “For a peasant.”

“Ah. Well, I see you’re a prat even at your worst. Maybe the physician can help with that, too.”

Arthur snorts.

“You– really can’t– ”

“Talk to you like that?” Merlin fills in easily. “I don’t know, sire. Personally, I think your belting arm needs a bit more training. Judging by the state of these guards, though, I’m not surprised; the lot of you hit like milk-fed catamites.”

It’s concerning, at first, how loudly Arthur laughs – it’s almost like he’s sobbing, fat tears leaking down the sides of his head. Both hands fly up to cover his face.

“Merlin– ”

Sheepish, Merlin lets himself stumble to sit on the bed after all. He doesn’t know why he said that. He also hasn’t held a sword in a long time, though he’s grateful to his father for the training. His arms hurt, now, to say nothing of the bruised welts across his back.

It’s the excitement of battle fading, he thinks. Tiring him out. Leaving him, too, a shaking disaster.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, hot even at the ears. “I heard one of my instructors say that, once. I don’t even know what it means. ‘Milk-fed?’ How should that make a difference?”

It wasn’t Merlin’s intention, but Arthur laughs even harder. Gives up on hiding his face entirely, so all the pain and the humor mixing there is Merlin’s to see and to study freely.

Merlin looks longer than he should, in fact… so long that when Arthur’s laughter fades, eyes a bit clearer for it, they’re left staring at each other. It’s not unlike it was the year before, when Merlin had lost control of his magic on the field at Camlann; and Merlin can’t believe, this look passing between them, that Arthur truly doesn’t remember that moment, which had also seemed to last a lifetime, between the impact of that boiling strike of magic and the ripple of shock and devastation which came after.

When the outer chamber doors next burst open – too quickly, Merlin thinks; or maybe he let himself be too distracted – there is time only to stand and raise his sword again before an old man’s worried face precedes Gwaine’s into the bedchamber.

“Easy there, Sir Knight,” Gwaine says, good-naturedly, if still a bit wary.

The old man carries what must be a physician’s bag. He has long white hair and a wrinkled expression that he wields almost like a weapon as he registers first the felled guards and then Merlin, and then Arthur behind him. One thick white eyebrow rises as he eyes Merlin’s sword, and Merlin immediately lowers it, feeling chastened.

“The Prince was given a draught, or some sort of herbal, against his will,” he reports. “I don’t believe it will kill him, but…”

Merlin clears his throat, awkwardly, and gestures back toward the bed.

“I’m borrowing you in the meantime,” Gwaine says, taking him firmly by the shoulder. “Shout if you need us, Gaius.”

The physician doesn’t acknowledge that except for a dismissive hand half-raised behind him.

In the main chamber, the fire is still burning high. An oil lamp has been lit at the table, too, where Merlin finds Leon sitting, chairs turned out, with a man yet unknown to Merlin beside him.

They each look beaten to within the very last inch of their lives.

Leon’s forearm is in bandages, strapped to his side. He has a swollen, crooked nose upon his face, still dripping blood, and two blackened eyes.

The stranger has dark hair worn cropped short, and is dressed not as a knight but as a commoner. Nothing of his is broken to Merlin’s eyes, but there’s heavy bruising across his face and what’s visible of his chest, and one eye is so swollen that the lids have entirely closed over it.

“I’m Lancelot,” he says, voice hoarse with injury. “You must be Merlin.”

Merlin can feel how wide his own eyes are, taking them in.

“You must be in a lot of pain,” is all he can manage in reply – the knights spare him some hoarse, raspy laughter, and he supposes it truly is very lucky that these people seem not to believe him overly insolent. To Leon, he adds, “Would you like me to set that for you?”

“Can you?”

Merlin nods, and because he can’t say that children did have a place on the battlefield last year – in the physician’s and healer’s tents – he offers an altered version of the truth. “I’ve been apprenticed to a physician just about two years. Well. Two and a fortnight, if you count with the healer, from when I was a child. It’s easier with magic, but I can do with my hands just as easily.”

Gwaine snorts, moving to lean heavily on the back of Leon’s chair. “Not the only thing you can do with your hands, apparently.”

Leon scowls; he swats like an old grandfather at Gwaine, who dodges that hand with an expertise which speaks to frequent practice.

“I’m only saying – there are two guards dead in there and Arthur had nothing to do with it. It’s admirable.” To Merlin, he adds, with a wink, “Lot of opportunities here, for a man who can handle a sword.”

“Which will keep until he is a man,” Leon sighs.

By this point, not unaware of the way Gwaine is stretching his Veretian to the very limits of proper, Merlin is flushing so hard he can feel a pulse at his forehead.

“Alright, there." Lancelot shifts in his chair, wincing as he does. “Leave him alone.”

“I’ll just – ” And Merlin makes himself busy.

He finds a spare linen behind the dressing screen and then pours a cup of water from the pitcher, coming over at last to Leon with the fervent wish that he might just remove the iron and take care of it painlessly. Take care of all of this. Go home, even.

But then, home wouldn’t welcome him; so he puts his mind back to a once-familiar task, gently assessing the area of impact, and lets Gwaine and Lancelot talk around them. Slowly, Leon relaxes again in his seat. It’s been over a year since Merlin last set a broken bone, but a nose is a nose, and it’s quickly done.

Leon gives a short, crisp shout. That linen does well enough to catch the fall of blood.

“Don’t blow that out, you understand? Just wipe at it. Use the water if you need. And no– well, I suppose the physician must have talked to you about that arm already, but nothing with the other one that will put pressure on your head, or you’ll bleed. No swords or heavy things. For at least a fortnight.” He adds, curiously, “Can I ask what happened?” 

Leon grunts acknowledgement, taking over from Merlin’s hands. He shares a heavy look with Lancelot over the ever-reddening linen.

“That’s what we’d like to ask you, if you wouldn’t mind,” Lancelot says, gesturing back toward the bedchamber – which is fair enough. “Gwaine said that old stable hand came to get him. The one with the cough.”

“All he said was that Arthur was in trouble,” Gwaine adds. “One of the guards had run him off.”

Since they have far greater a stake in their prince than Merlin has, he answers with respect, holding back the details that don’t need to be repeated. As far as anyone need know, this was an assassination attempt, and he tells them as much.

“And a framing.”

Merlin blinks at that interruption, so Lancelot nods back toward the antechamber. “If Arthur was poisoned, they could have slipped right by you and done the deed without risking a fight. But they woke you intentionally, assuming you’d either participate or be too weak to fight them. And they’d have framed you for it, I’d bet.”

“That… does make sense.”

“What would you wager we’ve been given up to Agravaine?” Gwaine asks of Leon, who shrugs with his good shoulder, looking steadily more exhausted by the moment.

“I wouldn’t risk my coin on that one.” Obviously for Merlin’s benefit, Leon explains: “We sometimes assist Arthur with matters outside of the castle. If any of Agravaine’s men knew that we were due to be away this evening, it would have been easy to plan to move against the prince while he was least protected.”

Merlin considers that for a moment.

“Is this– ”

Emrys, someone says, straight into his mind.

Merlin’s heart stumbles up to racing.

It’s the boy, Mordred. It must be. Of course a druid would know him for his title – though Merlin isn’t sure what to make of it, that while someone here knows of him, there are still the rumors George told him about. Has the boy not heard of them? Or has he heard and chosen not to correct them?

Come out to the corridor, Mordred says next, and without magic, there is no recourse but to obey this summons.

“Is this what?” Gwaine prompts, unaware of the interruption.

The knights watch Merlin gather himself far more patiently than probably warranted. They’re very unique men, he thinks, distractedly, to offer even a born peasant such consideration.

He was about to ask if their actions were to do with what Arthur and Gwen spoke about briefly last night: the moving of slaves into the lower town. He’s wondering if Arthur has actually, truly, commanded his men to counter Agravaine’s enslavement of users of magic. If his sympathy genuinely goes that far. But with Mordred just outside, and Arthur’s warning from yesterday, he doesn’t dare now to speak of it aloud.

“Never mind,” he says, tightly. Assuming he won’t be able to extract himself without a degree of honesty, he taps one finger to his ear and then points it in the direction of the corridor. “Please stay here. I need to step out for just one moment, if you don’t mind.”

Gwaine and Lancelot don’t seem to understand – look vaguely alarmed, even – but Leon nods with a solemn frown, eyes on the barred doors, and that is all the permission Merlin needs.

Out in the corridor, it is indeed the druid boy who stands waiting under a floating light borne of sorcery, though unlike yesterday, he looks nothing like a spoiled noble: tonight he stands in only a long nightgown, thin and white, which makes him look every part the vulnerable child that he is. Merlin can’t fathom that he’s left his chambers like this, curls all askew, eyes rimmed red and leaking tears, face set like stone, when it was clear in the light of day how he valued his pretty finery.

“Are you alright?” Merlin asks, striding closer – surprised when Mordred’s face hardens to him even further.

“Is he dead?”

Merlin freezes, aghast. “What?”

“Is he dead?” Mordred hisses, in half a wretched sob… and though he shouldn’t yet know anything about what’s happened in the Prince’s chambers, this doesn’t feel like the inquiry of a spy.

“No.” There’s a beat of silence. Mordred searches Merlin’s face for a moment like he doesn’t dare to believe this answer. Merlin has to clear his throat before he says it again. “No. He’s alive.”

The boy glances back in Arthur’s direction, something soft and uncertain in his voice when he speaks.

“And they didn’t– he’s not– ”

“They didn’t touch him,” Merlin says, firmly. “He’s unharmed. He’ll be fine.”

Slowly, the boy takes this in. His face hardens again to what it was, all weakness cleared away.

“Mordred,” Merlin tries, “are you– ”

“That’s all I wanted to know, Emrys.” The boy backs away, blue eyes tight to Merlin’s, not ever showing his back. “Don’t tell him I came.”

And then he slips away and out of sight, taking his light with him.

Back in Arthur's chambers, the knights seem not to have moved a single muscle in the meantime.

“Mordred?” Leon asks, mildly.

Merlin only debates with himself a moment before nodding.

“He asked that I not tell Arthur he was here.”

Curiously, that seems not to be a surprise to Leon either.

“That speaks to your wager,” he says, nudging an unhappy Gwaine. “If Mordred knows, he’ll have heard it from Agravaine. It’s only a question of whether Agravaine sanctioned it or arranged for it himself.”

Merlin has to breathe through that revelation – particularly the idea that Mordred could have heard something directly from Agravaine in the state he was in, looking as if he’d just come from his bed. That sits very poorly with Merlin. Equally as poorly as the idea that Agravaine could have in any way known about this, which seems too wild an accusation to leverage even against a man like him.

The knights each seem to take this thought in stride, though; none of their faces are outraged or confused the way Merlin feels outraged and confused, and none of them seem in any way disturbed by the notion that someone that close to the Prince might arrange for his death in so violent a manner. They’re only focused, bent now to deep thought, as if this is all –

Well. Merlin supposes it would explain very much if, to these men, these past two days were the same as any other. If this is what passes for normal here.

He can’t imagine coping well with such a thing himself. Even now, his heart is in his throat and his stomach is somewhere abandoned upon the floor. His fingers feel tingly and numb. The iron chafes at him where he just knows his magic would be licking angry sparks at the air around him if it were free.

It’s a very long few moments before Merlin realizes someone’s called his name. Leon has to reach out and press at his hip with his good arm, pushing back gently, just to get his attention.

“Go on,” Leon says, and Merlin hears it this time when Gaius calls for him.

From under the archway into the bedchamber, Merlin does his best to ignore the bodies still laying where they fell. He’s glad to spy Arthur’s emptied boots upon the stone floor, and to see that the Prince himself, no longer trembling, has been made comfortable beneath the bedclothes, lying out now without turning or panting or having to hide. Almost fully at ease.

“Thank you, Gaius,” he’s saying – far more clearly than before, though still quite unsteadily – as Gaius closes his bag and stands.

“Rest now, sire. We’ll have this all cleaned up when you wake.”

The physician doesn’t quite attack Merlin on his way out, but he firmly seizes Merlin’s upper arm and steps close enough to avoid any eavesdropping.

“He has asked for you, but the Prince is not himself,” he says, in a low whisper. “Do not touch him, do not speak to him unless spoken to, and do not ask him any questions. You can have no question that won’t keep until he can answer it in his right mind. Let him sleep.”

Merlin can only nod at first, most emphatically.

Gaius glances back to Arthur, then nods out to the main room. “I’ll be just there. Call for me if anything should change.”

“I will,” Merlin says.

Left alone again, he approaches the bed, finding it significantly more difficult to do so than it was earlier.

“You wanted to see me, sire.”

“Why did you do that?” Arthur asks, without overture. The circles of blue are widening, slowly, in his eyes. Enough that it feels, now, like he’s looking and actually seeing.

Merlin’s chest aches.

“Do what?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Merlin.”

It’s tempting, though. To pretend.

He almost does.

“That… what that guard called you…” Merlin pauses, shrugging. Arthur’s expression gives nothing away, and that makes it a little easier to keep talking. Because this is something Merlin knows very much about. “I won’t ask about it. About you. But this is not the first time I’ve heard that word myself, used in such a way. And I couldn’t let them hurt you the way they meant to.”

There’s a long, straining silence. Merlin worries diligently at the nail on one thumb, not looking up as he rambles on.

“I’ve never really had friends my own age, so it’s– I mean, the matter was a bit more complicated than I realized, when it came to light. My father didn’t hold with the old traditions, so when he found out, he cared more that it was an older man who’d– um– sorry, can I say ‘buggered’ in front of a prince?”

Arthur doesn’t even crack a smile when Merlin searches one out. Instead, he’s staring with an unfathomably potent misery plain in his face.

“Sorry,” Merlin says again, quietly. He stumbles through the rest as best he can. “It’s not that I didn’t like it, though. Will was more than a friend, and he was always good to me. I’m– I suppose you might say I’m a lover of men… I heard him call it that, once. I liked him very much. But mostly, the people at– they just didn’t approve, the ones who brought the new god with them. They only ever used that word in an ugly way, so my father forbade anyone from using it at all. I’ve gotten too used to that, I think.”

Arthur gasps in a deep breath like it pains him. He stares back up at the canopy, expression forcibly emptied out. Pale and cold, suddenly, like a sculpture.

“Your father was a great man.” And Merlin doesn’t think much of that – his father was a great man – until the Prince adds, tightly, “The best of men.”

It’s not a dream or a vision, either, the tears that slide out of Arthur’s otherwise empty eyes, down into his hair.

Merlin’s own breath leaves him.

Several beats pass.

You can have no question that won’t keep plays again in his mind, but even the ghost of Gaius’s grip on his arm can’t stop this one from welling up out of his throat.

“You knew him?”

“Of course I did. He was at court when I was a child.”

“Then you – ” Merlin struggles with this, struggles to close his mouth; he knows he shouldn’t ask, but the mark at his neck is too like Balinor’s “ – then you knew me when I arrived, didn’t you? You remember me.”

“I do,” Arthur says, roughly. This seems to stir the life back up inside him, so that his gaze falls to find Merlin’s again with an almost fevered intensity. “If our roles were reversed just now, Merlin, nothing could have stopped me from taking my freedom. You could have ended both my father’s purge and Pendragon rule in the same night. You still can. Why don’t you?”

It's on the tip of Merlin’s tongue – I’m Emrys; you’re the Once and Future King – but he finds he can’t say it just yet. If there was one thing his father had always cautioned, all their lives together, it was this: to be wary of those with power, and to be wary of the weight of his own. To always trust in himself above all others, and never to use his power to place himself above any other.

These don’t seem like concepts Arthur will understand. Not yet, anyway. Not like this. If Arthur hears his title now, he will see that and nothing more.

Merlin reminds himself, too, that Morgause’s sister is here at Camelot, and that the Prince has twice listed her among his most trusted people. There is still the matter of Mordred; and there is still the matter of Merlin having killed Uther Pendragon, which he notices Arthur has yet to mention directly.

He can’t let this moment get away from him. There are still some secrets he must keep. And Gaius is right – the Prince isn’t in his right mind.

“I told you yesterday,” Merlin answers instead, keeping his tone light. “You keep surprising me.”

Arthur sighs, but at least seems to accept that. His expression softens into something far more difficult to read.

“Thank you for– for what you’ve done. I know I’m not… quite all here, just yet. But I will say now what I won’t be able to say later– ”

“Sire,” Merlin cuts in, but just as quickly, the Prince raises a regal hand.

“Shut up, Merlin. I’m – ” he takes a deep breath, holding Merlin’s gaze with a terrible earnestness – “would you understand me if I were to say that though I was made a sodomite, I have never been a lover of either men or women? That I have never been inclined toward either?”

It takes a few moments for Merlin’s jaw to unclench, and to make sure his voice will not come out wrong when he says, “Yes, sire. I would understand that.”

“Then you must understand the nature of my gratitude, as well.” Arthur gives a small nod, blinking heavily. He stares up at the canopy, as he had earlier, and for just a moment, he looks exactly as young as he is. “And your friend – your lover – is he well? Or should I expect some other brave sorcerer to storm these walls for you very soon?”

And there is absolutely no way Merlin can tell this truth, either, so he smiles as best he can, and risks to press only the very tips of his fingers to where Arthur’s arm must be beneath the bedclothes, ready to pull them back if the touch isn’t wanted.

“You don’t have to worry about him, sire. Gaius was right, though, you know. You should rest now.”

It isn’t proper, but he doesn’t wait for his Prince to dismiss him.

If Merlin has to spend one more moment with the bodies on this floor, which are only dead because he didn’t know they’d deserved so much worse, he will be in danger of scaring no one else more than himself.

Chapter Text

III.

When Arthur first wakes, day is so like the long, dismal stretch of his night that at first he can’t even tell the difference. He is a child again, and his uncle sent Gaius because aren’t boys just such trouble at this age; and Gaius came with his mouth set in a thin line and his jaw clenched tight, like he was angry, like he knew how bad and how weak Arthur had been the night before but couldn’t say so, because Arthur is a prince; and now this prince is alone with a sour taste in his throat and a body that only ever feels borrowed and a mind that–

A deep, cold breath separates that nightmare from reality.

It’s just before dawn. Light only barely fills the windows beside him, painting them a dull brown.

Arthur misses the shining sun so fiercely in this moment that it chokes him. It chokes him nearly as much as a tender thought of Uther does.

“What’s in your dreams will never harm you, my son.”

Arthur tried to even his breath; he knew his father meant him no harm, but it wasn’t the same, now, to have a man sit at the side of his bed. It would never be the same again, even if his uncle was long gone. Whether or not his uncle should ever return.

A deep frown had been etched into Uther’s forehead for days, deepening the long scar there, ever since Arthur had first recoiled from his touch. It deepened further as Arthur scooted away from him under the covers.

“You must be strong,” he added, with a rare softness. “All men have fears. That’s natural. You’ll grow familiar with them; you’ll learn to face them. That’s what’s important, Arthur. Strength lies in mastering those fears.”

It’s a relief to find, when he rises, that his chambers are empty of bodies both deceased and living.

Arthur also finds that his own body hurts, though no more than it might have from a day of light training. He rises and quietly cleans himself at the near washbasin, grateful for the clean water; uses his tooth powder; methodically combs his hair. At the wardrobe he finds fresh braies, a pair of thick riding trousers – the only indulgence he will allow himself today – and a fresh undertunic, followed by a white overtunic and a warm surcoat of bright Pendragon red, embroidered with gold at the cuffs and high collar and all along the many laces.

With each layer fastened more tightly than the last, he can breathe a little easier.

“I don’t know if this will make any difference, sire,” Gaius said, frowning between him and his wardrobe. “Breathing troubles can have a variety of causes. I’ve only heard that pressure may be helpful.”

No other noble boy wore his clothes like this, nor did any of the girls: so tight to the body but also covering it all up, using the length of the surcoat to hide what would be indecent to flaunt before the world. It would be nothing, he thought, to wear an extra layer or two; to have his coats tailored to better fit his upper half and leave ample material below, both to show his strength – meagre, though filling in by the day – and to hide everything else, and Arthur felt…

He felt better, finding his weary-eyed reflection in the mirror. He felt like himself.

“It’s good.” He nodded firmly, turning this way and that, testing the snug grasp of unforgiving fabric. Feeling his ribs release. His heart slow. “This is– this is helpful. Thank you, Gaius.”

Gaius sighed, which is only now, in Arthur’s memory, a noticeably grim thing.

“Whatever I can do to help, sire.”

It’s the shock of the last two days, Arthur thinks, that is dredging up in his mind what has been long buried. He takes a number of focusing breaths, standing there before his wardrobe with his eyes closed, until the light against the windows brightens to something tawny, filling his chambers with a gentle glow. Brighter every day, as spring comes, and yet no less muddled by the poisoned ash in the sky. (He will stand here, he thinks, for as long as he’ll be allowed. For as long as it’s possible to keep his head empty and clear, free of the burden of last night. Of his uncle. Of everything.)

A muffled thump sounds out, followed by a hushed but still colorful string of expletives.

For the first time in memory, Arthur finds himself unbothered by the casually invasive presence of another person: Merlin stumbles out of the antechamber already dressed – a blue tunic more suited to his frame, today, with a red neckerchief and dark trousers – rubbing tiredly at the scarred skin under one of his iron cuffs. His hair is an unruly riot, barely long enough to curl, which Arthur is disturbed to find he would very much like to touch.

Even now. Even still.

“Good morning,” the boy says, too brightly.

Returning that greeting is unthinkable; Arthur’s throat is closed to speech, and he can feel the scowl that’s shaped his face. The words that passed between them last night – worst of all, the confession he’d felt so sure of – are suddenly too fresh and too embarrassing to overcome.

“Arthur?”

There’s such earnestness there in Merlin’s eyes, though. An utter lack of judgement or expectation.

No one has ever looked at a prince like this, Arthur thinks. No prince has ever been so lucky.

“You slept heavily,” Merlin says lightly, after a moment. Easily. “Gwaine and Lancelot cleared away the– the refuse, let’s call them. Leon said he’ll be back this morning to speak with you about what happened in the lower town yesterday. And we have a story prepared about me and what happened here that I’m fairly sure I can sell before the council this morning. If you don’t mind, that is – though I suppose you wouldn’t, if you didn’t tell them about me the first time.”

It's partly informative and partly a ramble. Arthur’s hands curl into tight fists, flex wide open, and curl back into fists again. He doesn’t understand how anyone can talk so fast when the sun is hardly risen.

“Before the council?” He echoes, after a beat.

Merlin nods, an odd expression on his face as he goes to stoke up the fire. “Leon said Agravaine will call for me again today. We were thinking you might just take me with you, instead. Get ahead of him.”

The idea of Merlin, who last night saved Arthur’s life and preserved his dignity, even just existing in the same room as his uncle, who continues every day to find new ways to make Arthur regret his very birth, is intolerable. There has never been anything he wants to see less.

“Fine,” he says, shortly. “Did Leon also brief you on what to expect? The types of questions my uncle will ask? The way he will ask them?”

“Yes.”

When Merlin is finished with the fire, he turns to the near sideboard and fills two cups with water – one for the prince and one for himself, so unlike a servant as to be laughable.

Arthur clears his throat. “Do you have any questions for me?”

“No, sire.”

Something in Arthur’s chest catches. It’s not actually the first time Merlin’s used the honorific for him – he realizes he doesn’t remember which was the first time, if it was before Agravaine or sometime last night – but it is the first time there’s no real cause. Merlin has simply chosen to use it.

Arthur has to clear his throat again.

“Now is the time, if you do. Don’t fear to ask something stupid. I’d rather talk it through now than see you misstep later.”

There is a cup in his hand, then; Merlin’s fingers graze his own. Barely. Too quickly to even register their warmth, but not so quickly that Arthur’s heart doesn't pound. Not too quickly to avoid the prickling of his skin, or to distract from the play of light over Merlin’s high cheekbones.

Arthur’s throat burned with the sound that left it – he understood now what it was to be a wounded animal, and the sword hadn’t even touched him.

Balinor fell to his knees, dazed. Eyes roaming wide, finding Arthur’s under the final blow. Not looking away… never looking away, not for as long as he’d lived.

There was no time. Arthur couldn’t get between them. Impossibly, there was a boy behind Balinor; a screaming boy right there in flesh and blood, younger even than Arthur, wet-faced and golden-eyed, veins standing thick on his reddened neck and forehead with his devastated rage, both hands raised, and Arthur felt the magic consume him like hot flame –

“I’m not afraid,” Merlin says, grinning, all gentle and blue-eyed and kind.

Arthur puts the past out of his mind.

“So you are an idiot.”

Merlin maintains that while he is not himself an idiot, he reserves the right to do an idiotic thing now and again – evidenced by the way he agreed, without protest, to Leon’s suggestion of playing at earnest service to the Prince (including genuflection at best and outright prostration at worst) without considering that he’s never earnestly served a day in his life. Half an hour of George’s good company will have made little difference, he fears.

At least the council chambers today feel far less intimidating.

Never in his life has Merlin seen, in stolen glances, so many men sat side by side who look afraid to even breathe too loudly, which is something of an infuriating mystery to him, considering how much power each of them holds. It’s a fortunate thing that he isn’t meant to be looking at them, gaze largely set to his own boots and the stone worn down beneath them, and –

“Ah, nephew. Are you quite well? You look so very tired.”

 – it’s even more fortunate that he isn’t meant to be looking at Agravaine. It’s the same asinine greeting in the same vile, saccharine voice, which for some reason today feels almost menacing.

Merlin can’t help but reconsider whether Agravaine really did have a hand in what his guards tried to do last night.

“Uncle,” Arthur returns, impressively unbothered as Merlin follows behind him. “The business of Camelot finds me at all hours, as you know, and I’m quite determined to see it through.”

A heavy silence greets that response, practically pounding into Merlin’s ears. Arthur’s chair appears in his lowered eyeline, then; they’ve stopped moving.

“Merlin." The Prince is regally dismissive of him, as planned. “You may kneel there until we’re ready for you.”

Once Arthur is settled, Merlin steps in closer – just a pace behind and to the side, positioned almost directly between his new master and Agravaine. He goes calmly and quietly to his knees, sitting down on his heels with a straight back, pressing his hands flat to his thighs. If he were to raise his eyes, perhaps it would be awkward to stare at nothing but the underside of a table and men’s legs and booted feet, but Merlin is determined to act his part flawlessly. (Part of him wonders if in losing his magic he has also lost a bit of his mind. He can’t imagine any previous version of him that might have submitted to this kind of playacting so readily, even having come to trust the Prince and his knights.)

Agravaine clicks his tongue, distaste apparent.

“Really, Arthur,” he says, quiet long-sufferingly. “What a distraction.”

And Merlin doesn’t even have to look; he can practically hear the raising of Arthur’s eyebrow when the Prince says, “Oh? I thought I saw your guards waiting, earlier. Did you not intend to have him seized again and brought down to question?”

“I thought only to– ”

“Then I’m glad to have saved us all some time, since yesterday took far more than planned.” The strength Arthur projects, the possession he’s taken of himself and the room at large – it’s beautiful. He adds, with just a touch of spite, “The slave is perfectly capable of service when handled correctly. You may ask any questions you have for him now, or whenever is convenient, if this council has more immediate business. He waits on our leisure.”

It’s a genuine struggle to keep a straight face. Merlin feels almost giddy, so full is he of nerves and pride. He must think of Hunith, and of Balinor, and of the boys and men he was dragged to Camelot alongside. Serious things, so as not to give away the game.

Agravaine sighs. “I do wish you wouldn’t make such a mockery of this chamber. You’re too old to be acting out like this.”

“Just last night you imagined me too young to handle my drink,” Arthur counters. “Which is it?”

Merlin would give anything – anything – to be free to look up at them.

“If you’re going to be difficult,” Agravaine says, after a weighty pause, “you might leave the boy here, and join us when you’re feeling better.”

“I’m feeling quite well, thank you, uncle. Gaius can confirm that, if you’re so concerned.”

It's almost like dancing, the way they speak. The way they each fight to lead the other.  Merlin remembers how Arthur called out for his uncle in his worst moments, and he can’t fathom what it must be like, to still feel compelled to seek safety with someone who in reality would only bring harm. (He wishes to touch Arthur, to give him some sort of reassurance. He imagines instead that his magic was never torn from him, and that he might reach out with a warm tendril of hearty encouragement. He imagines anchoring Arthur to himself by that magic, tethering it to one royal ankle, so the Prince might never wander anywhere unsure or afraid or without something to protect him ever again... and then shakes himself, because these are not the kind of thoughts a sorcerer can afford to be entertaining about the son of Uther Pendragon.)

When Merlin tunes back into the conversation, he’s pleased to notice it’s progressed on exactly the intended trajectory.

“Be that as it may, the dragonlord is a slave, not a pet,” Agravaine is saying – practically spitting, so much has that false veneer worn away. “To have him kneel like a pet is an unnecessary distraction. It’s childish, Arthur, and if you’re this committed to childish things, then I must also question your ability to put them away when the time comes.”

“Is it childish to protest the misuse of a slave?” So innocently that there may be no innocence in it at all, Arthur’s hand briefly finds Merlin’s head, like a king lays a hand on a loyal knight, or like a cleric lays a hand on one of his flock. “When I preferred to keep him away from this chamber, you dragged him to it by sword-point. When I bring him on my own terms, you attempt to dismiss and discredit me.”

There’s a pause; someone shifts, and the Prince adds, “I am willing to look childish if it means protecting my people – even and especially if I am made to take some of those people as my property.”

“So that’s what this is about,” Agravaine sighs, in a great huff. “Slavery has a purpose, Arthur; it avoids needless waste. If criminal sorcerers can be put to use for the better of the people – if those users of magic choose to serve, over the rightful sentence of death – do we not have an obligation not to exterminate them entirely?”

No one notices, fortunately, the way Merlin’s hands ball into fists. He doesn’t know how Arthur does this without snapping – how he takes each of Agravaine’s little quips and dodges them as deftly as he might a blow on the training field, so quickly, turning each to his own advantage like this kind of sparring takes nothing out of him at all.

He also doesn’t know how these men sit here watching. Enduring. Saying nothing.

He wonders what Agravaine has threatened them with.

“Merlin,” Arthur snaps, suddenly. Not angrily – Merlin doesn’t think he’s missed any cues – but sharply enough to command immediate attention.

“Yes, my lord?”

“Come here.”

“Yes, my lord.” There’s not far to travel, so Merlin doesn’t even get up. He scoots forward on his knees and pivots to sit on his heels, close to the Prince’s leg. Though facing it directly, his eyes remain on the floor.

Hoping this isn’t laying it on too thick, he adds, “How may I serve you?”

“Lay your head on me,” Arthur says.

And Merlin’s only saving grace is that, while he didn’t know it would be this, Arthur did warn him earlier that something of an embarrassment might be ahead for them both. So he doesn’t look up, or deny Arthur, or hesitate, but immediately leans forward to press his cheek against the top of Arthur’s warm, muscled thigh.

“Higher,” the Prince orders, and Merlin blinks.

Higher?

“Closer,” he clarifies.

Merlin doesn’t look up, but straight ahead at Arthur’s beautifully stitched surcoat, cheeks warming at record speed. He shifts his face closer to Arthur’s hip, barely a handspan from where a healthy cock lay under his clothes, if last night was any indication. Merlin hadn’t noticed it then, not really; not beyond what its roused state implied.

Unfortunately, he is noticing now.

(Rather than torture himself any more than he must, Merlin closes his eyes. He ignores how tense the Prince grows beneath him. Understands that this is uncomfortable for the both of them. Will not abandon his role.)

“Closer,” Arthur says, again; and there is the sound of a body shifting close by, at least one person made uncomfortable by the display.

“Arthur.” Agravaine’s tone is no doubt meant to chastise, but it comes out a bit too sharp. Too angry. “Do you truly mean to use these chambers to satisfy your perversions?”

“Like you’ve used mine to satisfy yours?”

Merlin’s eyes shoot open. He’s frozen, but– no, Arthur can’t mean that. He can’t mean that the way it sounded.

There are hot whispers, more shuffling that sounds out, but none of the councilors dares to interrupt directly.

Agravaine scoffs. “I am not the one engaging– ”

“Merlin,” Arthur cuts in, reaching for his face. Turning it with an icy touch, so their eyes can meet. “I gave you an order.”

“Yes, sire.” Merlin prays this doesn’t sound as roughly to their ears as it does to his own, and he moves his face just the thin span of a finger from Arthur’s hip bone.

“What shall I have him do next?” Arthur asks the table, sliding a trembling hand into Merlin’s hair, fingers pressing hard to his scalp. “I’ve already belted him; if he declines an order, he knows he’s bound for the post, now, or worse. Do you think there’s anything a man could refuse, in his position?”

Absolute silence. Not even Agravaine answers that.

Merlin tries desperately to calm his pounding heart, and not only because of his physical position. He wonders how many of these men feel like they, too, have little choice under Agravaine’s rule, and he hates them with passion, because of how stupid that is.

Lowly, but very deliberately, Arthur says, “You call it choice, uncle, but if the only alternative is to be killed, then there is no choice at all. When my father was alive, he forbid slavers from operating within Camelot on pain of death. The Regency was entrusted to you on the understanding that you would hold it only until I reached majority. The way you conduct yourself now – the way you speak of Camelot and all of her people – does not encourage me to think you intend to honor my rule and law any more than you’ve honored my father’s.”

The fingers in Merlin’s hair tremble more violently; without thinking, Merlin presses his face more firmly into Arthur’s leg, which jerks slightly beneath him.

“The enslavement of any one of my people is no longer something I will debate,” Arthur declares. “When I am King, that will end. Until that time, uncle, I will carry on with what must be my property as I see fit. If you believe that to be in any way childish, then I invite you to consider this body, and to determine for yourself, with that practiced eye, whether or not any piece of it might still be considered that of a child.”

The Prince’s hand falls away.

“You may go back to kneeling now, Merlin,” he says, tonelessly.

Eyes ever to the ground, though he feels slow and stupid with the flush still fading from his face, Merlin goes. It bothers him that Arthur's words fail to coalesce into something he understands.

“Well, nephew. That is quite a point, though I do wonder what you’ve done to the boy in your haste to prove it. He’s entirely broken.” The chair creaks as the Regent leans heavily back into it; Merlin refuses the bait, and does not look. “If you do mean to be king, you must work on that temper. Camelot can’t afford an unstable man upon the throne.”

Fiercely: “I suppose I am profoundly lucky, then, uncle, to have you here to correct me. And I’m sure I’m extraordinarily improved for having you here to carry out my father’s will until my ascension.”

Merlin spots legs twitching beneath the table across from him. His gaze settles where the hands attached to that body fist tightly with nerves, safely hidden.

A throat clears – neither Arthur's nor Agravaine's, to Merlin’s ears – so hesitantly that the sound barely even carries.

A small miracle.

“Perhaps,” the councilor risks, with a small stutter. “Perhaps a recess. If my– if my lords would permit it.”

“Of course,” Arthur says, graciously. “To midday. Unless you’re opposed, uncle?”

Agravaine grunts rather than give a proper answer, or maybe he offers a gesture Merlin can’t see. Whatever it is that’s happened, it loosens the air of the room. Every taught pair of legs seems to ease, some only to make ready to move, others to fall loose with relief.

The Prince takes his opportunity to stand, while he still commands the room.

“Come, Merlin.”

Without hesitation, Merlin follows.

Memories are as much like weapons as swords or words or gentle touches, Arthur thinks. He’s had years to learn all the ways there are to bleed under what has no business landing any blows; years and too many scars. Years of moments like this one, where he is open-eyed and walking but not here. Not really.

He remembers what it was like to watch his father ride off to war the first time, all gallant and honorable and untouchable. He remembers being assured that he would not suffer loneliness in the meantime, for his uncle Agravaine had agreed to come to Camelot to watch over him – and wasn’t that kind of the man? He remembers wondering if Agravaine might love him better, because at least he hadn’t killed Agravaine’s wife. But of course, Ygraine had been Agravaine's sister, so Arthur hadn’t been too hopeful.

He remembers, on the day his father was finally due to return, standing in front of Agravaine upon the steps to the palace, his uncle’s hands tight upon his shoulders, hot, heavy. Suffocating.

He remembers watching his father leading a victorious retinue into the courtyard, and wishing, the moment Uther set eyes upon him, that the world could end right there, right at that moment – that he might be struck down by a god, or swallowed up by the depths of the earth, or hit by the stray arrow of some tired sentry, rather than have to endure another moment under the weight of what he had done. (Of what he had let happen in his father’s absence.) Uther had left a child behind and expected to return to one; he could never know that waiting for him was only a monster wearing that child’s face.

It was a very long morning. Arthur clung to the lengths of Agravaine’s formal robes for the duration, refusing his father’s touch.

“We must have you visit again soon,” Uther said that night, frowning at how Arthur sat upon his uncle’s knee, clinging to his shoulder nearly all through dinner. “I’ve never known my son to be so attentive.”

Agravaine smiled, his hand heavy upon Arthur’s sweating back.

“I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed my time here, and my dear nephew – you’ve certainly an excellent boy here, Uther.”

When Agravaine finally left that first time, Arthur cried so hard he became ill. His body became wracked with shakes and chill sweats; he couldn’t eat or sleep or allow himself to be touched for the length of a fortnight at least. No one could answer as to the cause, whether the King shouted or earnestly begged. A mystery, to be sure.

But Gaius was there, and one of the maidservants who never spoke but always watched. Arthur had liked her especially because she never required him to speak: she only came to wash his skin and redress him, and let him do without fuss the parts he couldn’t bear anyone else to manage, and she never kissed him or touched his hair or his cheeks like some of the other women did. She only ever gave him what he needed, until someone accused her of sorcery, and made it so she could give nothing to anyone ever again.

Arthur cried another fortnight, after that.

Eventually, though, patience even for a prince runs dry, and he was firmly reminded of the lessons all young boys hear: that a true, honorable, and courageous man has neither use nor reason for tears. Tears are things for the weak, after all, and didn’t Arthur want to be brave? (Arthur thinks he might have felt genuinely brave, once, before he’d let Agravaine’s body breach the boundaries of his own. Never again, though, until Balinor. And then never after.)

Arthur is so lost for a time that he doesn’t hear his name, doesn’t recognize the walls of his own chambers, until Merlin steps in very close to him, his eyes deeply worried, one hand half-raised as if to touch –

It’s harsh and guttural, the sound Arthur makes as he flinches away. (Flinches, like a coward.)

“I’m sorry,” Merlin gasps, quickly, like he’s done anything wrong.

But this is one of those moments. It’s been too much today and Arthur’s throat is locked and there is nothing in this realm, no force in this world, that is going to be able to open it. Not even the rare impulse to apologize.

He tries a hand signal – a quick, easy thing that George, at least, reasoned out right away; indeed, leave can’t be so difficult a sentiment to communicate nonverbally – to no effect.

Merlin, the insolent boy that he is, remains standing in Arthur’s chambers looking too much like he cares about what’s just happened.

“I’m… if you don’t mind, sire, I’ll just sit here by the fire for a moment. While you go do whatever prattish lord-princes do in their spare time. My liege.”

He even adds a disrespectful little curtsey, the way girls do, and Arthur –

There's a grin turning up just one of the corners of Arthur's mouth.

Terribly, his eyes are flooding.

He retreats promptly to his bedchamber, leaving Merlin to his own devices.

Merlin begins to think aggressively about removing the iron.

For himself, always; but more so now for Arthur, who seems unbalanced as he retreats to the bedchamber, and who might not be prepared yet to deal with the repercussions of what he’s done – which, as Merlin heard it, was effectively to give up his position entirely to his uncle, who will now see more plainly than ever before that Arthur will neither concede nor be easily disposed of prior to his majority.

Of all the people Merlin expects to come pounding at Arthur’s doors after that, Morgause’s sister is not actually very high on the list. This is perhaps why it shocks him so much that when he opens them to persistent knocking, it’s a woefully familiar face staring back.

It’s very fortunate, he thinks, that he only knows it from spying when he shouldn’t have. That she won’t know his in return.

“Lady Morgana,” he greets, with a deep bow. “Prince Arthur is occupied.”

It’s more difficult to think of her like a villain when she looks like this, dressed not in the robes of a High Priestess but in a gown appropriate for court: the fabric is as bright and reflective as a cut emerald, not unlike her eyes, and silver threading shimmers along all the seams. Her hair is pulled carefully up today, clear away from her face. Her lips are bloody red. Her eyes are decorated fiercely, though that doesn’t cover signs of exhaustion. She’s one of the most hostilely beautiful people he’s ever met, even bearing the signs of prolonged hunger. This makes it easier to lie to her, at least.

Often, both in nature and in Merlin’s experience, the most beautiful things turn out to be the most deadly.

“Occupied,” she repeats, eyeing him closely. “With what?”

He pitches his head forward in apology. “This slave does not know, my lady, but will ask if you require it.”

For all his effort, she only snorts – and there’s comic disbelief in her face when he looks up again.

“You’ll want to practice that if you need it to be believable. You’re as far from servile as I am.”

He doesn't move. “All the same, my lady. I’m afraid the Prince is occupied. And the council meeting is only recessed.”

She glances up as if begging patience of the gods.

“That’s why I’m here. Let me in.”

“I’m afraid I– ”

Pounding footsteps sound; Gwen is suddenly there, too, nearly crashing into the lady’s side, out of breath –

“In,” she whispers, with all the weight of a shout, pushing Morgana forward before Merlin can even act to counter them. “In, get in.”

There’s no stopping them.

Merlin watches with severe discomfort as Gwen bars the doors closed behind her. Morgana idly fixes where one sleeve of her gown has wrinkled, but doesn’t immediately speak. Her eyes settle onto Gwen with more concern than Merlin would have thought to expect.

“Orders have been issued,” Gwen says to her. To Merlin, Gwen offers a grim smile. “You’ve come at a very bad time, Merlin.”

Merlin suspects that he has also brought a bad time with him, which they’ve yet to realize, but doesn’t say so.

Instead, he says, making every effort toward courtesy, “Prince Arthur is indisposed right at this moment. Is there anything I can do to help?”

The sigh Morgana heaves out is belligerent and overstated.

“Is it occupied or indisposed? Where is he? He’s needed.”

As a lady, she’s likely unused to being checked in any way, let alone touched, but Merlin isn’t thinking like a servant anymore – now he’s thinking that the Prince isn’t himself, and it doesn’t feel right to have protected him last night but not now.

He seizes Morgana by the wrist, exposing more of his own arm than he generally prefers to do – scars wrap angrily up the forearm, made somehow sinister by the cuff that shines against them in diffused light.

“I have to insist that you remain where you are,” he says firmly, adding, at the very last moment, a flat “my lady.”

She freezes. Blinks saucer-wide eyes at him, cheeks somehow paler than when she came in. Merlin feels himself relent, not wanting her to be afraid of him.

“I’ll speak with him. But you’ll remain here and wait until he comes out.”

It’s Gwen who gently frowns at that, casting a curious look back toward the bedchamber.

“Is he alright?”

“I’ll return in a moment,” is all Merlin says.

He can hear the trade of whispers behind him as he turns away, but that’s fine, he thinks – as long as they stay there, that’s fine.

In the bedchamber, things are far cleaner than they were last night. Merlin studiously does not look at the bed. Arthur stands looking out one of those windows, straight-backed and still, arms crossed firmly over his chest in a way that stretches the brocade tight across his wide shoulders.

“Arthur?”

When there’s no response, Merlin chances to move closer. He speaks slowly and quietly, hoping to avoid being overheard.

“Sire? Gwen is here, with the Lady Morgana. They’d like to see you.”

There’s no change at that, except for a slight twist of the head, eyes gazing outward but focused on nothing.

“I can’t forgive you for killing my father, Merlin,” Arthur says, with an eerie calm.

As if it were nothing. As if they are only continuing a conversation.

“I can’t forgive you,” he says again, still staring out, “but you should know that this has nothing to do with you, because I would have killed him if you hadn’t. For what he did. I’ve wanted to thank you, since, for the gift of not having to begin my reign with the blood of my kin on my hands.” He blinks heavily, then, and aims an utterly empty look in Merlin’s direction. “Though, it may have to begin that way after all.”

Merlin catches himself halfway to hugging Arthur. It’s a gut reaction in him, the way it used to be his mother’s, to try to soothe the aching hearts of others.

The Prince doesn’t veer away, this time, but it’s a close thing.

“There’s something on your shoulder, there,” Merlin says instead, keeping only one of those hands raised. “May I?”

A dismissive, jerky nod.

Merlin tries to smile. It's the slowest and softest he has ever brushed nothing from a shoulder in his life, and he doesn’t even think Arthur notices what’s happening as the muscles of his neck slowly release, letting the tightness of his shoulders fall in turn.

Gently, Merlin prompts, “Gwen and Morgana?”

The Prince nods crisply, once.

“Yes. Of course.”

His hand touches Merlin’s shoulder, very briefly, on their way out of the bedchamber.

Guinevere, the angel that she is, takes one look at Arthur and goes to find the pitcher where Merlin left it earlier. Even Morgana hesitates for a moment, looking him up and down and clearly not appreciating what she sees.

“It happened already,” she guesses, crestfallen. “You look awful.”

Arthur can’t help a derisive snort. “You’re the second person to imply so today, Morgana, and I can tell you, you’d not like having anything in common with the first.”

The lady scowls. “It was the wine, wasn’t it? You covered it too well.”

Gwen brings a cup of water, and that does help, actually – it’s cool and crisp in his mouth, down his throat, and it reminds Arthur as it settles chill in his empty stomach that he should eat something.

Eating feels like too trivial a thing to manage on days like this.

“George,” he says, remembering the only person who’d ever bothered with Arthur’s odd eating habits. “Tell me you’ve heard something.”

“He’s alright.” Gwen offers a small smile. “Ten lashes yesterday, but the Warden tried to make it easy for him. He’s recovering in Gaius’s chambers.”

It takes a moment for Arthur to grapple with that.

“That’s good. He’ll be safe there,” he says, and strives to believe it. “Leon told me what happened in the lower town. How is Lancelot faring?”

“There’s no real damage to the eye, Gaius said. He’ll keep it.”

It’s disconcerting to hear now that there was a fear he wouldn’t – Arthur has the sense suddenly that he’s missed too much over the last day or so – but this is good news, all the same, and he’ll take that any way it will come.

“Good,” he says again.

“Yes, yes, all good. Now. Can we discuss the things that are not good.” Morgana, seating herself before the fire, makes no effort to be delicate about it, which Arthur appreciates. “There was an attempt on your life, wasn’t there? Which I see was unsuccessful.”

As dryly as he can: “Indeed.”

“And you – ” Morgana addresses this far more aggressively to Merlin, who looks much aggrieved to be addressed in such a tone “ – you helped with that, didn’t you? I know those scars, King-Killer. I’ve seen them in my dreams.”

Arthur tenses; he’s never known Morgana to mention her magic so carelessly. All of the air seems to go from the room, but Merlin appears to take that in stride, frowning down at the offending wrist with little surprise.

“I did help,” the boy admits, a surprising amount of steel in the tone. “Though I prefer to be called by the name my mother gave me, if you don’t mind.”

Morgana sits forward, eyes sharp. “Why?”

“Do I need a reason to prefer my own name?”

“No, dimwit. Why would you help him after– ”

“Morgana.” It’s a bit harsher than Arthur means to interrupt her, but he pushes on anyway. “I’m aware of what he’s done. Merlin and I have already discussed this. He’s not an enemy. He’s Balinor’s son.”

And if Arthur hadn’t been paying attention – or maybe, if he hadn’t grown up watching every face around him for hints that they knew, that they might have figured him out – he might have missed the subtle glances to follow: Morgana’s from Merlin to Gwen, too complex to read; and Merlin’s from Morgana to Arthur, plainly distrustful.

He runs a cool palm over his face, reminded of how Merlin came to him. Balinor’s son is Akielon; he wouldn’t have been living in Cenred’s kingdom and should never have been Cenred’s to capture at all, let alone to send as a slave gift. Arthur hasn’t yet put any thought at all into the whys of Merlin’s appearance, too focused on keeping him from Agravaine.

Spywork aside, he can readily think of at least three reasons Morgana and Merlin might consider each other enemies, and the angriest one goes by the name of Morgause. Most unfortunately, no one in this room is aware of exactly how well Morgause and Arthur are acquainted – something he also has no desire to bring to light, despite that it might help them work through this seeming animosity.

“There’s no time for infighting here,” he warns instead. “Whatever it is that’s between you – whatever you’ve seen; whatever you believe – put it aside. I need you focused, or we’re not likely to make it through to this evening, let alone the next few months.”

Merlin gives a crisp nod, and Gwen, who’s taken a quiet seat beside Morgana, sits forward.

“This evening is what we’ve come to discuss. Morgana, tell them.”

What Morgana sulkily tells them confirms what Arthur could have guessed: that he has finally pushed his uncle too far. The remaining six slaves from Cenred were freed successfully, even if it cost his knights a bit of blood and some bone; and of course, that cost Agravaine several of his own guards in turn, to say nothing of the two Merlin killed in Arthur’s chamber last night. On top of that, there was the matter of Olwen and his tenant and the public declaration Arthur made, which with clearer eyes Arthur can see must itself have been a decision point for Agravaine.

This latest attempt on his life entirely ruined, and Arthur having all but disavowed the Regent’s leadership this morning, now there is only the question of what comes next.

It’s unfair, maybe, to rely upon her visions to hear these things – what his knights could not tell him, for one; for another, what ordinary men would have only to guess at –  but Arthur will not give up something so crucial in order to soothe his sense of fairness. This is another battle, and like his father taught him, he must use every resource at his disposal in order to assess whether to seek victory or to fight another day.

Gwen seems already inured to what Morgana’s learned; by contrast, Merlin listens with a stony expression, form stiff and eyes tight to the lady as she explains the language Agravaine will use – the slow escalation that has already begun, painting the young prince as a boy of ill temper, too variable and impulsive to yet take the crown, mind too softened to criminals to deal their earned punishments, incapable of leading even himself through adversity. It’s so predictable as to be laughable, and Arthur feels something bitter twist in his chest to realize how well he’s already played into this strategy. How he’s paved the way for this slander himself.

“You can’t go back,” Morgana finishes. “I can’t see very far ahead, but what happens today and tonight is decisive. When the council reconvenes, you can’t join them. Either of you. It’s important, Arthur.”

She presses there at the end because Arthur is already shaking his head.

“No, that won’t work. I’ve delayed Merlin's questioning twice. If I don’t bring him back, it will all be seen as intentional. There will be consequences I can’t control.”

“You don’t understand. I’ve seen this. If you go back there, one or both of you will die. When they send the summons, you must refuse it.”

It isn’t often that Morgana is so sure about her visions, or so insistent that one be acted upon. Arthur opens his mouth to reply – to deny her, truthfully, though he hates to do so – only to be halted by Merlin.

“If I may, sire,” he starts, carefully, and Arthur doesn’t miss the sudden formality there. “If Lady Morgana’s sight is that clear, it’s best to do as she says.”

Well. If it was difficult to deny one magic user on the subject of foresight, it feels impossible to deny two of them.

“Any excuse I make won’t hold beyond this evening. My uncle won’t cede ground that easily, unless…” Arthur trails off at a sudden revelation. Looks to Gwen. To Morgana. “You don’t mean for it to hold beyond this evening.”

Merlin crosses his arms over his lithe chest, bowing his head deep in thought, or protest. Arthur wishes he could tell what’s going through that mind.

“You’ll be leaving here immediately,” Morgana says. “When you don’t go back, Agravaine is going to be angry. If you don’t leave immediately, he’s going to invent a problem for you, the way he tried at the beginning, to get you out of Camelot. I didn’t hear it; I don’t know what it is, or where. But he’s going to summon you to dinner and make it so you must volunteer to solve it in order to prove your loyalty. And you’ll solve it; of course you’ll solve it, even knowing it’s a trap, but you’ll die doing so, and I will never forgive you.”

Nothing chafes more, on or off the training field, than being forced to withdraw from the fight. Arthur can’t imagine leaving his home, his people, Mordred, alone in the hands of Agravaine.

Very aware of the eyes that watch him, though, he makes himself ask.

“And if I do leave immediately?”

Morgana lets out a heavy breath. “I can’t see what happens in the short term – there’s something in the way – but if you and Merlin leave first, and Gwen and I follow, the four of us will seek aid outside of Camelot. Together. And no one will die tomorrow, and all will be well.”

Arthur doesn’t think he’s heard Morgana utter the words all will be well in his life, and if she’s putting this much effort into seeming optimistic about a vision she knows is inherently unreliable, he supposes he doesn’t want to hear how bad the outcome might be, either. Part of him pities her for having to see the darker possibilities at all.

“The Isle of the Blessed.” Merlin says it knowingly, less reluctant than before to cut in, and offers Morgana a tight smile. “You want to take him there, don’t you?”

Morgana’s eyes narrow. “Are you also a seer?”

“No, but George mentioned some rumors. And if Arthur needs support to claim his crown, who better to seek it from than those also looking to dismantle the new slave trade? If you were to go with him, to show them a magic user ready to attest to his kindness and tolerance, that he’s nothing like his father… it’s a fine plan, at the face of it.”

“Do you disagree?” Arthur asks, ignoring Morgana’s scoff.

Merlin shrugs. “Not exactly. I do think, though, that you’re not accounting for the anger of the High Priestesses.”

Morgana bristles, but before she can open her mouth, Merlin fixes her with a flat glare. “You’ve heard that Emrys is dead – who exactly do you think could have killed him, if that were true? Do you imagine many people could rival that kind of power? Haven’t you considered who a rumor like that actually benefits?” He lets that sink in, then glances about a bit sheepishly, as if he hadn’t meant to say as much. “The past two days have been… more than I was expecting. I don’t know if this is always how it is here, but you must know that anywhere there is power, there is also the question of who should hold it, and this– this is not unique to Camelot.”

“You’re Balinor’s son,” Gwen realizes, softly. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Balinor was a powerful dragonlord, and you – well, you killed a king. You’re so young, but people must have noticed that. You didn’t just fall into slavery, did you? Someone betrayed you.”

Something passes between the two of them that Arthur doesn’t quite understand, a sort of softness, before Merlin lowers his eyes and grimly nods.

“Something like that. Yes.”

There’s not even time to absorb that; there’s the expected pounding, suddenly, at Arthur’s chamber doors, and Morgana surprises him by reaching out, by taking hold of him –

“My brother, please,” she begs, eyes round and beseeching in a way he’s never seen them before. “Send him away.”

“Avoid this one,” Arthur begged, quietly.

It’s far easier, remembering the other side of a conversation just like this one, to do as she asks.

Reality is sometimes a very cold thing – jarring, when one is too accustomed to the warmth of a lie. Merlin isn’t quite ready to face it.

Perhaps it’s Morgana and her visions, and that her dislike of Merlin seems grounded in her idea of his risk to Arthur; or perhaps it’s Gwen and her kind face and kinder assumptions. Perhaps it’s even the Prince himself, who continues to hold up his hard mask to the world, but seems to have decided that since Merlin has seen behind it already, there’s no more point in holding it up to him. Whatever the case, Merlin is surprised to find that he has softened to these people far more and far faster than he’d ever considered he might. He finds himself considering flight to the Isle with them, like to do so won’t complicate matters more than any of them can understand.

Because there’s no more use to moving in secret, Arthur calls for a page, who shortly brings Leon and Gwaine, each in their mail and armed like they’ve guessed at what’s to come. Over the next half hour, more scheming unfolds among the lot of them than Merlin has ever seen managed so cooperatively. It’s odd, but maybe the cooperation is easier because they are all so similar – Merlin is the outcast here, continually also having to remind himself that the survival tactics he’s learned and trusted are nothing like theirs, that his sense of the world has formed from an almost entirely opposite perspective. Even Morgana, a magic user herself, is steadfastly grounded in a worldview that considers magic alien and ancillary, stumbling over the same blocks, failing to consider for them any nontraditional solution.

When he can take no more of the debate over how they should travel to the Isle without starving or dying of thirst (or sacrificing good horses, or needlessly risking Arthur’s safety without his knights), Merlin steps forward from before the hearth, where he took to standing while the rest of them gathered at Arthur’s table.

“I should remind you that I’m Akielon,” he says, resting his hands upon the back of Gwen’s chair, “and a dragonlord, and a sorcerer. We’ll need no horses, because I will summon Aithusa to carry us back; and no one will thirst or starve, because she'll spy water from the sky as we need it, and we shall take provisions with us, and hunt what we can; and the Prince will not be in any danger while he is parted from you, Sir Knights, because once this iron is removed, I will pledge my life and my magic to his service. That should do until we return to you, I think.”

The range of expressions that meet this statement are nearly as entertaining as they are discomfiting. Merlin can’t quite look any of them in the eye except for Arthur, who looks like he might be remembering what it’s like to be on the opposite side of Merlin’s rage and only finally seeing the benefit.

If any of them has trouble envisioning a magic user pledging his life for a Pendragon, no one says so.

The only person who has anything to say is Morgana, who focuses keen eyes on Merlin in a way that puts him on edge.

“‘Carry us back?” She repeats. And if the question in her tone is not enough, she asks it outright. “Dragonkin live in the north, Merlin, not at the Isle. Is that where you were living, before you were brought here?”

Merlin can’t help the way he stiffens.

“Most dragonkin live in the north,” he corrects, jaw tight. “I live with my mother.”

Morgana blinks, and he can see the machinations at work. Can see how she’s putting it together – wonders what she’s seen in her visions, that it should be so easy for her to do so.

“Your mother, who gave you your name.”

“As mothers do.”

She looks so much like her sister when she’s chasing something she wants.

“Scream all you like, young Emrys,” Morgause said, unflinching in the face of the volume his small lungs could achieve. “No one will hear you down here. This is not a place for dragons or mortal men.”

“I want my mother,” Merlin cried.

“Then pay attention to how I instruct you.”

“I want my mother!”

The walls of the cavern shook with his heaving sobs; he hiccupped, and there was some commotion back by the corridor they’d forged from under the mountain.

Morgause did not smile at him – even in her youth, she never smiled – but her eyes softened, ever so slightly.

“You have two mothers, Emrys – do you hear how She listens? She is not Hunith. She is the Goddess whose magic floods your veins, whose eternal life is tied to yours. You must learn to listen to her. You will have Hunith for a blink of time, boy, but the Goddess will be with you forever.”

Morgana's eyes grow ever narrower. “Dare I ask who else has given you a name?”

The air feels thick – not to the severity it did down in the council chambers, but somewhere close. Merlin is not afraid, he thinks; not exactly. He just isn’t ready. (It doesn’t help that every pair of eyes in the room is glancing wildly between them, even Gwen’s, as if this is a spectacle to watch unfold.)

“How long would it take,” Morgana asks, in Brythonic now, which feels both safer and more dangerous, “to transport an uncooperative body from the Isle to Cenred’s kingdom, and then to Camelot? The news would reach us first, wouldn’t it?”

Quietly, he replies in kind: “I ask you plainly, Priestess, to leave this alone. Please.”

Perhaps the worst peril of being multilingual, though, is this: that one sometimes forgets who can or can’t speak which tongue, and suffers for assuming ignorance where it doesn’t exist.

Arthur’s hand comes swiftly down on the wood of the table – he only catches himself, softening the blow, in the last second, visibly and impressively derailing the reaction as it unfolds.

Morgana pales, mouth slack, and Merlin realizes by that expression alone, and with no little horror, that he has likely just done to her what he’d sought to avoid himself.

“That’s enough.” The Prince looks at neither Morgana nor Merlin as he rises from his seat, glancing from Gwen to his knights with a determinedly neutral demeanor. “We can’t afford to waste any more time. Gwaine, you’ll retrieve the key for the iron and bring it here. Merlin and I will leave first, once he’s freed. Morgana and Gwen, you’ll pack provisions and plan to join us by nightfall in the clearing in the woods out to the east. Leon, you will manage my uncle through to this evening. Is there a place you can go if he engages his men against you?”

Leon – unlike Gwaine, who still stares curiously between Merlin and Morgana – takes this rerouting of the conversation in stride.

“My father’s lands, if it comes to that. He’s loyal and he’s housed us before. To feed extra mouths would be a hardship, but we can make do until your return, sire.”

“My return.” Arthur lets out a heavy breath. Glares reproachfully, first in Merlin’s and then in Morgana’s direction. “I suppose I can have little doubt now that I will return.”

“My lord – ”

The Prince has only to raise a hand to steal Merlin’s voice clean away from him.

“Enough. You’re all dismissed.”

There’s a round of hasty salutations and blessings, well-intentioned though somewhat fraught with what’s been left unsaid. And then it is Merlin standing alone with his prince, shivering slightly with nerves, staring down what might as easily be imminent death as a long and happy future.

“You are Emrys, aren’t you,” Arthur says, crossing his arms tight over his chest. “That’s why Balinor never told me he had a son.”

And that’s– it’s not what Merlin thought he would have led with. Maybe that’s why it seems simpler, all of a sudden, to admit the truth.

“Emrys is a title, not my name. I’m still Merlin. But yes, most likely. He was trying to protect me.”

“From my father,” Arthur guesses.

“From a lot of people. Particularly from those who felt the Druids’ Emrys could not be of Akielon descent. But… yes. From your father as well.”

Agitation is written all over the Prince’s body, but it isn’t the sort Merlin would have thought to expect. It isn’t the sort that drives him to anger or rage, or that forces him away to seek solitude. Rather, he runs a hand over his face, sighing deeply, holding steady. Standing his ground.

“And Morgana. She doesn’t only have magic. She didn’t just help Morgause, while my father was alive. My– my sister is a Priestess herself.”

“I’m sorry, Arthur.” Merlin pours his whole heart into that. “She is, but she isn’t. Or, she was. The timing doesn’t matter. It’s just– it’s different, the way we speak among ourselves. You do know that? I didn’t realize you would understand, or even that you didn’t know; I only meant to implore her to– ”

“You made an entreaty. It was necessary.” Arthur waves away his concern but begins to pace. “Morgana’s the one who taught me Brythonic. I understand the importance of prophetical titles. She’s always used mine but never asked that I use hers. I didn’t know she had one.”

It takes Merlin several moments to process that statement, both for what it implies and for the understanding of prophecy it clearly lacks. Deciding that what’s between Arthur and Morgana is none of his business, though, he focuses on the first, while they still have the time.

“You’re aware of it, then? Of your prophetical title?”

“Yes.”

Arthur stills now to watch him carefully, volunteering nothing more than that, but not running or denying the matter at hand, either. Merlin wonders if this moment would be different without the iron restraining him. If his magic would have known Arthur by their destiny alone. If it will know him when it returns; or if it will have been changed in some fundamental way, having been severed for so long.

“That… must have been difficult to learn,” he says, at length, “having grown up with your father.”

The Prince stiffly shakes his head. “One of my nurses told me when I was very young, not long after my mother died. My father had her executed for it.” He uncrosses his arms and shakes them out, as if shaking the memory away. “I’ve known who I’m destined to be almost as long as I’ve known my father was a murderer, Merlin. It would only have been difficult to know if he’d been able to stop. If there had been any hope he might change.”

“Still. That’s a heavy burden for a child to carry.”

When Arthur shrugs that off, too, Merlin is reminded of this morning. Of this pattern that unfolds every single time he unearths something new about Arthur’s youth or the people who’d been entrusted to protect it.

“What you said earlier,” he begins, carefully, “to Agravaine. About his using your chambers for… well. Did you– you do think he was a part of that, last night, don’t you? Not just the attempt on your life. You think he intended those guards to do what they did. That he planned for it.”

It’s as good as a confirmation, the way Arthur’s chin jerks away from Merlin. The way this query lands like a blow.

“Yes,” the Prince says, tightly. “I do think he was a part of it.”

Despicable is not powerful enough a word to describe what Merlin thinks of Agravaine now.

“I’m sorry. He’s your family. It should never be like that with family.”

“But it is.”

“Yes.” Merlin ignores the prickling of tears in his nose. “Yes, sometimes it is. I wish I could have given you mine.”

Abruptly, Arthur turns away.

“Go pack, Merlin,” he snaps, roughly. “Be quick. Gwaine must be here soon.

Having been brought here against his will and with nothing of his own, Merlin has very little in the way of possessions. He’s loath to take any of Elyan’s clothes when he has his own waiting for him there at the Isle. (The thought of returning to a fresh chiton is a genuine comfort, even now.)

He can recognize a plea for privacy, though, when he hears one, and goes to the antechamber to sit and appreciate a very short but beautiful stretch of silence.

It goes awry, as most plans do, at the most unanticipated moment.

Arthur is doing his best to keep his heart steady and his mind right, to lead honorably and intelligently and by his own definitions of those terms, refusing to be distracted by the way his seams threaten to come apart either with what’s happened today or with what he’s just learned. He feels at the very brink of failure until Gwaine finally comes knocking, bearing a simple iron key in hand.

“Here it is,” the knight says, hastening inside to bar the doors again behind him. “I had to use Lucan’s name, so it’ll have to go back to him when we’re done here. The Warden caught me in his things.”

There’s been some sort of altercation, too; a cut bleeds heavily from the knight’s scalp, blood matting his hair. A dark bruise spreads across his left cheek bone.

“Don’t stare, Princess. I know I’ve looked better.”

Arthur can’t even bring himself to find the humor there. His uncle truly has, at long last, given up the charade… which feels at once both liberating and like falling alone from a great height.

“Did the Warden see that?” He asks, gesturing up toward the wounds. “He’d waste no time reporting it.”

“No, this was after. You’ll be interested to hear your uncle’s boy has been arrested, though. He’s safe down in the dungeon; I’ve taken care of it. But apparently he slipped something into Agravaine’s cup during the recess. Nothing lethal – I’m guessing he meant for you to take the blame when you came back – but Agravaine was unhappy with him, to say the least. Good thing Morgana can see ahead.” And as if understanding Arthur will need a moment to digest this, Gwaine shouts over to the antechamber, “Merlin! How would you like a chance to put those hands to good use?”

“Oh, I thought you’d never ask.”

The boy emerges unchanged from how he went in, except for that his sleeves are now rolled up, exposing long lengths of forearm and the iron and those too-familiar scars on the one side.

“ – once this iron is removed, I will pledge my life and my magic to his service – ”

Something hot fills Arthur’s chest, warming where the matter with Mordred has struck him cold. (Cold, because he’s known Mordred’s prophetical title for as long as he’s known his own. He’s fought so hard to ignore it, since finding only a child where destiny says an adversary should stand, but even a prince can only fight so hard.)

This is Emrys, though, here before him. Has been Emrys; and Merlin will not kill Arthur – did not kill Arthur on sight, for being a Pendragon and bound to the former king’s legacy – but will serve him. Will give his life and magic to their common cause.

It almost defies belief.

“Come here, lad,” Gwaine says, warmly. “Let’s have these off.”

Eager doesn’t come close to describing Merlin’s expression as he holds out one wrist. Gwaine moves quickly and efficiently, cracking the cuff open and shucking it off, moving directly to the other, but Merlin–

Merlin is jerking away, pale like death.

“Stop, stop,” he grunts, slapping his freed hand down upon Gwaine’s, before it can do more. “Don’t. Something’s– it’s wrong; something’s wrong.”

“What is it?” Arthur asks, moving tentatively closer.

Merlin’s frame is trembling violently, top to bottom, and when he looks up, his eyes shine beyond even gold, so bright they border upon divine, the likes of which Arthur has neither seen nor ever before heard described. He would be lying if it didn’t spike fear deep into his stomach to see it.

Emrys. Beyond any doubt.

“I can’t,” Merlin gasps, breaking Gwaine’s hold entirely, unfocused and agitated. “We can’t. It won’t– it isn’t– ”

“Alright.” Arthur’s hand finds the back of Merlin’s neck without his permission. “It’s alright, he’s stopped. You’re alright.” He turns to Gwaine, pulling Merlin in, close to his side. “We can’t do this here. Return the key to Lucan. We’ll go now and figure it out at the Isle. Merlin won’t need his magic to call the dragon.”

There’s protest, of course, but the leading benefit of being a prince is that Arthur can issue his knight a command and expect it to be followed.

When they’re alone again, Arthur guides Merlin to his table and leans the boy back against it, keeping him close but allowing at least a moment’s respite.

“Are you still with me, Merlin?”

Merlin nods his head as best he can, so disoriented that his hands scramble both to Arthur and the table beneath him for balance.

“I’m a dragonlord,” he gasps – his hand jumps again from Arthur’s wrist to his upper arm, feeling, clinging. “I can summon Aithusa with or without the iron. That won’t be the problem.”

“All that matters right now is that Aithusa will come,” Arthur says, calmly. “Anything else can wait. Did you hear Gwaine? My uncle has been distracted. It’s not likely he’ll be able to keep us from leaving if we go now. Morgana was right, in her way.”

“Arthur, I – ” Merlin’s hand jerks up one more time, from upper arm to shoulder to neck, anxious and exploratory; and it occurs to Arthur that he’s seen that movement pattern before, paired with the lack of focus and the imbalance.

“Merlin? Can you not see?”

“No, I– I can, but it’s– I think– you know they say I’m– I’m the most powerful sorcerer in the world? My magic wasn’t meant for this. For iron. It’s been too long. It doesn’t feel right. It feels like I’ll– like I’ll erupt if you take them off. Like I’ll blast everything away. I can see it happening. It’s all so bright, Arthur, I can’t– ”

A string of colorful expletives leaves Arthur’s mouth, but he doesn’t delay further. It’s not that he understands what Merlin is experiencing, but rather more that words like erupt and blast fundamentally have no business being thrown about indoors. (The scars up Arthur’s legs and hip bear evidence enough for that, at the very least.) He takes one of Merlin’s arms over his own neck and supports his weight, staggering with him directly out of his chambers and into the corridor.

“Call the dragon here to us directly,” he orders. “None of Agravaine’s guards is equipped for this. Aithusa won’t be harmed, not if she drops into the courtyard the way Kilgharrah used to. We can get you out of here and still wait for Morgana and Gwen at the clearing.”

“I don’t – ”

“Now, Merlin.”

In spectacular fashion, Merlin forces them to a halt and obeys. Arthur witnessed dragonfolk call to their kin many times in his childhood, but is somehow still surprised: every piece of it – the rough, booming depth of the call; the way the mark at Merlin's neck seems to shift, as if it lives; the impressive strength it requires, straining his entire frame against Arthur’s – inspires warmth he must put away to examine later, when it is safe to do so. The only downside to this is that it is incredibly loud and conspicuous and takes enough out of Merlin when it’s done that he’s practically incapable of standing.

At the end of that corridor, Arthur is grateful to discover Gwaine has not lost his rebellious side. The knight doesn’t wait for orders, but turns to lead their way down to the courtyard.

“A thank you wouldn’t be out of order, Princess,” he calls behind him.

Arthur scoffs under Merlin’s near-dead weight. “I’ll be sure to inform Morgana she owes you one.”

The castle is in enough of an uproar that Arthur wonders if Gwaine hasn’t grossly oversimplified what happened between Mordred and Agravaine. More than mere chaos, Arthur sees servants fighting in some places, like on the stairs and near the kitchens. He sees them crowding Agravaine's guards in groups, holding their arms back, stalling them. Shouting to Arthur to run.

He wasn’t considering what this would look like to his people, but seeing them now, watching untrained men and women throw their frail bodies in the path of what could easily be treason, depending upon who wore the crown… he feels it like fire, how this moment entrenches itself inside him.

It will fuel him for the rest of his life, he thinks, to see the way they fight for his escape.

Gwaine only has to dispatch two of Agravaine’s men by the time they make it down to the castle courtyard, and mercifully, just as they do, there is the dragon, who must be Aithusa, falling down from the sky.

“Ah, the young Pendragon,” Kilgharrah said, very gently, as if he understood exactly why Arthur clung to the length of Balinor’s chiton. “And how is your Akielon coming along, Boy-King?”

“Very well,” Arthur answered, awfully – fairly sure he chose the wrong word entirely for that adverb. Flushing, he spoke next in Veretian. “I can understand you. Speaking is more difficult.”

The dragon’s laugh came soft and rolling. “You shall have to practice, then.”

And Arthur nodded, pressing his forehead tighter to Balinor’s thigh. His thoughts turned too quickly, then, from language lessons to what would happen after Balinor’s departure. Balinor’s tight grip upon his shoulder told him more than could ever be spoken aloud.

“I’ll visit again in spring, if your father allows it when he returns,” the dragonlord said, moving to run that hand through Arthur’s hair one last time. “The dragon egg has hatched, you know. Her name is Aithusa. Perhaps I’ll bring her to meet you next time.”

But of course, it was only a few months later that the Purge began.

It’s a singular miracle that the air is fresh enough not to choke them as the strength of those wings sends it stirring. Arthur doesn’t let himself consider the shouting or what fighting erupts around them as he practically drags Merlin out to meet his dragon; he leaves the dragonlord leaning against Aithusa’s mighty foreleg and darts back himself into her line of sight.

It’s been at least a decade, but he knows there is a protocol here the same way there is protocol in a throne room or upon a battlefield. He turns his arms out, showing his palms, and bows his head.

“Aithusa, well met,” he says, in clumsy Akielon. “Please forgive my haste. May I join Merlin on your back?”

“My King,” is all she says – but then she lowers herself to the ground, which Arthur takes as permission. He helps Merlin up, pushing and dragging without ceremony along chilled dragonscale, scrambling to follow alongside him when it’s clear that proximity to his dragon isn’t helping his senses of time or space.

Then they are taking off, and Arthur's lungs burn, and his stomach feels as if he has lost it on the ground beneath them, and he clings both to Merlin and to the dragon for his life.

“Cover your mouths, now,” Aithusa calls, as they rise higher and higher. “Don’t breathe too deeply.”

Soaring away from Camelot’s castle astride a dragon would have felt surreal even without the thick stretch of impermeable sky above them; to do it lightheaded and hungry lends a specific shade of disbelief to the entire experience on top of that.

“There's a clearing in the woods out to the east, close to the castle,” Arthur calls back. “We must wait there for two more.”

The shift is nearly imperceptible, but Arthur can sense how easily she reorients her flight.

In the next aching breath, the weight of this course, of this choice, sinks in: he's fled his home, and in doing so has committed to forfeiting any chance of a peaceful attempt at the crown. Though, he has on his side now the support of his people, the power of Emrys, the aid of a dragon, and the sight of a Priestess. Far more than he imagined possible, when first his uncle returned.

Clutching Merlin tight to his chest with one hand and gripping at Aithusa with the other, Arthur resolves himself to what's ahead. This is a battle he can win.

A battle he will win.

Arthur Pendragon may be nothing more than a child-monster grown into the face of a king, but regardless of what he deserves himself, these people deserve what he can do and give for them: they deserve their prophesized king; their magic returned to the land; their golden age, with a relief to their suffering and the return of the sun and its warmth to the world.

That he can fight for, if nothing else.

Merlin wakes feeling like he’s surfaced from a drowning, gulping in air like he’s not had any in days – indeed, his body is tense and shaking from the very roots, so that no matter how much sour air he takes in, nothing will loosen. He can’t tell if he’s coughing or laughing or sobbing, compulsive seizing at his middle forcing his lungs empty and refilling them over and over and over, until finally, the meagre flow of magic settles within him.

His magic. He’s not himself – not yet; not even by half. But it’s there.

It’s real, racing through him with every pump of his heart, healing what needs healing, warming what needs warming. Reclaiming what it’s been denied the last few days.

“Merlin?” Morgana is there, sounding breathless herself.

She speaks from in front of him, and there is firm warmth behind him, and soft warmth beside him, and –

Merlin blinks until his streaming eyes clear.

“I do not like the witch, Merlin,” Aithusa says plaintively, in Akielon, just above him. “She bade me carry the King’s Bane. I do not wish to do so again.”

He can’t tell where they've landed – it’s sparsely wooded land, wide and bare enough to his left that Aithusa could have brought them down easily – but it’s sometime in the day, at least, and Arthur is there beside him, asleep against Aithusa’s belly, the dragon curled protectively around them both. Gwen is asleep in a bedroll not far from Aithusa’s tail, where a fire was lit at one point and now burns very low.

To Merlin’s great surprise, Mordred slumbers there too, in a bedroll of his own.

“Did she just call me a witch?” Morgana asks, seeming unsure of whether or not she would take offense. (And dressed as she is now, in a tunic and trousers that barely fit her frame, she makes quite the picture.)

Merlin has to take an unsettled moment to ground himself. To breathe through his questions. To take comfort from the Prince’s form so close beside him, even if it’s unconscious.

“Do you not speak Akielon?” He asks, distracted. Remembering, too, what happened the last time they spoke.

Morgana shakes her head. “Not enough to converse. Balinor’s dragon called me that, though, when I met him. Even before the magic came. I suppose that makes sense, in retrospect.”

Merlin can’t help but snort. Kilgharrah was indeed always one for blunt truth, if none of the humans of his acquaintance could bring themselves to say what needed saying.

“How are you feeling?” She sidles closer on her knees, as if to settle in, and pulls her loose braid to one side, the easier to fix it while they speak. “You were asleep for a while.”

He doesn’t answer, but starts with his worst fear: “Did I hurt anyone?”

She sets a tentative hand to his knee for just a moment. “No. Arthur said you stopped it before anything could happen.”

Surely enough, when Merlin checks, only one of the cuffs has gone from his wrists – that explains the hampered flow of his magic. He lets out his breath in a slightly choked sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he says next. “For what happened in Arthur’s chambers. I didn’t mean to reveal any secrets.”

Morgana just shrugs that off, though, the gesture so like one of Arthur’s that Merlin’s throat grows tight.

“It’s alright now. It’s been half a day, you know. We’ve had some time to speak.”

“Good.” Since he still doesn’t feel that’s his business, he doesn’t ask about it. Instead, with the worst of his own fears addressed, he turns to Aithusa’s. “She asked why you would have her carry the King’s Bane out of Camelot.”

“That is not what I said,” Aithusa rumbles, in Akielon; Merlin presses back against her in apology, nudging the back of his head into her scales.

“It’s what I want to know,” he counters, softly. “Morgana speaks Brythonic, anyway; you know you can address her directly if you’d like to.”

But Aithusa appears to dislike Morgana as much as Kilgharrah always did, and declines to say anything she might understand. Merlin nearly rolls his eyes.

In Veretian again – and feeling far calmer about this than he suspects he might have without the conversation outside Arthur’s chambers the other night – he says, “I see Mordred. Is he really meant to be the King’s Bane?”

Grimly, Morgana nods. “It was Gwen who brought him. She only saw the guards take him down to the dungeons and couldn’t bear it; she didn’t hear why he was arrested until later. While everyone was distracted, she stole the key and broke him out. And we couldn’t just leave him, then, no matter what he’d done.”

Aithusa snorts warm air and turns her snout away, conveying her displeasure.

“Well. That was very brave of her, at least,” Merlin says – but any more he might have said on that is interrupted by the fierce, painful rumbling of his belly, which is apparently audible enough that Morgana spares him a small smile.

“There’s food and water. It’s not much, but it should last us to the Isle. Can you stand?”

Carefully, disturbing Arthur as little as possible, Merlin manages.

Finding Merlin conscious and well is a stark relief, for more than one reason.

Travel has been both as simple and as difficult as Arthur imagined it would be. Aithusa does indeed fly very fast, but to carry five people and their few supplies is a burden; and even if they’ll only move by night, to fly with any weight at all in the midst of Uther’s Wrath only sharpens the challenge to her stamina. She must stop very often to rest her lungs, and though time is of the essence, the blunt truth of the matter is this: it will get them nowhere if they push their only means of travel to the extent of injury.

The air is difficult for everyone, truth be told. (Mordred in particular struggles, though he’s not said a word since they left Camelot, and certainly won’t open his mouth to express a weakness.) When Arthur finds Merlin awake beside a dying fire, he is prepared to make an immediate case for resting.

Of course, he should have expected that a dragonlord would advocate immediately for his charge, under any circumstances.

“Sire,” Merlin greets quietly, as Arthur sits – minding both Gwen and Mordred, though they sleep like the dead. “Aithusa won’t say so, but she’s in pain. I know how important it is for you to get to the Isle quickly, but– ”

“Agreed.” Arthur claps him on the back, as if he’s one of the knights and this is nothing more than training. (Or, he tells himself that’s how it should be. That his palm touching Merlin’s back should be no different to touching Leon’s or Gwaine’s or Lancelot’s.) “She’ll have rest, then. And we’ll resume tomorrow night, if she’s well enough.”

The look of surprise he receives at this announcement is, if Arthur is being honest, a bit insulting.

“I know how to read a dragon, Merlin. That was part of Balinor’s first lesson with me, when my father hadn’t yet… ” Since there’s no good way to recover from where that will lead, Arthur pivots. “Well. I’ve asked her myself if she needs longer breaks, but she keeps declining, and I’ve no authority to command her. I was hoping you’d say something.”

Merlin nods a bit awkwardly. A few moments pass in silence, and then, more seriously, he asks, “You knew my father very well, didn’t you?”

It's an odd thing, to feel the answer is both yes and no.

Arthur curled himself up, clinging to his own knees on that rough-clothed bed at the back of the physician’s chambers, wishing he could disappear. Gaius and Balinor spoke tersely right there at the bottom of the stairs, in a language Arthur didn’t understand. He could guess at what they were saying, though.

He had to stop crying. He was weak. A worthless, stupid boy, who couldn’t even serve his purpose without letting his body get the best of him.

His thoughts were too dark, too loud inside his head. Too much.

“Arthur?”

Balinor’s cool hand on his forehead drew him back. Centered him.

Fingers through his hair made it better. Made it so he could open his eyes, at least, though the tears made it difficult to see.

“Gaius doesn’t think we’ll be able to reach the King,” Balinor said, roughly, and that was… that was good. Arthur was relieved; the longer his father stayed away, the longer he could pretend his son was good and strong and whole and –

“Alright, boy. It’s alright.” Balinor soothed away a thick wave of tears like they were nothing. He pushed Arthur’s hair back from his forehead again and again and again. “I can’t stay longer, but I’ll do what I can for you while I’m here.”

Arthur fell asleep like that, clinging to the dragonlord’s knee, wishing this had been his father all along. Wishing he had no uncle, no crown, no kingdom. No broken destiny.

Wishing he, too, could leave and make a home somewhere else.

The memories seem to cut deeper with age – for he knows well enough, now, doesn’t he, the reason Balinor never fought for more time at Camelot. It’s sitting right beside him.

It’s a painful truth that Arthur didn’t really know Balinor at all.

“I think it was more that he took the care to know me,” Arthur makes himself say. “Not many adults did that when I was a child; most of them appeased or indulged me only to please my father.” But then, because that makes him sound utterly pitiful, he adds, “Once upon a time, I imagined I might grow up to count dragonkin among my knights. Balinor did indulge me in that, but only because he liked the idea, too. He said I ought to know as much about commanding dragons as I knew about commanding men, so I could be ready to lead them.”

When he finally brings himself to look in Merlin’s direction, he finds eyes wet with tears, but also a soft smile.

“He did like that idea. He talked very often about it. About what life would be like for us under your reign.” The boy wipes his eyes shamelessly. “He never doubted you’d make a fine king, Arthur. Not for a moment. You should know that.”

Arthur doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he permits himself to touch Merlin again – just a nudge of their shoulders together, this time.

Softly, Merlin nudges him back.

It isn’t until they stand outside an inn in Gawant that Arthur begins, deeply, to regret Aithusa’s rest. Not that he at all begrudges her the need for it; it’s just that he didn’t consider, earlier, that while regrouping away from his uncle, it’s best he not travel foreign kingdoms as himself. The ramifications are making themselves known now quite brutally.

“Mordred and I will go first,” Gwen says, gentle hands resting on the boy's shoulders. “Alright, Mordred?”

She asks it very politely, but the child only turns his red-rimmed glare out toward the stables adjoining the inn. (He’s still not spoken since joining them. Arthur doesn’t dare address him directly, knowing how difficult this must be – and not only in the matter of having done what he did, or of having been arrested for it. This must be the longest the boy’s been parted from Agravaine since first he came to Camelot.)

Merlin jerks slightly, then, and frowns. He looks between Arthur and Mordred with an unreadable expression.

Gwen clears her throat, softening herself even more. “Why don’t we go in? A proper bed will be lovely, won’t it?”

When they’re alone – or as alone as three people can be before an inn that's persisted through famine – Morgana turns to Merlin with purpose.

“He said something to you?”

“Nothing helpful.” Merlin shrugs, sparing Arthur an apologetic glance. “He shared a thought with me. It was… crass. I won’t repeat it.”

A second shrug comes, then, awkwardly.

“Come on,” Morgana said, wrapping up the second bedroll. “We have enough to trade for two rooms, and Aithusa can do as she pleases in the meantime. It could be fun.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, which at first Arthur attributed to himself only – he didn’t know if he understood what fun meant anymore. But then he looked around and saw how each of their faces bore so very many signs of hardship, and thought that perhaps sleep in a bed was a luxury they could afford to indulge in after all.

“And you want me to…” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it. The flush creeping up his neck felt like fever.

“Be my pet,” Merlin finished, with a half-shy, teasing grin.

“No need,” Arthur says, dryly. “I can imagine well enough the faults he finds with this. At any rate, I’m hardly pet material.”

“Now that I agree with.” Morgana looks him over quite critically. “You need a change. For Gwen and me to travel in men’s cast-offs makes sense; women do what they must upon the road these days. Merlin could even make sense as a merchant trying to be inconspicuous, as long as he keeps the iron covered. You’re the only one who doesn’t look a part.”

Arthur feels an old fear rise up. His palms sweat. He checks for the laces at his left wrist, an old tick that’s never quite left him.

“I won’t give up my clothes. Pets were always meant to look finer than their patrons – surely that’s still the case?”

Morgana rolls her eyes. “You look like royalty. That was never the case.”

“Were they not…” Pink dusts Merlin’s cheeks for some reason, but he clears his throat and gets over his hesitation quickly. “Did pets not always wear jewelry? If he wore an earring and loosened some of those laces, and fixed his hair a bit, I would believe it, as a foreigner. It’s clear enough he’s from Camelot by those colors – if anyone presses, we can say I took over his contract from Camelot’s illegitimate princess. The scandal of an opposite-sex arrangement with a royal would be distraction enough.”

There’s a moment of stark silence, and then Morgana laughs like Arthur hasn’t heard her do in years.

“I think I’ll grow to like you, Merlin,” she says, eyes sparkling as they shift back to Arthur. “I agree, actually. Even if anyone has seen how few pets remain, it would make sense for a princess to hide a male pet, let alone one who looks so very much like her brother. And certainly, a prince would never dream of wearing an earring.”

Arthur can only shake his head. (They don’t know, he must tell himself; they have no idea what they’re talking about, about all the shattered little things inside him that make these jokes intolerable. That threaten to strike him down where he stands.)

“I am not piercing my ear for this,” he declares, wielding petulance like a dagger in his defense.

“Why not?” Merlin smiles carelessly, waving the fingers of one hand in a way he certainly thinks is amusing. “I have a bit of magic back – it could be quick. It wouldn’t even hurt, you delicate thing.”

It’s exhausting, the duality these secrets draw out of him. That while burning with shame he can still turn to Merlin in a bluster of male performance, much aggrieved at the implication that he is in any way delicate.

Morgana takes the wind out of his sails with an exaggerated sigh.

“Imbeciles. Here.” The earring she pulls from one of her pockets is not one to push through flesh, but rather one which fastens upon it. She tosses it to Arthur like he will have any idea what to do with it. “I’ll join Gwen. You two figure that out.”

The largest piece is a ruby, smooth and reflective, long and narrow, in the shape of a teardrop, topped with a golden starburst and either a diamond or a uniquely pale sapphire. The entirety of the earring is encased in more gold. It’s cool against his palm. Arthur stares down at it, feeling how fast his heart races and knowing he must calm it.

“Arthur?”

Oddly, the sound of his name out of that mouth is a comfort.

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” Merlin adds, quietly, after a moment. “It was only a joke. I might– truthfully, I might have misunderstood the concept of a pet. There is no stigma among Akielons about enjoying sex, even if one is paid to do so. And I also– I thought ‘scandal’ meant something different too, I think. You shouldn’t do anything that will make you feel shameful. I apologize if we made you uncomfortable.”

Arthur has to take a few breaths to appreciate that.

“I sometimes forget that Veretian is not your mother tongue, Merlin. You don’t need to explain, though. I know you meant no offense. It’s a good strategy.”

When he finds Merlin’s eyes, they’re full of relief, and shining with something new. Something he can’t look away from.

“Allow me?” The boy asks, sweetly tentative, raising a hand.

Arthur considers it among his greatest achievements that he remains perfectly still while Merlin loosens the laces at his neck and wrists, and runs fingers through his hair, and fastens that earring in place at his left ear.

When the last adjustment is made, Arthur doesn’t ask permission. (Can’t, throat locked tight.) He gently reaches for each of Merlin’s arms, pulling each sleeve down and securing the buttons that will guarantee the iron remains hidden.

Barely breathing, he tightens and ties off the laces of Merlin’s tunic with trembling fingers, adjusting the neckerchief he wears to keep both the collar and the dragonlord’s mark out of sight.

“All done?” Merlin asks, breathlessly, when he steps back.

Arthur nods stiffly, instead of answering, and Merlin practically beams at him.

“Brilliant. Come on, then, pet.”

Chapter Text

IV.

Mordred patently refuses to sit among the public, so Gwen requests a meal for them to share, up in one of the rooms, and volunteers to eat with him. (When Arthur tries to find words to convey his gratitude for that, she sweetly brushes him off. He wonders if she understands what so many fail to see about Mordred’s situation. If that is why she takes such care with him.)

In truth, Arthur envies them the solitude. The inn is full enough downstairs that there will be opportunity for conversation.

Morgana chooses a near-empty table at the far side of the room, close to the hearth; she sits herself on the bench with immense satisfaction, gesturing that they should join opposite her, and it’s only as Arthur slips onto the bench beside Merlin that he realizes why she’s so pleased.

The only other occupant of the table is a modestly dressed man of middle age, who dines calmly by himself, warmed not only by the fire but by a fine fur-lined cloak which he keeps draped across his lap – a rare thing for any man to show off alone, these days, with no weapon for protection. It doesn’t quite rival the value of Arthur’s surcoat, of course, but it’s a near thing. This man’s company will lend to their disguise.

“Good evening,” Morgana calls to him, in common Latin. This is the language used most often upon trading routes outside of Camelot, which is fair, though Arthur despairs, briefly, of Merlin’s ability to participate – and it looks for a moment as if the man is about to make some polite dismissal or another, until his eyes find Arthur’s. And then Arthur’s earring. And then, possibly for reasons for which Arthur has deep empathy, Merlin’s neckerchief.

The man reexamines Morgana with interest.

“Would you care to join us?” She asks, with the unmistakable bearing of a lady, despite what she wears. “We’re recently from Camelot, if you’ve news to trade.”

“I believe I would,” the man answers. “Though, we can speak your Veretian, if that suits you better. I’m sure I could benefit from the practice.”

They move closer to exchange pleasantries and make introductions, which of course are entirely false apart from the name and occupation of their new acquaintance, who is Charls and a merchant in the business of selling cloth. (The cloak makes far more sense in light of this, Arthur thinks.)

The innkeeper brings them each an ale and very small bowls of stew, making apologies that it isn’t heartier fare. And Arthur understands Morgana’s pleasure with the timing perfectly, too, because their busy mouths give Charls leave to speak freely of his travels, in a way his merchant’s manners might not have permitted otherwise.

He says nothing overly interesting at first, mostly touching on topics relating to competition on the trade routes; it isn’t until Arthur hears his father’s name that he truly pays attention.

“It’s been a difficult time for everyone, of course, but I didn’t hear anyone call it ‘Uther’s Wrath’ until very recently,” Charls is telling Merlin, who of the three of them has been the most attentive. “Not that I intend any offense here, my friends, but this phenomenon of the sun and the sky, this famine and all that came with it – it’s not magical in nature at all! I couldn’t believe it, the first time I heard someone attribute a calamity of the earth to the death of one man.”

“I quite agree,” Merlin says, amiably. After a quick glance over the room, no doubt to guarantee discretion, he asks, “Do you have magic yourself, Charls?”

“Very little,” the man says, honestly but with an enviable, uncomplicated pride. “It serves me in my trade, and most kingdoms will suffer me to sell my cloth so long as I use no magic in my travels.”

“I see. The best arrangement for all parties, I suppose.”

“Indeed. Of course, it’s far more enjoyable to sell where I might also be free to use magic as I see fit - to sew, too, and make alterations - but I can hardly make a living in the north alone.”

“Of course,” Merlin agrees.

“And you, Falco – I don’t wish to pry, but I’ve known a few dragonlords in my time, and some of your features are so distinctive. You’ve Akielon blood in you, no?”

“Ah, yes. On my father’s side.” Merlin’s hand curls tight into a fist where it rests on the bench beside Arthur's thigh, knuckles driving hard into the wood. “I’m afraid I’ve not been north myself in some time, though.”

There’s a tense quality to his voice, now. A more skilled conversationalist wouldn’t have alluded to Merlin’s parentage at all, or might at least have intuited by his reaction that this would not be a welcome path to tread; but by the look upon Charls’ face – pleasant, not a hint of expectation or understanding – Arthur guesses this will not go a place Merlin will enjoy.

He isn’t sure what drives him to do so, but he subtly shifts to grasp the wrist above Merlin’s clenched fist and gently squeezes. It’s brief, but by the softening of that fist, just enough to soothe him. (He then takes his hand back and strives to ignore the way it prickles.)

“Well, what would you say to a taste of home, then?” Charls asks, brightly. “I’ve been carrying chitons that won’t sell, you understand. I go to Dyfed next, by way of Glywysing, and then up the coast through Ceredigion and Gwynedd. So you see, it will be some time before I’m even close to a place I might offload them. You’d be doing me quite a favor in taking one or two off my hands. And it– well, I don’t wish to be maudlin. But it would be very nice to see my work worn by living bodies.”

Arthur’s chest tightens with the way Merlin says, very simply, “I would enjoy that very much, Charls.”

“I wonder,” Morgana cuts in then, “if you might tell us what rumors you’ve heard out of Camelot? We’d be happy to clear up any misunderstandings for you.”

Since this is also good trade, Charls brightens considerably more. He spends several minutes telling them about some things they already know and some things which must be corrected – yes, Morgana confirms, the Prince has fled Camelot; no, he did not poison the Regent, who is still very much alive; and actually, it is the Regent who attempted to take the Prince’s life first.

“You know,” Charls says to that, frowning deeply, “I never liked that man. I met Agravaine once, many years ago. His sister was very agreeable – a beautiful woman, kind; such a tragedy, the way she passed – but oh, there was something about him, even then. I don’t often think of men as – ” he breaks off quite suddenly “ – oh, my dear Ursus, are you well?”

Arthur, who has choked on an ill-timed gulp of ale, is fiercely grateful to be coughing instead of having to listen to anyone speak about his mother in the same breath as his uncle.

He nods and makes apologies for the interruption, and Morgana effortlessly steers the conversation in its final direction.

“Now I couldn’t say for sure,” she says, in a tone that implies the exact opposite, “but I hear Prince Arthur has found the Emrys of prophecy, and will seek aid with him at the Isle of the Blessed. I hear he will challenge his uncle and claim his rightful place upon the throne. It’s only a rumor, mind you. But anyone with ears and an interest in the Once and Future King ought to hear it.”

Charls slowly straightens in his seat, expression falling out of that well-practiced mask of politeness into something more genuine. Arthur sees realization there, he thinks. Surprise. Awe. Fear. Relief. Many things. The merchant turns his wide eyes from Morgana to Merlin, who he examines in silence for a moment, and then to Arthur, whose eyes he holds the longest, glancing for only a moment at the earring before examining the surcoat – really examining it, this time, for what it is, and not dismissing it for what jewelry hangs above it.

“I think,” Charls says finally, turning back to Merlin, “that I shall gift you those chitons for free, my friend. Whatever you and your companions need, you may take from my wagon.”

Arthur shakes his head. “We couldn’t– ”

If there is any doubt that Charls understands who they are, now, it is entirely removed by the way the merchant modestly inclines his head in Arthur’s direction.

“You can and you will, my lords and lady,” he says, quietly. More seriously than before. “It’s not polite to speak of, so I rarely do – but in traveling these kingdoms, even the northern ones, I see how broken they’ve become. How polluted by the hatred of magic. How divided by fear, especially of the idea that this famine will never end. So. If there is anything I can do for the people who shall reunite the lands of Albion, by the wills of all the gods, I will do it happily. To see the two sides of your coin united, that is payment enough for me.”

It's the sort of speech one can’t evade, and so Arthur concedes with a nod, ignoring the tightness in his throat.

“Well.” Charls sighs, but his smile is bright and genuine and lends him a youthful sort of glow. “I must thank you for the excellent conversation, but it’s time for me to retire. Find me in the morning so we might conclude our business, yes?”

As the merchant makes his way upstairs, Merlin aims a critical eye at Morgana.

“Why did you do that? Was the point not that we travel in disguise?”

The lady shrugs, delicately sipping down the last of her ale. “He seemed trustworthy.”

Merlin’s eye twitches visibly, but Arthur is too used to Morgana’s whims – which are nearly always dependent upon her visions, and upon the way she often must tease out their details and meanings – to find too much fault with her.

“The disguises are still important,” she adds. With a pointed look at the small, rough heel of bread still sitting aside Arthur’s bowl, and then a smile entirely too innocent to be genuine, she rises from her seat. “I’m going up to check on Gwen. You two could stand to lend a bit of authenticity to your performance, in the meantime.”

She isn’t wrong in that assessment, exactly. A cursory glance around reveals a room half-emptied to what it was before – no one of comparable class to Charls remains, which is perhaps a boon, as it means likely no one else will take the initiative to seek their company.

Merlin’s expression grows pensive.

“Authenticity…”

It's just the two of them now, and so naturally, Arthur’s nerves make him a bit of a brute. “Is that too large a word for you, Merlin? It means– ”

“Being genuine,” the boy cuts in, gamely. “Or, believable – believability. Credibility. Verisimilitude.”

“Veris – what? That is not Veretian.”

But of course, Arthur knows it is; he only loves the look of Merlin’s laughter and the way it reshapes his face to, again, something divine.

“I was only thinking,” Merlin says, “that I’ve never actually seen a pet as you’d understand them.”

“Yes. Well.” It’s skirting a miserable topic – in truth, many pets were contracted within Camelot before Uther’s Wrath; but with famine and panic and plague came inevitable hardships, and if contracts were not broken outright by either party, Arthur is willing to guess that any pets remaining could only have died if they’ve not returned to public life.

He doesn’t want to say so, though. Not when Merlin is watching him so closely. So carefully.

“I suppose I could tell you a little about them,” he says, instead. “Pets wear jewelry, obviously. You knew that. Camelot is not like old Vere or your Akielon northern kingdoms, though. It’s not– we wouldn’t need to– ”

Merlin smirks. “Have no fear. I shan’t debauch you in front of all these people.”

A beat passes, in which Arthur fails to find any words to respond.

Not discouraged, Merlin reaches a hand out to Arthur’s plate and takes up that heel of bread.

“What about this? Masters fed their pets, didn’t they? Or was it the other way around?”

The noise Arthur makes is not intelligible. His breath feels punched out of him as Merlin leans in close, one hand on the bench, fingertips digging in just slightly under his outer thigh, and the other –

No other human being apart from Gaius has fed or watered Arthur since his youth, and even then, Gaius always took the appropriate precautions – minded his fingers, minded his gaze, minded his distance. Merlin has taken no precautions. Merlin is the definition of careless insouciance, close enough that Arthur can feel his radiant warmth, sense the escalation of his breathing, feel the cool brush of his fingertips with that bread so very close to Arthur’s mouth.

“Well, pet?”

Merlin’s eyes are the bluest they’ve ever been.

Unsteadily, Arthur leans into him, ever so slightly. Around the bread, he whispers, “What are you doing?”

“Verisimilitude.” Merlin comes fully into Arthur’s space like it’s nothing that Arthur can smell him, too, now; his lips just barely brush Arthur’s ear as he adds, “If you wish for me to stop, tap my arm. I’ll go no further than you allow.”

He nibbles not at the ear itself, but at the clasp of Morgana’s earring, and the shock of that almost-impact is, to Arthur, a bit like a strike of lightning down his spine. It’s indecent, but not in a way that feels shameful. Not in a way that hurts. (Arthur has never felt anything like this before, he realizes, in a way that didn’t hurt.)

“Verisimilitude,” he agrees breathlessly, and lets his mouth fall open.

The next few moments are uniquely intense: Merlin catches his gaze, slowly feeding him pieces of bread, each bite small enough that those gentle fingers brush against Arthur’s bottom lip and teeth; and Arthur is grateful they’re in public, because he doesn’t know what he would do with privacy in this moment. Doesn’t know what he wants with Merlin, exactly, except to consume him, wholly and with blistering ferocity.

When the bread is gone, Merlin drags his thumb along Arthur’s lower lip.

“Crumbs,” he says, with a gentle smile under darkened eyes, and with no respect for how Arthur must cling to the bench beneath them to remain seated and still. “Is that enough, do you think?”

Throat locked – and quite certain he would not survive anything other theatrics – Arthur nods.

“Excellent.” Merlin makes a show of standing and stretching his lithe frame. Finally, he turns to summon Arthur with an audacious sweep of one hand, and loudly enough, says, “Come along now, pet.”

Something crucial realigned within him, Arthur does not hesitate to obey that command.

The room is simpler than even the antechamber at Camelot, but leagues more comfortable than most homes on the Isle of the Blessed, being also Veretian in nature: aside from the sideboard and screen, there’s a modest hearth with a pair of chairs, a bed large enough for two, and a decoratively curtained window darkened with nightfall.

This, Merlin thinks as he takes it in, is a relief. A place he needn’t fear to close his eyes.

“Mordred and I will go first,” Gwen said. “Alright, Mordred?”

The child wouldn’t look at her – wouldn’t at any of them.

But blandly, directly into Merlin’s mind: He won’t be a good fuck, Emrys. Don’t bother.

It struck like something physical, so deeply that Merlin couldn’t immediately reply, either in kind or aloud. Even more troubling, nothing about Mordred’s outer demeanor gave away the nature of the thought. As if to him – to a child – such a sentiment was perfectly normal.

The words sting even having put hours between that moment and this one.

“It seems Gwen and Morgana have stolen Mordred,” Merlin says, as casually as he can. Unsure how to open this line of questioning.

Arthur makes a noise just the wrong side of indecipherable. “For the best, I think.”

Which is all the invitation Merlin needs. He moves to bar the door behind them and then, carefully: “May I ask why he seems to hate you so much?”

“No,” Arthur replies.

With a quiet sigh, Merlin considers that perhaps this is not a time for politeness.

“It’s not only because he’s destined to kill you, is it? Does he even know?”

He must, Merlin thinks, if he’s a druid. But then, he’s so young.

“I’ve told you before that Mordred’s situation is complicated,” Arthur says. “That’s all I’ll say about it. We’ll keep him with us for as long as he desires to stay.”

Merlin frowns. “Even if he means you harm?”

“Especially if he means me harm, Merlin.”

They stand there in silence for a few breaths, unmoving. Just breathing. Arthur stares at his hands, turning them over by the low light of the hearth. Shadows dance across his pensive face; firelight flickers almost like magic against the smooth cut of Morgana’s earring, still hanging from his ear.

He’s so beautiful that Merlin loses his breath for just a moment. So beautiful that any more talk – of Mordred, of their purpose here, of the future – can wait.

“Here,” he offers, stepping closer, even with his heart fluttering in his chest. “Let me make up for earlier. I’ll be your manservant for the evening.”

Arthur snorts. “I doubt the mighty Emrys-of-prophecy would have trained for something like that.”

“I don’t need training to help a gorgeous man out of his clothes, Arthur.”

For a stunned few moments, Merlin can’t believe these words left his mouth.

The Prince’s eyes are round as they meet Merlin’s, but also conflicted, in a way that recalls both what passed between them downstairs and what happened with Agravaine’s men the other night. This look makes Merlin feel unexpectedly protective.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, when Arthur fails in any other way to respond. He drops his eyes to the ground. “That was inappropriate.”

Arthur clears his throat. Twice.

“It’s alright,” he says, roughly. “In truth, I’ve always dressed myself anyway.”

“Even with all those ties?”

Merlin doesn’t mean this to press him, it’s just that they look terribly unmanageable. And that it looks like Arthur has never undressed himself a day in his life, the aimless way he stands by the dressing screen, his right hand now tugging uselessly at the laces of his left wrist, not accomplishing anything at all.

Arthur gifts him with a tight smile. “I don’t need help.”

“I didn’t say you needed help, sire. But if you can look past my disrespect… I’d like to offer it sincerely. It would be an honor to serve you.” Without thinking too hard about it, Merlin lowers himself to his knees before Arthur, sitting back on his heels like he had back in the council chambers. When he looks up, Arthur’s eyes are soft and wide. The resistance has gone out of him entirely. “If you’ll allow me, sire.”

Very slowly, Merlin reaches for one booted foot. He doesn’t pull; he only sets his palm to the heel of it, and waits, head and eyes lowered as is proper.

The lifting of that foot under his hand feels like a victory.

Merlin is careful not to touch skin, as that’s seemed to be a trouble for him, but he removes Arthur's boots and his socks, and pauses for a moment when he feels Arthur’s hand gently upon the side of his head, fingers toying lightly with his curls. There’s a particular comfort in that, a ticklish warmth that prickles along his scalp. It’s a feeling that makes him want to close his eyes and lean forward; that might even warm his chest and his belly and become something other than what it’s meant to be, if he lets it.

Rather than continue to indulge that, Merlin sits back, swallowing hard. He holds up his hands at chest height, palms flat and open.

“Your belt, sire,” he says, keeping his eyes lowered. When the belt is laid gently across his hands, he adds, gently, “And your clothes, my lord.”

The delay is far shorter than it could have been.

The Prince moves efficiently, quickly unlacing first his wrists and forearms, and then the long line from his chest to his stomach, where the front of the garment breaks open in the more usual style. Merlin’s never seen surcoats like Arthur’s, but then, he has also never met a prince before. He imagines it must cost very much to wear clothing that feels as secure as it looks.

After the laces are all open the rest goes quickly, and Merlin is sure to keep his eyes down as two tunics join the surcoat across his hands, and then the trousers and braies. He comes to his feet with all that and turns blindly to trip behind the dressing screen, dumping the laundry there on the floor for now, and thanking the Goddess herself for the bag Morgana must have stored here earlier, which contains, among other things, two clean tunics suitable for nightwear.

Fresh tunic in hand, Merlin kneels again before Arthur, who dresses and then taps fingers to one of Merlin’s still-open palms.

“Stand.” And when Merlin is standing before him – so close, valiantly ignoring the lures of bared legs, the skin there shining with scars – the Prince reaches a very careful hand out to touch Merlin’s face. To press a thumb beneath Merlin’s cheekbone. To gently tilt his head up. “Your eyes should never be lowered like that before me.”

And Merlin remembers – he does, truly – that he’s the one who took the life of Arthur’s father. That he’s the one responsible for the scars he isn’t looking at; and that Arthur said, in plain Veretian, that he’d never himself felt inclined toward men or women. Merlin has all that in his mind, circling, trying to keep him grounded.

But he also sees the way Arthur’s eyes have darkened. The way they drift freely over his face, down to his mouth. He saw Arthur just downstairs, trembling like no one’s ever teased him like that in his life.

Nearly breathless, Merlin asks, “Are you inviting me to look at you, sire?”

(And he hasn’t much experience with romance, really, but this feeling must be what his father warned him about, some years ago: that he would meet someone, one day, who would kindle something like dragonfire inside of him; and he must be sure not to let that fire burn too hot or too fast, lest he walk away with the sort of scarring that drives men mad.)

He feels hot everywhere, overly conscious of the hand touching his face. Arthur is still looking at him, expression intense – not hesitant, but something else –

Considering what it means to burn too fast, Merlin makes himself take a breath. He turns slowly and presses his lips to the soft flesh of Arthur’s palm.

It’s quiet enough that the Prince’s quick exhale is audible.

“I’m not in the habit of making that kind of invitation, Merlin.”

“That’s alright.” Merlin offers him a smile. “I’d prefer it not be a habit you develop with anyone else, if I’m honest.”

Arthur stares at him for a very long moment, caught upon where his thumb brushes at Merlin’s skin.

“When I’m crowned King, you’ll go back to the Isle, won’t you? You said you have a friend there. You liked him very much.”

“I did like him very much.” Merlin’s eyes fall closed. He’d forgotten about this – that he only shared with Arthur one part of that story. “His name was Will. He died last year.”

“Last year.”

Merlin nods. “At Camlann. A few days before my father.”

He’s surprised when Arthur's lips replace that thumb, briefly, to leave the lightest kiss upon his cheek.

“I’m sorry for that,” the Prince says.

Merlin doesn’t want to open his eyes, so he doesn’t. He takes a steadying breath.

“I’m sorry, too. For what I did that day. For your scars. I’m– ”

A brief hand over his mouth stops him. There’s another kiss, to his forehead. Merlin’s eyes prickle; he tries desperately to wrangle down a sudden swell of inconvenient feeling.

“You’ve nothing to apologize for. All fighting men go to battle knowing they’ll leave changed, if they leave at all.”

“You weren’t armed; your father was. I should have had better control. It wasn’t honorable.”

Arthur pauses, then, and when Merlin looks, he finds an expression both confused and curious.

“You were what, fourteen? Fifteen? Your control was fine enough.”

Merlin huffs a soft, pained laugh. “Arthur, how young do you think I am?”

“I – ” The Prince blinks. “Well, I misjudged, apparently. You just look…”

“Small?" He tries a smile. "I know. We don’t know when I was born exactly, but it was definitely winter. This will be my eighteenth. I was sixteen when I struck you.”

“Oh.”

The air of the room shifts. Merlin takes a half-step back, trying to respect how wrong-footed Arthur seems, suddenly. As the space opens between them, the disparity in their dress – Merlin still fully clothed, the Prince holding the length of his tunic down as far as it will stretch with both hands – becomes an immediate awkwardness.

“I’m sorry.” He averts his eyes, turning out to face the hearth. “I’m– I mean, is that… is my age a… problem?”

Though Arthur doesn’t answer that right away, the sound of his breathing conveys an anxiety that Merlin doesn’t understand. (He refuses to think the worst of Arthur – that he is the type of man to use a child the way the Romans did. That can’t be the basis of Mordred’s hatred, though this idea is what slips nastily into his mind first.)

Finally, the Prince clears his throat. When he speaks, there is a hardness there and a depth of sadness that Merlin can’t even fathom, made all the worse by how dismissively the words roll out of him: “No, Merlin. I just know that men have certain needs. If you were a young man still learning yourself, it would be different. Wrong, maybe, for me to allow so close to my majority, but harmless for you. There would have been no expectations. I'm afraid this can’t go any further.”

“Expectations?”

“You’re old enough to understand what that means. Don’t pretend ignorance now, when you’ve been playing it to your advantage all this time.”

In truth, that lands more painfully than any physical strike the Prince has dealt him. Merlin isn’t sure what crosses his face – he refuses to cry outright – but Arthur bitterly scoffs at it, turning to make for the bed.

Merlin doesn’t watch him go. When next he looks, he finds that Arthur isn’t sat up to speak, but rather buried all the way to his hair, curled into a tight ball beneath the bedclothes.

He won’t be a good fuck, Emrys. Don’t bother.

“You’ll take the floor,” the Prince says, and though slightly muffled, the tone comes across as formally as he directed Merlin the first day they met. “Do not wake me before dawn.”

There’s silence, then.

Silence is good. Breathable. (He breathes it slowly, deeply, until the thickness in his throat eases.)

If Merlin were younger, he might have taken this personally; but, rather to the point, he is not younger, and he can guess now what has made Arthur so upset. He can guess that it isn’t his fault.

He can even start to guess at things which might help, even if to try to help at this moment seems tantamount to trying to draw magic through iron. What he does not have to guess at – what he knows to be true beyond any doubt – is that Arthur will be worth his effort.

Arthur wakes before dawn.

He didn’t sleep well. There was the same old litany of vicious criticisms keeping him from rest, repeating over and over again at the back of his mind, foul like it always used to be, made somehow even fouler by Merlin. (Not by Merlin. Not really. Arthur has foulness enough on his own and Merlin’s goodness has only brought it out all the more.) 

He has forgotten his purpose here, is the problem: the Once and Future King is meant to restore magic to the land, and to bring about a Golden Age, with the help of Emrys, who is meant to serve him. Meant to serve, and Arthur, who can not touch a thing without soiling it for himself and all others, took advantage of that offer of service. Let it stray, even, into something it was never meant to be.

The thoughts rattle so loudly about his head that when he finally emerges from the changing screen, redressed and comfortably restrained in yesterday’s clothes, he is startled to find Merlin awake and tending to the hearth, wearing only the tunic he must have slept in himself, looking ethereal in the glow of the coals as he stirs them back to life. The hand without the iron cuff is outstretched, palm flat, over the rising flame.

“I don’t want you to say anything unless it’s to answer a direct question,” the boy says first, without turning, and that– Arthur can admit, now, that he’s found comfort in not thinking of Merlin as a man. Both as a man he could fail to please and as a man who, with power Arthur can’t match, might take anything from Arthur’s body that he pleases, at any time. (Merlin would never; Arthur knows he would never, in his mind. It’s his body, he thinks, that’s the problem. That remembers and abhors the risk.)

Dread and fear stiffen Arthur’s spine, but there’s also a shameful warmth curling low in his belly, the longer he watches that tunic play about Merlin’s bared thighs, or that firelight play at the iron secure at his neck, above loosened laces and hunger-defined clavicles.

“You are a prince,” Merlin goes on. “I don’t imagine you’ve had many people in your life who address you as an equal. Going forward, I will do so unless either custom or any degree of danger to either of us dictates otherwise. Is that acceptable to you?”

Arthur follows his meaning with some difficulty.

“Yes,” he croaks.

Merlin nods, still not turning from the fire.

“Good. And when I say ‘address,’ I don’t only mean that superficially. I will speak to you, challenge you, disagree with you as I see fit; I will not fear to cross or to offend you. Do you understand? And do you still accept?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent.” When Merlin does spare Arthur a glance, his eyes are gold. Magnificent against the darkness of the room. “Then I will tell you this: you will never again dictate to or decide for me what I think, feel, or desire; and if you suspect that something I think, feel, or desire is a concern to you, you will speak to me about it before acting. Do you understand?”

The only thing Arthur understands right now is that he feels like a scolded child. A confused, scolded child – both captivated and terrified by those eyes.

He lowers his own gaze to the floor, hating to do so, but finding no tolerable alternative.

Much more softly: “Arthur?”

“I’m–” He's embarrassed, truly, but can't say what's in either his head or his heart. Isn't sure he could finds words if he tried. It's too much. “I can’t think, Merlin.” 

Not unkindly, Merlin says, “You don’t need to think right now.”

Arthur stares blankly at his own feet, heart quick in his chest, blood hot all through him – until Merlin’s pale toes appear opposite his own. Warm fingers, the same fingers that just commanded flame, turn Arthur’s chin up.

Merlin’s eyes are blue now, and kind, and full of other things, too, that Arthur doesn’t deserve.

“You don’t need to think,” he says again. “I’ll say it a different way. Do you feel you can trust me?”

“Yes,” Arthur says immediately, surprising himself.

“Then you’ll agree to trust me, from now forward. You’ll trust me to speak my mind, to share with you how I feel, and to be clear with you about what I want or need. You’ll trust me to do those things directly, rather than acting only on what you think or assume must be true of me, no matter what else happens between us. Do you understand?”

Solemnly, because this is somehow far easier a promise to make, Arthur nods.

“Good,” Merlin says. “I will trust you with the same, then. Or… I’ll trust you to share your thoughts and your desires, at least. I imagine it would take all but torture to pry your feelings from under all that regal bearing, you great prat.”

If Merlin weren’t half naked, it might have been easier to laugh at that; as it is, he is half-naked, and standing very close, and smiling more softly than perhaps is deserved.

“Well.” Cheeks hot, Arthur makes himself stand tall – though he’ll not, he realizes, be taller than Merlin. “You still can’t– ”

“Talk to you like that? Did we not just agree that I could?”

It’s teasing, light-hearted. The sort of thing that a less complicated man might have pursued.

“Stop that,” Merlin adds, gently, head cocked to one side. He reaches up to run the pad of one thumb over Arthur’s brow, where it’s furrowed again. “If you must think, then I’ll give you something else to consider: I owe you two apologies.”

Before Arthur can even open his mouth, Merlin is plowing forward.

“I’ve just asked you to trust me, and I’m grateful you do, but I understand that trust is something to be earned continually. So, you ought to know that when you’ve spoken common Latin to avoid my ears, you weren’t successful. I apologize for letting you believe you were.”

This is easily dismissed, as Arthur himself has feigned poor language skills more than once in his life, and in more than one capacity, for either survival or simply his own benefit. Less easily dismissed is what Merlin says next.

“And then… Gaius warned me that you wouldn’t be yourself, before we spoke last night. He told me explicitly not to ask you any questions, but then I did. I apologize for not behaving more honorably.” 

Arthur remembers thinking at some point that Merlin had no capacity for traditional respect, or for understanding hierarchical rule; and that nerves made Merlin more carelessly playful, and more talkative when he shouldn’t be. He amends this observation: to be playful and talkative is Merlin’s natural state, he thinks; and nerves only make him more or less coherent about it.

That Merlin speaks so formally doesn’t feel forced or performative, or at least, not in the way it does when Arthur must listen to petitioners or other nobles. Rather, it speaks to his commitment. Arthur wonders how long he has been awake choosing these words, and again, isn't sure he deserves them.

“You don’t need to say anything, you know.” Merlin runs fingers through Arthur’s fringe, brushing it gently across his forehead. “But I wanted to make that clear. I like you, Arthur. You’re a good man. And even if nothing else happens between us, I would like to continue to enjoy your trust. I would like to continue to earn it.”

Only one other person has issued Arthur so earnest an apology in his life, though in writing rather than in voice.

Arthur crumbled the parchment in tight fists, mouth pressed flat in an angry line. He’d learned his lesson, about the crying; and no man, as his father once said, would ever be worth his tears.

Trust is a precious thing, Balinor had written, and I wish never to break yours, so I must write now to tell you that I will not be able to return to Camelot.

There was more to the letter, but Arthur didn’t read it.

The King would be leaving again in just a fortnight; Agravaine was due to return in days.

Balinor would probably never be coming back. Never, no matter what else lay ahead.

Arthur walked calmly over to the hearth, looked blankly into hot fire, and told himself it didn’t matter. Balinor was only doing what men did when they’d finished with him – though, unlike Agravaine, or any of Camelot’s councilors, he at least tried to be kind about cutting ties.

It must have been something to do with the magic, Arthur thought, that made the parchment so slow to burn.

He left it curling and blackened amid the flames.

There was one thing Balinor did for him that Arthur never forgot, though he understood it was a thing princes generally weren’t permitted to have. Since Merlin has just said they are equals, though, perhaps an exception can be made.

Perhaps an exception is fair, and warranted, because Arthur is very tired, and Merlin is very lucky that Arthur likes him well in return – well enough to listen to all of this before the sun has even risen.

He reaches out and gently pulls Merlin close to him, holds all of Merlin’s flat torso to his own, wrapping tight arms all around that narrow frame; he presses his face into the soft warmth of Merlin’s neck, ignoring the bite of the iron collar, and holds with everything he has.

The sound Merlin makes is surprised, like air pushed out of him. But he doesn’t protest.

It’s the opposite of protest, the way he lets them melt together.

Arthur hopes this says at least some of what will never leave his mouth.

For a short pocket of time, standing there in Arthur’s embrace, Merlin is incandescently happy. It suffuses every part of him, the way his magic always has; indeed, it seems to pulse along with his magic in a new way, brightening the entire world even through closed eyes.

My King, it sings out to him, through him, over and over and over again.

Arthur holds him ever tighter.

“There’s something about you, Merlin,” he says roughly, at long length. “If my uncle knew… if he’d even guessed at it, he would never have let you live. He would never have let me have you.”

“You haven’t had me,” Merlin counters, coyly and quite thoughtlessly – deeply gratified to feel how Arthur’s body responds not with fear or upset, now, but favorably, all flushed and flustered through his many reconstructed layers.

The price of his cheek is that Arthur finally releases him. (And it is not overly subtle, the way the Prince’s eyes flicker down the partially bared length of him, showing a shy appreciation for what they see.)

“You know what I mean,” he says, a grin tugging at one side of his mouth. “You should get dressed, now. Best not delay our cloth merchant for too long.”

The promise of a new chiton is incentive enough to move, though bittersweet in nature. It strikes at something tender in Merlin's chest, the idea that Balinor might once also have done business with Charls. That he could still discover something in common with his father, even something as mundane as the purchase of cloth.

Downstairs, they find Morgana breaking fast alone. She’s still dressed in men’s fashion today, but the pieces are cleaner and more tailored to her size, if not her particular frame.

“Have you already seen Charls?” Merlin asks, at the same time as Arthur demands, “Where is Mordred?”

She blinks dark, tired eyes up at them, rather waspishly.

“You are the both of you entirely too awake. The sun isn’t risen.”

Merlin only restrains his laughter until seeing Arthur’s face, which looks nothing short of vindicated.

“I’ll just see about breakfast, then,” he says, to make up for his own cheerfulness. (For which he can not be blamed, he reasons, because neither of them could possibly understand what it is like to have some of his magic back inside him where it belongs, and also to have learned what Arthur’s body feels like against his, and also to have been given the treasured gift of Arthur’s trust; and must he go on, really? He is happy. If the iron were gone they would not be missing the tepid sun, because he would be shining instead.)

When modest bowls of porridge are set down before them with real, genuine honey and a spattering of dried fruit, Merlin thinks he will perish with his happiness. He must force himself to take slow, small bites.

Arthur, he realizes after a moment, hasn’t moved. He stares down into his own bowl with a small frown, even as Morgana finishes the last of hers.

“How can they…”

The question trails off, but Merlin understands.

“This is Gawant,” he reminds him, quietly. Grateful that the tables around them are empty. “A few years ago, King Godwyn discovered his daughter had been made a Sidhe changeling. As long as magic was banned from the kingdom, he had no means of saving her. It was a powerful reckoning for him. It’s not widely spoken of, but magic has been legal here ever since it saved Elena’s life.”

Arthur’s frown deepens.

“If magic allows them bread and honey when they wish it, why do they still look starved?”

“Because magic is only magic, and sorcerers are only human,” Morgana says, cutting a look at Merlin that feels vaguely accusatory. “At least, most of us are.”

It’s certainly not the first time Merlin has heard such an implication, but it is the first time he cares that another man hears such a thing. (Will had always known about him; Arthur can still be scared away.)

“All of us at this table are children of prophecy,” he says, deferring. Aligning them.

All ornery and impatient, Morgana rolls her eyes.

“Are you not Emrys? ‘Magic itself’?” She doesn’t require an answer, letting his silence serve as her evidence. “Gods do not decide what they are, Merlin, not any more than mortals decide the prophecies handed down to us.”

Merlin can hear the tight swallow Arthur manages beside him. He can hear his own heartbeat, too.

“Are you angry because these people starve and I’ve denied them my magic? Or because there are some things not even the gods have the power to set right?”

Morgana jerks back slightly. “I – no. No, that’s not what I meant at all.”

“I can only do so much. I’m only one person.”

“You lost your father,” Arthur cuts in, staring at Morgana with hard eyes before gifting Merlin a softer look. “And when you struck Uther down, you expended more magic than I’ve ever seen in my life. That must have taken a toll. It must still.”

Because Merlin does not want to admit to how true that is, he doesn’t speak to it himself. That’s only another reason for his difficulty with the iron, piled upon several others.

Morgana doesn’t press; if she had a point, she abandons it.

Arthur shovels a heaving spoon of porridge in his mouth and says, once he's swallowed, “That explains about Elena, though. I always thought my father called the marriage off for other reasons, but this account makes far more sense.”

“You – ” Merlin turns so fast his neck cracks. “‘The marriage?’”

“Ah, the engagement,” Arthur corrects, sheepishly. “It was arranged. Elena and I weren’t – we never – ”

“Ah, good morning to you, my friends!” A fortuitous interruption, if ever there was one: Charls approaches the table almost entirely unburdened by the hour. He looks Morgana up and down appreciatively but without heat – a professional evaluation, Merlin realizes. “I don’t dare lay any claim to your beauty, my lady, but I’m pleased to see how well these pieces flatter you. May they serve you reliably in your travels.”

With a surprising dust of pink across her cheeks, Morgana nods her thanks.

“And for you two,” Charls says, turning to Merlin and Arthur, keeping his voice low. “There is very little more this humble merchant can offer your party, but I beg you to allow me to serve to the best of my ability. I’m sure I’ve something for each of you, if you’ll indulge me.”

Merlin finishes his meal first, and that is how he finds himself, not much later, standing outside under a brownish, slowly-lightening sky, facing a wagon with a hideously bright covering. (Merlin does not know a word in any language to describe how offensive this color is, and does not ask for one, out of politeness only.)

“Let me see, now,” Charls says from within the wagon, which is of a size to allow one man inside if he hunches over, along with all the rest of the merchant’s wares. “Ah, yes, the chitons. I’ve traded with quite a few dragonlords, you know, so you have some variety here. There was the elder Matteos – he preferred a neutral color, that one, and a much longer fabric, to drape over those thick belts of his – and then Yanni, he preferred a darker wool, midlength, in the simpler style, no draping. I have a few done in the old Akielon style as well, of course, but I imagine with this weather that won’t be your preference. And – oh, here we are. Let’s try this one.”

Charls emerges from his wagon with one of Balinor’s ceremonial chitons folded in his hands. Fresh, folded. Never worn. Dark gray wool dyed with thin strips of various widths in a variety of dark greens and blues. Threaded with gold, though, instead of his typical silver.

“I’ve been carrying this one for, oh, well over a year now. A special order from Balinor, but I’m afraid the man fell in battle before we could arrange for delivery. I’d be hesitant to give it away, but I can think of no more worthy a recipient than Emrys, and these colors surely suit you.”

Merlin’s throat is tight in a way it hasn’t been for a very long time. He takes the chiton automatically, because Charls has handed it to him, but there is nothing he can do then but stare at it.

Vaguely alarmed, from what sounds like leagues away: “Mer – master?”

“Oh, yes, your disguises,” Charls says, delightedly, but still quietly enough not to let the sound travel far.

And Arthur must have come very quickly indeed from the inn, for the next thing Charls says is, “Very clever of you to use that earring, did I tell you, sire? I dismissed the surcoat immediately last night, but look at that construction! Unmistakable, if you know to look for it.”

The Prince ignores him.

Quietly into his ear, pressing a warm palm to his shoulder: “Merlin? What is it?”

But Arthur has eyes of his own, and he must apply them then to what Merlin holds in his hands, because there is a soft intake of air, and a controlled exhale, and that heavy, reassuring palm set to the small of his back.

“Charls, why don’t we leave Merlin to consider this fine work. Might you have a chiton fit for me? I’d like to be prepared to face his people as an ally, not an enemy.”

“Charls,” Merlin says, roughly – so roughly that when he looks up, the men facing him both frown deeply with concern. “The man who ordered this. Do you have anything else of his, with these colors?”

The merchant shakes his head, brow furrowing. “No, but it would be very quick work. That’s why I carry more of Matteos’ preference, you know; they’re so very easily altered. I could have one ready in an hour.” He pauses, eye softening then. “Did you – ”

Because he can’t stand to be asked what he thinks will come next, Merlin is rude, and speaks without entirely considering what he means.

“These are my colors, now, and I will share them with the Prince. Thank you, Charls.”

He walks with his hands tight upon that chiton until he’s back in the temporary safety of his room and can bury his face in it, though he knows it won’t smell like it should.

“Thank you, father,” he whispers.

Ceremonial or not, Merlin discards his Veretian clothing directly.

Because he is very good at what he does, Charls exceeds his own expectations, completing the adjustments to Arthur’s new chiton in well under an hour. Because he is also a good man, he refuses compensation for the added burden on his time and his magic.

“Nonsense,” he says, brushing away Arthur’s compliments as his manners demand. Much more quietly, with far too obvious a glance around for eavesdroppers: “This is good business. I hope you’ll remember me, sire.”

Arthur is sincerely grateful to know that this sort of discretion is not a skill Charls will need in his daily life.

“We certainly will.”

They’ve certainly every reason to – in addition to the gift he’d left at Morgana’s door in the earliest hours, Charls has since met and crafted Gwen a new outfit in the same style; and when Mordred balked at the sight of a druid’s robe, hand flying to the mark at his neck as if he’d forgotten other people might see it, the merchant barely batted an eye before offering something more Veretian in heritage, and fine enough to match his wardrobe in Camelot.

And then there was this: Arthur’s chiton, when it was finished, came to him with a modestly-sized golden pin in the shape of a dragon, whose eyes were set with two small rubies.

Indeed, Charls has been immensely gifted with both magic and an incredible eye for detail, and Arthur is already resolved that when there is time and the ability to do so, the man shall be rewarded.

Gwen and Mordred have gone inside to wash and change themselves, in light of their gifts, so it is only to Morgana and Arthur that Charls makes his actual goodbyes – through which he finally snipes with affection at a tall, sandy-haired assistant, who emerges from the inn looking more well rested than perhaps he has the right to be.

“Guilliame! Thank the gods, man. May I introduce my assistant Guilliame – he slept early last evening and rises late today, of course, but I promise you, a more valuable assistant there was never to be had. Guilliame, two of our new friends: Ursus and his sister, Ana. We will see them again, I believe.”

“You shall,” Morgana says, though the brightness in it comes out weighted, almost sluggish.

The wash of a vision, Arthur thinks, but it isn’t only a wish to distract from her suddenly vacant expression that opens his mouth to say, “You have our gratitude, Charls. When next you’re in Camelot, when all this business is resolved, you must find the King. Your magic will be very welcome in his court.”

Guilliame, who has no idea to whom he speaks, laughs outright. “Camelot’s King? Are you mad?”

“Ignore him,” Charls sighs, happily. “I very much look forward to the King’s hospitality. Good luck in your adventures, all of you.”

Charls and his wayward assistant turn to their wagon, then, and Arthur brings Morgana back inside, meaning to ask her if she’s well, if she’s had a vision, if it’s something he should be aware of – all to be struck still and thoughtless at the sight of Merlin in the open hall.

He stands opposite a table midway into the room, facing Gwen and Mordred, who sit speaking quietly – and though that’s a revelation in itself, that the boy has finally opened his mouth, Arthur finds himself wholly taken by the sight of Merlin in his chiton: he’s arranged it in the same way Balinor wore his, and this puts years on him in a way Arthur wouldn’t have expected. It’s the impression of breadth it lends him, maybe, or the way it seems to have straightened his spine, hardened his jaw. It occurs to Arthur that in wearing Elyan’s clothes these last few days, Merlin was always wearing a sort of costume. In the chiton, it seems, he is at home within himself.

There is no mistaking, outfitted like this and with both the iron and his mark showing, either who Merlin is or to where he is bound. The scars up his forearm almost glow in the light of a high fire.

“Were we not trying to avoid being known?” Morgana mutters archly, under her breath.

“I think none of us has likely ever been very good at playing less than we are,” Arthur replies, staring quite helplessly. “It’s a good thing we share royal blood, you and I, isn’t it? No need to pretend.”

“Speak for yourself. I played very well.”

“You told Charls who we were in under an hour, Morgana.”

“He was trustworthy.”

Arthur can’t quite hide his grin. “Is your sight really that good now?”

Even as they stand, though, more than one curious look is aimed in their direction. Morgana’s smile sobers as she watches three more men shuffle down from the rooms upstairs.

“I’ve missed you, brother. Talking like this. Seeing each other freely. I shall never say that again, so remember it.”

Arthur inclines his head toward her and lowers his eyes, which, absent words of his own, is the most powerful acknowledgement he can make of hers.

“‘Priestess?’” Arthur asks. “Would you ever have told me?”

Aithusa made it barely an hour in flight before having to land the first time, which was good, because barely an hour was the limit to the amount of time Arthur could bear his body to be so unnaturally high in the air.

It was a good distraction, he thought, to get this out in the open between them, apart from the others. A stomach-settling distraction.

“No,” Morgana said, simply. Without regret.

“Why not?”

“As if you don’t have secrets yourself, Arthur.” Seeing his expression, though, she softened that: “I don’t mean to force them from you. But everyone has things they’re ashamed of. That was mine. I thought that if I became like my sister, I could follow after her, and we could – well, we couldn’t in the end, obviously. I don’t believe what she believes. I am a Priestess in the eyes of the Goddess, though, and privately, I serve Her in the ways I can. I've not shared in the work of the women at the Isle.”

Heart heavy and awkward in his throat, Arthur did his best to keep his voice steady. He asked, “And you still expect they’ll help me?”

“Not just you.” She angled her chin to where Merlin was still unconscious under Aithusa’s careful watch. “Him. The two of you together, with Mordred. Prophecy is a powerful motivator.”

As far from their small group as he could get, Mordred sat quietly with his knees pulled up to his chest, watching, eyes empty of virtually all feeling. No amount of prodding from Gwen could move him, until he noticed Arthur’s attention, and sneered at it.

“Yes,” Arthur agreed, “I suppose it is.”

A powerful motivator, indeed.

“Master,” Arthur calls, dryly – quite enjoying the way Merlin’s eyes darken slightly as they snap up to his. “We await your leisure.”

With the remains of Morgana’s earring in his pocket, though, Arthur’s disguise is also failing.

“Yes, it is far past time we leave, I think,” Morgana says, slipping her arm through his.

Luckily, no one stands in their way.

If Arthur can say one thing of travel aback a dragon, it is this: that he has never so sincerely appreciated a horse in this life, nor his own two feet firm on solid ground.

They arrive at the Isle of the Blessed by the afternoon, which is both faster and slower than Arthur would have liked; though he knows, of course, that Aithusa is not unlike a horse in that she can’t be blamed for the state of the air she breathes, or for how her burdens weigh her down. The last thought he can spare to their journey is that at least Merlin was right about it – they’ve managed at least what a horse’s pace would have been in normal conditions, and no one has died or been overly endangered on the way. (That is the last thought because, as Arthur dismounts, swallowing hard to keep command of his stomach, he is faced with what bracing wind could not let him see from above.)

The benefit of having arrived by dragon is that they have landed at the island’s highest point, where it occurs to Arthur immediately that he has never before stood on an island – has never cast his eyes out in every direction and been met with a visible end to the routes by which he might flee. A daunting prospect, to be denied a path for retreat. But this is, of course, accompanied by a profound sense of awe, because by landing at a height, seeing Akielon architecture for the first time gives him a truer sense of the skill and scale of it.

Merlin appears close beside him. Low in Akielon, he says, “Welcome, Arthur King.”

Because Arthur isn’t thinking, he finds his hand reaching out, finding the folds of that long chiton. Holding them loosely in his fingers.

“Take me with you when you go this time,” Arthur joked. (Begged.) “I command it, Sir Balinor.”

Balinor's smile was strained. “You would hate it, boy. The Isle makes men feel small.”

It does make him feel small.

The temple is tall enough, and its columns spaced sparsely enough, that even Kilgharrah could fly through it if he minded his wings. It’s round and wide, and though it must be ancient, all the stone of the roof and walls and columns is bright and fully intact. The group of people slowly filtering out toward the south only reinforces how impressive and imposing it is. (He understands now why they call this Akielon and not Grecian – for though the style is distinctive, only dragons could have constructed this; no piece of it bears evidence of human interference, the decorative points all carved by thick claws or burned deeply by dragonfire, visible even from where they stand.)

Opposite the temple by some distance is a rectangular building of the same monstrous scale and pristine construction. There is a great covered colonnade along the side overlooking the temple, where more people linger, and where it seems a sort of market has been set up. There are men and women here in druids’ robes, in chitons, and even in trousers and tunics. Their bodies are thin, maybe, but they are not unhappy, not demoralized, not pushed to the very limits of their endurance. They continue to thrive, despite the state of the world.

There are other structures, too – homes, what looks like a theater, and space fit only for dragons’ mischief – but Arthur can barely stand to take his eyes from the temple.

The Isle does make him feel small, but not in a way Arthur hates. Not by any means. He wants to learn it. To grow to fit within it.

“What do you think?” Merlin asks, in Veretian now.

“It’s certainly impressive,” is the best Arthur can do, what with the way his chest throbs under the pressure of the kinds of things he is not accustomed to voicing aloud.

“Yes, certainly,” Merlin repeats, with an odd smile that quickly fades. “There is one more thing I must apologize for, before Aithusa takes us down.”

In Arthur’s preoccupation, he’s missed that Gwen, Morgana, and Mordred all remain upon the dragon’s back, looking… distinctly unsurprised by the landscape. Even Gwen seems to have seen it before, casually watching not the buildings or the people, but the way the sea crashes against cliffs far below.

Stomach in knots, Arthur gestures for Merlin to continue.

“It wasn’t just that I was betrayed when I left,” Merlin says, crossing his arms tightly. “Two Druids took me from my mother’s home here, and when they did, they told me that this was at the behest of the High Priestesses Nimueh and Morgause, who would have preferred to kill me. I wasn’t clear about that before we left Camelot. I don’t know how it will be before the people – I’ve alerted a few Druids to our arrival, so they can prepare – but I’m sorry if this makes things more difficult for you.”

Arthur has to pause there, to be certain of his position – and yes, he realizes, he is.

“Merlin, they’ll help us or they won’t; that’s their decision. If they don’t, I have other allies, other avenues I can pursue. Gwent, Nemeth. Maybe not Deira, but Bernicia might consider. We could travel further north and seek your dragonkin as well, if you would allow it. This isn’t our only possible action.”

But Merlin is shaking his head, frown set deep, eyes unhappy.

“That sounds lovely, but I’ve studied the world too. Your uncle has agreements already with Ceredigion, Essetir, and Mercia – that cuts a line clear across the south, and Deorham and Dumnonia had treaties already with Uther which I’m sure Alined and Odin would recommit to, if it meant eliminating magic from their lands. And Agravaine himself has familial connections in Tír Mor, doesn’t he? This is not a – ”

He only stops speaking because Arthur has moved closer, to discreetly fit his hand to Merlin’s side over the chiton.

“Shut up, Merlin,” he says, leaning in, connecting them briefly, temple to temple. “You forget that the first of my allies is Emrys, whose power I have seen and felt upon the battlefield. That you stand with me is enough to start with.”

Indeed, that he stands with Arthur is enough to continue on and to end with, too, no matter what sort of end that might be – but this is, perhaps, not the sort of thought that’s meant to be shared, so Arthur keeps it to himself.

“Well.” Merlin’s cheeks are deeply flushed when he pushes away. “That’s– I don’t– ” He jerks, then, slightly, and a wash of relief passes over his face. “Iseldir says we can come down. There are– that is, it doesn’t seem to be as bad as I thought. They’ll welcome us.”

“You see? Morgana was right.”

And Arthur feels too relieved about that himself to begrudge a few more minutes upon Aithusa’s back.

She flies them directly down into the temple, where at the very center, the great dragon Kilgharrah sits waiting upon an elevated perch. It’s almost cold in the shadows here, and the air is clean and easy to breathe. Magic, Arthur assumes; and though he has no problem with this – no problem with magic at all except that he’s not so accustomed to seeing it in use – his body has not breathed truly clean air in so long that he is dizzied by the ease of it. Has forgotten, in fact, how easy breathing used to be. Has redefined easy entirely, apparently, without having noticed.

“You have kept me waiting, young warlock,” the dragon says lightly, in Akielon. And more seriously: “Aithusa, Light-Bearer, I thank you for your service; and now Arthur King, we welcome you. Come set your feet down here on dragonstone, as was foretold, and be received.”

All along the columns around them, filling in the perimeter of the temple, are a mix of Druids, Priestesses, and those Celts and Britons who presumably follow the Old Religion but wear clothes as common to Camelot as anywhere else. Morgause and a woman with deep red lips stand to Arthur’s right in their unnaturally black robes, with the pins at their throat, denoting their roles as High Priestesses. Arthur is surprised to see only one other chiton inside the temple aside from Merlin’s, belonging to a brunette of middle age. He’s also surprised that the dizziness grows worse, not better, with every passing moment.

“They can only maintain it within the temple,” Merlin whispers to him, a hand on his back as they settle next to Aithusa on the stone floor. “The air. I know it’s an adjustment. Just take small breaths.”

“Of course,” Arthur pants, because isn’t that easy advice, from someone too used to this adjustment? No one in Camelot has tasted clean air for a year; Arthur’s body is fighting not to shake at the relief of it.

As Merlin helps Morgana, Gwen, and Mordred down from the dragon – or, helps Morgana and Gwen, and allows Mordred to ignore his offered hand – Arthur is reminded that though this is a diplomatic visit, he is facing an unfamiliar sort of welcome: Kilgharrah doesn’t move, and doesn’t speak again immediately; nor do Morgause and Nimueh move closer, nor the sole woman in the chiton. Instead, the people come forward first. Be received, Kilgharrah said; and that, Arthur realizes, is what they are doing: they spill onto the floor of the temple and draw close with words of welcome that Arthur is grateful to understand.

Merlin appears beside him to share in this, and if Morgana planted the first seeds of revelation back at the inn, then the Druids in particular bring it to full growth: Emrys Exalted, they whisper, in reverent rounds of welcome; Arthur King.

And Brythonic, like Akielon, is not Arthur’s best language, so he might be wrong about the exact meaning, but the tone of that Exalted is one he’s heard so often before – not in any throne room but at the altars of Old, before the new god’s worship took hold within Camelot.

This is not Exalted like Sire or Highness, he thinks. This is not even Exalted like Majesty.

Merlin stands with bright, pleased blue eyes and flushed cheeks, stately in his handsome chiton, humbly demurring what praise and welcome he receives. Brushing with open hands all the reverent fingers reaching to touch him. For a brief moment, Arthur is also dizzy to consider how irreverently he has touched Merlin himself, in comparison. How impure have been his thoughts. How casual and downright insolent his regard.

For this is Exalted like Divinity. Like Almighty. All-Seeing. Undying.

“Gods do not decide what they are, Merlin, not any more than mortals decide the prophecies handed down to us.”

Arthur thinks, watching Merlin navigate this like something he’d thought lost to him, that perhaps Morgana was right.

These greetings go on for a short time, Arthur doing his best to respond to the people in kind, and grateful that none of them reach for him the way they reach for Merlin; until finally Morgause and the other High Priestess come forward, and the crowd recedes.

“Emrys,” Morgause says, with excessive cordiality, also in Brythonic, “you are welcomed. We’re very glad to see that rumors of your death seem to have been exaggerated.”

“Very glad,” echoes the woman beside her, who turns to fix Arthur with bright blue eyes full of contempt. “And to bring with you both the King and the King’s Bane together? Surely a feat.”

“Is that the King’s Bane?” Morgause squints her eyes as she looks beyond Merlin. (And Arthur finds he dislikes the two of these women already. They remind him too much of his uncle.)

“That is Mordred,” Merlin corrects, tonelessly eliding the truth of the matter. “He is a child and our guest.”

“Well, child-guest or not, he can be sacrificed like any other. There would be no more powerful an appeal to the Triple Goddess in this great time of difficulty, than to return to Her a child of prophecy.”

Arthur’s form stiffens, protest locked in his mouth; there’s a gasp and a shifting behind them, and then silence, because they are all of them here guests in this odd equivalent of a court, and this can only be Merlin’s battle to fight.

Calmly, Merlin says, “A High Priestess would be the most powerful appeal, wouldn’t it, given the nature of sacrifice? But you would know far better than I what She would value.”

Something passes between them that Arthur doesn’t understand except to intuit that Merlin has won this exchange: Morgause’s expression goes brittle around the mouth and eyes, straining to remain visibly pleasant; the other woman smiles almost ferally, showing her teeth.

“Have no fear, Emrys,” the latter says, all saccharine and false. “No blood shall be shed today.”

“Indeed,” Kilgharrah says, in a low, booming rumble of Akielon. “You have offered your greetings, Witches. Now offer your respects and leave us to our welcome.”

Something else, too, is starting to take shape for Arthur here in the way they speak both to and around each other, and also in the way the High Priestesses proceed to slightly incline their heads to Merlin, obeying despite their clear dislike of the idea.

Morgause’s companion pauses, though, before she turns away, eyeing Merlin sharply up and down.

“A bold choice, to wear color. Can you call it Akielon if it looks nothing like it should?”

There’s barely any time for sounds of protest to echo around them; Merlin is already countering with a lethal smile of his own.

“I proudly wear the chiton of my father, Nimueh, and as you know, I command dragonfire no matter what I look like. I always will.”

Kilgharrah flaps his great wings once, sending a harsh breeze outward, and with that the High Priestesses finally do turn and make their way from the temple.

Arthur doesn’t realize he’s balled his hands into fists until they finally relax, fingernails releasing from his palms with little pricks of pain.

“Now that we’ve done with that unpleasantness,” Kilgharrah says, “let us move on.”

And what follows is almost bizarrely like any other visit to any other foreign land, in such a way that Arthur finds much comfort in the familiar assurances of welcome and comfort and of provisions for their stay – until he realizes that he and Merlin are being addressed not like two visiting royals of equal rank, but rather like Merlin is the visiting royal and Arthur his… consort? (Privately, Arthur doesn’t mind this notion; it offends his independence, certainly, but not more than it satisfies something deep inside of him which he doesn’t entirely understand.)

An older Druid comes forward, finally, who gives his name as Iseldir, and who offers to take Morgana, Gwen, and Mordred to where they will live and sleep for the day and night, and for the duration of their visit, once that’s determined. Morgana seems to know Iseldir; she and Gwen follow without hesitance, leaving Mordred, who lingers, taking two steps closer to Arthur before thinking better of such a thing and turning his gaze directly to the floor.

“Mordred is under my protection,” Arthur finds himself announcing to all who've gathered. “No harm will come to him while he’s here, or if I hear that it has, the perpetrator will answer to me.”

Mordred’s gaze shoots up, immeasurably unhappy – no doubt either to be read so easily, or to be in the position of requiring such protection at all. With a deep scowl, he goes to where Gwen has opened an arm for him, and allows himself to be pulled along in her care.

The old dragon's chest rumbles with disapproval.

“I would caution you, young King, against the company of witches and poisonous children, if I thought you likely to listen.”

“Kilgharrah,” Merlin chides, sounding vaguely surprised; but Arthur has known Kilgharrah for a long time, and needs no one to speak on his behalf.

“I was once a poisonous child, if you recall. If there is ever a time I have not made Mordred welcome by my side, it will be only because one of us has died.”

This surprises Merlin even more, for some reason. “Arthur, you – ”

“Young warlock,” Kilgharrah interrupts, smoothly, “I see a patient woman awaiting your attention. Perhaps you go with her, while I have a few words with your King, and I shall send him along after you.”

There it is again – your King – and though Arthur can’t say he minds the possessive, a small jealousy rises inside him. Who else waits for Merlin?

But when he looks around, he sees the woman from earlier – the one in the pale chiton, with dark hair tied up and eyes which are so like Merlin’s – and knows exactly who this is.

“Mother,” Merlin breathes, and then he is running, dignity be damned. Hunith receives her son wearing an expression that tears into Arthur’s chest with an efficiency to rival his sharpest blade. He turns away from them, to face the dragon.

“Arthur?” He hears, after a few long moments.

“Introductions can come later, dear,” Hunith says, easily. “Come with me, we’ll – ”

She doesn’t finish that; in the next moment, Merlin is by Arthur’s side again, reaching but not touching. Hand only hovering over Arthur’s shoulder, expression inquisitive, concerned.

It’s difficult to look at him, there in his father’s colors, fresh from his mother’s arms.

“You aren’t your father,” Merlin says, very quietly. Aware that there is still an audience here, though the people have largely disbursed. “She would love to meet you.”

“The Boy-King and I have business, Merlin.” Kilgharrah unfolds from his perch, loosening all his scaled length as he brings himself down to the stone floor, curling up where he might both face Arthur and settle in comfortably. Arthur does not step back, trusting the beast to move around him, and Merlin blinks at them, seeming a bit wrong-footed.

“I forget you’ve known each other. Alright. I’ll just be with my mother, Arthur – a Druid can show you the way.” He chances a shy smile, and then he’s gone, running off in the direction Arthur can’t bear to look.

Aithusa draws in closer as Kilgharrah finds his comfort, enough that she too can settle, pressing her shoulder and foreleg against her kin, despite their difference in size, like a pair of the largest cats Arthur has ever seen.

Neither of them speaks immediately. When Kilgharrah only surveys him with sharp eyes, weighing their silence, Arthur lets his mouth fall open with some nonsense, in the best Akielon he can manage.

“I didn’t think there was ever an Akielon settlement here.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” The great dragon gives a hot snort, and nudges Aithusa beside him.

Both more and less helpfully, she says, “There is a story here, Arthur King. The Romans said, when the mountain they call Vesuvius erupted and took many lives, that it was dragonkin who were to blame. That the gods they called Vulcan and Sol could not bear to see the divine fire wielded by creatures of magic, and made their displeasure known by reminding the world of their power: Vulcan by turning out the insides of the earth, and Sol by holding back the light of day for many long weeks.”

Arthur has had a prince’s education; he’s heard some of this before, though a version cleansed of all mentions of magic and dragonfolk.

She goes on. “The Hellenes, who you would call Greeks, felt this anger across the water from their own gods, and applied it like a sharp blade to their own bellies, carving magic away from themselves, calling it no longer Hellenic – and especially they turned against dragonkin, who were not themselves all Hellenic even then, but who came together of all parts of the earth that bear the Goddess’s fruits. They were made unwelcome and fled the land.”

Something tightens in Arthur’s chest to hear this, having lived a year now without feeling the sun’s warmth himself; having watched the turning of the people against magic yet again.

“Do you know how the Akielon people came by that name, Arthur King?” When Arthur shakes his head, she gives him the answer: “Because dragonkin were never united before settling among the Hellenes, and they made their first sturdy homes along a mighty river whose god was the shapeshifter Akhelous, who was said to enjoy wrestling, and enjoyed the challenge of making himself into a dragon, so he might face his new opponents as their equal. Dragonkin were forced from the land, but they took the name of their god-friend with them.”

Arthur is so invested in the way she tells it that he forgets this is not only a tale.

“This was not a matter for Akhelous, though, young King,” Kilgharrah says, “so we flew to the great mountain, to seek Hephaestus and his favor; and when we found only rock where the gods should have waited, we sought Helios. We flew west, so we might outpace his chariot across the sky.”

Aithusa waits for him to go on. When he doesn’t, she finishes for him: “When they could fly no longer, facing down the mighty sea, they chose this island for a place to rest. This was the very first settlement, Arthur King, hundreds of years ago, before dragonkin moved north to make their own Akielon kingdoms, where now they live.”

Kilgharrah gives a rumbling hum of acknowledgement. “That was nicely done, young Aithusa. But remember, an oral tradition requires honesty. We must not give too much flourish in recounting the histories.”

Arthur doesn’t believe he has ever considered Kigharrah’s age before this moment. This dragon has watched generations of mortal Akielon men be born and live and die, likely bonded to a new dragonlord every fifty years or so, though he seems not to have one now. He has watched for so long that the Akielons he now calls kin, like Merlin, consider distant history what he remembers himself.

It’s difficult to fathom.

“I suppose you would call me Boy-King even if I were to grow old and gray?” Arthur finds himself asking. “Even old men can only be children to you.”

Kilgharrah does not laugh, forgoing an answer to what Arthur supposes he sees as a tasteless joke.

Exercising every effort he can toward propriety, he asks instead, “This was always a temple, then? Constructed to honor their gods?”

“It was,” Aithusa says.

She tells him, to Kilgharrah’s enduring silence, about the nature of the building, the order of the architecture; she explains the dragonstone, how it’s been kept in such fine condition, and how it is sometimes still used for its original purposes, when dragonkin travel down from the north, though it is shared now with the gods and creatures of other men, and most often, with the Druids' Triple Goddess.

Most excitedly, as light drains from the sky, she shows him how dragonkin keep their temples lit – and Arthur realizes with a visceral, ghostly pain in his legs that this is not actually the first time he has seen dragonfire put to use.

“He’s fighting me,” Gaius said, helplessly; it took three pairs of hands to hold Arthur down at the shoulders, and another two at each bared ankle, his trousers and braies cut away from him.

He screamed, and a hand then also covered his mouth.

“How bad is it?” Leon’s voice asked, strained. “Will he lose them? Will he live? Will he– his manhood– ”

“I must treat the Pri– the King, Sir Knight; I’ve no ears for questions. Hold him steady, now.”

Arthur must clear his throat, eyes watching the way some material set high in the dragonstone catches alight, carrying flame in a ring high around the roof’s edge, and then some ways down each column, to bring warm light into the space.

“And who,” he asks unsteadily, thinking he already knows the answer, “do they honor here now?”

Kilgharrah gives a discontented flick of his tail.

“My young King,” he says, “they honor the prophecy. They honor Emrys. They honor you.”

Merlin loves his mother more than anything else in this life – even as she dotes over him, and even as that doting turns to tears over the iron still affixed to his neck and wrist – but there is an itching under his skin that worsens the longer he is parted from Arthur, and he quickly finds this is not the sort of itch he can ignore.

He walks her to her home, which is gratifyingly unchanged in the days since he was taken from it, but can’t cross the threshold himself. He thinks about what’s inside – the hard-packed earth floors, the sweet smell of the herbs she burns to cover the not-so-sweet smells of her work, the windows missing the glass so common in Camelot – and he suddenly can’t bear to go in.

“Oh, Merlin,” she says, knowingly. “Go on, then, and bring him back here with you.”

Which is how Merlin finds himself standing in the shadow of a column just outside the temple, listening to Arthur splutter over the idea that he should be in any way deserving of reverence.

“It’s only prophecy,” the Prince says, in his enchantingly terrible Akielon. “It might not come to pass.”

To Merlin’s surprise, Kilgharrah disagrees. “It’s already begun. Did you not understand? The moment your father died, you became King. That was interrupted by the Regency of your uncle, but you shall yet be crowned and made King again.”

Once and Future, Merlin thinks, furious with himself for missing that. For not realizing.

To know that the prophecy is already in motion changes things. Specifically, it changes how Merlin regards Mordred, who naturally now presents more of a threat to Arthur, even if he is just a child.

He can’t imagine that Arthur’s thoughts are any different, so it makes sense when the Prince ends this line of conversation quite firmly.

“You asked me to stay behind because you had business with me. Is that business now concluded?”

“Not as such.” More softly than Merlin has ever heard the dragon speak – indeed, more softly than he’d thought him capable of speaking – Kilgharrah goes on: “You stopped writing to my dragonlord many years ago, but he did not stop writing to you. We rather suspected that the letters were stopped before they could reach you.”

Merlin’s body gives that primitive jerk which accompanies the feeling that one is not where one ought to be. This is not a conversation for his ears, but he finds himself frozen in place.

If Arthur answers, it isn’t aloud.

“There is a final letter, young King, if you would read it. He left it in Hunith’s hands before his death.”

There’s another long pause, and Arthur, with a voice too well controlled, asks, “Is that all you wanted to say?”

“Just one more thing, which I owe to you now that you have years enough to hear it.”

“Speak, then.”

Kilgharrah growls something low and vaguely pleading – which must be to Aithusa, as Merlin can’t imagine him ever addressing Arthur in such tone – and shortly there is the sound of a dragon moving, which Merlin tracks as she smartly flies off, lands gently at a short distance, and then edges quietly back, where they inside will be blind to what stands in darkness, but where she might settle and let Merlin press back against her as they listen.

“Your mother Ygraine came to us, once,” Kilgharrah says, when he is apparently satisfied that Merlin should not overhear this on his own. “You were still very small inside her when a Druid first met her with prophecy. She asked me, and she asked Balinor, what right she had to bring you into the world, when you would face only suffering and death over the length of too short a life.”

Merlin presses back harder against Aithusa’s foreleg.

“What did you tell her?” Arthur asks, flatly. Hard as stone.

“That if she chose to keep you, she would bear into this world the Light of Albion. A King among Kings, destined to lead the peoples of these lands out of pain and suffering because he would know the way already himself.” A pause there, and then, almost apologetically: “Also, that prophecies only seem cruel to those who have turned from the old ways, which hold sacrifice among the most valued acts any mortal might carry out before the gods.”

“Is that – are you telling me that this has all been foretold?” Arthur’s rage is only more powerful for how quietly he lets it seep out with each word. “That my childhood was sacrificed upon the altar of a man’s pleasure, for– for what, to make me a better king? A humbler one? One who’d sooner throw himself upon the prophesized blade of a child than find his own way, a better way, to lead his people out of darkness? And my mother- you told my-”

His voice chokes into silence.

Merlin’s heart has fallen out of his chest, and all his thoughts with it. He clings to Aithusa only by instinct.

“You’re angry now, young King. That is a reasonable response. But you’ll shortly understand, the way your mother understood, that the terms of sacrifice are not decided by mortal men.”

“Is that the last you had to say, dragon?”

“Yes, young King. And I hope that with time, you might come to forgive me.”

Arthur’s disgust is palpable as he snarls, “What time? Am I not to die before I even see the kingdom I save?”

When Merlin reaches for Aithusa, she already knows what he needs. She lowers her head and lets him climb, and with a few bounds and a powerful kick, they rise far above ground Merlin wishes he might never touch down upon again.

Chapter Text

V.

What pulls Merlin out of the sky is the sight of his Prince standing at the edge of a cliff on the far side of the temple, looking down as if men had not been meeting death there for centuries – or maybe, looking as if he knew exactly that. (Merlin can’t be sure, so Aithusa lands, and lets him go with an affectionate bump of her snout.)

He meets Arthur at the cliff’s edge. The only light they have is what shines softly out from the temple; to look downward here is only to feel cold wind and to hear sharp, crushing waves against the rock far below, through unforgiving darkness.

“May I ask you to take one step back, sire?”

Merlin thinks he won’t, for a moment – but then Arthur concedes two steps, arms still clasped behind his back.

“I suppose it would be too much to ask of the gods that they might have kept you from hearing any of that?”

“I’m sorry.” Shamefaced, Merlin speaks to the ground. “I didn’t intend to eavesdrop.”

They stand for a few moments, listening to the water and the sounds of the night.

“Is it odd that this air feels normal to me now?" Arthur asks, suddenly. "I realized earlier that I haven’t properly worn a scarf in weeks outside of training. I’d have sworn it was getting better before breathing that air in the temple.”

This isn't unaligned with what Merlin's observed, and he says as much into the tense space between them: “I think it is getting better, to be fair. The temple just makes the difference all the starker. If I had to guess, we’ve less than a year before it clears.”

“If you had to guess?” Arthur looks at him directly now, face half-lit and gaunt with shadow, eyes empty. “Is that the guess of man or the guess of a god? Would it be as pointless to kneel before you as it has been to kneel before all others?”

“I’m not a god,” Merlin answers, whisper-soft. “This is the first moment I’ve ever wished I was.”

The Prince nods, as if he expected nothing less, and Merlin chooses not to expound upon how passionately he wishes he could say anything else.

“Will you come back with me to my mother’s home?” He asks instead. “It’s only, she's said Iseldir gave her a key for the irons, and I don’t trust anyone else to touch them.”

This seems to drain the stiffness from Arthur’s shoulders.

“Of course. It would be my honor.”

They walk together slowly, and when Merlin manages to conjure a weak ball of light to guide their feet, Arthur asks him so many questions about how this is accomplished that Merlin quite wishes he’d applied himself more to the study than the impact of his craft.

He takes them off the beaten path, eventually, just ahead of his mother’s home and around the back, where they might climb in through Merlin’s window without disturbing his mother at all.

The best part about this room during the day is that it overlooks the water; the best part at night is that it catches the cool breeze. Merlin draws pale, weighted curtains and calls a fire up in the hearth, warming the modest room in more than one way, and dismisses his foot light. Arthur watches all of this with something like awe in his expression.

Cheeks hot under observation, Merlin shrugs. “This is nothing. Small things.”

“It’s not nothing to me,” Arthur says. He clears his throat, then, casting his eyes around the room, putting an apparently valiant effort into not seeming as awkward as Merlin now feels himself at their solitude. “The key?”

This lies in the mantle above the hearth, where Merlin's mother said she’s been keeping it for him – the iron is so cold it almost burns his fingers, but when Arthur steps closer to take it, he seems not to be bothered.

As he examines the key in his hands, the Prince asks, too casually, “Who was it that made you wear them?”

And – oh, Merlin hadn’t considered this part, truth be told. He considers a lie now, but with all that’s happened between them in so short a time, immediately discards it.

With a small, mildly petulant huff, he says, “I’m afraid I can’t tell you. These aren’t men you can thrash on a training field.”

“They hurt you.”

Arthur's eyes tell him that he wouldn’t thrash these men at all – he would kill them.

Merlin swallows through some thickness in his throat. Can’t explain to Arthur that no one can hurt him, really. (Can’t bear to counter with a reminder that, just days ago, it was Arthur taking the belt to Merlin’s back; he doesn't dare to counter with that, either, since it was Merlin who burned the skin from Arthur’s body first.)

“That I won’t trust them for some time doesn’t mean I wish them harm. They were doing what they thought they had to. And I do have to admit that they delivered me directly to you, which…”

“Which?”

Merlin smirks. “Which I would consider a gift, if not for how I seem to have acquired the duties of a servant in the process.”

“As if you actually did a single one of those duties, Merlin.”

Here before the fire, Arthur’s face looks far less troubled than it did at the cliff’s edge. When he reaches up to set a comforting hand to Merlin’s neck, just under the iron collar, he looks nearly at peace. But then Merlin shivers, sensitive to the warmth of that palm against his skin, and the Prince’s eyes take on something dark but complex; and Merlin is reminded, again, of what he overheard down at the temple.

“This one first,” Arthur asks, thumbing slowly at the collar, “or the other?”

It has no right, that small shift of pressure, to be doing so much to Merlin’s body. To be drawing the heat up out of him so fiercely.

Wordlessly, Merlin holds up his wrist – and Arthur must be trying to kill him, because when that hand drops from the collar, it goes not to the cuff it’s meant for, but to the expanse of skin above it. He holds Merlin here even more carefully here, passing that same thumb along the lowest lick of distinctive, pearlized scarring where it runs up the forearm.

“These are like mine,” he says, softly. “Was this also done by magic?”

“No.” It takes a few beats for Merlin to find his voice again. “It was Akielon dragonfire. When I was young.”

The corner of Arthur’s mouth pull down, just slightly.

“Why do you call it Akielon dragonfire? Is not all dragonfire Akielon by its nature?”

“It’s not, no.” Merlin seizes the distraction. “The name meant something different, once, but these days the Akielon dragons are those who live here in the company of humans. Who might even consent to be bound to one, like Kilgharrah or Aithusa. There are many dragons in the world who remain unfriendly to humans and their ideas about tying culture down to any one land, or who don’t consider themselves Akielon but something else entirely.”

Arthur’s frown deepens. “The dragon who did this…”

“Did it to protect me.” Merlin won’t tell Arthur it was Kilgharrah, but this at least he can share: “When I was young, someone came to us who claimed to be a seer from Delphi. They made trouble – said many things about me that weren’t true, but that people wanted to believe, because they thought I was also Emrys. My parents didn’t want to engage with them at all, but the dragon recognized the danger, and said that if what the seer believed was true, that dragonfire wouldn’t harm me. He burned me to show them I could be burned like anyone else.”

“To prove that you were human.”

“Yes.”

“Well.” The Prince swallows so hard that Merlin can hear it. That thumb brushes up and down his smooth skin again as they both consider the old wound. “How appropriate for a dragonlord.”

Merlin can’t bear to explain that dragonfire is not the right of any mortal man to wield. That a true equal of Arthur’s could never have done such a thing upon any battlefield – that Kilgharrah did, in fact, only trick that seer away with a powerful choice of words.

That Merlin is in truth neither a man nor a god, but something in between.

Arthur takes hold of the cuff, finally. “Let’s remove this, then. Just the one?”

“For now. I don’t want to risk hurting anyone.”

In an inverse sort of reflection of how it was forced upon him, the iron comes away far easier the second time: the key is turned, the iron removed, and Merlin gasps with a stellar sort of joy as his magic swirls wildly, more at home inside of him, flaring the fire at the hearth, calling the wind up to rustle the curtains, reaching with barely-concealed ferocity for its King, who does not jerk away but accepts this invisible weight of Merlin’s with something fond in his face.

Merlin can’t even apologize. He is almost liberated, despairing only of the final fetter about his neck, and forgets himself, following the weight of his magic with his own body. He throws his arms around Arthur because that is what his magic begs him to do. Buries his face at Arthur’s neck because that is what feels most like home in this moment. All of Arthur’s hard lines dissolving against him is no relief; rather, this feels like it did the first time Merlin stepped inside the cleansed air of the temple, breathing and breathing it in, fast and deep, until he was so dizzy he could hardly stand – he holds Arthur tighter and tighter, finding no resistance, no gaps between them, and it isn’t enough.

More, his magic whispers.

He turns them with steady hands and pushes Arthur backward, so the Prince stumbles to a seat on the narrow bed behind him. Merlin has never felt more powerful than he does in this moment, standing close and tall above Arthur, whose hands reach and whose eyes are wide like discs and whose neck flushes red even as Merlin watches.

His magic is alive within him, clamoring for touch, telling him how Arthur’s heart races, how his blood heats, how he needs –

“I’m sorry,” Merlin gasps, taking hold of those hands, closing his eyes. Grounding himself. “I’ll stop. I can stop.”

“No.” Arthur uses one of Merlin’s hands to brush cold knuckles over his eyelids, whispering, “Let me see,” and Merlin remembers that when the magic burns within him, his eyes are not his own.

He can’t breathe for a moment, a riot of competing desires inside.

“It doesn’t frighten you? Would you admit it if I frightened you, dollophead?”

Arthur laughs, low and steady. “And what language is dollophead a word from, Merlin? Surely it isn’t Veretian.”

“It is absolutely a word,” Merlin retorts, trying desperately to manage the abrupt swing of his magic toward manic, abject happiness, lost in Arthur’s coy half-smirk. “You’re just upset that my grasp of Veretian is that much better than yours of Akielon.”

“I have a fine enough grip upon this Akielon, thank you.” Arthur tightens his hands around Merlin’s, opening his knees so that Merlin must stand closer between them – and just like that, the air of the room is gone hot again.

“Arthur– ”

“Shut up, Merlin.” The Prince’s expression is serious, no longer vulnerable. “I have feared you, in truth, but I– I want you to always be you. You need never to change or hide yourself. Not for me; not from me. Never. Do you understand?”

Merlin doesn't have words for that, so he drops to his knees.

He guides one of Arthur’s hands to his neck, holding the other down to the bedclothes beside them, and lays his head gently against the inside of Arthur’s thigh.

“What about this,” he asks, though it’s impossible to miss the shiver that passes through the Prince when their eyes meet.

“This… doesn’t scare me.” Arthur begins to tremble; but before Merlin can even think to pull away, that grip at the bend of Merlin’s neck and shoulder tightens, holding him in place, thumbing idly at the collar again. “It’s not you. There are– specific things. Specific moments that bring the past back to me.”

Merlin presses his face down into Arthur’s firm warmth, letting his magic release, enjoying their closeness for what it is.

“At the inn, you said you’ve never had a manservant help you undress. Is that why?”

“Part of it. I’ve rather always thought it would be nice to have magic for that – how easy it could be, to move in and out of clothes without witnesses or wandering hands.”

Slowly, Merlin meets Arthur’s eyes.

“I could do that for you,” he says, voice undeniably affected by the thought. “Though I fear I would make for both witness and wandering hands, if you’d allow it.”

If it was down to magic alone, Merlin would know the answer already; he can tell how Arthur’s body receives this idea, as a mirror of his own. But he doesn’t push, unwilling to take this farther than he should.

Cheeks flushed, Arthur looks away. “This is your mother’s home.”

“My mother has lived among Akielons for many years,” Merlin says, unable to hide his grin. “But if your Veretian sensibilities demand it, here – ” and with an unnecessary wave of his hand, Merlin sends some of his magic to the walls between this room and his mother’s, hardening them to sound, protecting his Prince’s privacy. “All alone, now.”

Arthur’s pulse is visible at his throat.

Merlin wants to sink his teeth down into it. Watches where royal blood flows warm under that skin. Wonders how hard he would have to apply his mouth to bring it to surface. Wonders whether Arthur would bruise easily, or if it would take some time.

“Well, Merlin? Is this what I should expect of a manservant with magic? All talk and no – ”

He swallows his words, because Merlin has abandoned the ruse of a hand wave or a swish of his fingers or a word or two in the sorcerers’ tongue. Arthur sits naked, now, the hard severity of his interest unbared for Merlin’s eyes to see, for his hands to touch, for his – well.

Merlin’s mouth is too dry, suddenly.

“Alright?” he croaks, closing his eyes, hiding his face in Arthur’s now-bared thigh. Reveling in the heat and the smoothness of scarred skin against his cheek.

“Look at me,” Arthur says, tightly. And when Merlin does, very aware that he is still clothed himself before this gorgeous creature, who even under the duress of famine is the most erotic thing Merlin has ever seen, the Prince tells him: “You should know I won’t reciprocate.”

Merlin’s head tilts to one side.

“I wouldn’t ask you to.”

A heavy gust of breath falls straight out of Arthur as he looks away. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking, though it’s more than evident by the rise of him what he’s still feeling.

“Maybe this is a mistake,” he whispers, at length, though his heart still pounds in his chest.

Merlin sits back, carefully. Sets gentle hands to Arthur’s bared knees.

He waits until Arthur looks at him.

“What you want is not a mistake. You’re allowed to want me. To want my hands on you. My mouth on you. I want that, too.”

Arthur swallows visibly. With decisiveness, he leans back on his hands, so that the long length of his bare torso and scarred, spread thighs shine in the flickering light of the hearth, open like an offer.

“If you want it, then you should take it.”

And it’s so beyond tempting to do just that – Merlin’s body is all heat, all vibrating tension – but Arthur still holds himself so tautly.

“You must be very used to people taking from you.” Merlin presses his lips gently to pearly skin, where the scars fade out at the top of Arthur’s left knee. “I want to give, Arthur, but nothing more than you want. Nothing more than you’re willing to receive. I’d be happy to just sit here like this, even, for as long as you like.”

He doesn’t push – but does shift down to keep pressing kisses into the skin above Arthur’s knees, alternating, one on this side, one on the other, slowly moving up to mid-thigh, around each side to where the scarring stops and back again. He can hear their breathing roughen together; he can hear his own heart racing.

Sometimes Merlin feels a hundred years old, the way some people talk to him and both about him and the depths of his power. Kneeling before Arthur’s hardened cock, tongue brushing smooth scar tissue now and again, listening to the small gasps that follow each stolen taste, reminds Merlin that he’s not so old after all. That he’s still alive. And that there’s still more to feel, and more to learn, which he can feel and learn with Arthur if Arthur will let him.

“Is this to His Majesty’s liking?” Merlin hazards to ask, not quite taking his lips away from where they work.

Arthur's voice is unsteady when he speaks.

“That’s an address for a king, Merlin. I’m really not– ” He cuts himself off with a deep hiccup as Merlin bites softly at the inside of his right thigh. The way his head falls back is one of the most beautiful things Merlin’s ever seen.

“You are.” It isn’t even about prophecy; Merlin can’t explain it, how his magic worships Arthur. How he himself longs to worship Arthur. “You are my King.”

Merlin’s face is lifted. Arthur’s hand shifts to the back of his neck as his other grips Merlin’s side, to pull him closer; and rather than tolerate an awkward angle, Merlin is crawling directly onto his lap, then, clinging and letting himself be clung to.

“You don’t owe me this,” Arthur whispers into his neck, nearly too low to hear. “You don’t owe me anything because I’m King.” 

“Clotpole.” Merlin doesn’t know what else to do but press himself even closer, so close their hearts pound together. It feels like the entire world exists only within his arms in this moment, and though precious, he refuses to be delicate with it. He tips his mouth to Arthur’s ear and, very softly, spills what secrets his magic shares with him: “You are the King, and I am all the Lands of Albion; and if you have power over me, Arthur, that is only because I give it to you – and I give it freely, because you are worthy of it in every way. There is nothing owed between us. Only shared.”

The heaving of Arthur’s chest, the crease of his brow, the sweat and flush of his skin… Merlin finds Arthur’s eyes as he reaches low between them. As he brushes the tips of his fingers along velvet-hard warmth.

“May I?” He asks, over the way Arthur gasps.

“I told you I won’t recipro– ”

Merlin smirks when, with a well-placed drag of pressure, his prince’s eyes flutter closed.

“Is that what I asked, Arthur?”

Slack-mouthed, Arthur shakes his head. His hands seize upon Merlin waist, though, pulling instead of pushing away, and his breaths come in short gasps, which are all signs Merlin wants to take as confirmation that he’s wanted.

He takes his hand away, though, when Arthur’s breathing only shortens, backing up on him. When he begins to tremble, expression closing almost entirely to what's happening between them.

“Arthur? Look at me, sweetheart.”

The Prince stiffens at that, but doesn’t withdraw; he presses his face into Merlin’s neck instead, grip bruising now at his sides.

“Sorry,” Merlin says, wincing. Slowly, he runs hands up and down Arthur’s bare sides, fitting fingers idly to each rib and stretch of muscle. “Did you not like that? ‘Sweetheart’?”

“No, he– ” Arthur hesitates. Then, quietly: “He always called me ‘little bear.’”

Merlin can’t help but freeze, his legs tensing over Arthur's, arms pulling him closer.

(Always, like it was more than once. Like it could have been often.

Little bear – sweetheart – things one might call a child.)

“Are you telling me that this has all been foretold? That my childhood was sacrificed upon the altar of a man’s pleasure?”

It’s difficult to not pull away. To not immediately ask questions which will only serve Merlin’s own concern, his own curiosity.

“The man who hurt you, you mean?” is all he asks, and Arthur, face hidden, hums an affirmative.

This is not a time for guessing. With a deep breath, Merlin decides this stolen time between them shall not belong to the past.

“Alright,” he says, dropping a kiss on Arthur’s temple. “None of that for now, then. What about the rest? I know you won’t reciprocate; I don’t need you to. But I am not that man, Arthur. I will stop right now if you want me to, and that would make me very happy, because it’s something you’ve asked of me. What do you want?”

Something about that strikes Arthur deeply. It’s impossible to tell what, and Merlin can’t ask, because in the very next moment his face is framed by Arthur’s calloused hands and those lips are pressed firmly to his.

It’s warm and chaste, the kiss. Undemanding, until it isn’t. Until the heat grows impossible to manage, and they must both pull back to breathe.

Temple pressed to temple, Arthur whispers, “I do want you, Merlin. I want to stop thinking. I want it to be simple between us.”

“Then it will be simple. I’ll make it simple.”

There’s nothing simpler than this: Merlin reaches down between them to take Arthur in hand. It takes only a small magic to slick his fingers – Merlin forgets to ask; he’s just always done it, himself; he forgets not everyone does – and Arthur shudders in his grip, hardening again where he’s briefly softened, leaking with a desperation that sends Merlin’s heart flying.

Paired with a firm stroke, Merlin says lowly into his ear, “Do you like my magic, Arthur?”

The Prince pants his desire out over the skin of Merlin’s neck, unable to answer except with a throaty groan. Merlin takes extreme satisfaction in letting him go – in the feverish whimper that shakes from him when they break apart – and in falling swiftly back to his knees to take Arthur whole and throbbing into his mouth.

And if Merlin loses himself here, if he clings to every part of Arthur’s body he can reach, if he lets his magic wander as freely as it can, prickling along their skin, alighting every part of them it touches with desire – well. He certainly receives no complaints about it. Arthur arches into him over and over again, one hand firm in Merlin’s hair and the other clenched in a fist in the bedclothes, holding as if for his life, mindless with a pleasure Merlin doesn’t dare consider except to take extreme pride in being its cause; until his middle and thighs spasm fiercely under Merlin's hands, and his fist pulls at Merlin’s rough curls, and his breath stops, and he spills hot down Merlin’s throat.

There are a few moments of incongruence: Merlin is still dedicated to his task, intent upon licking his Prince clean; while Arthur by contrast is like a battlefield patient waking up from injury, confused to find an ally where just before there was an enemy.

His hand is tight on Merlin’s shoulder when he pushes back at it, tight like he would just as easily break as brush it away. The magic softens that grip. Runs gently down Arthur’s back.

“Alright?” Merlin asks, still panting himself.

Slowly, Arthur nods.

The Prince pulls Merlin into his arms then and does not let him go for the remainder of the night.

When morning comes, Arthur wakes so entrenched within the comfort of Merlin’s returning magic – so indelibly marked by the claim it’s staked within and upon him, which may or may not have been born of Merlin’s conscious effort – that to startle at the sight of Merlin’s mother standing just inside the open door, one hand held respectfully over her eyes, is not even vaguely possible.

Arthur blinks up at her for several blank moments, searching for his nerves, for his discomfort, and finding neither where they should be. (He lies undressed with Merlin sleeping heavy in his arms, Merlin’s chiton long undone, so they are pressed together skin to skin, touching everywhere beneath the bedclothes; and yet, there is only contentment within him, bone-deep and languid and… certainly the doing, he realizes, of magic.)

“I’m so sorry to wake you, my lord,” Hunith says quietly. “You’re both needed. Aithusa saw riders approaching this morning who carry the standard of Camelot.”

She withdraws, closing the door behind her, and still Arthur’s discomfort is nowhere to be found. There is only foreboding, and resolve, and of course, the deep well of what fills his chest when he looks at Merlin, which he can’t yet name.

“Merlin,” he whispers, reaching up to run a thumb across one of those cheek bones. He presses a kiss there next, and then another to his forehead, and a third to his chin, a fourth to the corner of his mouth, and by this point, Merlin can’t hide his drowsy smile.

Arthur decides that he wants this every morning for the rest of his life, even if that life will be short, and even if this makes him very selfish.

“My uncle has sent riders,” has to leave his mouth next, however, and in short order, Merlin’s smile is gone. They dress quickly: Merlin with his back turned, in a dark chiton from his modest wardrobe; and Arthur in the same clothes he’s traveled in, which Merlin wordlessly reproduces with a burst of magic.

Part of Arthur wonders what it would be like to wear the woolen chiton Charls made for him, but most of him isn’t ready for that. Most of him still longs for the layers of tunics and tight hug of the surcoat, and the comforting repetition of the laces which secure it. That it makes him look intimidating is also a benefit, if he must face his uncle’s representatives today.

At the bedroom door, Merlin pauses.

“Last night…”

Arthur presses a hand to the small of his back, in what he approximates must be a comforting gesture, and Merlin leans in, pressing his forehead to Arthur’s.

“It wasn’t too much?”

“No.” Arthur swallows down a flutter of nerves. “Though, I wonder if your magic will release me any time soon. Do you think it will be the same when we remove the collar?”

“When my– ” Merlin jerks back with widened eyes. “What?”

That, at least, answers that question.

“Never mind,” Arthur says, because the idea of explaining the goings-on of his insides absolutely repels him. “Hunith said we’re needed.”

And though he gestures ahead of them down the stone hall, from where the sounds of cooking echo out to them, Merlin stands his ground.

“What do you mean, when my magic will release you?”

“Nothing, now let us– ”

“Arthur– ”

“Merlin, have you forgotten who you address? I am your– ” (Though, to his utter embarrassment, Arthur stumbles over the distinction between Prince and King. He is still only the former in his own mind, but then, he remembers Merlin whispering into his ear, you are the King and I am all the Lands of Albion, and his entire body reacts as if that’s happening again now.)

“Yes,” Merlin growls, planting a hot hand on his chest, pushing him back hard against stone. “Mine. My– ”

He freezes. Closes his eyes, denying Arthur the sight of those bright golden irises. Slowly steps back.

The kitchen has gone silent.

And Arthur finds the magic has not cured him after all – he struggles to loosen his hands where they’ve tightened into fists, and to hold himself still while his body longs to attack.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin says, roughly, eyes lowered now to the ground. “I know better than that. I’ll just– ”

Arthur catches his arm before he can leave.

“You’re forgiven.” He adds also, then, because he feels he must, “I’m beginning to understand that you are just as much a part of magic as magic is a part of you. You come as a pair. I will accept that and all it entails, but that must also mean you give me leave to discuss personal matters in my own time. I’m not… accustomed to it. To speaking freely in this way. Is that acceptable to you?”

Merlin nods.

Softly, then: “Did I not tell you, Merlin, that your eyes should never be lowered before me?”

When Merlin looks up, his gaze is clear and blue again, and fraught with things Arthur can't even begin to name.

They stand there unmoving until Hunith appears in the hall.

“Boys,” she says, quietly, and that is all the prompting they need, cheeks pink, to look away from each other and follow after her.

The front room of Hunith’s home is not only a kitchen, but also a workroom and place to eat. The closer they get, the more aggressively the scents of food and herbs and burning sting Arthur’s nose. In the room itself, there is a hearth, a place for preparing food, a worktable with the various trappings of what looks like a physician’s work, and a table for eating with two long benches at each side. There’s a curtained, glassless window at the front of the room, which Arthur is still struggling to comprehend – is there a reason for no glass? How do they endure winters without it? How do they not fear invasive strangers, when Merlin was only recently stolen away from this place? – when he remembers that the majority of people on this island practice magic. He wonders if Hunith is one of them.

There are tools for cooking and other trade-related hangings all along the walls, and several shelves with odds and ends, and even a bookcase stacked with vials, glass jars in a variety of sizes, books, boxes, and a scattering of small wooden carvings.

Arthur recognizes the carvings. He looks sharply away from them, ceasing his examination of his surroundings, and follows Merlin to the table, which is set with two small bowls of porridge and water for each of them – though, he can’t sit. Not yet.

If Merlin exchanges words with his mother, Arthur doesn’t hear them.

Balinor – Arthur thought his name was Balinor, anyway; they’d only been introduced the once, just a fortnight past – handed him a wooden carving.

“I’m too old for toys,” Arthur said, stubbornly, but he gripped the little dragon tightly enough to hurt.

“No one is ever too old for toys.” Which is a nice thought. But then, rudely: “Do you often think about your mother’s death, Arthur?”

“Shut up.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Balinor sat beside him on the battlements in his long chiton, Kilgharrah flying wide, predatory circles out in the distance. Arthur kicked his bare feet out in open air, numb in his belly except for when he leaned forward to watch his toes, free against all that great height.

“It happened ages ago,” Arthur said. “I am a Prince. This is none of your business.”

“You’re right, boy; it is so far from my business as to be laughable.”

And – that’s all he said. Nothing more. Balinor sat beside Arthur and let him kick his feet, let him edge closer to open air, let him exist, when no one else could tolerate him up here. Which was fine, even if to be watched was annoying. Arthur didn’t think he cared for Balinor’s presence either way until Kilgharrah began his flight back toward the castle, when the dragonlord sighed, finally, and stood up.

“She jumped from right here because of me,” Arthur blurted out quickly, blinking up at him against the bright sun. “Did you know that? They say she fell, but she jumped. I saw her.”

A brief pause.

“I did know that,” Balinor said. Kilgharrah drew closer and closer. “My name is Balinor. Do you remember me? I live at the Isle of the Blessed with my wife, whose name is Hunith.”

“I remember.”

“We were friends of your mother’s – friends of a sort, anyway – before she became Queen. I wonder if you’ll give me leave to speak of her with you, from time to time.”

Arthur found his throat was very tight, then. No one ever wanted to speak of his mother. Not anymore.

He nodded, though, and when Balinor left on Kilgharrah’s back, took his feet out of the air and wandered back into the castle.

Hunith is a force not unlike Balinor, Arthur thinks.

She approaches him slowly, warmly, holding her hands out with the palms down, so that it is easy for Arthur to match her – they grip each other’s forearms for a tight few moments.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Hunith,” he says, voice raw. “I must apologize – that my father took the life of your husband. And that I’ve done violence against your son myself. And now have spent the night in his bed without your permission.”

All this tumbles out of his mouth with his head bowed low, and when Hunith raises a hand to touch Arthur’s cheek, he can’t shy away from it. Her face is gentle when he sees it, and not hateful, as it would have had every right to be.

“My husband fell bravely in battle,” Hunith corrects, gently, “and my son is Akielon, as you know very well. He can seek his own justice for any wrongs between you, and he will share his love freely. That has nothing to do with me.”

There is a smug hum – as if Merlin wishes to shout told you so, but has chosen instead to exercise restraint – from behind Arthur. Hunith ignores it.

“Balinor told me about you, Prince Arthur. You were one of his favorite students, I think. Certainly his only student without magic. I was always very sorry he couldn’t go to Camelot more often.”

Arthur can only shake his head.

“I know you have business this morning,” she goes on, “but I would ask of you – because the old dragon has asked it of me, and he does not ask anything lightly – will you help me to honor one of Balinor’s last wishes?”

One needn’t be a seer to know what she will pull from the pocket of her chiton; Arthur lets her slip the fold of parchment into his hands without protest.

“Read that while you eat now, boy, and if you need us to leave the room, just say so. There is no shame here in this home, but we do understand privacy when it’s necessary.”

She sends him to Merlin’s side with a gentle push, and Arthur goes, trying to decide how it feels to be called boy now that he’s missed it for long – now that he can’t really call himself one anymore.

Conscious of what this letter might contain, he keeps it angled away from Merlin’s nosy gaze.

Boy-King, the letter begins, and already Arthur must take a deep breath.

He doesn’t eat, although his stomach aches to be filled. He reads the letter once through, instead – it’s very short, enough that Merlin hasn’t finished his meal; enough that Hunith is only now sitting down with a bowl of her own – and then, throat working, reads it a second time.

Frowning deeply, stomach somewhere open on the floor, he reads it a third.

“Alright?” Merlin asks, softly.

No, Arthur thinks, I am not alright.

“Fine,” he says aloud. Then, tonelessly: “How old were you, when the dragon burned your arm. When the seer came from Delphi.”

Hunith freezes across the table. Merlin frowns.

“I had… maybe, five years then at least, right Mum? Four or five. Why?”

“This is my uncle’s corridor. What are you doing here, Dragonlord?”

“I was invited,” Balinor answered, shifting one hand to move something shiny under his long woolen chiton. “Don’t you remember my name?”

With the gap in their ages, the timing could have been right.

“That seer claimed to have brought a way out of your prophecy.” Arthur folds the letter into a very small square and presses it between his fingers. “He told Balinor how it might be accomplished, and a fortnight after you received that burn, your father came to Camelot to murder my uncle. Can you guess why he didn’t?”

Merlin doesn’t guess, but Hunith holds herself so still that Arthur suspects she knows a great deal more about all this than he’d have liked.

(And Arthur can’t speak to the truth – can’t say, because he didn’t expect who crawled out of that bed to be me, even if Merlin now knows a little something about it. He can’t. Nor could he possibly follow with, the seer decreed that both the Queen’s brother and his bedmate must die; nor could he ever deliver the death blows: that Balinor didn’t fail in his task; that it was only the child-prince of Camelot in Agravaine’s bed because the King’s Bane hadn’t yet been born; that the seer had failed, sending the dragonlord to address a vision so many years out of place. Arthur can say none of that, and decides he never will.)

“The seer was wrong,” he lies, since there is no tolerable way to speak to the truth. “There is no way out of this prophecy.”

Hunith’s hands tremble as she sets her spoon down on the table.

“Mother?”

She only waves Merlin off, who looks between the two of them, confused.

“Hunith,” Arthur says, “am I to understand you’ve read this?”

“I have, sire.”

(And doesn’t that sting, the transition from boy to sire? Arthur ignores how it pinches his insides that she won’t look at him.)

“The seer was wrong,” he tells her.

“Of course, sire.”

Seeing he will get nowhere with his mother, Merlin turns a hardening expression toward Arthur and holds out his hand.

“Let me see that.”

“No.” Arthur moves to tuck the folded square into his surcoat, but finds with a jolt of his heart that it’s gone, suddenly; Merlin’s eyes are flickering gold, and then the parchment is in his hands, and being unfolded, and Arthur makes a noise that is frankly embarrassing, hands flying uselessly out to him.

“Stop, Merlin.”

“Why?”

Arthur’s breathing comes fast and shallow. Heart in his throat, he holds out just one hand, now, because Merlin has paused – the letter is nearly open to him, nasty words detailing the darkest parts of Arthur’s history right there on the parchment, but Merlin has paused. He’s listening.

“You– you said I should tell you what I need,” Arthur says, wetting his lips. “And to trust you, and I do trust you Merlin, but I need– you can’t– please– ”

It’s Hunith who breaks the impasse between concerned curiosity and desperation: she plucks the letter from Merlin’s hands and delivers it back into Arthur’s, where it belongs.

“What have I told you, my son, about using magic to take what isn’t yours?” Her voice is gentle, though there’s still reprimand there. She doesn’t look at Arthur, but at the way he compulsively refolds the letter again to something miniscule. She says, sounding very far away, “I always wondered why he left you there. Why he never went through with it.”

Arthur swallows with some difficulty, struggling to breathe, to be calm, to steady his heart. The surcoat helps; he tugs at the laces at his left wrist, testing them.

“I always assumed he didn’t consider it his business,” he says, ignoring how Merlin’s brow furrows deeper and deeper. “But it makes sense that he would wait, if he… if he assumed the conditions of the prophecy could be met in future. He would have done anything to protect Merlin.”

“And you.” Hunith meets his eyes, now. “You knew him, Arthur Pendragon. He wasn’t only protecting my son.”

And it’s not that this wouldn’t be nice to believe – Arthur does want to believe it – it’s rather more that Arthur’s memory doesn’t hold enough evidence on its own.

“That’s enough for now,” she says, after a few beats of silence. “Eat that quickly. I sent them away earlier, but one of the Druid boys will be back to fetch you very soon.”

For the first time in a long while, though, Arthur has no desire to eat at all.

A single rider comes ahead of the others, who Aithusa consents to ferry across the water.

Merlin waits at the head of the long colonnade with Arthur, who only stands still because Merlin’s rebellious magic has wrapped around each of his booted ankles, forming a sort of weighted resistance that the Prince very fortunately appears to appreciate. (And Merlin is glad they didn’t also remove the collar, because if his magic is this inappropriate even still fettered, he can’t imagine what it will be like when fully liberated – the thought of last night still drives heat in rolling flares all across his body, and it’s all he can do to keep that to himself.)

Aside from Arthur, there is Iseldir and Aglain and a few other Druid leaders; and then opposite them, Morgause and Nimueh with a few of their acolytes; and lastly, Morgana and Mordred, who stand close by Merlin’s left and slightly behind him. Kilgharrah waits across at the temple upon his perch, unmoving.

Gwen has been sent to Hunith’s house for reasons Morgana wouldn’t share within Arthur’s hearing, but which Merlin can guess have to do with her time as Morgause’s prisoner. More secrets, there.

Merlin is coming to hate secrets very much.

There is an injury, Aithusa thinks to him, from the far shore; he conveys that to the group.

Iseldir sends a young man for the kit with his healers’ things, and also for Hunith.

The rider slides boneless from Aithusa’s back to the stone floor when she finally lands, and Arthur rushes forward, heedless of any danger.

“Leon,” he shouts, turning the knight onto his back as Aithusa clears the space for them. “We need a physician here!”

There is blood everywhere, but it’s black. Old. Splattered upon his clothes instead of soaking them.

Leon wears no armor; his broken arm has been unstrapped and bends at an odd angle. His face has been beaten black again. A belt has been tied tightly above his tunic, and through it a dagger has been pushed, and belted over again to be held in place. Merlin can’t imagine the pain, but he can sense, at least, that this wound is new. An hour old at most, and not yet permitted to bleed, so heavy is the pressure upon the hilt.

Arthur sits back on his heels, seeing these same things. Understanding what they mean.

“Iseldir – ” The Druid comes forward when Merlin calls, going to his knees on Leon’s other side. “Can you wake him?”

“Emrys, I don’t think– ”

“I didn’t mean to ask.” Merlin holds his voice firm. “Wake him. He won’t take issue with our unkindness if it saves a life.”

Arthur nods, running a hard hand over his face, jaw tight. “I agree. Do it.”

The colonnade is silent as Iseldir works. The High Priestesses stand a silent watch, stone-faced; Aglain speaks quietly with his fellows, eyes tracking Iseldir’s progress with worry that likely only extends as far as the news Leon brings with him.

Merlin is not prepared to look at Morgana and find that she stands alone, watching rapt with red-rimmed eyes, arms wrapped around herself.

He grips Arthur’s shoulder, pulls at it, feels Arthur’s entire frame tense up as he understands.

“Mordred.” That the Prince’s voice echoes up and down the colonnade only underlines the note of devastation in it. Morgana jerks, hands flying to her mouth when she realizes she’s lost the boy. “Where is Mordred?”

Or – not lost, Merlin thinks. He can’t help but see how convenient a moment this is, to wait until Arthur is distracted; and then, very uncharitably, he considers that this could be part of a plan. That Mordred could have been waiting for this exact moment to slip away from them.

Aglain meets Merlin’s eyes, briefly.

I will take care of it, Merlin thinks to him.

To Mordred's mind, Merlin says, If you have ever loved him, in even the smallest measure, you will return to us now, and we will never speak of this moment again.

And he waits, listening to Iseldir speak his prayers, feeling the flow of magic working through them. Merlin’s hand keeps adjusting itself against Arthur’s shoulder, his back, the nape of his neck. He can’t bear to let the Prince go entirely where he hovers by Leon’s side, and as there’s no protest, Merlin doesn’t stop either his hand or his magic, which still curls up around Arthur’s ankles, grounding him.

Leon wakes with a raw cry, in spasms of pain. He is a knight, though, and with his knight’s training he assesses his surroundings even as the groans leak out of him, his relief and misery at the sight of Arthur equally palpable.

“Sire,” he gasps. “Lancelot– ”

Merlin’s heart falls.

Arthur grips Leon’s good hand, which is perhaps the only part of him not beaten purple or bloody.

“Tell me.”

“He – your uncle.” Leon coughs lightly, relieved by Iseldir’s hand over his chest. With a deep breath and wide, unfocused eyes: “Agravaine is holding him. He’s put out his eye, the bad one. He says you will meet him in parley tonight, or he’ll put out the other. And when Lancelot runs out of eyes, he will take Gwaine’s, and when Gwaine’s are put out, he will take– ”

“Steady there,” Iseldir says softly; and with another burst of magic, Leon sleeps.

In spirit, Merlin would like to protest – Leon might have more information for them – but seeing Arthur’s expression, he abandons that before ever voicing it. This isn’t only Arthur’s knight, no matter the odd social distance kept between them. This is his friend.

And it is apparent now, at least, that the reason for Gwen’s redirection was not related to the past at all, but to the wretched present.

Morgana remains a statue at the edge of the crowd, staring not at the scene Leon makes but at her sister. There’s defiance in her eyes, unhappiness, hatred. But also relief. A touch of challenge and arrogance, where Morgause and Nimueh look even more disconnected from the proceedings than before, staring back at her like she is nothing. Lower than nothing.

Merlin isn’t sure what to make of that, but then Hunith arrives with Iseldir’s bag and her own, and they attend together there to the matter of saving Leon’s life, as Merlin has seen them do for men many a time before.

He draws Arthur up, away, helpless to the way his magic wanders the Prince’s skin, the way it tracks his heartbeat, the way it brushes through his hair.

“Merlin,” he breathes – censure, but warm, grateful for the comfort.

Merlin debates reaching out again to Mordred, not wanting to but wondering if he should, seeing the way Arthur’s eyes continue now and again to dart about the colonnade and across what they can see of the temple and the island from this vantage. He briefly considers asking Aithusa or Kilgharrah for help, but given their hatred of the King’s Bane, decides against it.

Mordred, he tries again, finally – and adds, thinking their last words should be kind: It isn’t your fault, you know. We are all children of prophecy here. We do the best we can.

The boy never answers, and doesn’t return.

Once Leon has been borne away safely to Hunith’s for recovery, the atmosphere up and down the colonnade – which, judging by the scattered hints of commerce and revelry must typically be high-spirited – takes on something strongly reminiscent of the council chambers back in Camelot. The dismissal of non-critical people is subtle, but plain to Arthur’s eyes as it happens, and universally uncontested.

This is no longer a matter open for open discussion, it seems.

It is a much smaller group left when the excitement has passed: from the Druids, Aglain remains; from the High Priestesses, there is Nimueh. (And Arthur is grateful, spitefully, that he has insisted Morgana should stay with him… if Morgause hoped for further distraction to sink her claws into his sister, she’ll be sorely disappointed.) They wander down to stand between the two column sets at the end of the long row, looking out at the temple where Aithusa has gone to join Kilgharrah, who watches them, still seated upon his perch at center round.

A terrible, terrible thought occurs to Arthur.

Following Merlin to where the others wait, he asks, discreetly, “Will the dragons join us?”

Merlin shakes his head. “They trust me to speak for the interests of all Akielons for now.”

Even more quietly: “How often does he leave the air of the temple?”

Only years of watching faces and bodies tells Arthur that Merlin understands this question, and doesn’t want to answer.

Surely enough, he spares Arthur a sad smile. “You’ll have the time to ask him that yourself.”

If Arthur is not at all prepared to lose Mordred, he is significantly less prepared to consider losing Kilgharrah. For a few blinding moments, he feels as if some phantom limb has been plucked from him, something essential but subtle, unnoticed until now.

Merlin’s magic is a calming, steady weight around his ankle.

When Arthur and Merlin have joined Aglain and Nimueh – Morgana does not stand equal with them; she waits by the stone wall of the structure supporting the colonnade, arms crossed tightly over her chest – the first to speak, naturally, is Nimueh.

“I’m sure I don’t understand what possessed you to bring such a savage to our doorstep. The High Priestesses will have nothing to do with this. We have our own plans for dealing with Camelot.”

Aglain says, placidly, “Why don’t we allow Arthur Pendragon to speak for himself as to his purpose?”

And after all this, all the events of these last few days, all these months of clandestine meetings and near-assassinations… finally, Arthur must open his mouth to tell someone what he’s endured upon the path to his ascension. Someone who will listen – for Aglain surely will, if not Nimueh. And yet.

The words don’t come.

He thinks, instead, of his father. Of his younger self.

“The duty of a King is that and more: not only to fight honorably, but to lead honorably. To understand that some battles can not and should not be fought. To pursue intelligently only those which either can be won, or those which can not be avoided.”

“Avoid this one,” Arthur begged, quietly.

He thinks that to lead honorably is not always as easy as to fight honorably.

“It was not my intention to bring brutality to your door,” is what he tells them. “I wish my uncle wouldn’t have sent that sort of message, but if anything, perhaps it can serve to underline a truth often too feared to be spoken: that my father and my uncle have been brutal people, particularly in their treatment of those who use magic. My intention when I take the crown is to relegate the exercise of that brutality to the past.”

Merlin is frowning, now; he tenses as if to speak, but Arthur continues before he can.

“I will ask nothing of the Blessed this morning except for your continued hospitality. Merlin – Emrys – has said he will pledge his service to me, and I will accept that, if it is still offered. That is enough, for now.”

Aglain raises a brow. “And later?”

“I have no wish to involve others in what might still be resolved as a familial matter, so I will meet with my uncle tonight at his request and hear his terms. I know that Camelot has done grievous harm against you and yours in the past, and if I seek anything here, it would not be to add to that harm. When I return, I would ask only for an audience to carry on this discussion. To witness me, if nothing else.”

Nimueh sniffs her disapproval but voices no opposition. Aglain, for his part, seems amenable.

Merlin practically vibrates with discontent, but that’s for them to address somewhere more private – where it will be appropriate to do what the magic crawling up his body is silently begging him to do. (Another thing for which Arthur is deeply unprepared – the reactions of his body to Merlin that aren’t shame or otherwise painful, but rather calming and centering and relieving. Merlin’s magic is a balm. The promise of his skin is sanctuary. These are not the kind of thoughts Arthur is used to having to banish away while worrying for himself or his men, or while holding any form of court.)

“Is that acceptable to the three of you?” He asks, straining desperately to sound unaffected.

“I’ve said all I have to say. The High Priestesses do not fight men’s battles for them.”

“That is not – ”

Arthur silences Merlin with a hand to his arm; the magic tightens all along Arthur's calf in retort.

“I would not ask that anyone fight on my behalf, so in that we are agreed,” he manages. “Aglain?”

The Druid nods. “I will hear your terms, Prince Arthur, whatever they are. Though, of course, if Emrys has offered his service, the Druids will stand behind him.” To Merlin, he adds, “And to that point, I will remind you that while you are the strongest among us, Merlin, we are not all of us war-making peoples. Our aid is limited by and to our skillsets.”

When they’ve discussed how Arthur will travel – by Aithusa, Merlin says, with her consent – and who will go with him – Merlin volunteers himself – there is nothing more to say. Aglain wishes them luck before taking his leave, at least; Nimueh offers them nothing but a cool glare.

“Come with me,” Merlin says, leaning close into Arthur once they’re alone – though, of course, they are not alone.

“I’ll just leave you to it, won’t I?” Morgana says, as if she knows exactly what Merlin’s lips have just accomplished, brushing against his ear like that.

Her laughter isn’t cruel, or even teasing. When Arthur looks over to find her, she’s only happy. Light in a way she hasn’t looked for a very long time. Relieved, almost, even with all that’s happened, and with all that lies ahead.

She’s seen something new, he realizes. Something good, apparently.

“Morgana,” he chides, flushed entirely red. “You’ll come with us, of course. Gwen will need you.”

The mood shifts. Deflates.

“She loves Lancelot. I didn’t wish to keep it from her. I just– ” She rubs at her eyes. “Agravaine couldn’t decide. I saw Leon come; I saw Lancelot. I saw death. Someone’s head cut from their neck, brought in a sack. I couldn’t– I didn’t want her to see it, if it was Lancelot.”

Arthur is glad of it when Merlin goes to comfort her, because to do so wouldn’t have occurred to him. He’s too revolted to think. Too disgusted with his uncle for any other thought to take shape.

They go together to Hunith’s home, then, the three of them, where they give Guinevere the news that her lover has lost an eye, and where they learn that while Leon has yet to wake, Iseldir has fed him water from a cup of some power, which has saved his life.

Time takes on an odd quality; Merlin experiences it as if walking from one dream to another. He has a suspicion as to why, but few ways to test it in his mother’s home.

Gwen and Morgana have taken Merlin’s room for themselves, just for this moment, so Gwen might process what she’s learned without too many watching eyes. On the other end of the house, Hunith and Iseldir speak quietly over Leon’s body, which has been put into Hunith’s bed, because that one is closest to the hearth and her worktable, which is a mess of half-prepared ingredients, both finished and unfinished herbals, poultices, and several instruments of healing including the magical cup. The belts and bloodied dagger must have been removed in this room, too, because there they lay on the floor, blood soaking the hard-packed earth.

Merlin’s magic operates independent of his will. It clears away the offending puddle of blood; it monitors the steadiness of Leon’s breath and the pace of his heartbeat; it tells Merlin that his mother is untroubled, that Iseldir feels something looking at her that Merlin has absolutely no business knowing, that Gwen is much calmer now, that Morgana is dealing with something new, a vision, something she’s seen that frightens her; it crawls over Arthur’s skill and tells him –

“Merlin?”

The Prince is there, suddenly close, pulling him back in from all the places he’s expanded.

The iron is itchy in a way that’s beginning to transcend Merlin’s ability to ignore it.

What is it? He doesn’t say, letting himself be gathered up into strong arms, drawing comfort from them, eyes closed. The magic communicates this for him. (Not the way Druids speak – not mind into mind – but without words at all.)

If Arthur thinks it’s odd to be addressed in such a way, heart to heart, he doesn’t say so.

“You’re shaking. Your eyes are gold.”

He tactfully leaves the your magic is misbehaving unspoken.

“I can’t decide,” Merlin says, as levelly as he can, “whether it was a very good thing to leave the collar on, or a very bad thing.”

“We can take it off now. Last night was better – didn’t you say you felt you’d explode the first time?”

Merlin catches his gaze. “I feel like I’ll explode now. I feel like crawling out of my skin.”

“We could– ” The Prince says it seriously, but a hint of flush still dusts his cheeks and the tops of his ears. “We could go out to the woods, across the island. If you must explode, you wouldn’t harm anyone.”

“I would harm you.” Merlin knows it with utter certainty. “That’s not worth risking. Not right now.”

There’s no need to explain what he means. He’s certain Arthur can feel it in every pass of his magic. In every breath shared between them. In every passing glance.

It makes Merlin nervous, truthfully. He is Akielon, and does not often feel shame about sexual desire, but the way he wants Arthur right now feels almost compulsive – predatory, in a way. The iron fetter makes his magic desperate, makes it reach frantically, with no concern for how it will be received, and knowing Arthur, knowing their short history, and having hope for what’s growing between them, means he must be responsible. (Above all else, he must not hurt who he’s sworn to protect.)

Warm fingers catch his chin, and then Merlin is looking into Arthur’s eyes again, borrowing his strength. A thumb passes over his cheekbone.

“Come, then – you must do something with your hands to pass the time. Teach me how to mix an herbal. Or to chop. Or are you inept here as well, if you’re not using your magic?”

“I was not inept.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Merlin, you couldn’t balance a single tray of food.”

“Oh,” Merlin laughs. “That was on purpose."

A handful of herbals later – tutelage is, Merlin is surprised to find, an effective enough distraction – Iseldir and Hunith emerge from Leon’s bedside.

“He’ll survive with no lasting damage,” Iseldir tells them, in Brythonic, and Merlin can feel it, how a tension releases from Arthur at this news. It fills his chest with lightness. “We’ll have him eat as soon as he wakes, and have him move and speak some to be sure, but all should be well.”

Before Arthur can so much as thank him, the Druid turns to Merlin with a complicated expression on his face.

“May I ask, Emrys, why you continue to wear the iron?”

“I…” He looks at Iseldir, and then at Hunith, and then at Arthur – and because he’s sensitive of his Prince’s Veretian modesty, he asks first. “May I tell them? You don’t have to stay if you’d rather not.”

It’s impossible to miss how Arthur swallows down his first reaction, which Merlin reminds himself he isn’t entitled to know.

After a pause: “If it will help you, yes. Of course. I’ll see to Leon. I should be there if he wakes.”

Which is how Merlin finds himself explaining, with only the slightest discomfort, how being relieved of the iron has affected him: the first great burst of power, narrowly avoided; and the second, channeled into something else.

“Well, that’s certainly a unique reaction,” Iseldir says, a light frown tugging down his features.

“It wasn’t a sexual arousal the first time. It was just – it felt like raw power rushing into me. Gwaine went from one cuff to the next and it felt like I would destroy the entire world if he kept going.”

Hunith stirs at that. “Gwaine? Arthur didn’t remove the first one?”

“One of Arthur’s knights. And no, he– ” Merlin blinks at her. At Iseldir. “Is that…?”

“I couldn’t say if it made the difference,” the Druid says. “But I agree that leaving it on for now is the better choice, if you wish to accompany the Prince to meet with Camelot's Regent. Though, I imagine your control until then is of some concern to you?”

Merlin nods, even now feeling like his bones are vibrating. Like he could crawl up the very walls, absent the focus of a menial task, though he tries not to dwell on it.

“Let us test a theory, then,” Iseldir says, and gently shepherds Merlin from the house.

Arthur thinks, when he sees Leon lying peacefully – nose in its nose-shape again, skin unpurpled, arm unbroken; healed, essentially, of all that ailed him – that he shall never truly understand what made his father so hateful of magic.

For Arthur had endured the same loss, hadn’t he? And not come out the same on the other side of them.

“Magic is evil, Arthur. Evil. Your mother would not have died if not for its influence. Never forget that.”

But Arthur knew. Remembered, always. Would never forget what she said before the end.

He doesn’t think of her. Never thinks of her.

It’s easier to think of his father, of the blows dealt them both. Of the way Agravaine worsened it, especially after –

“Arthur?”

Gwen draws him out of his thoughts with a tentative smile. She stands in the open doorway, looking into Hunith’s sparse bedroom with reddened eyes, and tries to smile. Morgana hovers close behind her.

“Come,” he says, and gives Gwen his chair, and they just exist there, for a while, watching Leon breathe. Not unaware of how close they came to never seeing him breathe again, which is always a risk, for a knight, but not a risk anyone preferred like this. Under such honorless circumstances.

When he can stand the silence no longer, Arthur says, “I’m sorry, Guinevere, for what my uncle has done,” because Leon is recovered by magic, but Lancelot’s eye will never find its way back into his head, if what Leon said out on the colonnade is true.

Gwen holds her chin high. “You’ve no need to apologize. Your uncle is a monster.”

“My uncle is like a wild animal. When he’s afraid is the time he’s most dangerous."

“Have you seen him like this before?” Morgana asks.

“Once.” Arthur tugs the laces at his wrist. “I was young. I don’t remember it very well.”

He sat upon his uncle’s lap, turned into him, clinging – only for warmth, he told himself. Only because he shivered every time that heavy hand pet at his back, and his father must not see it.

“Arthur, really. Don’t you have any words for your father?”

He had none. He’d avoided his father’s eyes every day since the end of the war, and if the gods would allow it, he wished never to find himself under their scrutiny ever again.

He whined as his small hands were pried from his uncle’s robes.

“Hush,” Agravaine snapped.

Arthur was removed then to his own chair, but kept his eyes lowered, and his shoulders hunched, and prayed in every way that he might disappear.

“He’s worse. That is not Arthur,” Uther said, in a horrible voice. “What’s happened to my son?”

Agravaine sighed. “I’m afraid that the dragonlord Balinor found his way into the castle, while you were gone.”

No one knows better than Arthur – no one except Mordred, that is, or the boys who presumably came between them – the lengths to which Agravaine will go first to get what he wants, and then to protect what he’s achieved.

He looks at Gwen and Morgana, who look back at him with the kind of respect he has never deserved.

“It’s good that he’s this desperate. He’s more likely to make a mistake,” he tells them, and tries to believe it himself.

Because Hunith keeps a water clock, and because dragons apparently have excellent internal timekeeping, there is no chance of losing track of time over the day. Arthur is made to eat twice, though he tastes nothing, and sits with Leon for long stretches of silence before Merlin returns with Iseldir practically glowing – not literally, as with magic, but figuratively, as with a fierce relief and satisfaction.

“I just needed the right outlet,” Merlin says, sheepishly, where they all gather at or around Hunith’s table. For the benefit of Gwen and Morgana, he explains, “I’ve been having a bit of trouble adjusting. As the iron comes off.”

And because Morgana in particular is interested to hear it, Iseldir explains about magic and conduits and what happens when a natural vessel like Merlin is cut away from the raw magic of the earth – which is as far as Arthur listens, because Merlin has come close to stand beside him, and though the magic is no longer grasping wildly, what it stirred up in his body has not gone away.

“Am I still welcome to join you? To see Agravaine?” Merlin asks, quietly. “My magic won’t be any danger, not to you or anyone else. I promise.”

“What did you do? To fix it?”

Again, there’s that sheepish look. Merlin’s cheeks flush, and Arthur isn’t sure whether or not that should alarm him.

“I didn’t realize iron binds the flesh, not necessarily the magic. I’ve never really been one for study.”

“You don’t say.”

Merlin rolls his eyes. “Prat. I mean, I didn’t realize that the fetters impaired only me. I was the one that needed fixing. Iseldir had me exercise myself, that was all. You were right, in a way, about keeping busy.”

Curious, because Merlin seems not to want to say, Arthur asks, “And how did you exercise yourself?”

“I, um. Burnished stone? From the cliffs. With dragonfire.”

“You burnished stone,” Arthur echoes.

“And built a house with it.”

“And built a house with it. Naturally.”

“Yes, well.” Merlin’s cheeks are still red, and Arthur wonders if that skin will be very hot on his lips if he kisses one of them. “It worked. The iron damaged my ability to exert control; I just had to rebuild it enough to get on with.”

Just.

Just had to heal in the space of a few hours what Arthur suspects, by the way Iseldir keeps leveling awed eyes in their direction, it takes mortal men far longer to recover.

Better to focus, he thinks. Better not to think harder about Merlin’s power than he absolutely needs to. Better to keep to the matters at hand.

“You’re still wearing the collar for a reason, I assume.”

Merlin nods, shifting his weight. “Iseldir thinks it’s best to wait. A fortnight at least. To take the last of it off as slowly as possible would be ideal.”

“You don’t sound as if you like that idea very much,” Arthur says, to which Merlin shrugs, and wrinkles his nose.

“It’s itchy. I don’t like it.”

And that’s fair enough, Arthur thinks.

“Are you ready to face your uncle?” Merlin asks, then – and suddenly every eye in the room is upon them.

This, combined with the lengthening hour, compels some honesty out of him. (Some honesty and also a warning.)

“I know him. He would not invite me to meet like this if he thought there was a chance we would engage him in battle. He wouldn’t risk losing face over a loss.” Arthur finds Morgana’s troubled eyes. Gwen’s. Hunith’s, too, with difficulty. He does not look at Iseldir – can’t tolerate the idea that perhaps Iseldir knew how to treat Merlin because he had harmed him in the first place – but finds Merlin’s gaze again, and takes a fortifying breath.

“Agravaine says things, sometimes,” he goes on. “He twists things. Makes it difficult to understand what the truth is. I’m ready to face him, but I would ask, whatever you hear tonight, whether it’s by my side or here by messenger – and this goes for all of you, not only Merlin – that you do not think any less of me. I am telling you now with my own mouth that I will not concede to Agravaine’s demands. That I seek my throne and will not be held from it except by death.”

Arthur looks around the room again to underline it. To commit it to their memories. Hunith’s expression is stricken. Morgana’s is like stone.

“That is the truth,” he declares. “That will remain the truth, unless you hear me say otherwise myself.”

Merlin takes his hand. “We hear you, my King.”

Arthur relies upon the tight grip of the surcoat to keep himself steady. That, and Merlin’s fingers tangled with his own.

In many ways, it is not surprising at all to climb down from Aithusa’s back and see that Agravaine stands not only with Mordred, but also with the High Priestess Morgause, who wears the armor of a knight, hair in a long braid over her shoulder. There is another man with them as well, a Druid with whom Arthur is passingly familiar – Alator, he believes, of the Catha, who once pursued Morgana as a lover, until it became clear she had no ambition for the throne. (In these allies, a picture begins to form, relating to Morgana. Arthur immediately rejects it.)

Well behind them, there is a score of armed and armored men, all mounted, and of course, there too are the standard-bearers of Camelot. It is quite a presence. Only magic could have achieved this under the weight of famine, which gives shape to the depth of the commitment of Agravaine’s allies.

Lancelot and Gwaine - indeed, any of Arthur’s knights - are nowhere to be seen.

“Aithusa,” Merlin says, levelly. “Stay with us, please.”

When they’d assumed Agravaine might honor the traditional concept of parley, the plan was to have her retreat to the Isle and return later; since it appears he has not, there is no harm in a stronger show of force. Arthur won’t argue that decision.

The field is wide but not overly long, right on the shores of Glywysing, opposite the Isle – Arthur can certainly understand the lure of this terrain to weary dragons, if it hasn’t changed since attracting their very first landing. He can also understand the lure of it as a site of parley for his uncle, since an arrow might very easily fly from one end to the other in the space of a breath, and Arthur has brought no arrows himself. When Agravaine moves forward with Mordred, leaving the High Priestess and the Druid behind, he can be confident that his marksmen might strike before Aithusa could even consider letting loose her fire.

Arthur swallows deeply, heart pounding, and strides forward to meet his fate with Merlin beside him. (For a single moment, Arthur feels right. He is the Once and Future King; this here is Emrys; this moment is destiny in motion.)

He can’t tell at first what it is that disarms him.

His body is moving. His senses are uncompromised. There has been no attack, physical or magical, to speak of. And yet, Arthur’s stomach seizes. All the hairs rise along his soft and vulnerable parts, telling him there is danger, screaming at him that something is wrong. His breath comes short. His traitorous heart is failing him. The surcoat keeps him tall, reminds him he must stay upright; and he realizes, now, his uncle close enough to see the exquisite detail, what it is.

Agravaine is wearing what doesn’t belong to him.

“My son,” she said, cupping his chin with a soft hand. “My brave Prince. My little bear.”

It’s the most despicably underhanded shot he could have taken.

Arthur has dedicated over half his lifetime to the effort of never thinking of her. To ignoring her name. To banishing her face from his mind. To resisting the lures of sense memory, when they strike, except for within the sanctuary of Morgana’s chambers, which did not always belong to Morgana.

He thinks of her now, though, because Agravaine does not wear the crest of Camelot, which for decades has been the crest of the Pendragons, which the standards still fly in the bright reds and golds of old Vere. (Arthur can’t take his eyes from the deep blue of his uncle’s cloak, from the shining silver of its clasp, the closer he comes. From the broach affixed to one shoulder.)

He thinks of her now, because Agravaine has instead chosen to wear, to the site of where he presumably intends to finally rid Arthur of aspirations to the throne, the crest of De Bois.

Upon that shoulder, he wears the sigil of Arthur’s mother.

“You won’t understand this for a very long time, my son,” she said, gripping his chin tightly, “and for that I am so deeply sorry.”

“Mother,” he whispered, refusing any other noise – refusing to whimper or to cower, though he had never been so afraid.

She released him with another whispered apology, and there was something very wrong with the way she smiled, even as she ran a careful thumb up his jaw.

“I don’t like it up here,” Arthur said. The battlements were high; he’d never liked heights. It was cold. The wind shook him. His ribs seized and his teeth chattered.

She settled a warm palm on his head, slipping it into his hair, and that helped.

“Let me tell you something first, Arthur, before you go.”

If Merlin has noticed something is wrong, he makes no move or effort to indicate it, which is good – if Merlin hasn’t noticed, it means the memories that press up Arthur’s throat and against his clenched teeth have yet to visibly affect him.

Agravaine’s expression is overly solicitous, though, smug, as if he meets Arthur not to begin a negotiation but to celebrate the end of one.

He notices Arthur’s preoccupation with his shoulder, if nothing else.

“Ah, yes. It would have been poor form of me to continue to wear the Pendragon colors, wouldn’t it, when my family name is Du Bois? If Morgana should consent to marry, of course, we would continue to display both sets – I’m not an ungenerous man – but I do still await her agreement on the matter.”

Arthur says, “It is good to see you abandon pretense, uncle,” because he can not bring himself to say, how dare you; you haven’t the right to her; you haven’t the right to either of them, staring at the sigil, which Arthur has been missing since Agravaine’s first visit to Camelot all those years ago.

“Let me tell you this,” she said. “We are none of us slaves to the workings of fate. There are always choices, Arthur. And I know your father won’t understand, but the choice we made was wrong. So I must pray that one day you remember this, and forgive me for having to correct it.”

She spoke to him like no one else ever did. As if he was grown already. He clung to every word, shivering, eyes open wide, as if that would help him absorb every single part of her, every word, every strand of hair loose in the wind.

“My men.” Arthur looks away from the broach, scans the edge of the field again, finding neither of the faces he seeks. “Where are they?”

“Indisposed, I’m afraid. And speaking of pretense,” Agravaine says, aiming a filthy expression toward Merlin, who is both unimpressed and unaffected by this exchange, “I see you have become attached to the slave.”

“Your Grace,” Merlin snaps, formidably, in greeting. “We have not been formally introduced. I am Merlin, son of Balinor, and I stand witness here for Prince Arthur.”

Agravaine’s eyebrows rise in dry skepticism. “Still wearing a collar? It must be difficult indeed to find willing participants for treason, even so far from Camelot.”

Perhaps they’re lucky, in that – perhaps his uncle doesn’t know – but then Agravaine says to him, “I’ve underestimated you, nephew. To have the killer of your father collared and begging must have been irresistible. I almost want to let you walk away from this, just to see how you handle him.”

In neat retort, Merlin’s magic does the talking for him: he lifts the hand with the scars, and from it spills a short burst of dragonfire that forces both Agravaine and Mordred to stagger back a few steps.

Arthur doesn’t know what to think of Mordred’s silence. Of the fact that he doesn’t say that is not only the king-killer; that is Emrys of prophecy. That he offers Agravaine no shield of magic, if such a thing can even be accomplished against dragonfire.

Merlin stands firm, folding his arms behind his back.

“Do not confuse cooperation with submission. I stand witness for Prince Arthur, but I also stand to represent the Akielon people and our dragonkin. We support Prince Arthur’s claim to the throne and condemn any effort to keep him from it.”

She touched his face again. Just holding it, a palm pressed to his cheek.

“I can’t tell you how many futures I’ve been shown, my beloved son, or what they held for you. I can’t tell you what they hold even now. But I will say this: that Nimueh was right to help us, because to bring you into this world was the greatest gift the gods could have given me; but she was also so wrong, to let us believe we could choose life for all of us and not pay any price for it.”

There is some verbal sparring between Merlin and Agravaine that Arthur wouldn’t have thought to expect. (That he can barely track, in truth, mind half here and half stuck in a handful of moments long passed.)

As Arthur watches Merlin speak, it occurs to him, the way observations like this sometimes do, that if he’d the mind for it, he might have figured Merlin out from the first they’d met. Arthur is a prince; it makes sense that he speaks at least with middling skill the most prevalent of the languages of his peoples and their enemies. For Merlin to also have that should have been one tell; for him to have had training in court etiquette that he clearly took pains to disregard should have been another. For him to have been so sheltered in youth, and so piously attached to his father, is yet another – common boys, as Arthur knows from watching them jealously throughout his own youth, do not often experience either the burdens or desperate attachments that come along with the attentions and expectations of powerful adults.

“I’m afraid wordplay will take you nowhere with me, Your Grace,” Merlin is saying. He makes a gesture of deference toward Arthur. “Prince Arthur has come to hear your terms and offer his own. We will all leave this field, then, to consider a path forward and consult with advisors; and we shall return in the morning to continue the discussion, as civilized men do, to avoid more needless violence.”

“A peculiar concept, needless violence.” Agravaine’s hand falls to Mordred’s shoulder in one of the clearest threats Arthur has ever seen. “What brought us here was necessary – it assured your participation, and made clear the limits of my patience. I am here to accept Arthur’s surrender to my authority. There will be no need at all for further violence.”

“You requested a meeting,” Merlin counters, “not a surrender. Speak your terms.”

There is a long-familiar splintering of pain through Arthur’s skull, what always strikes him while resisting his uncle’s manipulations, though this time, he is bolstered. Helped by how Merlin holds firm.

Arthur’s tutors never liked to hear I don’t know, preferring him to at least guess at his answers, while Arthur’s father often said the opposite:

“If you don’t believe in yourself, the people will know. They can sense insecurity, and insecurity is weakness in a king. You must always speak with authority, Arthur. You must know yourself, know your own mind, be firm in your convictions, and never open your mouth if you can’t be sure of what you speak.”

So when his mother spoke about fate and choices and the future, he couldn’t say he didn’t understand, but neither could he guess at what she meant.

“I want you to go, now,” she said, turning him with gentle hands, holding him against her for just a moment before giving a gentle push. “Don’t look at what comes next. Just know that I love you, Arthur. And that it will be my honor to give now what should have given when you were born.”

Arthur didn’t understand, and he didn’t obey.

He watched from shadows as she walked forward, to the edge of the battlements, so that her hair flew wild and the sapphire gown under that heavy cloak rustled in moonlight.

He watched when she tipped forward, falling from his eyeline with a gasp.

He stared at the space she’d occupied until a bell began to sound.

Perhaps realizing he will get nowhere with Merlin, Agravaine looks again to Arthur.

“Has he enchanted you? You’ve always been a sweet boy, Arthur, but never so quiet.”

“No,” Arthur says, flatly.

“You’ve had him, then, and now he speaks for you.” Agravaine’s expression turns shrewd. Calculating. “Or has he had you?”

There is no shame, no embarrassment to think of the time he’s spent under Merlin’s hands. It may as well never have happened, so fiercely does Arthur’s mind protect last night from his uncle’s reach.

They exist in entirely different worlds to him, Merlin and Agravaine. Never to touch.

“Do you have anything to say that is relevant, uncle, or should I take my leave of you?”

But Agravaine has seized upon something, whether in Arthur’s reaction or in Merlin’s beside him, and he will not let it go.

“Arthur, come now. We’re both men. There’s no shame in having succumbed to the skill of a kingmaker – I’ve told you, haven’t I, that all men have needs they must satisfy? This is what comes of it when you do not address those needs: you spread for the first handsome mouth willing to spare you a few kind words.”

Merlin is taut by Arthur’s side; his magic reaches, wrapping up around Arthur’s ankles.

“That’s– ” Arthur must swallow down bile at the reminder that both of these men have now seen him spread, one way or another. And here – here is the shame. “That’s not what this is.”

“It doesn’t matter what it is, though, does it?” Agravaine says. “What matters is what it looks like. And it looks very much like this: your Emrys threw a tantrum when the High Priestesses would not cede to his rule; was then cast out from the Isle; and at Camelot, seeing your weakness, then dedicated himself to winning what he believed he could make a powerful ally, whose authority he might coopt here and abuse to his liking. This is what happens, you know, when powerful men throw tantrums. Well-meaning boys like you get caught in the crossfire.”

It takes a halting few moments to understand that Agravaine does know all of who Merlin is; that Mordred must have told him after all, or if not Mordred, then Morgause.

“The Prince is not a boy,” Merlin snaps, the magic holding tighter. (Failing to defend himself; thinking only of Arthur.)

Agravaine scoffs. “He’s too young yet for the crown, and clearly too young to have known better than to let a snake like you into his bed.” To Arthur, the Regent speaks far more softly. (It is only Mordred, standing there tight-lipped under that white-knuckled hand, who breaks the illusion.) “Listen to me, nephew. I know it’s been a very difficult year for you. I know it’s been confusing, trying to understand why things must play out differently to how you’d imagined them growing up. I’m not insensitive to that, or to how much of an adjustment this is. If you come back now – if you give up this little rebellion of yours – I won’t hold any of this against you. We can have it all out in the open, and you’ll be well cared for. I can promise you that.”

Arthur straightens his back, stomach churning, and shakes his head.

“I can’t do that,” he says. “My ascension was my father’s will. It is my right by the law. The only rebellion here is yours.”

A short, stiff silence; and then, faced with the unchangeable truth, Agravaine’s pleasantries arrive at their end.

“I see. I can see why you would think so. Emrys has certainly been busy with you.” His eyes become cruel, his mouth a sharp line. (Arthur’s heart drops through his stomach, buckling under the memory of what happened the last time he saw such an expression on this face.) “Tell me, though – do you think this sorcerer would stand so very close to you, that he could stand at all to touch you, if he knew what you are? Who you belong to?”

Merlin’s magic flares, holding Arthur steady.

“Beg,” Agravaine said, displeased. Disgusted. “Your reputation is no concern of mine. It is nothing to me to cast out something used and poorly mannered. It is nothing to me, what echoes these halls about the King’s whore of a son.”

“Please. Please, uncle. I’m not– he only– it wasn’t like that. Please. I don’t like Balinor; he’s rude and presumptuous and he forgets that I am a Prince. Please. I’m– you’re the only one who– Please. Please let me stay.”

Arthur didn’t even know where the words came from; they just came, and kept coming, until finally Agravaine’s anger eased away, replaced again with the calm benevolence which Arthur had only ever before that moment taken for granted.

It is a day for unexpected viciousness. Of all the ways Agravaine could have struck at him, Arthur wouldn’t have expected this one either. Not publicly, where anyone might hear it. (But then, he realizes, they aren’t really in public, are they – only Mordred stands here to witness, who has endured the depravity himself, and Merlin, who Agravaine must know Arthur would keep this from at any cost.)

“Your Grace,” Merlin says, tightly, “this is the Prince of Camelot standing before you. You will address him with the respect he is due.”

“The Prince of Camelot,” Agravaine counters, “and also my nephew, who knows exactly what his duties have been before me. Don’t you, Arthur?”

This is that choice again, to decide between two evils. Between the dishonor of retreat and the disgrace of a loss.

Arthur can’t move.

Can’t breathe.

“Kneel,” his uncle says. “Kneel to me, and this all stops now.”

“He will not,” Merlin snarls, magic invisible but palpably full of rage. A tempest just waiting to be let loose. “He is the born King; he will never kneel to you. He need never kneel to anyone.”

Agravaine raises a single eyebrow, glancing between Merlin and Arthur. A cruel smirk flickers to life across his face.

“Uncle,” Arthur begs – croaks out, breathless.

It isn’t until Merlin clutches at his arm that he realizes he has begun to move. Forward.

“Arthur? What are you doing?”

The magic grips at Arthur, at his ankles, shoring him up but also locking him in place.

To Agravaine, Merlin says, in a murderous growl, “This is a place for parley, not for public humiliations. Say what else you came to say, or leave.”

Agravaine wrinkles his nose. “Such a clumsy, heavy-handed effort. But then, I wouldn’t expect much more of a kingmaker who has so far only killed a king.”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, very quietly. “Let me go.”

Mercifully, Merlin does.

With no mercy at all, Agravaine smiles.

“There’s no need to play coy with me, little bear. Kneel to me, and this stops. You ought to remember very well how it’s done.”

Arthur is prepared to put his shame aside.

He is prepared to kneel. Will do so, if it means Merlin never learns this thing about him.

There’s a sharp exhale, though, at his left, wet like a death rattle –

“He always called me ‘little bear.’”

– and he realizes, horrified, that there is nothing left to learn.

That he might as well have told Merlin himself.

It’s all the scattered pieces, for Merlin. All the little hints that were right there in front of him from the start, all framing a picture of egregious abuse which Arthur has all this time – has since his childhood – been facing alone.

Merlin can’t stand it.

That Arthur should ever have felt himself alone is intolerable.

What sticks out in his mind the most, though, are those few unimportant moments before they entered the inn, in which the Prince had been given a free choice of any word, of any name in the world, and chose –

“Call me Falco,” Merlin said, “like the bird. And for you? Or shall I decide?”

Arthur’s expression reminded him of boyhood – like this was a question for which he may or may not have a correct answer.

“Ah. Ursus, I think.”

“Really?” Merlin couldn’t help teasing. “A great bear, are you?”

Arthur shrugged, smiling through some apparent discomfort.

“It should be something I’ll answer to, no?”

Merlin can’t think, for a moment, not even with the way Arthur breathes his name, horror and embarrassment and some cold, hard thing threaded through it, as if he is already withdrawing himself, already preparing defense against Merlin’s rejection, which of course will never come.

“Well?” Agravaine still wears his arrogance like it’s already earned him a victory. “This is your choice, Arthur. Kneel now, and there need be no more trouble.”

Merlin’s eye twitches; his hands are hard fists. He looks at Arthur, who is not cowed but has been dealt a blow nonetheless, and lets the grip of his magic convey what is only Arthur’s business to know: that what’s between them is sacred; that Arthur is King and Merlin will forever serve him, crowned or uncrowned; that it changes nothing, who did or didn’t touch this body before Merlin laid hands upon it.

It isn’t much. It doesn’t undo anything.

But Arthur then turns to his uncle and says, roughly, “For a man who puts only boys on their knees, you’re dangerously close to begging a man,” and Merlin can feel it, how the mood of the field begins to shift.

Can see, too, when that grip tightens upon Mordred’s shoulder.

Mordred's face is empty, but Merlin understands, now.

Merlin can see it.

It is very good after all, he decides, that they did not remove the collar. That Iseldir gave him back some control of himself, so he can resist also being the killer of Arthur’s uncle. He does not let his magic flay the man’s flesh from his bones. He does not let it castrate him. He does not let it slowly burn, nerve by nerve, through all the parts of him most susceptible to pain.

“Remove your hand from that child,” he says, instead, letting his tone carry the violence for him.

Agravaine doesn’t move; he only glances between Merlin and Arthur, expression pinched, like he suspects something has happened but doesn’t quite understand what it is. Every moment he fails to obey is a moment that tempts Merlin further toward bloodshed.

“Remove your hand from that child, Agravaine, or I will remove it from your body.”

“Such inelegant language,” the Regent says. But he does remove his hand, and Mordred takes a single step away, eyes tight to Merlin’s and round like discs at whatever it is he sees in them. (And Mordred, his purpose in Camelot – that part Merlin would have guessed far sooner, if he hadn’t been such a coward about it. So averse to the idea that it felt impossible.)

“There will be no further discussion,” Merlin announces, channeling his father with every breath he takes, remembering what it was like to stand behind him in battle. “We are no longer meeting as equals. You are in dereliction of – ”

Agravaine bristles, narrows his eyes; starts to say, how dare you, but Merlin only speaks over him.

“ – your duties as the Regent of Camelot. You will relinquish that title and all the rights which came with it, and you will now recognize the Crown Prince as your King.”

“I will do no such thing,” Agravaine snaps. “You haven’t the authority to– ”

“I have the authority,” Arthur says, and steps forward, tall and broad and bright. “There will be no warfare here. I have no gauntlet to throw, but we can resolve this through single combat if you refuse to abdicate. Choose your champion, uncle; or concede to me my crown, take your people, and do not let me see you again, in Camelot or upon any other land. Those are your choices.”

The words echo out with the weight of destiny – Merlin’s magic sings with it.

At the edge of the field, Morgause’s hand goes to the sword at her belt. Alator shifts, crossing strong arms over his chest. Both of them stare at Merlin like they believe the collar will make him easier to master as Arthur’s champion. (They can’t know how lucky they are that he still wears it. How much gentler it will force him to be with them. He flexes his hands at his sides, readying himself.)

“Well.” Agravaine looks Arthur up and down, and then Merlin, and smiles his most awful smile. “Since you have the Emrys, it would hardly be fair for single combat to include sorcery. Do you agree?”

“I agree,” Arthur says before Merlin can speak, “provided my champion chooses the weapon.”

Which is still fine, Merlin thinks, confident enough of his swordsmanship.

“Yes, agreed.” Agravaine does not touch the child again, but hovers a hand behind his back, eyeing Merlin with spite as he adds, “My champion shall be Mordred. What weapon would you have him wield, Emrys?”

Mordred’s eyes fly not to the Regent or to Merlin, but to Arthur.

Merlin shakes his head. “No, a child will not serve as– ”

But Arthur raises a hand for silence.

“You’re ahead of yourself, uncle. Merlin will not fight on my behalf.”

It takes only half a breath to put it together, watching as the Prince rounds off this declaration with tug after tug at the laces at the top of his surcoat.

Agravaine scoffs, though he’s clearly unsettled. “Really, nephew. More dramatics? Can you never simply do what duty demands of you?”

Merlin feels like the ground has been shaken mightily beneath him, to understand that he actually agrees with Agravaine on something – it twists his stomach, but Arthur is making surprisingly quick work of that surcoat, and his expression is determined, for all that it is determined about a very stupid thing.

“I am permitted to serve as my own champion, and I will. Will you not do the honorable thing, uncle, and join me? Or did you imagine choosing a child would make me reconsider this course entirely?”

The accusation of cowardice goes unspoken, but it’s there in every word, and the Regent’s expression becomes a bitter, scowling thing.

“I’ve made my choice,” is all he says in answer; and Mordred, beside him, is still staring at Arthur, jaw loose in either shock or unspoken protest.

It’s like a nightmare, the way this moves. Too quickly, entirely outside of Merlin’s control. Part of him thinks he should have foreseen it; another part debates the merits of using his magic, of calling to Aithusa – of doing anything to remove Arthur from this situation.

He does nothing, though, because this is still the weight of destiny falling around them, and even if Merlin doesn’t like it – even if he absolutely hates it – he knows well enough that to try to stop it now may only do Arthur more harm.

Slowly enough to make a painful point of it, Arthur strips off his upper layers, down to a single white tunic, and rolls the loose sleeves, looking every bit a sacrifice as prepared by and for the gods.

It sickens Merlin deeply in the stomach to realize he doesn’t even intend to wear armor.

“I defer my choice of weapon to you, Mordred,” Arthur says, “since you are not a knight and have never squired. And I shall fight with one arm strapped, to lessen my advantage.”

“So you want to die,” Mordred snaps at him, alive with anger.

Arthur’s smile is grim. “I want the field to be fair for both of us. That is the honorable thing. Choose your weapon.”

The boy’s eyes flash a burnt yellow, yielding a single dagger in each of his hands.

“I’ve seen your death, remember? There’s no need to strap the arm.” He tosses one of the daggers down at Arthur’s feet and then turns to Merlin. “Say your goodbyes to your King, Emrys. I hope you enjoyed his cock while you had it.”

And as if that is not enough to strike Merlin cold, Mordred adds, privately, where it can’t be overheard, You were wrong. It has always been my fault. It will always be my fault. That is what it is to be a child of prophecy.

The field is not quite cleared: Morgause and Alator have come forward by half, where Agravaine steps back to stand with them; and Merlin, after some coaxing and a direct command, has been persuaded to move back himself in the direction of Aithusa.

Arthur stands now with a dagger in his weaker hand, giving Mordred that advantage at least, if he isn’t to strap an arm. Neither of them wears armor. Mordred is still in the shirt and trousers Charls gifted him. The neck of it is closed, but the laces are mis-aligned. The trousers barely stay up around his small waist.

Arthur wonders if Mordred’s age was always a part of this. A sort of salve for the bitterness of a death: that at least he’ll find it more honorable to be felled by a child than to fell one himself.

“What are you doing?” Mordred’s grip around his dagger is tight. His stance is all wrong for fighting, legs stiff, knees locked where he stands. “Stop staring. Do what you came here to do.”

“I came here to speak with my uncle,” Arthur says, mildly. “You’re now his proxy. You do understand you’re required to participate?”

“Shut up,” the boy says.

They’re losing light, moving from evening into dusk, and this is not like the edge of the Isle, where the fire-lit temple will let them effortlessly move through the night. Someone will shortly need to use magic to light the field for them.

More seriously, Arthur asks, “Do you understand what’s happening? What this is?”

The corners of Mordred’s mouth pull down into a deep frown. Those curls shift over his forehead in a light breeze.

“You must kill me to take your crown,” he answers, “and I must kill you to fulfil a prophecy.”

Arthur nods, feeling surprisingly little about that.

There is a profound lightness to freedom from secrecy that he would never have thought to expect before this moment. An almost physical sensation, which has nothing to do with the shucking of his heavy outer layers and everything to do with the realization that after so many years of wondering what it might be like, he has at last come to his final day – to the fulfilment of this prophecy – with someone watching who, even knowing who he is and what he’s done, has consented to stay. Has made it so he won’t face his death alone.

That Merlin looks so concerned there where he stands, arms crossed tight across his chest, indicates he hasn’t quite accepted what’s about to happen; nor, Arthur’s certain, will he understand why it had to be this way. That can’t be helped. (And Arthur regrets too how Morgana will blame herself for not seeing this particular unfolding of destinies, though at least he can be satisfied that she will regardless find herself upon the throne.)

“You can’t fight single combat by staring at your slave,” Mordred snaps.

There is beauty there, in Merlin’s frown. In his eyes. In the hollows of his cheeks and throat. Seeing that, knowing it was his for a short time, lends Arthur strength enough to let him go.

“I learned something, recently,” he tells Mordred. “Two things, actually.”

Mordred’s eyes narrow; he raises his dagger. “I don’t want to hear them. Fight me.”

Arthur doesn’t move, enjoying the small pleasures of this moment, while he can: the wind in his hair, his feet firm on the ground, the familiarity of a weapon in his hand, the sense of Merlin’s eyes and magic upon him.

“I didn’t understand how you knew, when we first met, that I’d lain in my uncle’s bed as a boy. I didn’t think he would have told you outright. You’re sharp, though, and easily made jealous, so eventually I decided you’d only made an accusation to be hurtful, not knowing it would be the truth. But you did know, didn’t you? And you didn’t learn it from me, or from my uncle.”

The longer Arthur speaks, the more Mordred’s face drains of color. The dagger lowers to his side again.

“I learned this morning,” he goes on, “that a seer came to the Isle when Merlin was a young boy. That this seer came with prophecy. Do you know which prophecy I’m talking about, Mordred?”

The boy doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move.

“This prophecy was about Emrys; it spoke nothing of the Once and Future King, or of the King’s Bane, or of any mighty battle. It told of a different path entirely toward a Golden Age for magic – one lesser known, certainly, but still viable.”

Mordred’s breaths come short.

“Don’t,” he whispers, and Arthur can hear now, too, how affected he is.

“I must,” Arthur says, gently, because it’s true; he’s never been as compelled to do anything in his life as he is to seek this answer. “The seer foretold Emrys as the unitor of all the magical peoples of Albion, if first my uncle and his bedwarmer were slain. And Balinor did come to Camelot soon after, though he couldn’t go through with it. At first I thought that was because the prophecy was spoken too soon; but it wasn’t, was it?”

Mordred’s expression is drawn tight, almost a pout as he makes a visible effort to harden himself to the logical conclusion.

Agravaine calls from where he stands, “Do not intimidate my champion, nephew. Begin this farce so it may end.”

Arthur ignores him, catching Mordred’s blue-eyed gaze.

“I’ve always wondered why you returned to Camelot after Morgana freed you. Why you let yourself be taken into his bed, with all that power at your disposal.”

“Stop it,” Mordred bites out. “We’re meant to fight, now. Don’t be a coward.”

“It’s one thing to be made aware of your place in conflicting prophecies, but it’s another entirely to be prescient yourself, isn’t it?”

Mordred steps forward; he raises the dagger again, and begins to circle, so Arthur matches him, even as he speaks.

“Fine. I’ll ask something else, then. When my mother Ygraine died, my father announced that magic was the cause. Do you know what really happened?”

“No,” Mordred says, wiping at one eye with the back of one wrist. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“He lied. She killed herself.”

The boy stops moving. Arthur matches him, and keeps talking.

“A few years ago, I bested Morgause out on the battlefield. I could have killed her, but it wouldn’t have been honorable, so we reached an accord: she would use her power that very night to show me my mother, and there would be no debt between us for the matter of sparing her life.”

“That sounds like a stupid bargain. She could have showed you anyone.”

“I suppose she could have,” Arthur allows. “But I did speak with my mother that night, and she was exactly as I remembered her. She said nothing different to anything she’d said in life. She reminded me of something.”

Mordred’s expression has drained of fight. “I suppose you’ll insist upon telling me what that was.”

(And Arthur never thinks of her, but this is important, so he swallows down against the way his throat threatens to close, and lets the words come.)

“She reminded me that no matter what prophecy tells any one of us, there is always choice. Choice to accept our roles as prescribed, or to appeal to the gods in the ways of old. I didn’t understand what she meant for a long time. Do you?”

By the way his expression goes a bit lost, Arthur believes he might.

There is some shuffling off from the edge of the field; Agravaine makes another complaint, which Arthur and Mordred both ignore. Merlin remains still and silent where he stands.

They are down to the last light of day, Mordred’s eyes shining as he stares.

Arthur presses at the break in him. “Do you know what she meant, Mordred? Do you understand what she did?”

“She was stupid.” Mordred’s throat works. “She was stupid like you. That’s not how it works.”

“If we could ever say that for sure, it wouldn’t be sacrifice, would it?” Arthur throws his dagger to the ground, and to Merlin, who balks at this development, he calls, “Do not interfere. That is an order from your King.”

Mordred stares at Arthur with wide eyes, clutching his own dagger with both hands.

The field falls as silent as death.

“I will tell you what I believe, now,” Arthur says, not looking away. “I believe someone told you when you were very young that you were destined to be the King’s Bane – young enough that you didn’t realize what that meant. Young enough that you heard the stories and loved them, and came to love the King, just like you loved the idea of a united Albion. I believe that for a short time, you hated yourself for what you were destined to do to me.”

It twists at Arthur’s insides, how visibly, how deeply these words strike Mordred. How little the boy can offer but a soft no, stop, because all of his effort is going into looking unaffected.

“I believe,” Arthur says, taking a step closer, leaving the dagger behind him, “that when you finally heard the other prophecy, the lesser one, it felt to you like gift from the gods. Like a reprieve – that Emrys could succeed, that Albion could be made whole, if only the Queen’s brother and some nameless bedwarmer should die, and the whole of it nothing to do with you. I’d bet the day you heard that was one of the best of your young life.”

The boy only shakes his head as he breaks – and there he is, now, the vulnerable child that was hiding all the while behind that hard exterior.

“Arthur, you will stop this now,” Agravaine shouts then, moving to charge forward – only to be stopped short by a wall of magic which rises in pale golden waves out of the earth, both giving light and forming a globe around them, all over the space in which Arthur and Mordred stand.

When Arthur looks, he finds Merlin’s eyes are lit the same color, just outside that barrier.

Merlin trusts him, he realizes. Believes in what he’s doing. Will support it, even if he doesn’t understand, which warms Arthur in a way he can’t even describe.

In the golden wash of light, by contrast, Mordred’s face is nothing short of devastated.

“I’ve seen your death,” he sobs, shaking his head, knuckles white around the hilt of that dagger. “It will happen.”

“I haven’t said it won’t,” Arthur says, gently. “That isn’t how this works.”

“I hate you. I hate you. I wish I’d never met you.”

Arthur takes another step forward, and then another, and Mordred watches, unmoving except for the way he trembles.

“I don’t believe the prophecy Balinor heard was wrong. I believe there were two ways it could have been fulfilled, and I believe you knew both of them.”

“Stop it.”

Mordred’s face flushes, veins pulsing at his neck with how he screams it, but Arthur does not stop. Arthur takes another step forward, close enough now that he has only to reach out to touch the boy sobbing in front of him.

“I believe you had a vision when you were very young. About me. You saw something you didn’t understand. Until last year, when you came to Camelot, and you realized that the man you saw was the Queen’s brother, and that the boy beside him in bed was me – that the bedwarmer was the Once and Future King – and that neither of us yet were dead.”

Another step forward, and Arthur is so close he can feel Mordred’s warmth against his chest.

“I believe,” he says, “that you thought you could avoid this, if you took my place – you thought that if the King’s Bane became that bedwarmer, and the two of you were killed together, you could still fulfill that prophecy. But one ever came to kill you. I never came to kill you. And then you thought you could escape it, trying to poison my uncle before we left Camelot; but there Gwen was, saving you, bringing you along to where this all must end.”

Arthur pulls Mordred into his arms, slowly, feeling how the sobs wrack his frame. Feeling the ache of those hands and that dagger against his chest.

“It’s alright, Mordred. I’m not a Druid or a dragonlord; I’ve never followed the Old Religion. But a dragon told me recently that while sacrifice is valued by the gods, we mortals never set the terms for what that is. I believe I also understand now what he meant by that. I understand what my mother did. And I want you to understand me, now. Look at me.”

He leans back, so Mordred might see his face.

“I believe we have given enough to satisfy our destinies, but if my life is forfeit, then I accept that, too. Don’t think of it as killing me. You’re only helping me answer a question before the gods.”

Mordred shakes his head, over and over, and Arthur, with bile rising, does what he must.

“Aren’t you tired, Mordred? Aren’t you ready to leave my uncle? Don’t you want to be free of him?”

“Please, stop it.”

“You don’t have to suffer him anymore. You’d never have to spread for him again. Never have to clean up after him. Never have to hold your breath when you sit. Never have to watch for his moods. Never have to bruise your knees, never have to batter your throat, never have to wipe blood from– ”

It’s quick but painful, the way the blade slides in under his ribs.

Arthur’s body reacts in an odd way, curling over the blade instead of away from it, holding Mordred closer to him.

“Thank you,” Arthur grunts, even as his knees buckle. “It’s done, now.”

It’s difficult to see, to hear; there is chaos breaking out around them, and Merlin’s shattered voice is loudest of all.

Arthur is on the ground, suddenly, on his back, and there is fire at his ribs, and Mordred is sobbing ugly tears above him, removing the dagger and pressing hands to the hot wound.

“It’s alright, boy,” Arthur says, or tries to say.

When he closes his eyes, he isn’t afraid of what comes next.

Merlin doesn’t remember all of the lessons his father prepared for him. That hurts sometimes, the notion that something didn’t take hold because the younger Merlin hadn’t deemed it important enough to retain – though, for the most part, he can concede that this is simply a part of life. A rite of passage, in a way, forgetting the wisdom handed down and then having to forge it anew.

If living out from under the weight of prophecy was ever a subject of Balinor’s lessons, that has long been lost to time.

It’s taken some effort for Merlin to adjust.

“Arthur,” he gasped, sliding down to his knees beside Mordred, already reaching. “Arthur, you monstrous beloved prat, please, please don’t do this, idiot, why would you– ”

But of course, he knew why; he’d heard most of what passed between Arthur and Mordred, because no one had said he couldn’t use his magic from where he stood, and because he was a far lesser man than Arthur and hadn’t trusted Mordred at all – Mordred, who’d collapsed to his knees sobbing under Arthur’s weight, only to devote with Merlin all the magic within his possession to the healing of Arthur’s wound, though it was a mortal one.

When Merlin took hold of his bloodied hands, the boy didn’t pull them away.

“Mother,” Merlin prayed, like he had never prayed before. “My Mother, who gifted me my mortal parents, who gave me the name Emrys, who trusted me with Your will on this earth; please listen. Arthur Pendragon has given You his life, as his mother did before him. I beg of You – please let me have him. Please. If You must, if the balance has not been struck, take of me instead, and these lands of Albion – let us do for these lands what no one else can, and we will commit every day of the rest our mortal lives into Your service.”

There was chaos all around them; the pounding of dragons’ wings; Morgana’s shrill voice on the air; but they together bent to their task and, with the help of the Goddess, did not let the King slip away.

“Emrys?”

Mordred stands at least two inches taller. The gauntness of his face has eased, filled in by heartier meals, by cleaner air, by quiet nights, by safety, by steadiness. By freedom.

“I’m ready,” Merlin says, turning to his mirror – his very own mirror, gifted to him by Arthur for these fancy new chambers, within which he has yet to actually sleep since returning to Camelot.

He straightens the pin of his father’s chiton one last time.

“You cannot kill him, Merlin.”

Arthur blinked up at him from their bed in Hunith’s home, issuing the command like it wasn’t the most ridiculous thing he’d ever said.

“He violated you,” Merlin hissed. “He violated Mordred. He– ”

“He must be tried for his crimes like any other citizen of Camelot.”

“And then put to death,” Leon said, darkly, from his chair in the corner.

“And then put to death,” Arthur sighed – wincing even as he did it.

“Or,” Merlin said, “I can kill him now.”

Mordred stepped into the room, then, still in his bloodied clothes but with his hands and face cleaned. Iseldir stood behind him, a gentle hand set on his shoulder.

“Morgana sends word,” the old Druid said, in Brythonic. “Alator has died of his wounds. Morgause has fled with Nimueh, but we know where the High Priestesses go for their sacred rights. It’s not far out of reach. She requests to follow.”

Arthur shook his head, but must have been exhausted, because he answered in his own Veretian. “No, I need her here. She’ll be my Regent until I recover; times of transition are when we’re most vulnerable.”

Merlin translated for Iseldir’s benefit, and added, with some petulance, “He’s said I can’t kill Agravaine.”

They hold the coronation not in the throne room, but on the green just outside the citadel, where the castle rises proudly behind them and the lands of Albion roll out in every direction, and where Arthur can be stood upon a dais in all his resplendent beauty.

If time has done wonders for Mordred, it has done for Arthur something extraordinary: the Prince stands facing his people with healthy weight in his face, tall and broad under an impressive golden crown, form only strengthened by the dark cut of the ceremonial cloak draped over his shoulders. His eyes are bright, blue like the depths of the sea, and when they find Merlin’s, not even the sun, bright again in the sacred sky, can outshine them.

“About time, Merlin,” he says, gaze flicking down over Merlin’s form with just enough heat to remain polite. “Just like you to keep a King waiting, isn’t it?”

“My sincere apologies, sire,” Merlin replies, offering the most ostentatious bow he possibly can. “It will never happen again.”

Arthur scoffs. “A lie if I’ve ever heard one.”

Back at Camelot, Arthur's chambers were eerily unchanged from the last time Merlin saw them. Gaius helped settle the Prince into his bed and made him comfortable, shooting dark looks in Merlin’s direction the entire time. When Gaius finally left, Merlin made his second bid for Arthur's forgiveness, since the first had been so unsuccessful.

“You’re still angry.”

A simple enough start.

Arthur wouldn’t look at him.

He asked, “Can you at least understand why I did it?”

Muscles feathered along the Prince’s jaw, so tightly was it clenched.

“It was my right,” Merlin said, answering for himself - trying not to become angry, too. “The Goddess is my Mother. One of my mothers. That will never change. All I did was– ”

“You gave up your immortality, Merlin.” Arthur’s expression was worse than angry; it was rageful. “I didn’t ask you to do that; I didn’t want you to do that. Why wasn’t I– why wasn’t it– ”

And Merlin understood, suddenly, the source of the problem. He ignored that Arthur’s eyes were wet; he ignored that Gaius had directed him to stay away from the Prince’s bed. He climbed carefully in beside Arthur and took him into his arms.

“I don’t think it was to do with you,” Merlin told him, softly. “I think it was to do with those prophecies. Something about them. I think my immortality had a purpose – not as sacrifice, but as balance, before everything changed – and I think She accepted it because I shouldn’t really have had it in the first place. Because things went wrong, somewhere, and in the end you found a way to set them right.”

Merlin holds his breath through half the ceremony; it’s only Mordred on one side, and Morgana on the other, who keep him grounded and breathing and ready. (And the sight of Gwen, reunited with her Lancelot, who with his good eye has not yet found a single reason to look away from her, even with all this happening around them.)

Arthur is brilliant, and at the end of it all, when the knights each move to swear their oaths, Leon and Gwaine and Lancelot first among them, Elyan and Percival and the rest behind, he receives them not like Uther would have, but like a brother, with mutual respect and loyalty and commitment and joy.

When Merlin finally approaches the small dais, Arthur receives him with two open hands, which he takes - tentatively, because this is not what he’d been warned to expect - and permits himself to be pulled up to stand at Arthur’s side.

“What are you doing?” He whispers, as quietly as he can, very conscious of all the eyes that watch them. “Am I not meant to give my oath now?”

Arthur laughs, and it’s the most beautiful thing Merlin has ever seen. It robs him of thought.

“Merlin, son of Balinor,” the King says, all warmth, “I welcome to you to my side, to my table, and to my kingdom. I offer you my heart and my hands, every day for the rest of my mortal life, that we might carry out together the will of your Mother Goddess, here and across all Albion. Will you join me?”

Throat tight, Merlin holds to him with the force of iron.

“I will, my King.”

“And will you, dragonlord, give yourself to me in turn, in service as a knight of this realm?”

It doesn’t matter that he knew this part was coming, or that the actual knighting will come later; Merlin must clear his throat twice before he can say, again, “I will, my King.”

“And so you shall.” Arthur holds up their hands, then, and bends to press a kiss to the top of each of Merlin’s, no matter that this isn’t how the ceremony is meant to proceed. Merlin’s magic, long fully freed, swirls up about them in sweet washes of all the things yet unnamed that lie between them.

Far more quietly – for Merlin’s ears only – the King says, in perfect Akielon, “Does this satisfy you, Exalted – a kingdom to carry out with me the will of the Goddess? Would you ask anything more?”

Merlin shakes his head and valiantly swallows down a swell of feeling.

“No, nothing more,” he says in his father’s tongue, holding Arthur’s hands like the gift they are. “Just a kingdom, and this.”

And when the bells ring, they move forward as one, Mordred tight between them, into this new life the Goddess has granted them.