Chapter Text
'What's the meaning of this?,' Arthur demands as he steps forward to meet the sorcerer.
He and the knights had heard about a cave that his people would enter only to leave it in screams or in turmoil, so they had gone to inspect it. Arthur had not expected the walls to be glowing a faint grey light. But he should have known it would reveal a magic user inside its walls.
'This cave,' the man reveals, 'is enchanted.'
'Of course it is,' Gwaine mumbles.
'It allows anyone that enters their walls to bare their most hidden secrets.'
Next to Leon, Mordred shudders. The older knight turns to his young fellow and sends him a reassuring glance. Said-glance is lost on Mordred as the knight is avoiding his gaze, his focus resting solely on the sorcerer.
'What you have hidden,' the sorcerer continues meeting each of their eyes with intent, 'or what has been hidden from you will be uncovered.'
'Yes, no, sorry. Not doing it.' Gwaine turns around and goes to leave. Only to find that the path they have walked has disappeared. 'What.'
The knights, who until now had only kept a hand on their swords in wariness, pull their sword out of their scabbard to point them at the sorcerer.
The man stays unafraid and keeps on watching them with quiet assurance.
'Let us leave,' Percival quietly orders.
'I can't,' the sorcerer replies calmly. 'I don't have the power. It's not my will that brought you here, nor it is keeping you here.'
Arthur is as skeptic as the rest of them but questions the man anyway. 'Then what must we do to find our way out?'
The cave is a small rounded one that no longer shows any passage out. If they do not leave soon, the knights will run out of air and be buried alive.
'You must simply watch. Once all has been revealed, the cave will let you free.'
And once those cryptic words have been released, the sorcerer vanishes, leaving the knights alone.
*
The rounded walls' light softly brightens until the light becomes so pure and intense that they have to close their eyes less they be blinded.
Someone giggles.
One of them gasps.
The light slowly fades and they open their eyes. The walls have become translucent and are showing them the interior of a small home. It is like they have disappeared and been brought to a new place, except they have not moved as the cave's walls are still faintly visible behind the small home's walls.
And inside its walls is a young woman kneeling by a chimney.
'But. That's.' Leon stammers.
'Guinevere's home,' Arthur completes, recognising the warm childhood home of his wife.
Elyan shakes his head. 'My mother,' he corrects breathlessly.
As one, the knights turn to face their companion. Elyan has gone sickly pale and sweat is falling from his brow. He is staring at the walls depicting his deceased mother with horror.
Leon approaches Elyan, seems to hesitate, then puts a hand on his friend's shoulder. That's right, Arthur remembers. Elyan and Guinevere's mother used to work in Leon's household.
Arthur feels rage coursing through him. How dare that sorcerer use his knigth's deceased mother -his own mother-in-law- 's image for whatever nefarious deeds he has in mind? It is not only despicable, it is cruel.
Elyan's mother continues to giggle.
They turn to watch her, with mixed feelings of discomfort at the blatant voyeurism and sick with worry at what the rest of the 'big reveals' will show them.
Elyan's mother keeps on staring in the fire intently and giggling to something only she could know.
Arthur, who has never known the details of her death as Guinevere always avoided the subject, wonders if his mother-in-law died because of a sickness to the brain. He sees no other reason why she would be giggling alone while watching wood burn.
'She's holding something,' Percival makes them notice.
It is true, the woman is caressing a small rounded object in her hands.
'What is it?,' Gwaine asks. 'I can't see.'
'It's nothing,' Elyan hisses.
It startles them, as Elyan is not known to react harshly to anything. The man is actually very kind and down to earth, even if he will never be the last to fall into Gwaine and Percival's mischievous schemes.
Elyan does not look kind nor peaceful. He is looking at the image of his mother with abhorrence.
Arthur can not blame him. He knows all too well what it feels like, to have a magic-user twist the image of your parent for their own gain. Thankfully, Merlin had been here to stop him from making something rash. His thoughts are interrupted by Mordred's loud gasp. The rest of them follow his gaze back to the walls, curious despite themselves.
'Damn,' Gwaine comments.
Nothing has changed. Except for the woman's eyes. Which are glowing of the fiery amber colour all sorcerers do when they do magic.
'What,' Leon stammers. 'But. That's. Not possible.' He turns to Elyan then to Arthur. 'My lord, you mustn't believe that. I assure you that none of it is true. It's-'
'Mother?,' they hear a high voice pitch.
Their attention is pulled back towards Elyan's mother. Her eyes have stopped glowing and she has turned her attention to a small figure that is standing a few feet away from her.
A small boyish figure that they identify as a child Elyan.
'What are you doing?,' the little boy asks, his gaze jumping from his mother to the fire and back.
The woman smiles with mirth. 'Nothing, little love,' she answers with cheer. 'Return to bed.'
Little Elyan stands still, staring at her with too much seriousness for one so young. 'It didn't look like nothing.' He bites on his lower lip before saying in a lower tone: 'it looked like magic.'
The woman does not flinch. Her smile turns serene. 'It was not.' Little Elyan frowns. 'Do you want to know a secret, little love?' The child goes back to bite his lip before nodding hesitantly. 'I was asking for the gods to bless us. So no harm can befall you, or your sister, or your father and I.'
Elyan's frown deepens. 'I'll keep Gwenie safe.'
His mother's eyes go soft and she grins fondly at him. 'I have no doubt. But having the gods' blessing doesn't hurt.'
'Leon's father says people with glowing eyes are magic and hurt people. And that anyone being caught with magic is to be punished.'
His mother's smiles trembles. She turns back to look at ther fire. 'It's because Leon's father has forgotten all the good magic can do. Lots of people have.'
'Magic is evil,' the child says loudly.
His mother startles, as if stricken by the words and the vehemence they were spitted with. She looks at her son and the pain in her eyes is so keen it pierces each of them.
'Yes,' she murmurs. 'It is what the king has been repeating. I hope one day you will come to see the truth.'
*
The home and its inhabitants vanish but the walls keep a faint glow until another scene takes it place. An older Elyan has taken the place of his child self. He is looking at his sister crying in their father's arms, both kneeling before a bed. On the bed lays Elyan's mother.
'She did not suffer,' they hear a slightly younger Gaius say behind Elyan. 'The fever took her in her sleep.'
The scene fades again and leaves place to the lower town at night. They see a veiled Elyan staring at his home one last time before he turns his back and leaves.
*
They stay silent, not knowing what to say.
Arthur notices Mordred looking dazedly at the walls. He feels the urge to go to his youngest knight and -what? Comfort him? Mordred is not the one Arthur should go to, Elyan is. Elyan who just saw his mother after more than a decade of her being dead. Elyan who is his knight and his brother-in-law. Elyan who must be crushed.
'I was relieved.'
Arthur expels a breath he had not realized he had been holding before turning to face his friend. His brother-in-arms and in-law.
Elyan keeps on staring at the glistening walls despondently.
Leon still has a hand on his left shoulder, even if he keeps on looking at the walls with a lost gaze on his face. He stays strong by his friend's side.
'What do you mean?,' Gwaine asks, for once quiet and not exuberant.
'When she died.' Elyan bites on his lower lip, a gesture Arthur recognizes as a sign of nervousness. Something he has never seen his friend do before today. 'I was relieved. Because it meant she would no longer perform the craft and risk our lives. Risk Gwen's. I was angry at her for daily threatening our safety with foolish spells and enchantments, for bringing evil in our home. And then she died. Not from the pyre but from natural causes.' His lips lift upward in a grim smile. 'It's ironic. My father was condemned for sorcery when he didn't have an ounce of magic and my mother, who was a sorceress, died naturally.'
'Elyan,' Leon whispers.
'I loved her,' he continues, his voice breaking in the middle. 'And I hated her. It's why I couldn't stay after she died. I couldn't stay and watch my father and sister grieve for her when I was as relieved as I was sad.'
'You were ashamed,' Gwaine resumes.
Elyan presses his hold on his sword. He keeps on avoiding their stare. 'Wouldn't you?'
None of them answer.
Arthur gazes away, his throat tight.
'Gwen doesn't know,' Elyan continues.
And gods, he will have to tell her, won't he? Arthur does not keep secrets from Guinevere. Except that it should be Elyan who ought to tell her. She is his sister. It is about their mother. Someone that Arthur had never met and who would probably be ashamed of calling him her son-in-law were she still alive. It should be Elyan.
But how could Elyan tell his sister that he was relieved when their beloved mother met her end?
'I could not tell her. I traveled instead, far from Camelot. And the farthest I went, the more I discovered that magic was not as hated as it is in Camelot. Some use it for good. Some others don't.'
The statement startles him, although it seems he is the only one. Gwaine and Percival are nodding in unison, Mordred is still staring blankly at the walls, while Leon stays unmovable.
Elyan's gaze is still fixed on the place his mother had stood kneeling and performing magic. 'I guess she was right. I have seen the truth. But it had done nothing to change what I felt for her.'
They keep quiet and Arthur hopes Elyan knows it is not in silent judgment but as a quiet comfort for his grief.
'It doesn't change what I did or what I felt.'
'She knew you loved her,' Percival voices.
Elyan shakes his head. 'You can't know that.'
'I can,' the taller knight assures. 'Parents know those things.'
Arthur does not have time to question him on that statement, nor to offer his own comfort to Elyan. The cave's walls brighten again until they're left blinded.