Chapter Text
The battlefield was rank with blood and bile. Bodies lined his path with abandon and he tried not to stumble across the corpses, friend or foe. Red and black were intermingled, cloaks and crimson and organs and insides. The smell was making his head ache and tears burn his eyes.
His knights trailed behind, as alert as he, stumbling and grieving and searching all at once. Leon, loyal and true Leon, his first knight and dearest friend, looked around with a practiced detachment. He forced the pain to his eyes only; his hand stayed on the hilt of his sword.
Mordred was still so young, but his gaze was old. He stared at the wreckage with eyes painted in different shades of hurt. In a way, he was the most familiar with this sort of battle, a magic battle, and though the druids were peaceful, those that attacked them were not. But the childish face that begot his years was crumbling under the sheer force of such depravity.
Elyan’s face was hard. His lowered brows showed anger almost unquenchable. He was no friend to magic, even now with the ban lifted in Camelot. The destruction was, in his mind, earned and asked for. The sorcerers they had fought were most brutally vanquished at his hands; there was a piece of him that would never forget the injustice which killed his father and the magic that almost took his sister.
Percival and Gwaine were side by side, as they always were. Percival’s cloak disappeared somewhere in the battle, and his arms were enough to ward off some of the weakest enemies. He was the only knight to bear a weapon other than a sword, and his quarterstaff could knock a man’s head from his shoulders. He stood a foot above the rest and his eyes were narrowed in focused hunt. The inked bird on his arm moved with each rise of his shoulders.
Gwaine’s mouth was set in a rueful smile. He and Arthur usually thrived on battle, and even in the early stages of this agony, they were able to exchange grins and jokes while meeting their foes. He wore the most blood and the most wounds, but they hardly fazed him. He always looks like he was ready to run, escape was always in his step. Years of living on the run make a man ready to flee, but now Gwaine ran towards the danger, towards the fight, towards the duty set by his king. He was quieter now than he had been a year ago, but he carried his nobility with pride. He was the best knight Arthur had.
Lancelot trailed behind as he often did, keeping the rear, like he was waiting for someone to catch up with them. His stance was no less ready for a fight, but his shoulders were weary. He carried a weight they all know familiarly now, but he bore it the heaviest - save Arthur - and each step was dogged with an exhaustion no earthly solution could cure.
There was a man whom Arthur turns to, the same one Lancelot waited for, but his right side was bereft of its usual warmth, tongue and cheek, biting words that spur him to victory and hope.
Only a ghost remained - and even that was merely a figment of his guilt-addled mind.
The rest of Camelot’s men were scouring the battlefield for their comrades or were helping the wounded to the infirmary tents over the hill behind them. There were sounds of joy and reunions, but they were hardly audible over the pounding between his ears. The enemy was fleeing or dead. Vortigern’s body lay cold where Arthur had met him at the precipice of the cliff.
“She can’t have gotten too far,” Leon claimed as he came to a stop at Arthur’s left. No one stepped into the empty space to his right. “Even without a sword forged in a dragon’s breath, it is likely the wounds she has sustained will keep her from performing a teleportation spell.”
Arthur turned to Mordred, who nodded his agreement. “I don’t think she has enough energy to flee. She’ll be heading towards the woods, I think. To hide.”
The king hummed. “Can you find her?”
Mordred squared his shoulders and muttered a spell. His eyes did not flash the same sort of gold. The druid’s gaze was a rusted copper, not a pure metallic flash of power beyond imagining.
Pale yellow light encompassed his hands for a moment and a line extended from his palm across the field to the edge of the woods.
“More walking, then,” Gwaine complained
“Like you don’t need it,” Lancelot shot back.
“My love,” Gwaine slapped a palm to his chest, but the jesting action caused him to wince and halt in his step. Percival gripped his arm but the scoundrel shooed him off. “Lancelot has hurt my feelings, nothing more. I am fine.”
“Fiona will need to look at that soon,” Mordred interjected, brows furrowed. “The last thing any of us want is to be hounded about battlefield safety again.”
At the mention of his wife, Gwaine smirked. “She will be grateful I still breathe and kiss me.”
“She will choke you to near death for scaring her,” Arthur disagreed. “And then will flail the rest of us for our recklessness.”
The knight shuddered as one.
A crack of thunder pierced the air, and the moment of levity disappeared. The light illuminated a sole figure hobbling into the forest, clearly injured but determined. Arthur felt his eyes harden and allowed the fury for his sister to fester. There was a time when he would have tried for pity, for mercy, but not now.
No, he thought, remembering blue eyes and wide smiles. Not now.
They advanced again, jokes disappearing like dust in the wind. The swords were drawn, and Excalibur gleamed dangerously in the torchlight. There would be no grace for Morgana le Fey. She was alone and unaided. The dragon she once thought bound to her belonged to Camelot. The allies she called forth, alive and undead, have been laid to rest.
This was her final stand.
Arthur was going to make sure she fell.
She had not made it far into the forest when they catch up to her. She was collapsed against an old tree whose branches reach far and low. Blood covered her shoulder and left leg, and each step looked painful. Her once lovely face had been destroyed by years of anger and her eyes held a hatred even Arthur could not rival, and he had tried.
By the gods, he had tried - and he succeeded, in the worst way. At the worst time.
“Come to finish me off, brother dear?” She croaked
Arthur raised his sword. Another stroke of lightning. Morgana’s pale face shone pale white for a moment, blood on her temple a stark contrast.
“As much as it grieves me,” he said, voice more controlled than he had expected. “And I assure you, Morgana, it does, I sentence you to death.”
She hummed, somehow managing to appear just as royal as she had been in Camelot. It was odd, to see the woman who he had long thought insane and lost, look more in control than he. “You would know all about sentencing your friends to death, wouldn’t you?”
Arthur froze.
The air in the small clearing became chilled. Time stopped. They had moved away from the bloody field and yet blood was all Arthur could smell. He felt it drip from his fingers and his eyes wrenched from Morgana to Excalibur. He knew, logically, that he had cleaned his sword after the battle was over, but there was blood all over his blade and he knew whose it was and who had done it and he had left him in that clearing to die-
“How many more innocents died before this battle began?” She scowled. “How often did you fall into Uther’s shoes until they became your own? Was it easy? Did they fit like tailored gloves?”
“Camelot is at peace,” Arthur managed, forcing control into his voice. “Albion has come.”
“And who had to die for it to be so?”
His pulse pounded in his ears. How did she know?
“Tell me, dear brother,” she tilted her head, but no smile appeared. “Was it worth the sacrifice?”
The King swallowed.
How did she know?
“Was it worth his life?”
“Stop.” He demanded, but she interrupted him before he could continue.
“Do they know?” Her grin finally surfaced, though he was aghast to realize it was not because of his friend’s death, but the knights’ knowledge of it or their lack thereof. “Do they know what your anger cost them?”
“The knights have given his Majesty their forgiveness,” Gwaine spat, anger rising at the implication. “If Merlin taught us anything, it was the power of forgiveness.”
“The power of forgiveness?” And then her laugh shattered the air between them. It was a high thing, and if he did not know any better, he would call it mad. But Morgana laughed with her whole body, truly amused at the statement. “And was forgiveness powerful enough to bring him back from the dead?”
She licked her bloody lips and sneered. “Was it powerful enough to erase his murder?”
The knights exclaimed in fury, but Arthur found his voice quite dead.
“Merlin -!”
And Arthur’s gut flipped at the name he hardly allowed himself to say in his head, let alone slip across his lips. A name he had not felt worthy of saying since… since.
“- knew what he was doing!” Mordred claimed loudly, eyes narrowed at the woman who had once saved his life.
“Knew,” It was supposed to be a question, but it came out as a statement. A cold, dark, dangerous fact. It shook Arthur to his core and if he had been a braver man, he would have admitted that his knees trembled.
Morgana’s eyes narrowed, and she straightened despite her wounds and stepped towards them. “Knew? Tell me, Little Druid, did he really know? Did he know, or did he believe in a man that thrust a sword into his stomach the moment he found out the truth?”
All eyes turned to Arthur. The knights, Gaius (when he was still alive), the physician Fiona, and Gwen were the only people who knew the truth behind Merlin’s death. Though he was hailed as a hero and a sorcerer - these two things no longer held conflict in Camelot - the people believed he had died protecting his king.
And, in a way, he had.
But they did not know their king’s worst sin. His most grievous mistake. His unforgivable atrocity that had cost him his happiness and Merlin his life.
“Merlin believed in Arthur,” Leon growled.
“Yes,” Morgana nodded. “And look where that got him.”
“How do you know this?” Percival whispered, but the soft tone cut through the clearing like a knife.
The witch tilted her head again and pondered the knights.
“I found him.”
Since Merlin’s death, Arthur’s world had felt out of sync. Nothing was just right; everything felt off, odd, unsuitable, and unfixable. Things could be mended but never healed, bound but never set. There was a distance between what was and what should be.
This kicked whatever sync he might have pretended he felt out the window and slaughtered it in the street.
“You… you found him?”
Lancelot’s voice trembled. Arthur knew that his guilt rivaled all others save Arthur’s concerning Merlin’s death. He was the only one who knew, or at least the only one the sorcerer had told of his free will; Merlin was supposed to have stayed with Lancelot in Camelot the day of his murder if the knight had not gotten roped into a patrol near the northern border. He had blamed himself every day since Arthur returned with the news, even more so when he was told the truth.
Marrying Gwen had lightened the load, but only just.
Arthur had no such distraction.
Morgana hummed. “It wasn’t hard. He stank.”
Before any of the knights could rise to Merlin’s defense, she rolled her eyes and scoffed. “You know, Arthur, for all your claims of peace with magic, you know so little of it.”
She took another step towards them but came no closer. Her shoulders fell with weariness, but her expression held just as much fire as ever. “I was shaped by the Old Religion, as are all other sorcerers, priests and priestesses, and magicians of this age. Emrys is a creature of the Old Religion. A son of the earth, the sea, the sky. Magic is the fabric of the world, and Merlin was born of that magic. He is magic itself.”
She paused and her head turned, eyes shifting to something to their left. Her gaze grew distant. “So when I say stank, I mean he reeked of magic in a way I had never felt before, and only after did I realize that it was because he was dying. Emrys was dying. The creature that all magic owes fealty to, that I should have owed fealty to, was dying.”
Morgana shook her head and met his gaze again. “Never before have I felt such death. No mortal being could have emanated such power and depravity all at once. I had no idea… when I followed the path to where he lay against that old tree.”
The image came clearly to Arthur’s mind. It was clearer than the present, some days. It haunted each nightmare and shuttered against his closed eyelids.
He had left him there, Excalibur’s wound leaking blood. The sword had been his last weapon that day. Fists had come first, then boots when he had fallen, and then a log he’d tripped over in his desperate, furious fight against a man who would not fight back. He’d looked like a torture victim when Arthur had finished, and he had slumped against a tree.
Words were his greatest weapon that day and a week later, when reality began to sink in, he realized what he’d done. The damage he’d caused. He would never be able to forget the smile that the warlock had given him before he abandoned him - soft, small, and completely, utterly, undeservingly forgiving.
Then - idiot, such a stupid clot pole, to be so foolish and open his big mouth - Merlin had licked his blood-stained lips and croaked out an oath.
And Arthur had stabbed him through the stomach.
“I almost left him there,” she continued, oblivious to Arthur’s inner turmoil. “Left him to slowly bleed out at the hands of the man who had been his destiny.”
“Almost?” Gwaine inquired shakily.
“You-,” Arthur stepped back, eyebrows furrowing, and a treacherous spark of hope burst to life in his chest. “You saved him?”
“I delayed his death by two measly months,” she corrected with a flip of her wrist. “Merlin was going to die. Nothing could change that. I planned on keeping him alive long enough to torture him and extract answers, secrets, break his loyalty to you or steal his magic. Perhaps all at once.”
“Merlin would never betray Arthur!” Gwaine shouted in sync with another stroke of lightning. Thunder followed soon after. The storm had come.
“No,” she nodded slowly. “He would not.”
“What did you do to him?” Mordred rasped. Arthur did not need to turn to see the tears in his eyes. They were obvious in his voice.
Arthur did not reply but narrowed his eyes in answer. Whatever she was playing at, using Merlin’s death to overwhelm him, he would fight it. He had already lost the most precious person due to his fury. He would not lose his friends because of his anger towards Morgana.
There was a shout for help from the battlefield, and Fiona’s distinct voice replying with a “don’t move him!”
“Your doing, I assume?” Arthur hissed while gesturing to the battlefield, Excalibur once again aloft.
The priestess chuckled, wiping underneath her eyes, though if the tears were in humor or hurt, he did not know. “The battle? No, that was Vortergan's plan. He has wanted your throne for years, but I only met him recently.”
Arthur blinked. “Pardon?”
She rolled her eyes, shifting her weight slightly. “I did not come to fight you, Arthur. I simply came for you.”
“Why?” Leon asked, sword gripped tightly in his hand.
“Because it was the last thing he asked of me,” she snapped, but sobered just as quickly. “That and the protection spell, but that is a story for another time.”
Mordred stepped into the empty space at Arthur’s right. “Protection spell?”
The witch’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Have you not noticed that neither I nor any other danger has befallen Camelot in the past year? It was rather foolish for you to come out and battle him on the field, though your honor demanded it. He never would have been able to fell the citadel.”
“That’s…” Mordred’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “But it’s impossible.”
She hummed. “Not for Emrys.”
“Will someone please explain to the non-magic users?” Gwaine drawled, now fully leaning into Percival’s side, though his weapon was still drawn.
“Merlin created a spell to protect Camelot upon his death. I aided him in casting it.” Morgana rolled her shoulders back, pride rolling off her in waves. There stood the ghost of the woman who had stood up to their father. There stood the princess she had been, the queen she might have become. “It has yet to fail.”
Arthur blanked at the revelation. He had known Merlin’s loyalty like his own thoughts. It was intertwined with his very nature; every tale that spoke of his sacrifice for Albion carried it and it was the faint music behind every memory Gaius or the druids or Kilgharrah shared about him.
But this? This was too much.
Arthur had abandoned him to die a painful, lonely death. He had been told he was a monster, a traitor, and no friend of Arthur’s, and he had used, if Morgana was to be trusted, the last two grueling months of his life to protect him and his kingdom.
Arthur could not imagine a greater love story.
“I have never used so much power in my life,” she revealed; her gaze fell to her hands. They were rusty with blood but no longer shaking. “I wasn’t aware I could harness such magic. Not until he showed me.”
“Emrys?” Mordred beseeched, stepping forward.
She nodded, but her eyes failed to rise. “He showed me many things, in those two months. I wish I could have…”
She swallowed and her chin lifted, but her face was turned away, back towards the darker parts of the forest. “Despite all of your ill thoughts of me, brother, I would have saved his life.”
“Why?” Elyan finally entered the conversation. He, out of all the knights, had never forgiven Merlin, no matter how many stories they heard or how many new tales were discovered of his sacrifices and great deeds. He alone had held onto Uther’s way of life: magic was evil and dangerous. It corrupted completely. “Why the hell would you help him? He was a traitor - to you, to us, to Camelot, even to his own people. He slaughtered his kin and kept a man who had murdered thousands of magic users on his throne! He was a liar and a hypocrite!”
The other knights bristled, but none more than Leon. His hands shook and Arthur feared for a moment that the sword in his grip would turn on his comrade.
Only by the grace of the gods did it remain by his side.
Morgana surveyed the exchange with contemplation.
“Sometimes you have to do what is right,” she whispered, dark eyes rising. Her laughter - however manic - was gone, but the hatred had disappeared also. Left behind was a woman who had lost everything and did not have the strength to find anything more.
Her gaze met Arthur’s, and somehow, Arthur felt like a little boy again, and Morgana had just beaten him with her wooden sword. He had then fallen in the dirt and she had smirked - and then she had helped him up.
Her next words were “And damn the consequences,” and they were words he had heard before. Long ago, when the same man had risked everything to save Arthur’s life.
“He asked you to come to me?” Arthur asked quietly. He could not trust any louder tone for fear of his emotions cracking his voice.
She nodded and lifted her hand to her neck. Hidden by her mane of hair was a necklace with a small pouch, which she opened with care. She pulled out a small token. It was round and carved of stone, and when they realized what it was, the knights gasped, though some of them sounded more like sobs.
It was Ygraine’s sigil.
Morgana whispered a spell and the coin drifted from her hand to Arthur’s, who held it like a baby bird. It looked exactly the same as it had the day he had bestowed it on his friend. Then, their dangerous foes were Dorocha and Uther’s illness, and Arthur had given the sigil to Merlin because he believed, at his core, that he was the most capable of leading Camelot toward the light. He had told Leon of his gift and to respect Merlin as King Regent should Arthur fall.
He had planned too, but then Merlin (unbeknownst to him at the time) had fought the Cailleach and closed the veil with his magic. They had arrived to the Isle of the Blessed to a Cailleach congratulating them and had returned to Camelot. Arthur had not had the heart to ask for the sigil back after seeing Merlin’s eyes light up when he had given it.
He swallowed. A tear trailed down his cheek.
“Did he… did he suffer?”
She examined him for a moment. “Yes.”
Lancelot let out a sob behind him. He steeled himself from doing the same.
“Was he angry?” Arthur whispered, afraid of the answer. He did not know which he preferred: for Merlin to have been justly furious, or for him to be unjustly not.
Her frown softened. “No.”
“How?” Arthur hissed. “How the hell could he not be? Why would he not raze Camelot to the ground? Why did he not send every member of the Old Religion to kill me?”
Suddenly, her face was aglow with blue light. A small ball hovered in her hand, shining with a silver-blue light. It floated there, getting brighter and brighter before dimming again. Wisps of cloud swirled at its center. It was pure magic.
And the breath was stolen from Arthur’s lungs.
“I thought you’d recognize it,” she nodded, and if he was not so heartbroken he would have noticed the lack of scorn in her voice. Her eyes were trained on the orb. They flashed with something akin to, daresay, sorrow. “He conjured this most in the last days. He said…”
She swallowed, and for the first time in many years, he saw a genuine smile appear on her lips. It was small and quiet, the way she used to smile when Gwen braided her hair or when Merlin made a joke during their sibling picnics. It was fond in a way Arthur had forgotten she was capable of being, and it broke him even further.
This was the Morgana Arthur had known. Kind, compassionate, forgiving, and gracious. Soft smiles and gentle hands, a wit that pierced any man’s armor, and a heart made for a queen. How had she fallen so far?
How had he?
“He said it was warm,” she finished. Her other hand lifted to circle the globe. “He said it reminded him of home.”
Morgana took a deep breath and with a wave of her hand, the blood disappeared from her clothing and skin. He could not see from the distance, but he was sure her wounds were knitting together as well.
“I have not come to pose a threat to Camelot or to you,” she declared. “I came because it was his wish.”
She swallowed, eyes falling. The confidence slipped from her.
“And mine.”
Arthur yearned for it to be true.
But he had been deceived by Morgana before.
“How can we know what you say is the truth?” Leon voiced his doubts aloud. “How do we know you found Merlin at all?”
She met the First Knight’s gaze.
“I can show you.”
And then, without asking permission or giving them a chance to defend themselves, her eyes flashed golden, and the world around them exploded into light.