Vera’s chest tightened as she turned back to the shards of glass sprinkling the floor beneath the remains of the potion that dripped down the wall. What had she done?
“That,” Merlin said, “was a potion I made to help crops persist through poor conditions. I’d hoped it would help the kingdom in the coming season.” He gestured to the seat near his desk. “Will you please … ?”
She stayed rooted to her spot. “Why didn’t you tell me what that potion would do? I should have had a choice.”
“I would have,” he said. “But I thought it unwise in front of Sir Lancelot. And after the king forbade me from further work, I didn’t have ample opportunity to speak to you.”
“But you made time to get a fucking potion to Arthur,” Vera shot back.
Merlin nodded slowly. “I did.”
“Well, it didn’t work. It’s not going to work. There will be no connecting.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Merlin said. His calm was infuriating. “I thought I’d made it clear how important this work is.”
Vera lifted her eyebrows. “Gawain said the memories might not be necessary.”
“They are.”
“As you have assured me,” Vera snarled. There had to be more to this. More reason. “If connecting with me is all that’s needed to save Arthur’s kingdom, why the hell is it so impossible for him? What aren’t you telling me?”
Perhaps he saw in her eyes that she would not leave this room until he answered. Merlin gestured patiently at the seat near him. This time, Vera dropped into it.
“I’ve been surprised,” Merlin began slowly, “that you never asked why Viviane cursed us—surprised, but grateful. I’d hoped you would remember on your own, and I wouldn’t have to be the one to tell you.” He didn’t move. His expression hadn’t changed, but goosebumps rose on Vera’s arms and skittered up her neck.
“When the wars ended, and Arthur began to establish the kingdom, Viviane grew disenchanted,” Merlin said. “She’d believed he would be a different sort of ruler than the power-hungry conquerors, and make no mistake, he is. But she wanted more. She dreamed of a rather idealistic economic structure, and when Arthur accepted money from the rich to build the kingdom and allowed them their titles of nobility, lands, and power, Viviane was dismayed that it was all the same. What was the point in fighting to build a country like every other? Her perspective wasn’t without merit. In many ways, it was a fair critique, the kind of thing a ruler like Arthur wants in his advisors: someone to challenge him and hold him to a higher standard. But he’s also pragmatic. He knew we needed to start somewhere.
Merlin rubbed at his temples and closed his eyes for a moment, like the words were draining him. “Viviane was an exploratory mage. She travelled to discover and develop new ways to use magic. She was away frequently. We did not know that Viviane used those travels to seek out another leader, one she deemed more worthy than Arthur. Her plot began when she found a Saxon ruler who shared her vision. Viviane intended to orchestrate the fall of Arthur and his kingdom.”
Merlin’s eyes lingered on her as if hoping she might remember the rest of the story so he wouldn’t have to say it. “Viviane bewitched you. You were a key piece—the key piece of her plan against the throne.”
Bewitched. It echoed in her mind, the subtle and persistent tap of a piece that didn’t quite fit. “What do you mean by bewitched?”
Merlin didn’t answer.
“Did she use a spell or a potion or something?” Vera pushed, dread rising in her gut.
Merlin glanced down at the desk before meeting her eyes. It all but confirmed her suspicion: the “bewitchment” had nothing to do with magic.
“Viviane was very powerful and very convincing. And you were uniquely situated to be swayed. You endured awful things. She saw how that weighed on you and capitalized on it. And there was no one better positioned than you to fill that role. You had the king’s trust and access to all military information. It was easy for you to pass intelligence. Who better to help bring down the leader than the person closest to him?”
A new word now: betrayal.
“Bring him down? I wouldn’t—she wouldn’t—” In truth, Vera didn’t know what Guinevere would have done. “But …” She thought of how Arthur loved his people and the magical pull that brought him to the throne. Of all the parts about this that were untenable, that may have been the most. “The people wouldn’t stand for another ruler. She had to have known that! They would revolt.”
Merlin steepled his fingers in front of his lips. If she hadn’t known the conversation’s context and had only walked in the room then, she’d have thought he was wrestling with a complicated maths problem. “The magic that calls Arthur to the throne would end upon his death. I don’t know the specifics of Viviane’s plan. I can’t say whether she meant to kill Arthur or if she wanted that done by your hand.”
“No,” Vera breathed. She didn’t know what she’d imagined, but it wasn’t this. This was so much worse. An affair with Lancelot would have been child’s play in comparison. And Arthur—she had seen the way his face had hardened last night. “Arthur knows, doesn’t he?”
She needed no answer, but Merlin gave it. “Yes.”
Ah. There it was.
She was a traitor. To Arthur, first and foremost. All the time he had been cold, had physically pulled away from Vera … He’d been exceedingly generous, all things considered. No wonder he stayed so deliberately distant. If Vera had anything more of Guinevere in her than memories, she was a danger to him and to everything he’d poured his life into.
Vera dropped her forehead into her hands. The fuel was sucked from the fire of her anger, suffocated by the truth. Her remaining feelings of disdain for Arthur melted into shame. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I thought we had time for you to remember on your own,” Merlin said. “It used to be that my life force could sustain magic across the entire kingdom. Its reach has diminished. Now it won’t even hold reliably to Exeter.” Bitter frustration bubbled into his voice, and the pallor of his face looked greyer than before, as if merely thinking of his recent endeavors exhausted him. “And there are the attacks in the Frankish Kingdoms—another one quite recently. I’m not convinced it’s unrelated to Viviane’s ruler. The only chance we have of reversing the damage is if you remember what she did. If the magic continues to weaken this rapidly, the Saxons will seize upon that and invade even without Viviane. We’ll need your memories then, too, to stand a tactical chance against whatever intelligence you gave them.”
