"I've done what was necessary to survive—and to ensureyoudo the same."
If he wanted my gratitude, he wasn't going to get it. I fully understood what I was to him—a tool. Nothing more. Nothing less.
It just so happened that this mission serendipitously aligned with my own deeply rooted desires for vengeance and justice against Camelot and its king. Otherwise, there would have been no amount of persuasion or prompting that would have led me to agree to it.
"Your thoughts are unraveling again." Merlin cleared his throat. "Focus, Guinevere. Arthur’s court is not a place for uncertainty."
I straightened and held back another pointed remark. I hated it when he lectured me, and he knew it. But he didn't care.
"Do you understand your mission?" he continued.
"I do."
Even in the face of Merlin's frustration, my thoughts returned to Logres, the homeland I would soon be returning to. It was now a land devoid of magic, thanks to the king.
"You seem troubled. Where are your thoughts now?"
I looked up at him and figured there was no use in lying. I'd learned that lesson a long time ago—Merlin could see through everything. "I was thinking of… home." Of Eldenvale. Of my parents. The farm. The people who’d once loved me.
Merlin’s voice softened. "You know you can’t return."
I nodded. “I know.”
He studied me with those all-knowing eyes. “They are gone, Guinevere. They have been for over three years. Now they should be nothing more than a distant memory."
Another nod escaped me, tighter this time. That familiar ache settled in my chest—that hollow space where memories ofmy parents' laughter once lived, where the warmth of our small kitchen on winter mornings used to reside.
Merlin, for all his boundless knowledge and mystical prowess, didn't understand love or human connection. As far as I knew, he'd never truly experienced either emotion in any significant capacity. So, of course, he couldn't comprehend the bitterness that curled in my gut as I lay awake at night, consumed by thoughts of nothing but the burning desire for revenge against the king who had obliterated everything I once cherished, everything that had given my life meaning.
While it was true that Merlin, too, craved vengeance against Arthur, there was a stark contrast between his motivations and mine. Merlin's revenge seemed rooted in a desire for power, a strategic play for control, whereas my own was fueled by a deep-seated personal anguish, a longing for justice that sprang from the ashes of my past.
To Merlin, it was a game of wits and manipulation; to me, it was a matter of justice for everything the king had taken from me.
"The farm was never truly your home," he offered, and I wondered if he actually believed such a comment would soothe me.
Maybe I couldn't fault Merlin entirely for his complete lack of empathy—how can you blame someone for failing to comprehend emotions they've never experienced? The man had lived for seemingly ever, accumulating knowledge and power like a dragon hoards gold, but somewhere along the way, he'd lost touch with the simple reality of human connection. He could manipulate the fabric of time, command the elements themselves, and peer into the threads of destiny, yet the basic concept of love—of belonging, of home—remained as foreign to him as magic once was to me. Regardless, it didn't make his casual dismissal any easier to bear.
"Logres was never where you belonged."
I frowned. “You’ve said that before, though you’ve never explained it.”
He turned away, hands drifting to a floating star chart that appeared directly in front of him. The constellations shimmered, repositioning under his touch. In the glow of the chart, I saw the deep lines carved into his face. Even power couldn’t erase time. As to how old Merlin truly was? No one knew. He could have been eighty or as old as the earth, for all I knew, but he looked like he wasn't a day over two hundred.
"Some truths must remain locked away."
I frowned at him. “Translation: you’re avoiding explaining yourself just like you always do." I sighed at him. "Honestly, Merlin, you're so predictable.”
His frown was pronounced. The stars in his cloak dimmed, shimmered, then stilled. It was his tell—that he was irritated with me. Something that happened frequently. Sometimes I wondered if he was sending me on this particular mission just to get rid of me.
He hesitated, then turned to face me. "You are the only one who speaks to me in such a manner."
That was true. Everyone else in Annwyn was always too busy kissing his ass.
"And I think you respect me more because of it."
A smile lit one half of his mouth before he remembered himself and schooled his expression. "Do you?"
Or maybe he thought I was an extreme pain in his ass. I didn't know, and I didn't care.
