Quieter please, Merlin,I told him, my tone weary even when not spoken out loud.I have the worst headache and I am currently sitting in a very damp dungeon. You don’t need to shout.
My words were terse, but I hoped he could hear the sheer level of my relief at being able to connect with him.
Apologies,Merlin hurried to say, his volume dropping as he continued.I have been shouting into the void for hours hoping you would remember our earlier lessons.
What the hell happened?I asked, pulling the linen sheet tighter around my shoulders and gritting my teeth as a fresh wave of fire began to lick its way up my body.
We were ambushed. They—the Saxons—had a contraption with runes scribed all over it. It looked like a massive clamshell and before I knew what was occurring, it had snapped me up into its depths. I cannot use my magic except for the tiniest bit here and even that will not last forever.Merlin was trying to keep his voice level and calm, but even I could hear the panic in his tone.
You aren’t usually so easily trappable,I pointed out softly, wondering just what had occurred to make Merlin drop his guard.
Merlin’s sigh was heavy on the other end of our magical connection.Morgana surprised us all. I never considered that she would actively work with the Saxons and the gods had never shown me such a thing either—at least they had yet to.
I frowned.What do you mean? Have they shown you something now?
There was a long pause, and for a moment, I was scared I had lost him, but then he spoke again.I am meant to remain here forever, Gwen, it is what the gods have shown me. Do you remember what happens when the portents that they have shown me come to pass or are about to?
I nodded even though I knew he couldn’t see me. Merlin had told me about the buzzing in his chest as if he was meant to bear witness to whatever the gods wanted him to see.
The buzzing,Merlin continued,was the true distraction once the battle had begun. I watched Morgana sneak up behind Arthur as he was fighting one of the Saxon invaders and put her hands on his temples. When I moved to stop it, my magic triggered the trap. The gods sent their message: I am to remain here.
That’s bullshit,I snapped disbelievingly.Your purpose is not done yet and I will be damned if I let you live in a magical clamshell for the rest of your life.
It is what the gods have decreed,Merlin said sadly, his voice starting to fade.
Anger filled me as I realized he was giving up. After spending ten years stuck in that damned cave looking for me he was resigning himself to a life locked in darkness—this time permanently.I don’t believe that for one damned minute, Merlin, the gods are not all-powerful and you are not disposable. Not to me.
Tell me then. In all of those versions of the story you knew about King Arthur and his round table—was Merlin the Wizard ever at the final battle?Merlin asked, his voice a mixture of anger and dismay.
I searched my memory, trying to find one version—just one—where Merlin still existed to the very end. But I came up empty.
Hearing my silence, Merlin left out a soft self-deprecating chuckle.I am not needed for this part of your fate, Gwen. Can’t you see? I let myself be sold on the idea of truly being a part of you all and the gods reminded me of my place. I am an observer, not a participant. You were meant to stand on your own at the penultimate battle.
His words hit me like a jolt of lightning. Everything that Merlin had told me about what he knew of the future had nothing to do with the final battle where Arthur, Lancelot, Gawain, and Bedivere were meant to die and leave me alone again.
How much of that do you know?
I have only seen flashes of a great battle and you standing on the top of a hill dressed in triumphant red, Merlin’s voice turned almost nostalgic even though the event had yet to come to pass.
But that’s not what—I began but the air in my lungs left me in a painful, wheezing, whoosh.
It had been so long since the gods had used their gag on me that it nearly made me vomit what little I had left in my stomach after not eating since breakfast the day before.
You should not try to tell me anything, Gwen, it will just hurt you more in the end,Merlin said, his words holding a double meaning.
He didn’t want me to try to tell him because he didn’t reallywantto know what was going to happen in a future without him there. He was playing a character—Merlin the Wizard. But I knew Merlin the man.
In the distance I heard the doors to the dungeon open and I realized I was running out of time.
We are going to find you, Merlin, and we are going to set you free,I hurried to say,and when we do you are going to be a part of my family forever. You are just as much a part of the pack as the rest of them.
Merlin said nothing and instead withdrew his magical threads, resigning himself to his fate and leaving me alone in my head again to face my own.
“Put him in the cell next to that one,” I heard a familiar female voice say as the cell door next to mine opened with a creak and a bloodied Lancelot was dropped unceremoniously to the floor.
Someone, at some point, must have given him a pair of trousers to wear, though that did little to hide the gashes and whip marks marring his back.
A strangled noise left my lips as my eyes surveyed my beaten and battered alpha. I couldn’t feel his pain and it made me realize he was shielding me from it, the stubborn ass. Even though it was my fault he was hurt in the first place.
