MORGAINE
My mind went blank, I couldn’t grasp onto a single, solid thought. Why was Merlin here? How had he survived? And what did the prince mean by “good work”? Had Stefano planned to betray me all along? To hand me over to the prince as some sort of prize? Lightning crackled in my blood. I had been played like a fiddle by these men; just a pawn in their regal games, yet again. The realisation lit a fire inside me that threatened to burn down the entire castle.
“Come, Morgaine. Let’s talk.” His voice was just as I remembered it. Merlin. My mentor; the sorcerer who had taught me everything I knew.
That had been almost five hundred years ago; I had learned a lot since then.
I followed him down deserted corridors and up winding staircases, realising only now that there had barely been a guard in sight this entire time. It had been a trap all along. We’d been lured here to be captured, tortured and executed.
And Stefano had been pulling the strings the whole time.
We reached a large, round room at the top of one of the towers. This was clearly where Merlin had been living for a while. The surfaces were littered with loose paper covered in hisbarely legible scrawl, the walls were pockmarked and blackened; damage from enchantments and rituals.
He went straight to a table where a crucible and various bottles and vials stood, and began to prepare a potion.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on here?” I asked, allowing only a fraction of my impatience and anger to bleed into my voice. I knew I wasn’t the one with the upperhand here, but I was in no mood to play Merlin’s childish games. I wanted the truth. “How are you here? Not just in Sherwood, but how are you alive?”
He halted his work and turned to me. “How did I survive your little spell?” He chuckled darkly, and a finger of ice ran down my spine. “I have been doing this for a lot longer than you, child. I saw the curse coming a mile away, you really must learn to mask your emotions better.”
I seethed inside. “Then, what? You played dead and waited five hundred years to show your face again?”
“I was injured, that I do admit.” He scratched his jaw with long, filthy fingernails. “And by the time I had healed enough to go looking, you had disappeared into the ether. Some said you’d joined Arthur in Avalon. But I watched and listened, and over the centuries I heard whispers of you. You may change your name and alter your appearance, little Morgana, but I will always find you.”
A shudder threatened to wrack my body, but I forced myself into stillness. I wouldn’t allow this decrepit old fool the satisfaction of seeing me disturbed. “Why were you looking for me? What do you want from me? You must hate me for what I did.”
He waved my words away with a hand. “The past is the past. Your mind had been twisted by the words of Arthur and Lancelot, I knew you would not have attacked me had you not been under their control.”
I baulked. “Merlin, you manipulated Mordred into usurping his own father and bringing about the fall of Camelot. You must see why I had to stop you from doing any more harm?”
His expression darkened, and I silently cursed my loose tongue. “Harm? Manipulation?” His voice rose with each word. “What did Arthur ever do for Camelot? The arrogant fool would have ruined everything we’d built if I hadn’t done what I did. In the end, it was too late, the damage had already been done. But I know that now, and I’ve learned from my past mistakes. It won’t happen again.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean, ‘again’?”
Merlin lurched towards me, giving me no time to react. He took my face in his hands. “This is what I mean, Morgana. You and me. Creating the new Camelot together, here, in the Royal Forests. I’ve been searching for you for centuries, and now that I’ve found you we can have it all. We can take whatever we want. They will never be able to stop us, not both of us. Not together.”
My mouth fell open as I absorbed his words, understanding cutting to my core like a knife. “You want to rule over the Royal Forests? That’s why you’re here, you’ve been influencing Prince John the same way you did Arthur, and then Mordred?”
Merlin’s smile made my skin crawl. “I prefer to call it advising. But it’s just so easy when they’re as dim-witted as these wealthy noble types always are. How do you think I finally found you after all this time, my sweet?”
“What do you mean? I found you…” Didn’t I? But something inside me knew it wasn’t true. If this had been a trap to lure me in, and Merlin was behind it, then he had known I was here. In the Royal Forests, at least, if not that I’d bound myself to the new High Sheriff and was hiding out with the rebels.
He let out a laugh that brought every memory of our time together in Camelot rushing back to me. “I had heard rumblingsabout a High Priestess in the area, and I knew all it would take was a threat to all witchkind to flush you out.”
My eyes fluttered closed as the realisation of what he was telling me hit home. “You’re to blame for the witch hunts? For all the trials and executions? Of innocent people?” My hands balled into fists, my fingernails digging into my palms until they drew blood. I could feel my magic simmering under the surface, ready to lash out.
Merlin strode back over to his crucible and started flicking through sheets of paper, searching for something. “It’s almost ready. All I need is you; your power. Don’t you want to punish them all, Morgana? Don’t you want to see everyone who’s ever hurt you and betrayed you burn? Don’t you want them to fall at your feet, trembling with fear?”
I did. Of course, I did. I had been tricked and lied to and had my heart broken by so many people in my long life. Did I want to take revenge on them all? Yes. It was true.
But Merlin had been the first to betray me, all those centuries ago. He had broken my trust, colluding with Mordred to depose Arthur while he was away at war, destroying everything I had held dear.
A sharp pain in my chest made me tug at the collar of my tunic to see the mark. Its black tendrils pulsed and I felt lightheaded. What was happening to Stefano? I couldn’t let Prince John kill him before the bond was broken. I needed to save him. Even though he had betrayed me, I couldn’t let him die. Not yet. I had to put a stop to this.
“You’re right,” I told Merlin. “They deserve everything they get. Let’s make them pay.”
Merlin clapped his hands with glee and beckoned me over to the crucible.
22
