Archive of Our Own

Author's Note: Merry Christmas, Madlady! It was great fun writing this for you! I hope you enjoy it!

Special thanks to some anonymous friends who read early versions of this and provided encouragement and muse food.

“You have magic!” Arthur hissed in angry shock – dead, smoking dire wolf at his feet – while Merlin stood there frozen, hand still outstretched as the gold faded from his suddenly teary eyes.

Everything about the hunt had gone wrong from the hour they had left the castle.

It had been three days from Yule and the prince was in desperate need of some fresh air – or so he claimed to his servant. And another hart to provide meat for the feast would have been welcomed.

Except, when they finally saw one, Merlin realized he’d forgotten all the bolts for Arthur’s crossbow, leaving him with just sword and spear as hunting weapons.

Then half a day’s ride from the city, while they stopped for a very chilly midday meal before turning around (and having seen nothing bigger than a badger since the first deer), something startled their horses. The terrified animals broke their tethers and bolted before either young man could react, taking everything but Merlin’s saddle bag and Arthur’s sword with them.

After much loud cursing and yelling, a very grumpy prince and servant started trudging on foot through the increasingly frigid wind back to the citadel, embarrassingly empty-handed. They’d only gone a few yards, however, when they found what had caused their horses fright – a huge, dark creature with eyes that glowed blood red, slinking and waiting in the shadows just ahead, barring their way.

The hunters had become the hunted.

For an entire day and a half, as the weather worsened and their already meager supplies dwindled, Merlin and Arthur were stalked and driven, never able to engage the beast but never able to elude or pass it. Instead of making for the city, it pressed them in the opposite direction, until finally, right on Camelot’s border it attacked without warning. The beast leapt from nowhere, making no sound, right for the prince when his back was turned, not even giving Merlin a chance to shout a warning.

Which led to Merlin now standing there in growing terror, watching his master’s face darken with betrayal.

“You have magic!” Arthur shouted again, drawing his sword as he stalked forward, stepping over the carcass.

Merlin looked at his master, his prince, his friend – saw the cold, righteous fury and bitter pain growing in his eyes, saw the light glinting off the sharp blade of his sword – and just turned and ran.

*****

Hunith shivered as she stepped back into her hut, shaking the snow from her shawl. She pushed the door shut against the howling wind, grateful she had thought to fasten the rope between her home and her little stable yesterday when the dark, threatening clouds had first filled the sky. She would rest better knowing her goats and chickens were safe and fed for the night and she had a way to reach them without getting lost if the blizzard continued for long.

She put her shawl on the peg by the door, then threw another log on the fire, pausing to stir the pot of soup that hung over it and marveling as she did that she had such luxuries as plentiful wood and food, as well as goats and chickens. Nights like this one would have simply been endured in years past, not spent in comfort by a roaring fire with warm bread and soup. But in the two years since Merlin had been working for the prince of Camelot, money had come trickling in each month, enough that she sometimes wondered if her son even kept anything for himself. Sometimes other things had arrived as well – like the shawl that now hung by the door – too fine to be bought with a peasant’s coin. She remembered the young prince who’d come with her son – the lost, lonely look in his eyes – and accepted the gifts with a grateful smile, vowing to return the favors if ever given the chance.

She was just sitting down to her solitary meal, humming a little tune she used to sing to Merlin each year at Yule and smiling as she lost herself in happy memories, when the door to her hut burst open.

Wind and snow blew in from the dark night, causing her fire to roar and all her candles to snuff out. She let out a short scream, but then she noticed the sopping wet figure – black hair plastered to his deathly pale skin, struggling numbly to close the door – and she leapt to her feet.

“Merlin!” she cried, rushing forward to help latch the door. “What…how…Merlin!”

Her boy looked up and she saw his eyes were flecked with gold, even as she took in how his teeth chattered and limbs shook.

“He knows, Mother,” her boy muttered, his words barely understandable. “Knows…saw…so hurt. Just ran and ran… Messed it all up. Just needed to come home.”

It was then that Hunith realized the moisture on his face was only partly from the snow – most of it was tears.

“Merlin, you’re almost frozen to death!” she cried, grabbing the shawl and throwing it around her trembling son.

“Arthur saw the magic,” he whispered in agony again, and then his knees started to buckle.

“Whoa, not here,” Hunith ordered in her best mother voice, grabbing his arms and half dragging her teenage boy to the seat by the fire. In silent despair, he collapsed into the chair, shoulders shaking from suddenly released sobs.

She pulled him close to her, wrapping him tightly in her arms and let him cry, even as her own heart broke and worry spiked.

The fire had grown dim before his tears finally subsided. She held him tightly for a few moments more, then gently pushed him back, using her apron to dry his face.

“Tell me what happened,” she said gently, as she stripped the dripping brown coat from his arms and started on the sodden knot of his neckerchief.

“There was a creature – a huge wolf. It was hunting us. It just came out of nowhere – right for Arthur. He didn’t even have time to draw his sword. There was nothing…if I hadn’t…he would have died,” his words trailed off in shivers and hitched breaths. Hunith finally got the blasted scarf undone and threw it to the side, pausing to add more logs to the fire, before turning her attention back to her child.

“What did the prince do?” she asked next, trying to keep her own fear from showing in her voice. All her life she’d tried to protect her boy from this, from people who could hurt him after finding out about his magic. She’d met Prince Arthur – liked the lad, and thought him a good person. But magic could make even good people lose their heads.

“He yelled that I had magic. He sounded so hurt, and he had his sword and…”

Merlin didn’t fight her as she tugged his blue tunic up over his head and added it to the growing pile of sopping wet garments on the floor. She grabbed a blanket off her bed and wrapped her skinny, pale boy up tight before going to work on his boots.

“Where is Arthur now?” she asked, trying to form the picture of what happened in her mind. Obviously, Merlin had saved Arthur’s life with his magic, but it sounded like he had panicked and ran before the prince even had a chance to accept or reject him.

“He’s just…we were close to the border…and there was the sword and…” Suddenly, Merlin blinked, and for the first time his eyes lost the slightly feverish craze that had been in them since he burst through her door. “I just left him there,” he whispered in horror. “In the woods. Alone. And the blizzard started and…” He jerked to his feet, nearly toppling over as Hunith still had hold of one of them as she tried undo his boot. “I left him alone in the blizzard, Mother!” he cried, blanket sliding off his shoulders to the floor. “I’ve got to go find him!”

Hunith stood up and firmly pushed her boy back into the chair. “You won’t be going anywhere until this storm lets up! I think – no I know – that only your magic kept you on your feet and going in the right direction to get here in the first place!”

Merlin started arguing at once, even though his lips were still blue. “But Arthur is –”

“An avid outdoors man?” Hunith interrupted. “Royally trained? With a good head on his shoulders?”

Merlin snapped his jaw shut. Hunith picked up the blanket and tucked it back around him.

“He probably thought to find shelter the instant the storm started, instead of running headlong into it like some other lad I won’t mention.”

Finally, some color came to her boy’s cheeks, even if it was only from embarrassed blushing.

“He wants to kill me,” he muttered sadly.

“Well, don’t let mother nature do it for him,” she shot back, rubbing his hair with a corner of the blanket. “Make him do his own dirty work.” The little half snort she got from Merlin was soothing to her heart.

When his hair was only slightly damp, she stopped and turned his face up so she could see his eyes. “I won’t lie and say I’m not terrified of what might happen, but I met Prince Arthur. He’s a good man. I believe he cares for you. And I know how much that “pratty prince” as you like to call him means to you as well. Friendship can be stronger than fear, Merlin. Sometimes you have to trust.”

“Trust him not to kill me? Not to turn me over to his father? Or send me away?” her boy said dejectedly. “Trust him not to get himself turned into a prince-sicle before I can come find him?”

“Yes, all those things. Nothing to do but trust. Arthur’s smart enough to use both his heart and his head. Now get out of the rest of those wet things so they can dry by the fire and have some soup. I know now why I made such a big pot of it.”

*****

For the nine millionth time, Arthur cursed his stupidity, blaming everything on brain damage from having been knocked out one too many times. Because what else could have caused him, when his idiotic traitor of a manservant bolted headlong into the woods, to run after him instead of cutting his loses and making for home?

Brain damage.

It was the only answer.

It was an answer that didn’t explain the aching tear in his heart that had formed when he’d seen Merlin’s blue eyes turn molten gold, however.

Nor did it explain the second tear that formed when the gold was replaced with abject terror and the boy had literally run for his life.

Of course, the way things were going, Arthur wouldn’t have to think about any of it for long, because the tree he was huddled under was doing nothing to stop the life-sucking cold of the blizzard from reaching him, and he was so completely lost he knew that finding any better shelter was hopeless now.

He was going to die here – alone in the woods on the eve before Yule – because he’d trusted a peasant boy and dared to call him friend.

“He wasn’t even a good servant,” he mumbled through numb lips, surprised when there were sudden drops of water rolling down his frozen cheeks. Angrily, he kicked out at a lump of snow with a foot he couldn’t even feel anymore.

Merlin was probably dying in the snow as well.

Served him right.

Hopefully, when they both got to the after-life, Arthur could finish yelling at him.

Suddenly, the snow in front of Arthur seemed to glow with a blueish light.

Was it time already? Was he already dying? For some reason, he thought it would take a bit longer to freeze to death…

The blue light moved closer, coalescing into a glowing ball that hovered in front of his face, then darted forwards a few inches in a rather impatient manner.

“You again!” Arthur cried, though he had no idea who – or even what – the little light was. Still, he instantly recognized it as the light that had led him out of the cave over a year ago.

The light bobbed up and down, then moved forward a few more inches, out from under Arthur’s completely pathetic tree.

“I’m supposed to follow?” he asked, sure the fact he was talking to it was further proof of the earlier mentioned brain damage, but he was too cold to care.

Again, the light bobbed.

“But, you’re magic,” he said, anger, hurt, and betrayal boiling back up through the numbing cold. Magic had just stolen his best friend from him, had just ruined everything in a way he knew could never be fixed. How could he trust this…thing…made of obvious magic after that, even if it had saved his life before?

The blue light zipped back to him, rushing right up to his face and zapping him on the forehead then darting back to its original position before he could even react.

“Ow!” he yelled, bringing a hand up to his stinging skin. “Did you just…just slap me on the forehead?”

The cheeky blue light bobbed a third time – very impatiently – and then inched forward again.

“Fine!” Arthur groused, climbing painfully to his frozen feet. “But only because I’m going to die anyway and have nothing to lose!”

*****

Arthur lost all sense of time as he trudged through the blinding snow after the little, glowing ball of blue light. His feet and hands had long ago gone numb and some part of his brain knew he should have succumbed to the cold hours ago, but somehow he pushed on, led by the ball of magic that never wavered.

Finally, when he was sure that magic or not, he couldn’t go one step further, he walked right into a wall of wood.

It should have hurt, but he didn’t have enough sensation left in any part of his frozen body to notice.

The blue light fluttered down, illuminating a leather and wood latch.

It wasn’t a wooden wall. It was a wooden door!

It took Arthur’s frozen fingers five tries to pull it open, then the light flew inside, the prince dutifully following.

He hadn’t realized how much the sound of the howling wind had driven into his very soul until he closed the door and it was partially blocked. He simply stood there in a daze, swaying and numb, not even sure he was completely conscious.

Until something started chewing on his coat and he finally blinked in shock and looked around.

There was straw.

And watering troughs – though those had frozen over.

Tools and a wheel barrel were stashed in one corner.

Roosts filled with sleeping chickens line a center wall, and three goats gazed at him from their beds in the scratchy straw.

Plus one more that was eating his coat.

He was in a barn.

A beautiful, wonderful, life-saving barn.

“Maaaaahhhh!” the goat said excitedly.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he whispered back through stiff, cracked lips, and climbed right into the straw, snuggling up next to the blessedly warm bodies of the grey and white goats. They seemed to accept him without question and returned to sleep. The little, blue light settled above him, providing just enough light to keep the dark shadows of the small barn at bay as the fourth goat flopped down in the pile.

“Thank you,” Arthur said, looking up at it as his teeth started chattering – a good sign he was starting to warm up.

It bobbed politely, then stilled.

“Maaaaaahhhh!” the goat agreed.

Gradually, Arthur unthawed, and then – lulled by the rhythmic snoring of his new friends – he fell into an exhausted sleep.

*****

Clinging to the rope stretched between the house and the barn, Merlin fought his way through the snow drifts as the storm raged on around him. Morning had arrived with no break in the weather and he was so tired. He hadn’t slept a bit – too worried for Arthur out in the blizzard, and for himself and what the future might hold.

Still, the animals needed food and water, plus the nannies would need milked. He didn’t want his mother going back out in the storm, so he battled his way to the barn.

It was a testament to his frazzled state of mind that he never even thought of using magic to help clear his path.

Finally, he made it to the little structure and moved enough snow to force the door open, slipping inside and shutting it gratefully behind him. He leaned on it for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the very dim light of the interior. The chickens were rustling and calling quietly to each other and several of the goats were still snoring gently.

“Maaaahhhh,” his mother’s billy goat greeted him sleepily.

“Yes, what on earth are you doing, waking us at this hour?” said a very familiar, half-asleep voice.

Merlin’s heart skipped a beat as he jerked his eyes to the straw pile in the goats’ pen. A pale face with messy blond hair poked up from the middle of the grey and white goat bodies, eyes lidded and not fully awake.

“Arthur!” Merlin cried, clinging to the door as his knees suddenly went weak. He couldn’t tell if it was from relief or renewed terror.

The prince’s eyes snapped open and he jumped to his feet, startling his animal companions who stumbled away, complaining loudly about his rudeness. “Merlin!” he cried back, a million emotions racing across his face.

They stood there, staring at each other for ages in the dim barn light, as destinies and secrets and possible futures swirled in the dusty, frozen air between them.

Master and servant.

Prince and peasant.

Knight and criminal.

Former best friends.

“You have straw in your hair,” Merlin finally said.

“You have magic,” Arthur returned, reaching up distractedly to brush at his shaggy mop.

“Since the day I was born,” the warlock answered softly.

They were here. At this moment. There was no going back.

“Huh,” the prince said eloquently. “And now you’ve saved my life with it twice.”

Merlin gave a bitter, sad laugh. “Way more than twice,” he said, forcing himself to unfreeze. Slowly, carefully – eyes often straying to Arthur’s sword still strapped to his belt – he moved around the barn. It felt like he was dancing on the edge of his own grave as he grabbed the milk bucket and three-legged stool, shooed the first nannie into the corner and looped the rope (it was just a rope, not a noose, just a rope!) around her neck, and then settled down to milk, warming his hands with silent magic before he touched her udder.

“No way. When?” his master asked, stomping out of the straw and desperately trying to brush it all from his clothes. The billy goat kept interfering, vying for his attention.

“Lady Helen, Sophia, Valiant, the questing beast, Cornelious Sigan…” Merlin listed, the sound of the streams of milk hitting the wooden bucket at odds with the fear thudding in his heart. How could his world be ending while he milked a goat in the barn? Shouldn’t it be bigger and more dramatic? Still, he forced himself to keep talking. “I could keep goin – wait, you said two times. What other time did you mean?”

“The blue light that led me here? That wasn’t you?”

That wasn’t what Merlin was expecting. “No – I mean yes, probably.” The blue light was most certainly his. Gaius had told him all about how he’d created one while the fever from the poison burned through him, and later, when Arthur confessed to him how he was saved in the cave, Merlin had realized what he’d done. But he hadn’t even slept last night, and still his magic had gone to Arthur’s aid. “I didn’t know I could do it without even meaning to…”

Arthur extracted a sagging, wooden crate from somewhere and pulled it over, sitting down slightly behind Merlin. The younger boy tried hard not to flinch. They sat there for a long time, neither one saying anything. Eventually, Merlin couldn’t stand it and broke the silence.

“Why didn’t you go back to Camelot? Tell your father about me?”

The prince sighed and leaned forward, elbows resting on his legs, head hanging down. Merlin heard the pulsing hurt in that sigh and felt tears spring to the corners of his eyes.

“I don’t know. I should have. Magic is evil and the law’s the law.”

This time Merlin did flinch and the tears crested his eyes to run down his cheeks. He disguised it all by standing, releasing the first goat, and bringing over the second to start again.

“When you kill me,” he finally said quietly, “Could you please wait until we’re on the way back to Camelot? Tell everyone it was an accident? I don’t want my mother to know; she’s strangely fond of you.”

“I’m not going to kill you, idiot!” Arthur stood, drawing his sword and throwing it into the straw with a frustrated growl. Several of the chickens took flight in alarm, squawking in offence as the prince ran hands through his hair. “I wouldn’t have run after you like a fool if I wanted you dea – Wait.” He suddenly stopped and looked at Merlin in confusion. “Your mother is here?”

“Of course she’s here,” Merlin said in exasperation. “We’re in Ealdor. This is her barn. Or did you think I just walked into random stranger’s barns and started milking their goats?”

“I don’t know what you peasants do in your spare time? Maybe barn trespassing is a thing!” Arthur said back, slumping onto the crate again, which creaked alarmingly.

Merlin shot a stream of warm goat’s milk at his face.

“Hey!” Arthur sputtered, wiping it away. “Don’t push your luck!”

They sat in silence again for a while after that, only the soft sounds of the animals and the streams of milk mixing with the continuously howling wind battering the stable from outside.

Arthur stared at his hands.

Merlin shivered and leaned his forehead against the goat’s warm side.

“You’re really not going to kill me?” the teen finally asked.

“No,” Arthur replied wearily.

“Banishment then?” Merlin asked, his voice wobbly.

“Oh heaven’s no,” Arthur said, straightening up. “Who would wash my socks?” The billy goat, bored with the hay in his trough, wandered over to Arthur and started head butting his back.

“But I have…have magic,” Merlin pressed. Now it was out there, it was strangely important to him not to brush it aside. He finished stripping the goat’s udder and set her free, rounding up the last nannie and tying her into place. “Magic is..is evil. Not to mention illegal. Taking me back – sparing my life – while knowing that means…”

“I don’t know what it means,” Arthur sighed loudly, once again running hands through his hair as his breath puffed out in a cloud before him. “It’s all a mess and wrong and… You saved my life! Again, apparently! With magic. Which is evil. But…somehow you’re not. Just idiotic. I just…can we not talk about this now?”

“We’ll have to talk about it sometime,” Merlin said quietly. “There are…so many things I need to tell you. You won’t like a lot of them.”

“Yes, probably. I never like the things that come out of your mouth. But I’ll handle it better when a goat isn’t trying to eat my clothing.”

Merlin glanced behind him and saw it was true. Arthur was trying – unsuccessfully – to keep the goat from nibbling on the sleeves of his coat. He gave a watery laugh. “He likes you. Not sure why.”

“Shut up, Merlin.”

A sharp crack suddenly split the air as the crate Arthur was sitting on collapsed, sending the prince to the stable floor with a thud.

This time, Merlin really did laugh. “By the way,” he said around giggles. “You still have straw in your hair.”

*****

Arthur gripped the rope with one hand and the back of his manservant’s coat with the other as he followed the boy blindly through the raging blizzard. It felt like forever that he was back out in the storm before Merlin stopped, though it could only have been a few minutes. The younger boy found the latch, pushed open the door, and they both stumbled into the warmth of the hut, piles and swirls of snow following in their wake.

“Merlin!” a woman’s voice cried and Arthur looked over to see Hunith in the process of tying on her shawl. “You took so long I was sure you were lost! I was just coming to find you!”

“I’m fine, Mother,” Merlin assured her as he managed to shove the door closed again, though Arthur thought he still sounded a little unsure about whether that was a true statement. “There was a trespasser in the barn, though.”

Hunith looked over, as if noticing him for the first time. Her face blanched slightly, but that was the only visible sign Arthur noticed of her fear. “Oh, Your Highness,” she said, bobbing a slight curtsy.

“Don’t do that,” his servant said quietly, setting the bucket of milk on the table and extracting eggs from his coat pockets. “His head is big enough as it is.”

“Please come in and get warm,” the peasant woman said, ignoring Merlin and gesturing to one of her two chairs. Arthur noticed she pointedly avoiding looking at the sword he had retrieved from the straw before leaving the barn.

The prince sighed.

Everything was different.

Everything had changed.

Carefully, he drew his sword and leaned it against the wall, then walked away from it and took the offered chair.

Hunith’s face softened and color returned to her cheeks. She quickly poured some hot water into a mug and then added a few dried leaves, before handing it to him. His cold, sore fingers curled gratefully around the warmth as he took it. “Thank you, Hunith,” he said sincerely. She nodded, then turned to fuss over her son.

He stared at the fire, letting his eyes and mind go fuzzy as he soaked in the heat. Time passed – Merlin and his mother’s voices were a quiet backdrop to his wandering thoughts – but he wasn’t really aware of anything. There was so much to think about that he found he couldn’t think at all, couldn’t focus on any one thing, so he just let his mind drift in a sort of awake dreaming, until suddenly Merlin was standing at his side, holding out a bowl of something warm.

“Happy Yule, Arthur,” the boy said – still hesitant, still worried, but at least his smile was real.

“It is Yule, isn’t it,” Arthur muttered, taking the bowl on instinct. A pang shot through him. He was missing it – the feast, the jugglers and singers, exchanging presents… He glanced down at what he held. “What is this?”

“Just stew, but there’s bacon in it. Mother saved it just for today. And we’ll have spiced cider and fruitcake later,” Merlin said hopefully. “I know it’s not what you’re used to but…”

Guiltily, Arthur remembered the last time Merlin’s mother had tried to feed him. “It’s just fine,” he said quickly. “Thank you,” he said again, looking over where Hunith was mixing something up in a big dish. He brought a spoonful to his mouth and found it tasted delicious. Before he even knew it, he’d eaten every morsel.

“So, what do you do in Ealdor for Yule?” he asked, feeling much more alert now he was thawed inside and out, with food in his stomach. He was also very aware now of how much he smelled like…well…goat. But he was trying not to dwell on that.

Tentatively, Merlin sat on the floor beside him, though not quite as close as he might have…before. The teen pulled his knees up into his arms and rested his chin on top of them.

“When it’s evening, we’ll burn the Yule log and have the cider and cake. Usually, we sing some songs and tell stories, and then I–”

Merlin broke off abruptly, looking down at his knees.

“Show him, Merlin,” Hunith urged quietly as she poured the mixture from her bowl into a clay pot.

“Show me what?” Arthur asked, curious and a little afraid.

Merlin swallowed, then stretched out a shaking hand toward the fire.

Suddenly, there were glowing forms moving in the flames. Gently, they detached themselves from the fire and floated out into the room, a glowing parade the flew to the ceiling and danced into a magical garland around the room.

There were fawns and hares, owls and foxes. Horses, sheep, goats, and pigs. And mixed in with the bunch, several miniature dragons that were a bit too realistic for comfort. All made of sparks and flames.

The prince stared in awe, his eyes darting here and there, watching as each creature pranced and flew. They seemed almost alive!

“They’re beautiful,” he said. He couldn’t help it.

A real smile split Merlin’s too pale face.

“You did this every year at Yule?” Arthur asked, watching a glowing fox chase a glowing pig around an annoyed owl.

“Since I was three,” Merlin said proudly.

“It’s a wonder you never burned the house down…” Arthur said with a little laugh.

“Actually, there was the Yule he was six when –”

“Mother!” Merlin cried quickly, ears turning bright red.

“Ha! I knew it!” Arthur said triumphantly. “You’re a walking hazard as it is. There’s no way you could be any different adding magic to the mix.” For the first time, saying the word magic didn’t make his skin crawl.

“I’m actually quite good, you know,” Merlin muttered, looking offended.

“You did save my life,” the prince conceded. “I suppose I should thank you for that,” he added, more seriously. He still had no idea what he was going to do, how he was going to deal with this, why he was contemplating treason instead of turning Merlin in… But Merlin was…Merlin. He knew him – even though he obviously didn’t know a huge part of him – still, he knew enough. Merlin wasn’t evil.

Merlin was his friend. The only true one he’d ever had.

And however messy and painful the future might be, he didn’t want him dead and he didn’t want him gone. The rest they would just have to work out later.

“And I should thank you as well, for sparing mine,” Merlin said, looking up with intensely earnest blue eyes. “I’m still happy to be your servant until the day I die.”

One of the glowing dragons fluttered down and landed on Arthur’s hand. He flinched, waiting for it to burn, but it just felt pleasantly warm. It fluttered its wings for a moment, then stilled before stretching its head forward into a deep, respectful bow.

“Me and my magic, Arthur. Both for you, there by your side.”

He’d had knights take oaths of fealty with less sincerity than what had just passed between him and his servant in a poor peasant hut while a blizzard raged outside. He felt humbled and there was a lump in his throat as he said, “Thank you, Merlin. Happy Yule.”

“Happy Yule,” Merlin returned, his usual dazzling grin suddenly splitting his face.

“Happy Yule to you both. Now make yourselves useful and prepare the cider,” Hunith said from the table, though Arthur thought he saw her dab at her eyes when she though no one was looking.

Laughing, both young men climbed to their feet and got to work.

Everything had changed.

Everything would be different.

But for the first time since he’d seen Merlin’s eyes turn gold and a dead beast had fallen at his feet, Arthur dared to think that maybe, things could turn out better.