Chapter Text
In the end, Merlin ended up exactly where he had always imagined his death.
Cold iron burnt his body through the coarse white fabric of his disgraceful shirt and bit the skin of his wrists with ice, painfully twisting them behind a wooden post. Soaked in fetid dark oil, branches and firewood dug into his bare feet. It seemed they were ready to ignite on their own any second now, without waiting for the prince's order, but Merlin's imagination was just playing tricks on him. The usually quiet part of his mind, which he allowed to show up only in the darkest hours, wished to get it over with as soon as possible and not prolong the already painful waiting even more. Gwaine's screams, hoarse from exertion, were far worse than any fire, reaching him where no blade or arrow could.
The knight was writhing convulsively in Lancelot and Percival's tight grip, and Merlin couldn't tell for sure if they were trying to pacify Gwaine or themselves. Naked as white bones in mortal wounds, fear swirled in their eyes — but while the last sparks of hope still smouldered in Lancelot's gaze, Gwaine looked at Merlin only with despair and grief beyond his might. The raw agony on his face, the sight of reddened and swollen eyes that could be seen through the hair that had fallen over his face, the wet tracks on his unshaven cheeks — all this pierced between his ribs like daggers.
In another world, perhaps, that would have been enough. Merlin would have freed himself from his shackles, found a way to negotiate with Arthur or escape, so that he could return at the most opportune moment and once again save the day, gaining the prince's trust in the process.
He could have done that. Despite the sickening chill of the iron, Merlin could feel the magic shimmering in his veins, ready to burst with the right effort. It would have cost him, of course. As Nimue had shown him, everything always had a price, and it was rarely something that could be so easily given away. But even so, in another time and in another world, he would have been willing to pay this price rather than condemn his friends to the continuation of this nightmare.
Instead, Merlin clenched his teeth tightly and turned to the castle balcony, avoiding the piercing gazes of his friends. He could no longer let himself see their harrowing love and loss, as if he had already burnt on this pyre and had been long dead. And Merlin probably was, because the hope he had placed in Arthur seemed too fragile and almost unjustified, but it was no longer his choice.
It was strangely easier to see the open grin on Agravaine's face, and in the remaining moment of his illusory freedom, Merlin gave him an empty and unimpressed look. Morgana was much better at smirking deviously, in Merlin's opinion.
He couldn't get enough of Agravaine's now frowning expression when his nephew firmly walked out onto the balcony. Merlin knew him well enough not to be fooled by his stern facade and painfully straight back—Arthur was terrified. And before the door leading to the balcony slammed shut, the warlock managed to make out the billowing hem of a pink dress and the gleam of grey hair in the rays of the setting sun. Merlin allowed himself to relax slightly and lean his head back against the pillar behind him. If he was lucky, Gwen and Gaius wouldn't make it down to the courtyard in time for the execution. He wanted to believe that there was still at least a drop of justice left in this world, and that his sworn father and his first friend would be able to avoid this horrible sight.
After Arthur's appearance, the quiet hum that had been standing over the square all this time quickly subsided. Even Gwaine, who was almost hanging from exhaustion in the arms of his comrades, fell silent in anticipation. The Crown Prince of Camelot slowly scanned the gathered crowd, carefully avoiding looking in the direction of the Knights of the Round Table; among them all, only Leon was unconditionally devoted to Arthur's judgment, but he, along with Elyan, was out of town right now. Merlin considered himself lucky: to see the approval on the face of the First Knight would be no less painful.
The furrow between Arthur's eyebrows deepened even more. Finally, not at all satisfied with what he saw, he turned to Merlin and stared at him with a deep-seated expectation, from which the warlock abruptly straightened up, unconsciously pulling the chains behind his back and wincing from the strain. He did not pay attention to how the guards standing around the pyre tensed, instead staring intently into the Prince's eyes with anger rising in his chest.
Because Arthur wanted him to escape. No, Arthur was waiting for him to escape, believing that Merlin only lacked the favour of the Crown Prince. The tension within him was neighbour to a sort of disappointment only obvious to his servant—as if Merlin had again acted the fool, unable to escape from the dungeons that had been cleared specifically for him.
Perhaps Merlin was just tired of being imprisoned, of his friends crying, or tired of the cold evening wind that bit through his thin shirt. But it was much more likely that everything went even deeper, long before that day and straight to Merlin's arrival in Camelot. Not for a minute longer could he stand the blood on his hands, the flashes of instinctive, old-as-his-bones animal fear at the sight of red cloaks. Merlin could no longer see the executions and stand aside, could no longer turn away from the screams of those in whose veins flowed his very essence.
Morgana appeared in his mind again. The betrayal in her eyes as the poison clamped down on her throat continued to haunt Merlin's nightmares long enough to become an integral part of him. This was a painful, unforgivable betrayal. He destroyed her that day, as well as dozens of other innocent sorcerers, whether by his intervention or inaction—and all in the name of the Prince. So how dare Arthur look at him now with a semblance of the same resentment and pain that Morgana had looked at him with? What right did he—a Pendragon, the son of Uther—have to look at Merlin as if the warlock himself had plunged a dagger into his back instead of saving him from the assassin's blade with his magic?
A sudden anger flared up in him stronger than could the pyre under his feet. The wooden plaque with the word "sorcerer" hit his chest and rattled against the chains as Merlin jerked in his shackles again and looked defiantly at the Prince. In Arthur's prolonged silence, Gwaine's screams resumed; his desperate and hoarse voice rang in Merlin's ears, filling him with both sorrow and unnatural joy, which managed to temporarily extinguish that spark of anger in his chest.
If someone had told him a few years ago that he would find friends in Camelot, Merlin would never have believed it. His entire childhood had been spent in a small, secluded village, where he had been an outcast with a bad reputation, a bastard without a father, and he hadn’t really known anyone except for his mother and his only friend Will. Going to Camelot was as scary as it was necessary, and Merlin had never expected to find a new friend with his meager social skills. Before at Ealdor, he had always considered his friendship with Will to be an incredible piece of luck, sharing the other kids’ opinion that freaks like him should stay away from normal people.
However, he had got lucky again, and after just a week in this city, he could confidently call Gwen his friend. She was the first person Merlin had bonded with in years, and she became a beacon for him during the never-ending storm that was his life. Whether it was advice or simply a kind word, Guinevere was always there when he, without knowing it, needed her the most.
Bitter sorrow wound itself around his heart from the thought that she would never know just the depth of his gratitude and his gentle brotherly love. The sorcerer had never aimed to replace Elyan in her life, but there had been a time when her brother hadn't been around; Merlin had simply done everything he could just to make the void less glaring in his absence.
After Gwen, of course, he became close to Arthur and Morgana—and, as always happens in his life, luck was going to turn against him one day. Cursed fate had clouded his mind like poison, and Merlin had committed unthinkeable atrocities in the name of the pathetic children's tale he so desperately wanted to believe in. Before Camelot, he had wandered in the dark, desperately searching for any sign, dreaming deep in his soul only that his joyless existence had at least some meaning or purpose. It was then, by a great coincidence, that Kilgarrah had appeared in his life. The dragon had graciously provided him with the answer Merlin needed so much, and slowly built a path for him to a place where there was no room for a single living soul. A path full of nothing but blood, endless sacrifices, and lies.
Lies had become Merlin's loyal companion, and also his second face. He dared not reveal the truth to anyone, not even to Lancelot, the only one who knew of his abilities. Inside, he was full of rot and regret, putrid as befitted anything that had been dead and decaying for a long time. This poison was slowly sending him away, and too late Merlin realised that his hands were up to his elbows in blood that he himself had shed and would never wash away.
And then Gwaine appeared in his life, with his eternal beaming smile and shrewd green eyes. They looked into the depths where the light could not follow, but instead of fear or disgust, Merlin always found in them only gentleness and quiet sadness. “The healer always has the bloodiest hands,” the knight said from time to time when he appeared in the doctor's chambers with new injuries after training and unlucky patrols. Gwaine's face always lit up under Merlin's watchful and silently condemning gaze, for these meetings took place much more often than with any other knight. But the warlock never dared bring up the subject. He was selfishly afraid that he would simply scare the knight away, and therefore continued to take care of all the new cuts and scratches on Gwaine's body, each time reluctantly releasing him back to service with a request to be careful. Gwaine never listened, and Merlin never said anything.
The Prince's loud voice abruptly rose above the courtyard, drawing back the attention of everyone gathered. No one but Merlin could see from afar how his fingers trembled on the railing, and how a drop of sweat on his temple sparkled for a moment in the sunlight.
"Merlin of Ealdor! You have been accused of–”
"Let him go, Arthur! You've got no right! By the gods, if you do not let him go, I will kill you! Don't you dare!”
Gwaine's usually friendly face twisted even more into a grimace of hatred and anger as he squirmed in Percival's arms and spat venom towards Arthur. His hair had long been disheveled and clung to his sweat-soaked face, his shirt torn where he had almost managed to escape from the other knights' grip, and palm-shaped bruises had begun to bloom on the skin of his arms. At any other time, Merlin would have been enraged by the injuries left on Gwaine's body by their very own friends, but now he could only feel grateful that they were trying to keep Gwaine from impulsive and incredibly stupid actions.
It was easy to see how Gwaine's screams had angered Agravaine, but before he could order the guards to arrest the knight for threatening the Crown Prince, Arthur raised his hand in front of his uncle and turned to Gwaine. Merlin's chest tightened with worry as he could only stare.
"Sir Gwaine, a knight is never to talk this way to his prince!" Arthur's eyes became more severe, but the sorcerer was relieved when he understood Pendragon wasn't rushing to accuse Gwaine of treason yet. "We all here share in your sentiment and bitterness, this sorcerer was a friend to us, too, but that is no reason–”
Gwaine interrupted the Prince again, and the pure rage in his voice made his words much louder than any scream. "His name is Merlin, and you were never his friend, Pendragon. You used his endless loyalty and generosity so long as it didn't clash with your tyrant father's laws, and now you're meaning to execute him for saving your pathetic life." The more he spoke, the stronger it resembled the roar of a cornered animal. "I will not be a knight under the banner of one who's ready to burn his friend alive because of his own shortsightedness and hubris. Magic is no crime!”
"Silence!" growled Argawaine in response before Arthur could gather himself. "Guards, escort this traitor and deserter into the dungeons.”
Merlin's heart skipped a beat, and for the first time since he had been led out to the stake, terror chilled his veins. When Camelot's soldiers pushed Percival and Lancelot away to grab Gwaine themselves and drag him away from the square, the warlock's eyes suddenly flashed gold. The guards flew away from the former knight for several steps, as if crashing into an invisible wall.
"If you do possess at least some of the decency and nobleness I used to see in you before this, then you won't touch him, Arthur.” Merlin's amplified voice thundered, causing some of the crowd to move away from the pyre in fear. Even the Prince seemed to flinch slightly from the display of this power, which even cold iron could not restrain. "Your problems are with me, not with him. Don't drag him into this.”
Merlin then shot Gwaine an icy look, silently demanding that he step back, and turned away before the pain in his dark eyes broke Merlin's heart.
Arthur motioned for the guards to retreat, but Merlin could tell by the clenched jaw and reddened face that his trick had not pleased the Prince. “Merlin of Ealdor, you have been accused of trespassing the first law of Camelot. The usage of sorcery on this land is punishable by death, and all of us now are witness to your... magic. For years you have acted my servant and friend. You have lied and hidden your true face, abusing the King's graces, and now are utterly shameless in using magic right before your prince and the people of Camelot. You are hereby sentenced to death by fire, the sentence to be carried out immediately! But before that, have you any last words?”
Arthur's speech sounded too lively, full of deeply bitter resentment and betrayal, and Merlin simply could not believe in its insincerity. His anger was real, his disappointment was real—and the verdict was real, too. Even if the warlock had run away now, as the Prince wanted, Arthur no longer wished anything to do with him.
But so far, he had delayed the execution for so long just to avoid getting his hands dirty with the blood of his former friend. Arthur would have preferred to see Merlin exiled rather than killed, having no problem with letting a dangerous and evil sorcerer go, but yet having magic was still enough to not deserve to live in the eyes of the Crown.
Did Arthur even see him as a human being now that his secret was out? Had Merlin ever been important to him, or did his father's hatred and prejudice mean more to Arthur than the life of a friend whose only fault was loyalty to the wrong person? Had all the kindness and sacrifices he had made for the Prince lost their value just because of the magic in his veins?
Merlin knew the answer now.
All his strength suddenly abandoned his body, leaving him hanging in chains like a puppet with its strings cut. He no longer felt the cold wind, the pain of old and new wounds, or even the stares of the people gathered in the courtyard. His body felt alien to Merlin, too big and unnaturally heavy, as his very being shrank inside him into a tiny ball of exposed nerves and a heart bleeding.
Slowly, he looked up at Arthur and, with the detached confidence specific only to hanged men, replied, “What is right, and what is not? Can an ordinary man divide the world in such simplified terms, segregate people into those who deserve to live and those who don't? Who gave you right of decision? You wear your crown and your silks, you live warm and safe in your stone-cut walls; you eat deer and sausage, you drink precious wines; but you will end the same as me. Fate has no care for your titles and power—it always takes from you more than you can give. The earth cares not for your wealth, because a skeleton is as a skeleton does. None can discriminate between the bones of a king and those of a sorcerer, and our screams are equal as we burn.” Merlin sighed heavily and tilted his head even higher, gazing up at the sky as it was darkening from the clouds. He was ready. “I've no more to say to you.”
With the silence hanging like a mourning veil, time itself seemed to slow down. Clouds stretched over the square, blotting out the last rays of the sun, and birds circled over the towers of the majestic castle. Merlin listened to their songs, trying to get as far away from his mortal coil as possible, but the chains seemed to keep even his spirit bound. At that moment, there was not even a semblance of the freedom he had hoped for in his dreams. Merlin remained there, on the verge of a long and painful death, and this time no salvation awaited him at the very last moment. He was going to die.
The thud of wood against wood was Merlin's only warning. Instinctively, he glanced down at his feet, where the flames had begun to engulf the firewood, and all his attention now belonged only to the fire. The frantic pounding of his heart in his ears prevented him from hearing the noise of the enthusiastic crowd and Gwen's frightened pleading; she had apparently come down to the square at the worst possible moment. Only Gwaine's animal cry could make its way to the panicked warlock's mind for a moment, but before he could even process what he had heard, a column of smoke enveloped him in a dense suffocating cocoon.
Death to the sorcerer!
Merlin's eyes and lungs burnt from the smoke, scorching him with suffocating heat. The more he violently coughed, the less clean air remained in his chest, and in just a few seconds he forgot what it had been like to breathe without pain. The flames rose higher and higher, spreading unnaturally fast over the oil-soaked wood, but inside the thick column of smoke, one moment dragged on for a thousand years. Tears were already boiling on his cheeks, the wet tracks leaving red marks like acid, and the sweat evaporated faster than it could appear on his skin. It seemed that if Hell existed, then that was exactly what it was. Merlin was ready to believe it, involuntarily writhing in the heating chains and wheezing in a vain attempt to find at least one breath of clean air. He was trapped, and he was dying, allowing it to happen to him.
Your kind have no place but the fire!
Merlin was gasping for breath, however, a tormented howl still escaped from his throat as the fire engulfed his legs. At first, he did not realise that he had started to burn: a feeling of cold pierced him to the bones, followed by acute numbness, and only then, after an eternity of waiting, the pain came.
Even the serket poison couldn't compare to this. In just an instant, Merlin was gone, dissolving into pure agony. His whole world shrank and folded into unspeakable torture, and the pain became all he had ever known and who he had ever been. His whole life was now just an echo of that misery, a long preparation for the enchanting finale. It was the sum of everything human, everything mortal and foretold. In that second, he became every sorcerer and witch, every dragon and dragonlord that ever lived; he died and was reborn, only to die again and again. That was a fraction of his pain.
Burn! Burn!
The hem of the smog-blackened shirt caught fire and sent the flames even higher, burning every inch of skin in its path. Blisters bubbled where the fire had just reached, while legs and torso were engulfed in raging flames and rapidly charred to the very bones. The smell of his own burning flesh penetrated the soot in his mouth, but even that was better than the poisonous smoke. His body convulsed, the skin of his wrists burst and peeled where Merlin desperately tried to free himself from the red-hot shackles. His anguished cry mingled with the furious rumble of thunder, drowning out the ringing of broken chain links and the uproar in the square. He couldn't hear his friends or Arthur, who was frantically shouting at the guards.
Never before had Merlin thought about how the magic boiling in his blood would feel. It flowed from his cracked skin and treated the bloody blisters, as if it could save him from death. It was a pathetic and pointless waste of his energy, as had been his attempts to change Arthur's mind. Oh, Arthur…
Merlin's eyes could no longer see, they were boiling and melting from the heat inside his skull, but at the last moment he turned back to where he had last seen the Prince. He felt that Arthur was still there, watching Merlin die on his orders. And the warlock stared back blindly. Remains of eyes burnt with gold brighter than the fire burning him, and the lightning piercing the sky. Clouds as black as smoke gathered in a funnel over the castle as a strange, previously unfamiliar feeling awoke in Merlin's chest.
Hate.
The fire completely consumed him, and the dragons roared together in the flames. Hundreds of sorcerers screamed with Merlin; their souls filled his veins with icy ringing, and a spark of their power allowed him to see again. It was at that moment that Gwaine rushed to the pyre, and several guards attacked the former knight. They grabbed him by his arms and hair, by his collar and the chain, which stretched dangerously over his throat before tearing and scattering on the ground. The ring rolled towards the pyre and was lost among the blazing wood and ashes.
Yet Gwaine, his dear Gwaine, didn't seem to notice it at all. His face, distorted with grief and horror, was directed only at Merlin—and through a thick veil of smoke, their gazes suddenly crossed. Gwaine's green eyes widened in shock.
With a final effort, he broke free from the soldiers' grasp and ran towards the burning warlock as an incomparable rumbling scream shook the sky and earth beneath their feet. A blinding sunlike light momentarily engulfed the entire courtyard, and then a pillar of fire shot up, rising into the sky above the tallest tower of the castle.
It wasn't an ordinary explosion, but the shockwave still knocked Gwaine to the ground. At first, it seemed to him that the rising stream of hellfire was about to devour him, as had happened to the guards surrounding him, and for a second the fire even singed his hands, but that was the end of it.
All that remained of Arthur's soldiers were charred, smoking bones and molten armour. Gwaine froze as the burnt skeletons fell around him like dead flies, and then abruptly jumped to his feet, remembering the source of this monstrous fire.
Being so close to the flames, Gwaine felt his heated skin drying up, but he did not dare step back, trembling all over his body as he looked at the dark silhouette bathing in fire several feet above the ground. He had already felt Merlin's magic on him before, even if Gwaine had not yet known about the nature of this sensation. It had always been gentle, unobtrusive, and warm, like the kiss of the sun on a nice spring day; having experienced it once, Gwaine did not want to lose this feeling ever again. He was ready to admit that deliberately moving under the blades of his friends in training was not the best way to achieve Merlin's magical and healing touch, but he quickly became addicted to it—to the grains of affection and care that Merlin could give him.
After all, Gwaine had always been a wicked and pathetic self-indulgent man.
Now, the intensity and weight of Merlin's power seemed to be pushing Gwaine back to the ground. He couldn't even take a step as a crushing torrent of magic and fire forced him to his knees. There was no need to turn around: something in the back of his mind told Gwaine that everyone in the square had followed his example. Everyone, including the Prince of Camelot, was forced to kneel before the destructive power of the witchfire—and before Merlin, who remained at its very epicenter.
Was this how an ant felt when it found itself under a rapidly approaching human foot? Was its tiny mind capable of comprehending the full scale of what was happening, the full size of a creature that did not even know about the presence of an ant in its path?
Gwaine had never believed in gods—not the ones everyone else worshipped—but there had always been a dull hope at the very bottom of his lost soul; faith in the idea that somewhere in this cursed, filthy world, goodness and beauty remained unsullied. That he could find meaning, justification for his existence, if he went far enough. At night, Gwaine prayed while his body ached from pain and hours of exhausting labour, while blood oozed between his fingers, and everything blurred before his eyes. More than once, he had found himself on the verge of death, silently appealing to no one, begging not for life, but for the comfort of human warmth and for a kind word in his last moments.
And each time he had found the strength to rise again, driven by a sick determination he did not understand. The instinct to survive no matter what dragged him on, even when Gwaine's spirit had long since given up. The taverns beckoned to him like a fire beckoned to a moth. Hands were desperately searching for bodies, female or male. It had never mattered. Their faceless gentleness gave Gwaine neither joy nor salvation from the growing hole in his chest.
Over the years, the prayers had become less frequent, quieter, and more desperate. Gwaine drowned them in alcohol and debauchery, in drunken brawls and gambling. Every day merged with the others into a monotonous viscous mass, and Gwaine saw himself as a fly stuck in honey. No matter how sweet and hedonistic his life seemed to him, it was only a matter of time before he got too deep into it and finally drowned.
But Gwaine had not drowned. Instead, he had met a young man who had instantly lit up that filthy tavern with his mere presence. His grace and attractiveness were unparalleled, and could only be inferior to his inner beauty. He was smart, brash, and savvy, and Gwaine had never before met someone so selfless and willing to tolerate his presence for so long. On the contrary, Merlin actively sought his company and inexplicably easily allowed himself to be dragged into trouble on Gwaine's behalf. A hitherto unknown feeling to the man, as if he were truly desired, had struck him then like a raging wave on the coast of Caerleon. It was everything he had ever dreamed of, and in just a few short days, Merlin had unknowingly managed to steal his heart.
Gwaine was not ashamed of the important place the young man had taken in his life, even if he understood that it was almost pitiful to have lived up to his age without a single friend. As he learned later, Merlin had this effect on almost everyone except the most notorious villains, and any hint of embarrassment dissolved into quiet, all-encompassing joy.
Whether it was a dangerous wasteland or a kingdom invaded by an immortal horde, he would follow Merlin anywhere—and if it weren't for Lancelot and Percival, Gwaine would have followed even into a blazing pyre. He would have given anything to take away at least some of his dear friend's torment, to get him out of the hellish trap where this damned prince had driven Merlin. Gwaine had trusted the young man's judgment, had believed that Arthur could be better than other royal bastards, and Merlin had paid the highest price for this mistake.
He couldn't figure out if Merlin was still alive inside that burning pillar, or if this incredible display of power was meant as his swan song. Hope clutched fiercely at his heart for the last time, as it always did when it came to Merlin, and in a fit of desperation, he hollowed out the sorcerer's name. His dry throat protested, tortured from crying and inhaling smoke for so long, and Gwaine's voice sounded too strangled to be heard over the buzzing roar of the fire.
But Merlin heard him. The dark figure turned his head in Gwaine's direction, moving unnaturally smoothly for a man in the midst of a magical flame. The eyes were the only discernible feature in the murky black silhouette, burning brighter than lightning against the night sky, and they looked directly at Gwaine with recognition.
“Merlin! Merlin!” Engulfed in flames, the sorcerer immediately turned to Arthur, and despite the column of fire, the air in the courtyard suddenly turned cold. “Merlin, stop! You're going to kill someone like that! Enough!” The Prince continued to shout, not noticing the reaction his words were causing. Lightning abruptly struck one of the towers, where, as Gwaine assumed, the king's chambers were located. The light stone of the castle was charred by the impact, deep curled cracks spread across the wall, and glass flew out of the windows.
Arthur's face turned as white as snow, but before he could take off, Merlin suddenly spoke, “You command my will no longer, Arthur Pendragon.”
The rumbling voice of the sorcerer chilled Gwaine to the very bones, but at the same time, an inexplicable calm spread in his chest. Whether it was Merlin's magic, or just tension and fear finally loosening their grip, he couldn't tell. All that really mattered was that Merlin was alive and didn't seem to be suffering anymore. At least, that was what Gwaine hoped for.
When Merlin raised his hand, the fire instantly parted in front of him. Instead of burnt flesh, Gwaine saw a pale and strikingly healthy palm, as it always had been. The only difference was the unfamiliar black spots, too shiny in the light to be burns. Flames flowed from Merlin like silk and satin, reluctantly releasing him from his embrace like a greedy lover, but soon the sorcerer was back in full view.
It seemed that the long shirt was the only thing that was really damaged in the fire. Pieces of burnt cloth hung from Merlin's body, leaving him almost naked, but Gwaine's attention was drawn much more to the two long blue-black horns on the sorcerer's head. A thin trickle of dark red flowed down Merlin's forehead from where one of the horns had grown, dripping under his burning golden eyes and continuing its way down like tears of blood. Gwaine desperately wanted to wipe this off his face, but he held back the urge, not wanting to interfere in what promised to be a well-deserved punishment for Pendragon.
Gwaine clenched his fists and hissed sharply, finally remembering about the burns on his hands. All this time, he had somehow managed to ignore the hot pain, but now, knowing about the blisters on his palms, he could hardly focus on anything else. Gwaine mentally slapped himself in the face. He could not complain about a few minor burns, not after Merlin had been burned alive at the stake. He should deal with it later.
However, his arm was grabbed before he could put it back down, and instead of the expected pain, Gwaine felt only a soothing, gentle coolness. Merlin's touch was so familiar that Gwaine involuntarily and unexpectedly sobbed before finally paying attention to the rather noticeable claws. The black spots that he couldn't identify before turned out to be small black scales that stretched from Merlin's fingers to the back of his hand and hid under what used to be a sleeve. Gwaine blinked, and then blinked again, but nothing had changed. Merlin had scales.
Deciding that this was food for thought on another day, Gwaine allowed Merlin to flip his palm up, where the worst of the burns were. The reddened skin was wet and blistered, and Gwaine felt sick just looking at it. Before Merlin's magic got out of control, he managed to see the young man's condition through fire and smoke, and this image would not leave Gwaine for the rest of his days. Several times in his life he had witnessed the burnings of witches and warlocks, never staying long enough for the screams of their agony to haunt his nightmares. But one day, by his own drunken mistake, he had got too close, and for a long time after that, Gwaine had not been able to look at smoked meat at all. Now, he would probably give up on meat altogether and, just like Merlin, would eat only vegetables, bread and cheese. Overall, if he shared his meals with Merlin more often, it didn't even seem like such a bad prospect.
The insistent and pleasant feeling in his hands pulled Gwaine out of his thoughts. His eyes widened in amazement as Merlin's magic enveloped his palms and took away the last remnants of pain. The burns were rapidly fading right in front of his eyes, but they had not disappeared, as he first thought—they were aging, softening and merging with healthy skin. In just a few seconds, his burns looked as if they had been there for many years, and this small miracle suddenly struck Gwaine much more than a pillar of fire or a summoned thunderstorm.
"Merlin…” he called out in a strangled voice, but it was lost in Agravaine's loud scream.
“Guards, kill this sorcerer! Right now!”
It seems that when Merlin had been distracted by Gwaine, his spell over the square had weakened. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as the people of Camelot, who had previously fallen to their knees, hurried away, and the two royals on the balcony shakily returned to their upright position. Arthur cast a doubtful glance at his uncle, but did not challenge his order, instead looking at Merlin with a pleasant hint of real fear in his eyes.
Routinely, the former knight's hand jerked to his belt in search of a sword, wanting to intervene in the upcoming fight. He had no intention of leaving Merlin alone anymore, and even Lancelot, who had held him back earlier, now shared his attitude, having already drawn his sword from its scabbard.
But Merlin did not need any of that. When the group of guards approached the sorcerer, he only blinked, and that was enough to knock them all off their feet and send their swords into the fire behind him. After Merlin had left the pillar of flames, it had returned to its former size of an ordinary bonfire, but now it crackled dangerously again and rose a couple of feet higher. Merlin's eyes narrowed dangerously, as if warning him that he wouldn't be as merciful next time.
“For too long now your lineage have spilt the blood of my people, Arthur, and today you have proven that your belief shall not waver from that of your father, even if a friend's life be put on the line. Albion cannot rely upon one such as you. Fate has mistaken you. I have mistaken you. And today I will bring an end to the bloodthirsty terror of the Pendragons, as I should have done years ago.”
The words reverberated throughout the town along with the raging wind, but this time Gwaine managed to stay on his feet. The same could not be said about the Prince: an invisible force pulled him towards Merlin, forcing him to fall over the balcony railing and fall to the ground with a crash. Arthur screamed, clutching his arm, upon which he had fallen unsuccessfully, before the sorcerer roughly dragged him across the courtyard. Agravaine tried to give another order, but the wind sent him back into the wall, knocking out the old advisor.
Gwaine gripped the sword in his healed hand with stern alacrity, ready to impale the Pendragon if Merlin would let him. The biting disdain on his face was in stark contrast to Merlin's calm and determined expression. Gwaine had never been shy about showing what he really thought about royalty and titled scum, and he wasn't going to stop now.
When Merlin spoke again, he couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment, but it quickly turned to ecstatic surprise as the sorcerer demonstrated his magic again without a single hint of effort. “For every drop of a mage's blood, you shall pay with your tears. But you shall not die today. I will first make you see a new Camelot, one free and full of magic,” announced Merlin in his unnatural, magically enhanced way. While he spoke, part of the flame had escaped from the stake behind him and wound around Arthur's wrists, turning into heavy iron chains. “And if the Prophecy doth demand it be done by the Once and Future King, then so it shall be.”
Before the Prince could try to get up and do something stupid again, Gwaine grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back to his knees. He had never enjoyed the suffering of others before, but the obvious painful stiffness in Arthur's body was almost pleasant to Gwaine. After what Pendragon had done to Merlin, it was the least he deserved.
"Magic's got no place in Camelot, Merlin, and you are living proof of that! You're not just the most useless servant, but also a deceitful rat!” Arthur barked, squirming under his former knight's arm and trying to escape. His face was flushed with anger like an overripe tomato, but his eyes were still filled with deep doubt and shock. "Whom do you think yourself to be? These laws were in place before you, and they will outlive you. While I breathe, by God's name, I–”
"God's name? I am your God!”
For a moment, Gwaine felt as if the sky itself had collapsed on their heads. The sound of broken windows rang out from all sides, covering the courtyard with a rain of glass. The ground trembled beneath them, and cracks began to spread out from under the feet of the enraged sorcerer. Was Merlin even a sorcerer, as Gwaine had previously believed, or was he not exaggerating by calling himself a god? It was quite possible that this was the case. In his travels around the islands, Gwaine had met all kinds of sorcerers and witches, but he had never seen anything like this. And if there was a god wandering among them in human form, who else could it be but Merlin?
New chains erupted from the shackles on the Prince's hands, wrapping around his throat in a tight ring. An iron collar squeezed Arthur's neck and pulled his head lower in a cruel imitation of a bow. And when he was about to shout at Merlin again, not a sound left his open mouth. Arthur's eyes widened in disbelief, and he tried again, and then again, and again, trying in vain to make a sound.
Gwaine did not miss how Merlin's mask of confidence cracked for a second before he turned his face impassive and cold again. “Your lineage have brought to these lands nothing but desolation and death, Arthur Pendragon. You will have no more a voice, and freedom no more—just the way you and your father have deprived my people of the same.”
Merlin curled his lips before turning to the crowd. Those who had recently rejoiced at the burning of the sorcerer now looked at him in horror, expecting immediate punishment. Some of their friends were also holding their breath, more out of concern than fear for their lives. Out of the corner of his eye, Gwaine noticed Gwen clutching Gaius' sleeve with tears in her eyes, but surprisingly, she wasn't going to come to Arthur's rescue. She didn't even look towards the bound prince, instead looking at Lancelot and then at the ground under Merlin's feet.
He stepped forward, and with every step he took, the clouds above the castle cleared. The flames in the pyre had been completely extinguished, and the burnt rags on the sorcerer had turned into a long tunic, the same blue-black as the scales on his skin. Merlin's eyes briefly flashed even more, eclipsing the sunset burning over the castle and the last embers on the pyre.
“In Pendragon's stead, I shall unite the lands of Albion and bring magic back to Camelot, for I am Emrys the Immortal, the last Dragonlord and the most powerful sorcerer to ever live. I shall ascend as the Once and Future King, the sort Camelot deserves! The age of tyranny has come to an end!”
Arthur's face lost all colour after his words, but Gwaine didn't care. He slowly approached Merlin, and was the first one to fall on one knee in front of him, putting all his all-encompassing loyalty and love into his gaze. “Long live the King!”
The sun sank below the horizon, and with that day ended the era of Pendragon's rule.