Chapter Text
The world came upon him slowly: the scent of old, forgotten stone, damp and musty; the ache in his abused muscles where bruises painted their stain; the feel of sharp grit beneath his cheek. Arthur's tongue was dry in his mouth, and he managed a painful swallow as he parted his gummy lashes, trying to make sense of what he could see.
Darkness. It pressed in all around him, interrupted only by the frail flicker of distant flames. The golden glow did not spill far, but it was strong enough to paint stripes across the worn, pitted floor: shadow and light, capering madly. He stared, uncomprehending, his aching head slowly moving in its hollows as he tried to remember what misfortune had befallen him.
His memory was like cold honey, slow and sticky, dripping through his mind. It came to him in flashes. He recalled Camelot and its stately turrets, the flags upon their peaks dancing in the autumn breeze. The smell of hay and saddle soap as he rode through the forest. The weight of his crossbow in his hand.
A hunt. He had been stalking red deer in the woods, though in truth it had been little more than an excuse to get out of the castle: an escape from his father's subtle disapproval and the ever-increasing burden of his duties. A chance to simply be himself. There had been no knights in attendance, just him and...
Merlin!
His body jerked like a fish on a line, and Arthur's groan rolled through the air. One flailing hand smacked into the floor, jarring his bones, but he paid the discomfort little mind. He groped blindly, seeking out the familiar warmth of another person nearby, but there was nothing: only emptiness and silence.
Panic's rising tide threatened to choke him, and he managed to roll onto his hands and knees. The sharp taste of bile surged, summoned by the world's dizzy lurch. He must have taken a blow to the head. Something acrid and herbal flavoured his dry lips, and his stomach gave another threatening squeeze.
The cool press of the floor against his brow punctuated the clamour of his fears as he curled over on himself, giving his trembling body a moment to find its strength. He swallowed hard, pushing his way through the fog of uncertainty and reaching for the training that had been drummed into him since he was old enough to understand it. Terror was not a luxury a prince could afford. People depended on him. Merlin depended on him. He had to get through this!
Arthur managed a breathless curse, trying desperately to pick out anything that might help from the morass of his memories. It all slipped through his fingers like sand: little more than impressions.
He remembered a battle cry and the tang of magic; not the familiar rainfall scent of Merlin's power, but something sharp and tempestuous. Merlin had shouted his name, fierce, but it had been too late. He'd only been able to fire the loaded crossbow once, catching one man in the eye even as he dropped the weapon to draw his sword. Not that it had done him any good.
And what had become of Merlin?
A thin noise hitched in his chest, barely stifled. Had he been hurt? Did he lie dead, back in the woods, while Arthur was here, hidden away in darkness? Was he somewhere else, suffering at the hands of their captors?
The notion that Merlin might have escaped and fled to Camelot was a fleeting one. It would be the logical course of action. Merlin was a manservant, wearing no armour and carrying no blade. He had no training in weaponry. At first glance, he was as vulnerable as a newborn lamb, but that was only because most people did not know the secret of his magic.
No, Merlin would not have run for help. He would have fought with all the considerable power at his disposal. Arthur had seen him plunge a score or more bandits into sleep with a single word. He had saved the lives of Arthur and the knights more times than any of them cared to count: ruthless in his protection of them.
He may carry many doubts in his heart, but he knew that Merlin would fight for him until his very last breath. So where was he?
He lifted his head, his fingers scraping over the gritty floor as he eased himself back to sit on his heels, taking stock. He had been disarmed, obviously. No sword hung from his belt, the crossbow was probably in the woods where he had dropped it, and even the dagger in his boot had been removed.
Physically, he had been better, but matters could be worse. He was conscious, despite the thud of pain in his temples, and though his limbs ached, nothing carried the sharp discomfort of a broken bone. He had his wits, such as they were. More to the point, he had his training, which covered far more than the simple matter of wielding a blade.
Being taken captive was a risk that every knight of Camelot understood. Perhaps they may be held to ransom, thanks to their nobility, or interrogated in the hopes of revealing the kingdom's weaknesses. Either way, Arthur had been told, time and again, how to survive. The first thing was not to lose himself to fear, and the second was to gain some understanding of his situation and environment.
Quietly, carefully, he began to gather together salient facts. Firstly, he had not been restrained. No manacles pulled at his wrists or tethered him to the wall. There were no ropes, either. That suggested that his captors were not concerned about him making his escape. Secondly, there were no sounds from beyond his cell: neither quiet conversation nor the shuffle of footsteps. He could not be certain, but he would guess there was no one left to stand guard.
Rising to his feet felt like a monumental task, but he was neither too infirm nor too proud to crawl if he must. The frail light was the only thing that provided any sense of direction, and he eased towards it, reaching out with questing fingers until his hand brushed against the wood of the door.
It was old, worn smooth by the passage of the years, and Arthur braced his weight against it as he managed to gain his feet. There was a square hole at eye level, blocked by iron bars. He could just make out a passageway beyond. Filthy cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and he could hear the steady drip of distant water.
Albion was pocked with old forts and tumbled ruins, their cellars and dungeons resting beneath like untouched tombs. His exhausted sigh was a whisper, and he reached up to his aching temple, wincing at the blood that had dried in his hair. How long had he been unconscious, he wondered. How far had they taken him? How long would it be before he was missed, and what did his abductors want from him?
Pursing his lips, he pushed those questions to the back of his mind. Right now, they could not be his priority. One of the first things a prisoner should do, after judging their own health, was get a grip on the nature of their surroundings. The only light came from beyond the door: a frail glow currently eclipsed by his presence. Gloom clung to the edges of the room, thick enough to chew.
His eyes were useless. He would have to map it by touch.
Scuffing his feet and trailing his fingers along the wall, he inched to the left, moving in a widdershins direction. He had approached the door from the right. That must have been where his captors had dumped him, lax and unresponsive. Now, he counted his hesitant steps, charting the horizons of his known world.
Once in a while, his touch would stumble across shapes jutting out from the stone: moorings for manacles, or so he assumed. Whatever this place was, it had been built with imprisonment in mind. The masonry was slick with damp and moss, the mortar crumbling, but Arthur suspected it had decades yet before it fell into ruin. The floor felt gritty with dust. It scraped beneath his boots with every step, right up until his toe collided with an obstacle: not the hard presence of stonework, as he had been expecting, but something softer.
It did not make any noise, and Arthur swallowed, squinting desperately as he tried to discern any shape in the gloom. He crouched, his hands patting the air in front of him, moving lower and lower until he brushed against a bundle lying on the floor. It made him flinch in surprise, but whatever he had touched offered no reaction. His stomach twisted itself in a fresh knot, and the name on his lips was a hoarse rasp of hope.
'Merlin?'
Silence. It pressed down on his ears like a velvet glove, and Arthur crouched, patting gently as he tried to work out the boundaries of the form he had found. Without his eyes to guide him, his imagination ran wild. It was something or someone either wrapped or dressed in fabric, but why wasn't it moving? Was it gravely injured? Dead? A person would speak, if they could, yet there was not even a whimper of pain.
Beneath his touch, the soft nap of well-worn hide gave way to the smoother rasp of woven linen. The cloth was looser there, not tucked but draped, and emotion clenched in Arthur's chest: too volatile to name. It was a fist around his heart, threatening to crush it. 'Merlin, is that you?'
The brush of too-cool skin against his fingertips. The weak flicker of a pulse. That was all he sensed before whoever it was surged upright like a drowning man, their next breath a rasping gasp as if they had forgotten the taste of air. Frantic hands reached for him, clutching and grasping. Arthur almost spilled backwards from his uncomfortable crouch as their weight collided with his chest, their fingers clawing at his tunic as if they were trying to crack open his ribs and crawl inside.
He gripped bony wrists, his head pounding as he tried to restrain them, but while the body may be frail, panic made them strong. It took all his strength to pin their arms to their sides, and even then, they fought him like a wet cat, strange little cries catching in their throat.
'Enough. Stop it. I don't want to hurt you!'
'Arthur!'
His name was a knife to the heart, sharp and desperate. The voice, at least, was one he knew well. Relief poured down his spine, but it was short-lived, and his reassurances seemed to fall on deaf ears as they tumbled from his lips.
'I'm here, Merlin. What's wrong? Are you hurt?' Gods, he couldn't even see. 'Can you cast a light? Or better yet, get us out of here?'
He frowned when Merlin gave him no response. The only noises he was making were odd, hacking sobs, as if he were choking on each breath. He was separated from Merlin's skin by the fabric of his sleeves, but he could feel how those hands twisted in his grasp, fighting to escape.
Suddenly, he sagged forward, and maybe Arthur's eyes were playing tricks on him, but he thought he saw a spark of light, there and gone. Arthur's lashes fluttered as he blinked, trying to clear his vision, but then it came again: not a mote of illumination, but a tracery of it, as if someone had scrawled across the air with illuminated ink.
The third time he saw it, Arthur's stomach sank.
Merlin's eyes changed when he did magic. He knew that. In the privacy of his own head, Arthur had come to think of that golden gleam as beautiful since he'd discovered the secret of his sorcery. This was different. It crackled like lightning; a storm held in Merlin's gaze. It cast brief light upon his cheekbones, spilling odd shadows across his face.
'What's happening?'
'He is dying,' a woman's voice said, sugar-sweet. 'And he will take you with him, Arthur Pendragon.'
He twisted where he crouched, shielding Merlin from view as he bared his teeth in a mute snarl. A head was silhouetted against the light coming through the hole in the door. The woman's face was lost in shadow, but he could feel the weight of her watchful gaze.
'Who are you?' he demanded, soaking his words in all the authority he could claim. 'What do you want with us?'
Her girlish laugh made his skin crawl, and he could just make out the glitter of her eyes as she watched him. 'Imagine my delight when we stumbled upon you in the woods. I had known the hunting was rich around Camelot, but had not thought to catch myself such a valuable prize. The great Pendragon prince, and the mighty Emrys.'
Arthur frowned, shaking his head in confusion. 'I don't know who that is.'
'He's the one whimpering behind you.' Light flared across her profile, spilling over gaunt features. A sneer hitched her lips and bared her teeth. She was unknown to him: a stranger. 'The druids think he is the most powerful sorcerer to ever walk the earth. The man prophesied to usher in a golden age of Albion at your side.' She tossed her head, her mirth painting creases at the corners of her eyes. 'It's a fairytale, of course, but he put up a good fight. My mage is cursing his name, even now!'
Arthur's thoughts skittered and jumped like a rock skipping over the surface of a pond. He did not know anything of prophecies. He had vague memories of Merlin mentioning something similar when they talked about the dragon, but there had been no fervour of belief in those eyes. He had cast it aside with a shrug: irrelevant – nothing but the crazed musings of a creature who had spent too long in captivity.
'I had worried about how to keep him quiet, once we got the better of you. I considered killing him; it would have been the easiest way. But you can never be sure what kind of tricks a mage might have up their sleeves. Then I remembered this old ruin, just a half-morning's ride from the citadel. One of Uther's best kept secrets.'
Her fingers curled around the bars in the door, shocking white in the uncertain light. 'Back at the start of the Purge, your thrice-cursed father was obsessed with rooting out sorcery. He would snatch people up without a word of warning – men, women and children. He put them here, in this dungeon, and he forced their confessions.'
She smirked. 'The stories I've heard in the taverns would make your hair curl. Most died here, innocent and screaming. They did not have an ounce of power to their name, but some?' Her grin grew slowly, spreading across her face. 'Some did, and Uther did not kill them. Not straight away. Instead, he put them to use.'
Her laugh sounded like a dog's bark, all teeth and anger. 'You see, back when you were a babe in arms, killing sorcerers was not enough for Uther. He wanted to punish them, and this was his answer. He had the cells of this place enchanted to turn a mage's power against them, forcing it to run wild as it tore apart their sanity. Cellmates ripped each other to pieces with their bare hands.' Cruel satisfaction pinched her features. 'How do you think your friend will feel when, in his last moments of clarity, he realises he killed the man he was sworn to protect?'
Over in the corner, Merlin let out another low moan, more animal than man, and fear trickled down Arthur's spine.
'Perhaps I could be greedy and hold you for ransom, but everyone knows that getting gold out of Uther is like wringing blood from a stone. Instead, I'll make him suffer. I'll tell him where to find your corpse in a week or two. Let him see what remains of his dynasty. That's good enough for me.'
The woman stepped back, the shadows falling over her face as the gloom blurred her outline. The candlelight gleamed in the well of her right eye, a pinpoint of dancing light. She watched in silence for long moments before turning away, her final words floating over her shoulder as she departed.
'Goodbye, Your Highness.'
Her footsteps faded from Arthur's hearing, leaving nothing but the scurry of rats and the steady drip of water. The candle flame guttered upon its wick, dimming to little more than a star before it recovered some of its strength. Arthur stared at the tiny square of gold light in the middle of the cell floor – the only respite from the darkness – and swallowed back the hopelessness that threatened to choke him.
Questions surged in his mind, washing over him in waves, but he forced himself to set each one aside. There would be time for answers later. Now, more than anything else, he and Merlin needed to find a way out of here. If the woman was right, then whatever was happening to Merlin was because of the four walls that penned them in and the ceiling that brooded over their heads. Once they were free, he would be his old self again.
That had to be their aim; everything else could wait.
Arthur hoarded his resolve, sucking in a deep breath before turning to Merlin. His magic remained the best chance of them getting out of here. He did not know how much of what the woman had said was true, but he struggled to imagine Merlin so lost to his power that he would attack. He could be ruthless when he had to be, but Arthur had long ago stopped viewing Merlin's compassion as a weakness. It formed a firm foundation within him, and he could not envision Merlin abandoning it, either in his right mind or out of it.
Besides, the stranger had said his father enchanted this place during the Purge. Surely, by now, the spells would have lost some of their power?
'Merlin?' He eased forward, reaching out blindly in the dark in an effort to seek him out. 'Are you with me?'
He could hear ragged, panting breaths. Indecipherable words hitched on their edge, tangled syllables colliding with one another in a hissing gabble. It made the fine hairs on his arms prickle upright, and Arthur wet his lips.
'Merlin?'
Power surged, slamming into him and spilling him to the floor. It did not fling him across the cell, which was just as well. Arthur had seen Merlin throw men so hard that their spines snapped. Instead, it was like a warning: the snarl of a wounded wolf that still knew how to bite.
Arthur coughed, struggling to get his breath back. It had knocked the wind out of him, and an ache in his ribs suggested he was lucky things weren't worse. The dark pressed around him, and he rolled his head to the side, trying to see anything in the corner where Merlin had curled himself away. There was only the occasional glimmer of gold, the magic still crackling across his eyes like a summer storm.
'It's me: Arthur,' he managed at last, sitting up and pressing a hand to the bottom of his ribs. He could not be sure Merlin recognised him. Who knew what was going on in that head of his? 'We have to get out of here, and for that, I need your help.'
His heart quivered in his chest when he got no response. Normally, Merlin would have been witty and wry, teasing as he came to Arthur's aid. Now, there were only those odd whispers rattling around the confines of their cell.
'Are you hurt?' Arthur pursed his lips, spinning his mother's ring where it banded his finger, twisting it back and forth. If only he could see! Perhaps then he would be able to work out the best way to help Merlin free himself from his torment. Instead, there was only the accursed gloom pressing in from all sides. 'Bleeding? Merlin, I need you to talk to me. Can you move? If you can get towards the light, I can –'
'Don't.'
Arthur froze halfway through climbing back to his knees, every muscle locking tight beneath the weight of that single word. It wasn't magic, not really. Merlin's voice normally only sounded like that when he spoke to the dragon: a low roar. Now, Arthur's instincts shrieked their warning: one that told him he no longer shared the room with a friend.
A deep breath whispered between his lips as he tried to master the sudden surge of his fear. The stone floor was cool beneath the press of his fingertips, and a clammy sweat broke out down his spine. He had not been afraid of Merlin, not since that first moment he discovered his magic. That had been born of his father's relentless teachings – a matter of prejudice rather than instinct – and it had soon faded. This was different. Something in the blood and bone of him warned him of danger, yet he had never been the kind of man to retreat.
'Merlin, please.'
He didn't know what to do. Reaching out seemed like a terrible idea, but he could not leave him there. That path only led to disaster. How long did they have before whatever rank magic lay upon this place tore Merlin's mind to pieces, and how much would he suffer as it all fell apart? Arthur did not want to think it, but part of him wondered if a quick death at the end of a bandit's blade would have been a mercy in comparison.
He was a man trained for action, but that was the wrong path. Not everything could be fixed with the swipe of a sword or the right word in the right place. Sometimes, patience was the best course.
When faced with a hound driven half mad by its fear, the thing to do was not to crowd it in a corner nor demand its affection. It was far better to sit and wait for the animal to make its own choice. Merlin was not a beast, but nor was he of sound mind. This place was whittling away the trappings of his humanity. Arthur could not reason with him, so he did all he could to show that he was not a threat.
There was no warmth in the little square of light as he sat within its confines: the candle was far too distant to offer such respite. He crossed his legs beneath him and softened his shoulders, facing the direction where he knew Merlin was hiding and keeping his eyes averted.
He wanted to wring his hands in an effort to bleed off his impatience, but he did not dare do so. It said too much of the worry that built its battlements inside his heart. Instead, he focused on maintaining the evenness of his breathing. He counted the beats of his pulse and forced the tension from his muscles as he prayed that this would work.
He could not say how much time had passed. There was no sunlight to mark the passage of the day. The drip of water had no rhythm, sometimes becoming a trickle before going quiet. The cold nipped at him, painting him in its layers. He numbered the striped shadows that painted his breeches where they were pulled taut over his knee, and all the while he listened.
Merlin's words had fallen silent, yet the flicker of light in the corner of Arthur's vision suggested he was being watched with an unblinking stare. It was an eerie sight, each flash illuminating the sweep of his lashes and the crest of his cheekbones, but revealing nothing more. He gazed at Arthur as if he could not tear his eyes away, and the burden of that scrutiny was like a scald upon Arthur's skin.
There was no soft balm of fondness to which he had grown so accustomed over the course of their friendship. Even when the world was falling down around his ears, he had always counted on Merlin to look at him with kindness. The pride that lingered in those eyes had fuelled him through some of the darkest times of his life, yet now it was gone.
He only prayed it was not lost forever.
'I miss you.' He winced as his voice cracked through the middle, but he persevered. It was not like him to speak so openly of emotion. He had been taught to revile such vulnerability. The result was that, as a man grown, he struggled to talk about how he felt with any sincerity, but for Merlin he would try. 'If you were well, you would know just what to say to make this all seem a bit less hopeless. You'd tease me, probably, about not seeing the bandits until it was too late. You'd get us out of here, too. You're not the type to give up.'
His fingers stroked back and forth across the hub of his own knees. He stared fixedly at their passage rather than meeting Merlin's crackling gaze. 'I know you're still there, underneath whatever this place is doing to you. You have to be, or you wouldn't have given me that warning shove. You'd have just...' He trailed off, throwing that thought aside. That was not the path he wanted this one-sided conversation to take.
'You trust me, I know you do. You told me about your magic, all those months ago. You had faith that I wouldn't throw you on my father's pyres or offer you up to the headsman. That has never wavered, but Merlin, I need you to trust yourself. You won't hurt me. Not because you can't, but because you care about me.' He paused, plucking at the cuff of his leather coat, teasing at a loose thread upon its seam. His next words tried to throttle themselves to silence, but he forced them out.
'Just like I care about you.'
It was not the right term, not really: a weak, diluted version of the one that lingered on his tongue, unspeakable. Yet for now, it would do. He tried not to flinch from his own honesty. His body wanted to cringe away, expecting ridicule or punishment. A Pendragon was not supposed to allow his emotions to govern his actions. He was meant to place himself above all that: a paragon of duty, but that wouldn't help in this situation. Merlin did not need the command of his prince, but the kindness of a friend.
The scrape of movement made Arthur freeze where he sat, surprise rendering him breathless. It was not a lunge, all power and ferocity, but a steady creep. He could not see, but he could picture it: Merlin easing closer, all caution, driven forward by desperation even as his fear tried to hold him back. He heard the rustle of cloth; the rasp of the dust upon the floor; a hiss of pain.
A questing hand inched into the light, and Arthur winced at the bloody fingertips that left rusty smears in their wake. It looked as if he had been clawing at the wall, tearing his nails in an effort to get away. He almost reached for him, twitching to do just that only to tighten his restraint as Merlin flinched back.
'I'm here.' He whispered it like a prayer, silently begging for Merlin to find his courage. 'I'm right here.'
The hand returned, clumsy and fretful. Light spilled across Merlin's tunic sleeve, revealing the torn fabric and the grazes on his knuckles. He had put up a fight, but that was no surprise. Merlin could be vicious when he needed to be, especially in the defence of his friends.
Bony fingers dug into Arthur's knee, clinging to him as if he were the only piece of driftwood on a wave-tossed sea. Perhaps, to Merlin, that was precisely what he was. He did not know what was going on in that head, nor did he dare ask. The whole moment felt like glass around them, as if one wrong word might shatter it. All Arthur could do was hold onto his patience, waiting for Merlin to inch closer.
He was breathing as if he had run for his life: scattered, cracked gasps that sounded as is if they hurt. Harsh sobs sundered the air, not the cries of a frightened child but a man lost to his terror. Arthur had heard knights weep like that before, as they lay dying on the battlefield. It was a sound that never left him, and it broke his heart to hear it from Merlin.
'You'll be all right,' he vowed, putting all his faith into those words. He had to believe them, because the alternative did not bear thinking about. 'Can you come any closer, so I can see if you're hurt?'
There was no immediate move from Merlin to oblige him. The rustle of cloth had fallen still. There was just that hand, bunched into a fist upon Arthur's knee, now, clinging to the fabric of his breeches with such force that it threatened to tear. And perhaps Arthur was a fool, or maybe he was simply desperate, because this time, he did not stifle the urge to reach for him. Instead, he rested his palm across Merlin's bloodied knuckles, trying to press some of his own strength into those slender fingers.
'Arthur?'
His name was the first proper word Merlin had said since the woman left. It wobbled between them, tear-stained, and Arthur did not have the chance to draw a breath to respond before Merlin lunged at him. There was barely time to brace for an attack as Merlin collided with his chest, scrabbling frantically. He was a grown man, too big to be sitting in Arthur's lap, yet he folded himself into the space, making Arthur's thighs ache in protest.
A sharp nose dug into the side of his throat, and he could feel the flutter of Merlin's breaths against his skin, too quick by far. His arms had gone around that narrow back reflexively, and now he tightened his embrace, catching the rough hide of Merlin's jacket in his grasp.
He did not know what was happening, but Merlin was not trying to hurt him. There were no raking nails or flashing eyes. There was just a cool, shaking body, curled tight against Arthur's chest like he might die if he let go.
He pursed his lips, reining in the growing flutter of his panic. They had been in worse trouble than this, in the past, but Merlin and his magic had always been right there, whether he knew of it or not. Now, he feared there would be no miracles to save them. Still, that did not mean he had any intention of giving up.
'I swear, Merlin' – Arthur vowed, soft and desperate – 'whatever it takes, I will get us out of here.'