Chapter Text
The warning came at dusk.
A young scout stumbled into the edge of camp breathing hard. He had blood on his sleeve and urgency in his eyes. The words tumbled out before he had fully caught his breath.
“Soldiers. Three miles east. At least forty. Moving fast and quiet. They have the sigil of the Iron Crown.”
The camp immediately shifted to controlled chaos.
Balinor was already on his feet before the scout finished speaking. He moved through the camp with the unhurried certainty of someone who knew what he was doing. Broad-shouldered and deliberate in everything he did, he had a particular presence about him that came from long practice of controlling and channeling his feelings into action.
He found Isildor near the fire, his father already gathering his staff and healer’s kit, his expression composed and his eyes sharp.
“You heard,” Balinor said.
“I heard.” Isildor looked up. “From the description it is the Iron Crown’s elite, not a random patrol. This is not a coincidence.”
“No.” Balinor’s jaw tightened. “Someone talked.”
Isildor was quiet for a moment. “Or someone was caught and made to talk.”
Neither of them said what that meant for whoever had been caught.
Across the camp, Arthur was already moving and organizing the men, his voice carrying a steady authority that had grown within him over three years of their war. He had developed the instinct for it—the ability to read a situation and make quick and strategically sound decisions. He had proven himself to his people, and now the people moved without question when he spoke.
Merlin was beside him, as he usually was. And though he was doing nothing obvious, Balinor could feel the faint hum of his son’s magic rising as tension climbed through the camp. The way the torchlight bent toward him rather than with the wind. The electric charge that gathered in the air near all three of them when their blood ran hot—that deep, inherited power that had no name beyond what it was. Dragon’s blood. And with it, the affinities for fire and Lightning.
Balinor walked over to him.
“Avoid any powerful or flashy magic,” he said without preamble.
Merlin looked up at him incredulously. “I’m not going to hold back while everyone else—”
“That is not what I said.”
Merlin closed his mouth, but his eyes still screamed defiance.
Balinor held his gaze. “You are not the same as you were a year ago. I know that. But the Iron Crown’s elite are trained specifically to identify and neutralize mages first.” He paused. “You are not invisible, Merlin. Not when you’re fighting.”
Something flickered in his son’s expression. The defiance was still there, but it became less intense.
“Your grandfather and I will hold the line and draw their attention as much as we can,” Balinor continued. “I need you to keep a lower profile as you protect Arthur. He will already be a target. We need to draw their forces between more than one targeted location as best we can.” He looked at him steadily. “Can you do that?”
Merlin didn’t answer immediately. His eyes darted back and forth as he analyzed what his father was asking and debating whether to challenge the request or accept it. Then, reluctantly, he replied “Yes.”
Balinor put a hand briefly on his shoulder, firm and sure. “Good.”
They came out of the tree line silent and coordinated. Forty men, armored in the dark iron of King Brutus’s elite guard, moving with the practiced precision of well trained and experienced soldiers.
Arthur’s own forces met them.
It was not a clean battle. The eastern edge quickly dissolved into close quarters and confusion, torchlight fragmenting everything into sharp, violent angles. Blades rang. Voices rose and cut off. The ground quickly turned treacherous.
Isildor worked from the western flank. His draconic blood ran quieter than his son’s, tempered by decades of deliberate study. He had spent a lifetime learning to layer other types of magic on top of the inherited fire and lightning, to build a healer’s precision and patience over instincts that were anything but patient. The spark that lived in his veins he kept banked and still. The land was a better weapon here, and he knew it more intimately than any blade.
The ground shifted under approaching soldiers in ways they couldn’t account for. Footing betrayed them. The air grew thick and disorienting in random pockets, sending trained men stumbling into each other. And when subtlety was not enough, a wave of lightning spread across armor and sent men sprawling.
Balinor fought differently. His magic had always been closer to the surface than his father’s. The draconic inheritance ran hotter in him, less inclined to patience, and he had never fully tamed it so much as learned to aim it. Fire and lightning both answered him, and when he released them, they did so hot and bright.
With that power, Balinor stood at the center of the eastern breach and held it. Soldiers broke against him like water against rock. A lance of lightning split the dark above the breach, scattering a coordinated charge before it could reach him. When the enemy pushed through regardless, fire answered in waves. One, then three, then six driven back, knocked down. Balinor was breathing hard by the time the line stabilized, the effort of it burning through him in a way it hadn’t a decade ago, but the line held.
On the far side of the camp, he could hear Arthur’s voice. And closer to him, Balinor could feel the controlled heat of Merlin’s magic flickering like hot coals just cool enough to not create an actual flame. The electricity was there too. It was a restless charge that had been part of Merlin since childhood, the lightning looking for somewhere to go.
“Good,” Balinor thought. “He’s keeping things subtle.”
He turned back to the breach. And found the commander watching him intensely.