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The assassin’s next target was in Camelot.
The Sarrum’s gaze had been inscrutable when he told his assassin this, looking at him with an expression that the assassin was unable to decipher.
But when the assassin had only nodded and asked the target’s name, the Sarrum smiled with cold victory.
Strange, to have such a look before the task was even completed.
The target was none other than the king of Camelot himself, Arthur Pendragon. His death wouldn’t lead to Camelot’s immediate downfall - the ruling of the kingdom would fall to his beloved queen, Guinevere - but to have a second monarch’s death within only a few short years would undoubtedly lead to instability.
Only a few more well-placed tasks afterward, and Camelot would soon be free for the taking.
But for now, it was imperative that no one else was killed during the infiltration.
Ordinarily, the assassin would have no problem disposing of anyone who interfered with him or his task. But when the target is a king, the moment there is any sign of trouble, all the senior and most trusted knights would immediately make their way to their king to guard and protect him. While not impossible, it would certainly be a nuisance and a hassle to deal with them first.
The plan was simple: make his way through the lower town to reach the citadel, position himself to climb the walls during the changing of the dusk guard, enter silently through the window to approach the target from behind, a quick slit of his throat, before leaving the way he came with no one the wiser until they found the body.
In, out, done.
It should have been easy.
So why then, as the assassin stood at the gates into the lower town, did he feel an impending sense of unease about the task set before him? Why then, as he stepped through the gates and into the city, did he feel like he should go somewhere else within this city first? See someone else first?
But he couldn’t afford to dwell on these feelings, and he buried them inside himself and forced himself to take the next step.
The streets felt familiar - the sound of their bustle, the way the buildings crowded around him in a way that was somehow simultaneously both oppressive and comforting, the way the light hit them with the incoming dusk.
But he grit his teeth and continued on, ignoring the echoes that seemed to fill his mind with each turn, each scent, each sound.
He found his way to the citadel with ease - not once heading down a wrong road, and never needing to take a moment to gain his bearings.
The white towers dwarfed him, but he only spared a glance at their splendor, walking calmly as if he had lived in this city and known those towers for many years.
No one batted an eye at him, the assassin easily mixing into the myriad of servants, commoners, and courtiers alike who were going about their day. He only glanced to the walls of the citadel, mentally noting each marker he passed and counting down until he would be where he needed to be.
He glanced to the walls again -
Then he stopped.
There was a door - slightly ajar, but nondescript and completely insignificant.
Next to it was a small, worn sign: Court Physician.
He found himself drawn to that door, and for a moment considered following it and the stairs beyond to see what he could find.
Then the assassin remembered his task, and he shoved the feeling deep inside of himself and buried it alongside the others, only grimacing slightly in frustration and annoyance.
Camelot, it would seem, had a way of affecting him that no other city had done before.
He made his way around the back of the castle, blending seamlessly with the shadows and slipping into nooks as if it were second nature. The occasional small patrol of guards passed him, but none of them even spared a glance to where he was hiding, and the assassin was able to slip by without their notice.
But soon enough, he found himself at the base of the tower that held the king and queen’s chambers.
The window was open - something the king typically did during early autumn, when the air outside was pleasantly cool.
He really should have known better.
A quick glance revealed no guards - just as he had known there wouldn’t be - and he couldn’t help but smirk to himself.
The assassin set his hood over his head, pulled his leather gloves tight, before putting his hands to the wall.
Then he began to climb.
The walls were smoothed over, clearly designed to prevent someone from doing exactly what the assassin was doing now, but not even they could hold against the cracks and shifting that came with time, and slowly, the assassin made his way silently upward, until he was right below the king’s open window.
He paused just before he was visible, and listened.
Silence - then the scratch of a quill and the shuffling of paper. No conversation, and no other sounds.
The king was alone, and seated at his desk to work on paperwork.
The assassin hoisted himself up the last few inches to peer inside.
He could have scoffed at the sight that greeted him.
There he was, Arthur Pendragon, the mighty King of Camelot, completely oblivious to the open window behind him and the shadow lurking outside.
What a clotpole.
The assassin stopped, blinking at the thought that had come to him completely unbidden.
… where had he even heard that word?
But the assassin grit his teeth, and shoved that strange feeling inside of himself along with the others.
The sooner he left Camelot and these strange feelings behind, the better.
He slipped through the window, landing silently on the balls of his feet in a low crouch.
Pendragon didn’t move.
The assassin smirked once more. He reached to the sheathe on his back and slipped out his knife, before slowly straightening to a stand as he took a couple steps closer.
Pendragon still didn’t move.
The assassin let out a low, silent breath, and reached the weaponless hand forward to ready himself for the final move.
A breath. In, out -
He advanced -
Pendragon dodged, moving to one side to evade the knife and hand, before he grabbed the assassin’s wrist and pulled him into the desk.
The assassin fell forward with a grunt, the edge of the desk hitting him in the side.
He rounded, arm raised to block a strike from Pendragon, but his other one still tight in Pendragon’s grip. He twisted, fruitlessly trying to free himself.
The hood fell back from the assassin’s head.
Pendragon’s eyes widened.
“Merlin?”
And with that single word the assassin froze.
It felt as if he had been plunged into ice - sunk deep into a lake of frozen water and only just able to see the surface above. A flash of fear came from nowhere, and the assassin found he couldn’t move - couldn’t think -
Pendragon only looked shocked.
“Merlin, is - oh gods, is that you?”
A flicker of familiarity, of warmth -
But it was quickly followed by that sensation again - that feeling of being plunged into ice, and his mind hitting a barrier of his own making.
But he found himself seeing another place - a place he never wanted to think about.
Nothing but pain and darkness and torture -
He sneered at Pendragon and wrenched his wrist free, before immediately coming back in with another strike.
Pendragon evaded, and used the assassin’s own momentum to fling him stumbling several steps forward.
“Guards!” Pendragon shouted as he made for his own sword.
No no no no, this had all gone wrong - the assassin glanced to the window, still open and the perfect route to retreat.
But then he heard the Sarrum’s voice and felt his cold gaze, ringing in his mind and sending chills all through him at the thought of going back -
"You know I do not tolerate inadequacy.”
Better to complete the task and die, than to return to the Sarrum a failure.
Better to die than to return to that room -
The assassin grabbed Pendragon’s collar when he was a hair’s breadth from the hilt of his sword, and he yanked him back.
Pendragon was thrown off balance, and the assassin forced him around and to the wall, pinning him there with one hand to a wrist, and the other holding the knife to Pendragon’s throat.
The door slammed open, and the assassin heard several knights enter. “Sire! What is -”
But then they froze as well.
Silence.
Then a single voice spoke.
“... Merlin?”
The assassin couldn’t stop the flinch that rose out of him, and he immediately loathed himself for it. He tried to focus only on Pendragon - only on the task before him.
But his breathing had become erratic, and his hands were trembling.
This had never happened before - what was happening - what was happening?
The knights advanced -
“Stop right there, or your king gets it.”
They complied.
The assassin half-glanced at them, before lifting his eyes to meet Pendragon’s again.
The expression on Pendragon’s face was odd: a mix of fear, of confusion, but over all of it, a look of horrified shock - as if he couldn’t believe what was right in front of him.
The assassin heard a voice from behind himself, speaking surely and with authority, “Okay, we can talk through this; just put the knife down. No one has to get hurt.”
The assassin didn’t move his gaze from Pendragon’s.
I don’t want to hurt him.
But I need to - I was sent here to kill him!
But my Destiny is to protect him-!
… Destiny? What-?
The voice spoke again, “Please. Merlin -”
“Stop calling me that!” the assassin snapped, his head turning away from Pendragon but not quite to face the knights. “I’m not Merlin!”
Why did saying that feel so wrong? Why is everything about this wrong?!
Pendragon tried to lean forward. “Merlin -” he began, as if entreating.
The assassin shoved him back into the wall with a sneer, blade pressing tighter into Pendragon’s throat, and a thin line of blood welling around the blade. “What did I just say? What did I just say?!”
No one moved - no one dared.
One flick of his wrist - that’s all it would take to end this.
… why couldn’t he do it?
Then the assassin heard a single step behind him as one knight took a step forward. “Alright, fine, you’re not Merlin,” a voice - a different one than before, but this new one sent a sharp pang through the assassin’s heart that the other one hadn’t, and his eyes widened while he inhaled sharply - said gently. “Then who are you?”
And for the second time that night, the assassin couldn’t move - once more plunged into that dark and cold place where the answers felt out of reach.
No one had ever asked who he was - most never got the chance, or simply knew him as the shadow that followed the Sarrum. No one had ever asked him who he was.
“I’m - I’m the Sarrum’s assassin. That’s it. That’s all.”
That’s what he was.
So why did saying that now only add to the feeling of wrong? And why did he speak the truth so easily to this - this knight of Camelot?
The assassin turned his head to look behind himself.
By the door were a handful of knights - their swords drawn and watching the altercation in various states of shock and disbelief.
But there was one closer to them - the one who had spoken - pale, with brown curling hair reaching his shoulders and short facial hair along his jaw and upper lip. He held no sword, and his hands were out in front of him in a position as if he were trying to calm an animal about to spook, and his gaze fixed unwaveringly on the assassin.
Tied around one bicep was a scrap of frayed blue fabric, and that flicker of familiarity returned, but this time it came with a sharp pang of grief.
The knight gave a small shrug. “I think that’s fairly obvious,” he said. “I meant your name.”
Arthur gently grabbed the assassin’s wrist and distanced the blade from his neck.
The assassin didn’t even notice.
“My… my name?”
The knight took a couple steps closer, until he was right next to the assassin. The knight didn’t look angry, his expression only that of shocked sadness. “You have one, don’t you?”
“I don’t -” the assassin’s eyes flicked between the knight’s, as if searching for answers inside of them. “I don’t know my name - I don’t know who I am.”
A devastated and horrified expression crossed the knight’s face, but then he took in a deep breath. “That’s alright. We’ll figure it out together, yeah?” the knight said quietly, gently putting his hand around the assassin’s that held the knife. The assassin didn’t even try to stop him when the knight pulled the knife free from his fingers, or when he tossed under the bed - far from either of their reaches.
The knight gently put his hands to the assassin’s shoulders - the assassin stiffened, but didn’t bat the hands away - and eased him backwards away from Arthur. “Now let’s just take a step back. There you go.”
The assassin hesitated - his mind still racing and trying to think how to complete his task.
But then he let go of Arthur’s wrist and retreated, his shoulders moving under the knight’s hands as he took in labored breaths.
Arthur blinked at him, before slowly lowering his arm from where it had been pinned. He still looked wary and ready to defend himself, but the shock of before had been replaced by confusion. The cut on his neck was shallow, and the bleeding was already starting to stop.
No one else moved - no shouting, no sudden seizing of the assassin’s arms to place him under arrest.
The assassin turned to the knight, unable to hide his surprise and confusion.
The knight gave him a small smirk, but it was wry and tinged with uncertainty. And sadness. “There now. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
The assassin stared at him, a strange feeling of knowing coming over him.
“Name’s Gwaine,” the knight said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The assassin blinked at the knight - Gwaine. Gwaine. That… that felt right, the name and face settling into his mind with an ease that nothing else had matched.
“Gwaine,” the assassin said, as if testing how the name felt when he said it. He expected it to feel foreign in his mouth, but it didn’t, the word coming easily to him.
Gwaine’s smirk widened. “That’s right.”
The assassin met Gwaine’s gaze solidly, feeling as if he just searched his brown eyes for long enough, he could finally find the answers. “Why are you being so kind to me?”
The knight’s eyes flicked between the assassin’s as if he too was searching for something inside of them. “Because you remind me of someone I thought I had lost forever. Someone that I love more than anything.”
At this declaration, the assassin stopped.
And from deep inside of himself, from that place he had locked away everything when it became too much, he thought he felt an echo of those same words being said to him before.
“I love you - more than anything.”
Gwaine slowly lifted a hand. Eyes plainly brimming and not moving from the assassin’s gaze, he gently placed a gloved palm to the assassin’s cheek.
The assassin didn’t move, torn between lurching away in disgust…
… or pressing himself further into the touch; turning his head so he could kiss Gwaine’s palm.
For a moment neither of them moved.
But then Gwaine’s hand shifted, moving to behind the assassin’s shoulders, and lifting his other arm to join it.
Gwaine pulled the assassin into a hug, and the assassin’s breath hitched.
How long had it been since someone had touched him without the intent to harm him? How long had it been since someone had embraced him like this?
And without even thinking or realizing, the assassin lifted his arms and returned the hug, as if it were the most natural thing to do. He didn’t move, trying to make sense of the strange feelings running through him. Confusion, sadness, anger, relief.
But over it all, a sense of finally regaining something he had thought he had lost forever, and the feeling of being safer than he had been in over a year.
The assassin’s grip tightened, fingers digging into Gwaine’s cloak and holding on for fear that Gwaine would let go.
He felt Gwaine take in a shaking gasp. “Come back to me, love.”
The assassin’s eyes widened and began to burn - but not in shock, no, but in familiarity. And for a moment, he felt the man he was before the year of pain and darkness flicker and return - but he was still lost, with no idea of the way out. “I don’t know if I can,” he said, voice wavering and barely above a whisper. “I don’t know if I can find my way back.”
Gwaine’s grip tightened just a bit. He turned his head and whispered softly, gently into the assassin’s ear, “Then I’ll find you wherever you are.”
The assassin felt a crack in the walls he had built to keep his emotions at bay - the walls he had built when remembering became more painful than forgetting, and to help him block out the tormenting guilt of when his hands spilled blood for a king he did not love. The walls he had made to guard himself from the darkness that had been always, always closing in around him, and to protect the things he had pushed down deep inside of himself just so he could survive being taken from his home and all he loved, and so he could survive what he was forced to do - when he was forced to become the unthinkable.
Until he had lost himself in that same darkness.
The assassin took in a shaking breath, and his breathing became ragged as his eyes began to spill over.
His head fell forward to bury his face in Gwaine’s cloaked shoulder, holding onto Gwaine for all he was worth and never wanting to let go ever again.
Then for the first time in over a year, Merlin cried.