Chapter Text
Arthur’s life has always been public. His privacy is theoretical, this he has always known. But he’s never felt it so keenly, never regretted it so fiercely as he does in this moment. Watching Merlin, tired and grinning, sprawled out on the flagstones, both of them under fifty pairs of watchful eyes.
All he wants is to kiss the man. Scoop him up and murmur his thanks, his praise, his relief, his embarrassment, his pride, his everything into the soft skin of Merlin’s throat. And then fuck him into next week.
Instead, he is gathering his composure and thinking, always thinking. Because this is the moment- the moment where everything turns.
He’s free of the madness. He’s- he’s well again. Himself again. Even if Gaius hadn’t confirmed it, he’d have known. Something off-balance inside him has straightened, like dropping a heavy load, and he can breathe.
“Merlin,” he says helplessly, and takes two shambling steps forward. He reaches down and grips the sorcerer’s hand, pulls him upright. “Merlin, thank you,” is all he can say and then they are embracing, hard and tight and perfect. Over Merlin’s shoulder he meets Balinor’s eyes, dark with some emotion Arthur can’t name, and then a simply-dressed woman appears in his line of sight, eyes shimmering with tears. Merlin’s mother, he knows, and he nods gravely to her, receives a nod in return.
He takes a shuddering breath and pulls back, cups Merlin’s shoulders with his hands and tries for a shaking smile. “You should see to your parents,” he says softly, and steps back with a nod. He does not want Merlin involved in what comes next, he is far too protective of Arthur. A moment later it comes to him, the way out.
“There’s someone your father needs to meet, I think.” He glances up to meet Balinor’s eyes as the older man steps forward, still watchful.
“There is a chain, in the caves beneath Camelot, that badly needs to be broken,” Arthur says it straight at Balinor, who halts. “I think you are the man to do the job.”
Merlin’s eyes widen.
“Just like that,” Balinor says, voice rough. His face is working, holding in some strong emotion. “All these years, and then with a snap of your fingers you’ll permit him to be released.”
“I’d have released him a year ago if he’d given any guarantee for the safety of my people,” he returns. “Merlin tells me you can give me that guarantee. And I-” he takes a quick breath as his voice shakes, just a little as he tries to hold in everything he is feeling. His hand tightens on the sorcerer’s nape, “I trust Merlin.”
Balinor just nods, once, and Merlin glances between them, pale and stunned.
Arthur straightens, dropping his hand, and pulls on the presence of royalty as if it were a cloak. All eyes will be on Arthur now, giving Merlin’s family some measure of privacy, as well as some distance from this one last fight.
And Arthur can deal with the one remaining threat to his kingdom.
Merlin is blinking at him, confused, but when their eyes meet again he smiles. “All- all right,” he says, a little off-balance, and Arthur just nods at him sharply, turns and catches Leon’s eye. Leon, pale with shock, eyes blazing, nods back and they jog toward the stairs, side-by-side. The other knights fall in behind, the Council members following, clustered around Morgana, and a newly arrived Gwen.
Leon is snapping out orders about Agravaine, about Kanen’s men as they run through the corridors and Arthur leaves him to it, knowing how truly rich he is to have a lieutenant he can trust so completely, someone so capable as Leon watching his back.
Because Arthur’s entire focus is on his uncle.
It’s as though he’s only been waiting – and he realizes as he shoulders through the doors of the Great Hall, that perhaps he has. All these months, over a year, he’s had to hold in his temper, no matter what the provocation. Never could he truly react, never show the way he was feeling.
Not today.
There’s no sign of Agravaine. Startled servants and guards are answering each question as they work their way through the castle, knights peeling off on Leon’s orders to close off the towers, protect the unwary.
They reach the royal apartments and Arthur kicks his uncle’s door open with a burst of pure, cleansing rage. There’s a startled exclamation from the ladies but he doesn’t bother sparing them a glance. The suite is empty.
He turns, almost panting with suppressed fury, and meets Leon’s eyes. The communication between them is silent. Where? No – too visible. Where else? No, too well defended.
Arthur’s eyes flick past Leon’s shoulder and he takes a deep breath for patience. “Morgana,” he says carefully, “you should go to your rooms and wait there.”
Her chin lifts, eyes flashing.
“Morgana,” he says, “please. If you insist on roaming the halls, I will have to spare knights to protect you-” He hesitates, pained, then says, wryly honest, "At least go back there long enough to arm yourselves and get changed."
She lets out an explosive breath, glare slowly changing to satisfaction, and says, “Fine.”
He allows the ghost of a smile. “Thank you.” She leaves the room in a whirl of skirts, and he glances toward Gwaine and Lancelot. “Gentlemen,” he begins. “Can I ask you to remain with the ladies in Morgana’s chambers until one of us comes for you?”
He doesn’t want to risk either one of them being mistaken for Agravaine’s allies by the knights who remained at home. Armed men not wearing Camelot’s livery are in a great deal of danger today, and he has plans for these two.
For a moment he thinks they will refuse, then Lancelot bows, once, correct as any knight, and says, “Sire, it would be my honour.”
Gwaine shrugs, more skeptical, but they depart with Morgana and Gwen, while the other knights spread out, moving through the castle floor by floor.
Once they’re alone in his uncle’s chambers, Arthur and Leon look at one another. The other knight is shaking his head. “Where could he possibly be hiding?”
Arthur frowns at the choice of words. He knows Agravaine. Enough for this, at least.
Agravaine is careful, calculated. A man who thinks things through. He has some skill with a sword, but he probably knows he won’t beat Arthur in a fair fight. And clearly, whatever knightly honour he has, it’s not something that binds him strictly – he never could have kidnapped Morgana if that were the case. Or used Arthur’s vow against him.
“Not hiding,” he says slowly, feeling the truth of it as he speaks, “he wouldn’t hide. That’s a short-term solution for someone desperate. He wouldn’t hide-” He looks up at Leon, eyes widening, “he would run.”
They shoulder out into the corridor together. “The stables?” Leon asks, and Arthur hesitates. It’s a long way to go on the off-chance…
“Send someone down there to check, and make sure all of the horses are accounted for,” Arthur replies, frowning as they run toward the stairs. He’s missing something, he can feel it.
“Sire,” the call gets his attention and he spins, pausing as Pelinor runs to his side. “We caught one of Kanen’s men trying to leave by a side door. He claims not to know where your uncle went, but we found these keys on him.” He holds up a ring Arthur recognizes immediately.
“The tombs,” he breathed as he snatched at them. “Gods above, what an idiot I’ve been.” And then he was running, sword in hand, down a thousand different sets of stairs.
“Arthur?” Leon clattered down the stairs at his heels, Pelinor behind him.
“He doesn’t care about the bloody kingdom,” Arthur seethed, “He’s been here, looking for a fucking fortune the whole time.”
“Treasure?”
“He mentioned it when he first arrived,” it was all coming so clear now, “whether my father had ever considered exploring the caverns beneath Camelot. There are old tombs, it’s possible many of them hold gold and jewels of considerable value.”
“He’s been doing all this simply for wealth?”
“Or perhaps it was a fall-back position. If he couldn’t convince Morgana to marry him-”
“Morgana?”
Shit. Shouldn’t have said that. That sound rumbling out of Leon’s chest - that’s the sound of real rage.
“If it all went to pieces,” he goes on, trying to distract Leon, “then this was always a good way to profit from the situation and thumb his nose at my father at the same time. Steal from him, right from under his nose.” He stops at the top of the final set of stairs and turns back to Leon, presses the keys into his hand.
“He may have already made it out. There is a tunnel from the burial vaults that surfaces beyond the city’s eastern walls – Leon, I need you at the other end. Pelinor, to the stables, make sure there are horses ready for us to mount a pursuit if he’s already escaped.”
Leon hesitates, wanting to argue, but one look at Arthur’s face silences him, and in the next moment they are both gone.
He flings himself down the stairs, breath coming a little too fast. He sent Merlin down to the dragon’s cavern, to make him safe. There’s no reason he should be anywhere near the burial vaults.
Except, of course, that he’s Merlin. Trouble follows him like a motherless duckling.
He reaches the lowest level and forces himself to go slow, listening for-
“Do you know what your true mistake was?”
“Damn it, Merlin,” Arthur mutters, and forces himself to sidle along the wall instead of running headlong toward that voice.
“I know you grieve for your sister. I know you wanted Uther punished.”
“I did not bring this upon Arthur,” Agravaine says, his voice hard. “That was not my doing.”
Finally Arthur has a glimpse of them. In the flickering torchlight he can make out Merlin’s back, and beyond him, Agravaine, hand on his sword hilt, half-drawn. His uncle is wary – he’s seen Merlin work magic, now, he won’t assume this is a helpless boy. No, he is talking, waiting, but there’s something in the way he’s holding himself-
“Oh, that much I understand. But once the madness passed from the King to his son, you controlled the when, didn’t you? You figured out the gloves were the key and you chose every time and every place. You made it as public as you could. And that’s the part I won’t forgive.” Merlin’s voice is soft now, chilling.
On pure instinct, Arthur shifts, checking the corners, the angles, and now his eyes catch it, the smallest of movements in the dark. Agravaine’s glance never wavers from Merlin’s face, carefully does not glance at the movement on Merlin’s right.
Arthur drops to one knee and slides the knife from his boot while Merlin threatens Agravaine in that gorgeous voice.
“You didn’t just try to take Arthur’s kingdom. You had to destroy his pride, his reputation, the trust his people placed in him. And that was your fatal mistake, Agravaine. Political ambitions are one thing. But you hurt Arthur,” he shook his head, voice dropping lower, “and that I will not abide.”
On a surge of protective rage, Arthur casts the dagger, and a half-second later Kanen’s henchman falls dead an arm’s-length from Merlin’s back. A long knife falls from his lifeless hand.
Agravaine startles back, drawing his sword and is then frozen in place as Merlin flings up his hand and hisses something. His uncle’s eyes fly first to Merlin’s face, then Arthur’s.
Arthur smiles slowly. Agravaine blanches.
“Merlin,” Arthur says, and his voice is cool and measured. “Let him go.”
The sorcerer doesn’t look at Arthur. Doesn’t lower his hand. He is shaking.
“This insult is mine to avenge.” He paces forward slowly, eyes locked on his uncle. “He committed treason, Merlin, against my person and against the Crown.”
“I want-“
“I know,” Arthur says, soft. He reaches Merlin’s side, takes in the white face, the pure fury there. “Merlin, I know.”
“Just one word-”
“I don’t want you to kill him, Merlin.” His voice drops lower, intimate, and Arthur cups his hand over the younger man’s shoulder. “Not for me. Please.” He swallows. Merlin has done many things, so many things, and all for Arthur. But not this. Merlin’s hands should be free of blood, for as long as Arthur can manage it.
This is what Arthur does. He learned long ago how to sleep at night despite the faces of the dead, the blood on his hands. He turns his head and meets his uncle’s eyes.
“This belongs to me,” he whispers again, soft. “Go and see to your mother now. She’s been worried about you.”
Merlin turns to stare at him. Whatever the sorcerer sees in his face, it’s enough. With a grimace, he drops his hand and Agravaine staggers back, lets out an explosive breath.
“Go, Merlin,” Arthur says without looking at him. “This is for me to finish.”
He swings his sword, the movement casual, feeling the weight of it, the slight soreness still in his ribs, and knows that this is the moment where he reclaims his kingdom, his birthright. His life.
There’s the slow, reluctant sound of footsteps as Merlin leaves, and Arthur is left blinking for a moment, honestly surprised. He takes a deep breath. Somehow, Merlin trusting him with this – it feels like the purest act of love Arthur’s ever known. For the first time in his life he is understood.
Protective or not, Merlin knows he needs to do this, himself. His inheritance, his pride, his reputation have all been shattered by this man.
“Arthur-” Agravaine begins.
“I’ve no interest in talking, uncle,” he says, and sets his stance. “We both know what you’ve done, and why. Let’s just finish this.”
And he swings.
It’s like being unbound – perhaps the same way Merlin felt when the shackles were broken. His breath and his arms and his feet all flow with one thought, he circles his uncle, eyes locked on the other man. He anticipates Agravaine’s first strike and evades, measuring the strength behind it, the technique. He’s not going to make a mistake here, no youthful overconfidence or emotional reactions.
He will simply win.
Agravaine’s face is pale and set, he unleashes a series of blows aimed at Arthur’s left side and he evades easily, using the momentum to crowd his uncle up against the rough walls of the tunnel and score first blood, a long gash along the left thigh. He falls back, breathing a little faster, and watches the set expression on his uncle’s face.
“You’ll kill your own uncle?” Agravaine pushes off the wall and circles left.
“Treason is punishable by death.”
“I did not cause your madness.”
“I don’t care,” Arthur says calmly, drives him sideways with two punishing blows and falls back, observing. “Even without the madness you have betrayed me a thousand times over. Polluting my kingdom with slavery, kidnapping Morgana, assaulting Merlin-”
“You have lost all perspective with that boy-” he breaks off with a gasp as Arthur feints right, then ducks in close and smashes the hilt of his sword into Agravaine’s mouth with all his strength.
All right. Perhaps not totally free of emotional reactions.
He dances away, mouth flat. “Don’t speak of him,” he says simply.
Agravaine spits blood onto the sand, a tooth or two to follow. This time when he glances up, his fury is clear on his face. The time for talking is over.
They unleash it all, now, nothing reserved as their swords clang together and they grunt with the effort. Perhaps desperation is lending Agravaine extra strength, for a moment or two Arthur is forced back, until he twists his wrist and breaks free, feet moving light and quick, the way he’d been taught as a young squire.
There are noises now from a distance, coming closer, he pays them no mind even though he knows full well Leon has opened the tunnel from the other end, even now is running to Arthur’s side. From the other direction feet are clattering on the stairs, Pelinor would have reported Arthur’s location.
He is well served by his knights, he knows.
On that thought he grins and drives forward, knowing the smile is pure taunt to his uncle, and this time he slices deep across the other man’s arm, leaving him to bear the weight of his sword one-handed.
They are both panting now, Agravaine’s breath closer to grunts, there is panic in his eyes and Arthur’s hands tighten. He has no sympathy to spare for this man, who stood on the battlements and spoke of Arthur’s mother, only days after driving her only son into a mire of madness.
Agravaine stumbles, drops to his knees and grunts as he is forced to catch his weight on his injured hand. A handful of knights appear at the mouth of the tunnel and hesitate, watching. Arthur pauses, it’s automatic knightly courtesy to a disadvantaged opponent, but some instinct warns him so that he is already turning his head away as Agravaine flings the handful of sand into Arthur’s eyes.
It’s the years of training, the endless drills, that have him moving despite the flare of agony. But it’s Leon’s voice that guides him, the authoritative, “Feint left,” that rings out and forces his body to move.
Arthur feints left, ignoring the sudden shouts and the sensation of a large body crashing into his as Agravaine lunges forward for the fatal blow and fails. Arthur forces his eyes open, face streaming with tears, and his sword follows through on pure instinct, slicing through mail and bone and sinew with a wet, crunching sound that no soldier ever truly forgets.
He swipes a sleeve over his eyes and draws a shuddering breath. At his feet, his uncle draws one last, bubbling breath, eyes locked on the sword in his chest. He blinks once, twice, eyes sliding closed as his head falls back, and he is still.
Arthur drags in one deep, rasping breath, and raises his eyes to the crowd of knights at the far end of the small room. In their midst stands Merlin, breathing hard, face pale as he stares back at Arthur.
It takes some effort, but he manages a nod of recognition. Of thanks. And then he drops his head, blinking madly from the gritty pain in his eyes, and mumbles, “I don’t suppose one of you is carrying a waterskin, by any chance?”
***
He is on the battlements, staring out over his kingdom. For a moment he loses himself in the aerial view of the courtyard, the same place he first saw Merlin, all those months ago. Today he is watching Balinor escort Hunith across the courtyard, their heads close together as they walk toward the town.
Leon and the other knights are on the training field, Morgana riding casually past with Gwen at her side. Leon’s shield catches Gwaine in the knee as he glances after them. The cursing that results is not fit for the ears of a gently-born lady, not that Morgana seems to mind, judging by her triumphant smile.
Then Arthur lifts his head and takes it all in.
His kingdom.
It is almost enough to bring him to his knees. For months now, almost a year, he has known, bone-deep that Camelot could never truly be his. And now-
“I will be King,” he murmurs. Afraid to believe.
“You have always been my King,” Merlin says from behind him. When Arthur turns, that familiar face is calm and open, staring back at him in undisguised joy. The sunlight turns his eyes a brilliant blue that shames the sky itself.
They fall together on instinct, lips parted, tongues tangling even as they laugh, murmur nonsense to one another. The nights aren’t long enough to contain everything they feel, it spills out each and every time they meet, stains the days with joy. Finally Arthur raises his head, lets his hands slide free of Merlin’s hips.
He bites back a laugh. “I will be King, Merlin. I can be- I can be.”
And then a bare half-second later, the weight of it comes crashing down, the alliances that will have to be re-negotiated, the potential wives to be dissuaded, the nagging suspicion that the border towns are not fulfilling their taxation burden and-
“Cenred,” he says suddenly, urgently. “We must sent an envoy immediately. Word will have spread of my uncle’s death, but we must make it official that the raids across the border were in no way sanctioned by Camelot.”
“Don’t worry about Cenred,” Merlin says lazily. He slumps back against the stone wall and folds his arms.
“Well, Merlin, that’s rather the point,” Arthur snaps back, “As King, I have to worry about everything. And I’d really rather not start my reign by entering into a war the kingdom is completely unprepared for and could very well lose. There could be ten different armies on their way to our borders as we speak.”
The start of a smile creases Merlin’s cheeks, and his eyes shift, suddenly focused very far away, beyond the borders of Camelot. Somehow Arthur knows his gaze is sweeping across all those lands which have not been ruled by a single king for many hundreds of years and he is suddenly remembering whispered conversations, deep in the night. Remembering the dragon and his prophecies.
Albion. The Once and Future King.
“Arthur,” his sorcerer says, and he turns his head until their gazes lock.
Perhaps Merlin’s using his magic. It really seems as though time has stopped, or at least slowed, because the black hair lifts lightly in the breeze, and he blinks slowly, lazily. Over Merlin’s shoulder Arthur can see Kilgarrah glide in toward the north tower, and backwing gently into a perfect landing, green scales glinting in the sun.
The castle, the dragon, and the rolling hills of Camelot – he swallows at the sudden sense of rightness. They’ve travelled so far to get here.
On a slow, easy breath he turns his eyes back to Merlin. He sees the glint of gold in those blue eyes, fires of love and magic barely banked, and he knows that together, there is nothing they can’t accomplish.
“Arthur,” he says, and his grin is bright and fierce, “let them come.”