wow.

Merlin gave it to him a few months back, when Lancelot was about to venture on a border patrol where the warlock couldn't follow him. Lancelot let Merlin tie the string around his neck, then helped him with his own. He gave his word to tear it off if he were ever in danger, to let Merlin find him with the magic of the land. He never took it off, treasuring the gift, feeling safe and cared for with the amulet close to his heart.

It was always more for Lancelot's sake than for Merlin's: Merlin had once told him that he had his own way of escaping mortal peril, and Lancelot let these words calm him, even if his friend skirted around the details. (There was a lot he hid in the guilty cast of his eyes, and Lancelot saw that. He didn't press.)

Still, they've never had to use it. Until it tears on Lancelot's neck just a day away from Camelot.

Lancelot slows down his horse, chilled hands tearing unconsciously into the reins, as his brothers-in-arms gallop farther away. It was just Arthur and all of his Round Table knights, on some important route that couldn't be postponed, the details of it leaving Lancelot's head with the dread's arrival. They left Camelot behind them, and Merlin had to stay with Gaius to help with a disease outbreak.

They've left Merlin behind, and Lancelot's necklace falls off his neck, barely caught by his shivering hand.

A few paces ahead, the knights slow down, looking back at him. Arthur's mouth is forming words as he trots closer, but Lancelot can't hear him for the loud, panicked heartbeat in his ears, for the words breaking out of him with an urgency.

"I need to get back to Camelot."

~~~

He couldn't articulate what pulled him back, couldn't betray Merlin, neither in words nor in actions. He blamed a bad feeling instead, completely honest, and the knights had to believe him, for how pale he'd gotten, how he'd tried to walk off on his own when their horses whined in surrender with the night's arrival.

Someone's arms pushed him down, someone's words made him stay, as they haphazardly set up camp. He was left gripping the torn necklace in his hands while he stared into the dark woods.

He would never make it to Camelot in time on his own two legs, no matter that his heart urged him to try. The horses couldn't go through the night either, not seeing where they were stepping — it was bound to end in disaster, what with their field medic missing.

He grips the necklace tighter, trying to feel any bit of warmth in it, to hear magic's quiet heartbeat, but there is nothing: Lancelot isn't gifted with the sense; Merlin pressed too little magic in it, just enough to link, to break, afraid for both of them if it were caught. Lancelot holds onto a memory instead: just yesterday, Merlin was hale and happy, if a bit uneasy to be separated from Arthur; he was there to see them off on their journey and light-heartedly asked Lancelot for something from the local fair.

He has to hold onto hope, and once the horses rest and dawn breaks, they will run back to Camelot.

Merlin will have to wait just one night.

~~~

When the knights gallop into the courtyard, the fire's smoke rising high above the citadel, they are too late.

They say that Merlin went up in flames brighter than the sun, the wind screaming as it picked them up and flared them stronger, higher; that the sparks touched the sky itself.

When the fire let up, nothing remained.

Smoke remains in the air. It crawls through the town, choking everyone to tears at the memories of the clumsy servant's smile and his kind heart. The smell is nauseating, and there's no escape from it.

Gaius can't tell them anything, dead to the world in eyes, if not yet in body. Lancelot stays with him, and when they both fall apart in Merlin's room, for all his strength, Percival barely manages to hold them.

Gwen is let out of the quarters she's been restrained in, kicking and screaming at Arthur's chest, as he torches the guards at her door with a look. Choking on her tears, on smoke, she tells them what she's seen.

~~~

Arthur stares incomprehensibly at his uncle, barely hearing the wild tale he spouts. It was a good thing he'd left Gwaine with Gwen and Elyan, as Gwaine would have already run Agravaine through, and Arthur couldn't have it.

"I understand what you must feel, Arthur. The boy sneaked into your side, into your heart. This betrayal is truly unforgivable."

"I was a fool," Arthur agrees, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. "To let a snake into the heart of the kingdom."

"I'm glad you saw the sense, then." Agravaine smiles at his nephew in a show of care — and how was Arthur this blind to the coldness in his eyes?

"Yes, I see it perfectly clear."

"I wanted to spare you the hurt of seeing to his death, the blood on your hands." Agravaine creeps closer in lieu of placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, and Arthur takes a shaking step back from the searing heat of it — remnants of holding the damning torch still clinging to the fingers.

"You had no right," he croaks.

But he did, Arthur knows. He himself left the kingdom in Agravaine's hands, pressing the royal seal into his fingers. He might as well have passed him the torch to light Merlin's fire.

"No right," he repeats obstinately.

Agravaine opens his mouth to speak, but Arthur has heard enough.

"You afforded him no trial," Arthur draws a sword with a hiss. "And I will not give you one either."

Leon stands guard outside the chamber, just as he did few years ago when Arthur had gone in to kill his father. This time, there's no Merlin to talk him down, to spare him the blood of his family on his hands. There's no Merlin to comfort him, as only he could, after the deed is done. Leon squeezes Arthur's shoulder in support and leaves to handle the rest — the news, the funerals, the investigations — things Arthur should not worry about right now, lost and unmoored as he is in the middle of the empty hall.

~~~

The news of Agravaine's demise spread quickly, the Citadel standing deathly silent in the face of the second murder of the day.

Gwaine paces his quarters, tearing at the clasp of his Pendragon cloak with shaking fingers. He throws it to the floor, and an amulet, getting stuck with it, falls to his feet. He stares bitterly at the memento. It was the only thing he had of his late father, and it should have been a reminder to him of the nobles' tyranny and of how loyalty to the Crown was rewarded. A reminder he did not heed.

In his own chambers, Lancelot's things lay strewn about — caught between urges to pack, to leave this place, and to crawl back to Merlin's room, to stay among his belongings. The necklace lies heavy in his hands, and he can't tie it around his neck to sit close to his heart. Each attempt to do so ended with it breaking, tearing, making Lancelot relive his loss again and again. He was supposed to protect him; he should have foreseen it: how sudden and terrible his home could turn to ashes. First his village, then Merlin. It all burned.

~~~

There are druids flocking to the city gates. Heedless of the danger, of smoke still in the air, they march into Camelot, with nothing left to lose. They come to bid their farewells, to pray.

They are let in.

Even if it turned out that Arthur never truly knew Merlin, never knew of his magic, Arthur believes that he still knew his heart, kind and caring, loyal to a fault. Arthur couldn't question him, couldn't pull the rest of his secrets out into the open, to hold and admire. But he knew his heart, and if Merlin had magic, then Merlin— then Magic couldn't be evil.

As the druids gather in the courtyard under his window to hold their vigil, Arthur can't look at them — the heavy guilt pulling him down to sit at the table.

He looks at his empty chambers. Merlin's body was eaten by the fire, his sins, if any, cleansed by the flame. Yet his spirit remained here: in scrawled notes on his reports, in carelessly made, untouched bed, in Arthur forever waiting for the door to open and let in Merlin's senseless chatter.

Picking at his mother's necklace, he lets hers and Merlin's spirit guide his hand over the parchment. As dawn breaks over the land, he welcomes the druids and magic's return to Camelot. Too late for his heart, but hopefully not too late for his people.

~~~

Everything is too bright, too alive. His skin flays with the touch of cool air, his lungs too filled with smoke to breathe, and so he doesn't, heart pumping fire through his veins, beating with magic's force alone.

The altar he wakes on is searing hot, and the burn is familiar.

Iseldir's face is the first one he sees.

"Emrys," the druid whispers, reverent, as he helps him to stand. The bright light of his eyes must blind the man, and he averts his gaze east, where Emrys knows his destiny haunts the halls of Camelot.

"Come," he bids. "The golden age awaits."