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In the Land of Stories Old
Cornering Merlin turned out to be easier said than done. Because of the schedule, for one. And also because it was pretty clear that Merlin had interpreted Arthur’s avoidance of the whole subject as confirmation that there was simply nothing more to be said between them, and had apparently accepted that a somewhat strained friendship was all he and Arthur had left, because that was all Arthur was willing to give him.
Yeah, Arthur’s next confession to to his father was going to go about as well as the last one had, he could already tell.
Having to ambush his brother was Arthur’s only option—he wasn’t going to bring Snow or any of their other friends into it any more than they already had been—and so he waited until Merlin came out of his daily training with the guards. “You and I, we need to talk.”
“Then talk.” Merlin just kept walking, forcing Arthur to fall into step with him; his next scheduled stop was the bathing room, to get himself cleaned up and change into clean clothes, after which he had paperwork to attend to—King White had stopped even pretending to do any work, but as the man hadn’t been doing it all that well in the first place Merlin wasn’t complaining. “I’m not apologizing. Formally clearing the air with Princess Elana was necessary, Arthur. She’s dating the triplets and they’re all going to be living here…”
“It’s not about that. It’s about the guards.”
“I already told you…”
“You didn’t tell me all of it.” Arthur got in his way, backing him up against the cracked stone that made up the corridor wall and holding him there, a little bit of the anger he’d felt on the road leaking back out. “Tell me. All of it. That first time, when you said you wouldn’t need any magic…did you lie?”
“No, of course not!” Merlin made to shove him off, but he wasn’t putting any real strength into it and Arthur didn’t let go. “I didn’t…ghosts can feel magic, that’s why they responded to Excalibur tapping the wall. I knew that if I called on them, they’d at least listen to what I was saying.” He stopped resisting Arthur’s hold all at once, arms wrapping around his chest, looking down at his boots. “He…he poured into me like water into a glass, with no warning, and it was so cold…but once he was there I realized that he could use my body to channel his own energy to call the others with just the smallest boost from me. There was nothing else we could do, so I agreed, and in return he promised that he’d do his best to make sure I didn’t…well, anyway, he kept his word.” He scuffed the toe of one boot against the flagstones before looking up again, and the bleakness in his eyes hurt Arthur in ways he couldn’t even name. “He’s an honorable man, even in death, but…his first priority is the safety of the royal family he swore to serve. I understood that.”
“I understand that too,” Arthur agreed quietly. “What I don’t understand was why you didn’t tell me what he did. And what you didn’t do, which was tell him it was all right to take you over like that.”
Merlin shrugged and looked away again. “It was over and done with. If it helps, he realized his mistake within seconds of making it. He said…he said at first he didn’t realize that my call wasn’t a…a dying wish.”
Arthur fought the urge to scream. They’d known he’d been close, but…well, it didn’t matter now. “And later, when you didn’t tell me the guards were only able to interact with us the way they do because they were drawin’ off your magic?”
Another shrug. “Hans figured it out and so did the triplets. I thought you would too.”
“Snow?”
“I told her, but I also told her the drain isn’t that bad.” He squared his shoulders with a sigh and visibly forced himself to drop his arms to his sides. “Which it isn’t, unless they have to be very active or I leave the castle for any length of time. I can always tell when they’ve had to be active during the night, though—I wake up with a headache.”
And Arthur forced himself to calm down. His temper did have a tendency to flare up and get away from him, a problem that ran in the family more often than not, but Uther and Bors had done their best to teach Arthur to control it. He really wished Bors especially was here with him right now, he’d have probably had the whole mess dealt with inside of a week, dead guards and all. But that was why Bors wasn’t here, and why Uther hadn’t written to Merlin yet: it was Arthur’s mess to clean up. The fact that he’d actually managed to make it worse since he’d gotten back was just icing on the cake. He considered something, a few different somethings in fact, and decided just to go with short and simple. “I’ve missed you, brother. I’ve been an ass for the whole past year, and I’m sorry.”
He didn’t think he’d imagined the way Merlin’s breath had caught. “You had good reason to be angry.”
“I did not.” He forced Merlin to look him in the eye. “I thought I did…but I thought wrong, Merlin. You made a mistake, one any of us could have made…”
“Any of you didn’t—I did,” Merlin snapped. “I was cocky and full of myself and I could have gotten you all killed!” He would have looked away, and when Arthur wouldn’t let him he actually snarled. “You’re the only heir your father has, Arthur! I wasn’t supposed to let anything happen to you!”
Arthur was so shocked he almost let go. “You thought…”
And those normally warm brown eyes went so cold—trying to freeze the hurt away, Arthur knew, because he’d grown up with Merlin, he knew him. “I owe King Uther. You said it yourself. I only have a title or…or anything because he took me in.”
“Yeah, I said that,” Arthur admitted, remembering that fight like it had been yesterday and wishing with everything in him it had never happened. “But just ‘cause I said it doesn’t make it true. My lack of control over my stupid temper’s part of the reason I haven’t been able to draw the Sword, you know. Dad even said so.” He took a deep breath. “He also said to remind you you’re his youngest son in all but blood and he’s proud of you, but he’s got a long lecture waitin’ about how a leader can’t let his mistakes eat him up on the inside.”
And Merlin blinked in shock, some of the ice in his eyes thawing in a way that hurt Arthur in more ways he couldn’t even name. “He…really said that?”
“Of course he did. Did you know he makes…the kingdom you were born in pay triple the tariffs when they trade with Avalon? You’re his son, Merlin. And you’re my brother and my best friend and I’m sorry I almost threw that away because I was pissed about bein’ two foot high and green for a while.”
The hug that got him didn’t fix everything, of course, but it was a start.
The hug he got from Snow the next day told him he’d fixed more than he’d thought he had. The question she’d asked him before the hug, though, while confronting him in a corridor the same way he’d done to Merlin, told him they’d had some major misunderstandings going on in other areas too. “Did the seven of you only ever rescue pretty people?”
“What? No, of course not. We helped anyone who needed help. Why would you even think that?”
“Because at the time, I didn’t understand that you were all under a curse—and none of you could tell me. And when I’d asked Merlin if you all would have helped me if I hadn’t been wearing the magic shoes, he was too shocked to answer. I took that for a no, even though I really should have known better by that point.” She’d blinked at him. “I almost decided to keep the shoes on permanently because of that.” The look of utter horror on Arthur’s face had seemed to satisfy her that she’d gotten her point across, and that’s when he’d gotten the hug. “I’m just saying, everyone makes mistakes, Arthur. Especially when there’s magic involved making everything just impossibly weird and confusing.”
He kissed the top of her head the way he’d done that first day in the castle, when she’d asked him what he looked like. “Dad’s gonna love you so much.”
That made her sniff. “He will?”
“He will,” he assured her. “Just ask Merlin if you don’t believe me. Did he already…”
“He wrote last night,” she told him. “He wanted to send it by magic, somehow, but I wouldn’t let him and neither would the guards.” She put a finger to Arthur’s lips when he started to say something. “I already knew, Arthur, he didn’t hide it from me. We just don’t discuss it because…well, the situation is what it is, and we can’t do anything about it until after the wedding.” She found a smile. “I made him promise me he’d take every precaution, even though I already knew that he was.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he is.” He let her go. “He loves you, Snow. The way he looks at you…he’s never looked at another woman like that, not ever. It’s almost like he was waitin’ to find you.”
She made a face. “Oh, he…he sort of was. I forgot we hadn’t shown you. Come on, there’s something you have to see.”
And then she dragged him into a secret room behind the royal portrait gallery and Arthur decided he was really starting to hate magic. But he was able to confirm that Queen Snow the First did look like a vampire, which also reminded him that after the wedding they really needed to make plans to go track down the bastard who had turned Cecilia and the other girls. He even sat down that evening and wrote Cecilia a letter letting her know why she hadn’t heard from them in over a year. And then he wrote a few more letters, including one to his father letting him know about the triplets’ new girlfriend and how she actually hadn’t been responsible for the sacrificial part of the curse, because the last thing they needed was to have Uther show up for the wedding and try to kill Princess Elana.
His eventual confrontation with Jack turned out to be much more low-key than Arthur had expected—but also more painful. His friend’s voice had just come out of nowhere at him that afternoon while he was mapping, scaring the hell out of him. “You were never afraid of anything, Arthur. Cautious, yes. Wary when you needed to be. But I had never seen cowardice in you until the argument, and after that I have seen it ever since. Why is that?”
Arthur spun around, but nobody was there for him to see. “Dammit, Jack!”
“I want an answer.”
“I don’t have one.” Arthur kicked at a rat skull on the floor. “I didn’t have one for Dad, either, and he sent me to my room until breakfast the next mornin’.”
Jack didn’t laugh. “So he prevented you from leaving and forced you to stew in your own angst?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” He ran a hand through his hair, pulling out a cobweb that stuck to his hand. “I felt like a kid who’d done somethin’ stupid, and after about two hours I realized that’d been his intention. Act like a kid, get treated like a kid.”
“What did Bors have to say about it?”
Arthur sighed. “He hugged the stuffin’ out of me, then ordered me out to the trainin’ ground after breakfast and handed me my ass—you weren’t the first one who said they thought I was eatin’ too much of Hans’ cookin’, you know. He was tryin’ to piss me off, and it worked. I still almost fought him to a draw, though, and after I felt…better. And then we sat down with Dad and had a long talk. About everything. They’re disappointed.”
“So was I.” Jack threw back his hood, pushing the cloak off one shoulder at the same time. He had his back against one side of the door frame and one of his boots braced against the other, blocking the way out. “We all were, except Merlin. He was shattered, Arthur. And you were content to let him stay that way. This is what none of us understood. He is your brother, he loves you. And we had seen no sign, prior to that, of you not loving him back. You were not jealous of him…”
Arthur snorted. “Kai was. So jealous. Still is, in fact.”
Jack waved that off. “Kai is what he is, and he is not very smart. You do not have that excuse.” He made a face. “I admit, I have held onto my anger over the incident and its aftermath longer than I perhaps should have. At the time, I wondered if I had badly misread your personality, if you would be turning on me next. I wondered if everything we had all built together had been a lie.”
Ouch. “Of course it wasn’t, you know I can’t lie to save my life when it’s people who know me. But I…understand why you felt that way, and I’m sorry.” He cocked his head. “Tell me honestly, are you still okay with me courtin’ Serena?”
Jack huffed. “Yes, as long as your interest is genuine, and I can tell that it is. She needs more time to…mature, though, as I believe you have already noticed. Her parents were idiots, rather like Merlin’s original ones.” One golden eyebrow went up at Arthur’s wince. “Ah, so your father told you about them.”
“You knew?”
“I recognized his accent the day I met him, and put two and two together afterward. People did talk about that, you know—or perhaps you do not? But everyone knew that king as a superstitious fool, and most everyone can also count birth announcements—the thirteenth for that family was never made, and no death was announced either. It was rather a minor scandal at the time, and I only remember it because Marcel was frightened by the court gossip regarding what might have become of the missing seventh prince and Maman had to reassure him at length. But for the most part, people know better than to speak of it around strangers, or in public. The laws surrounding banishment are quite brutal in some places, and that kingdom is one of those places.”
“Yeah, I stuck my foot in that one without even knowin’ about it,” Arthur admitted, plopping down on a somewhat damp-wobbled wooden bench. “Dad told me the whole story, he said I’d need to know so I could be thinkin’ about how I wanted to handle our dealin’s with…that kingdom when I eventually took over for him. Apparently if I screw it up some real ugly things could happen.”
Jack straightened up out of his lean and joined Arthur on the bench. “Not so much as your father might have told you—I believe he was attempting to impress upon you how serious the situation was. That fool would ruin himself if he tried to hire an assassin, Arthur—you can put your mind at rest on that score. The laws about banishment are meant to apply to adults, traitors or the like. If he tried to go that route over a child he banished at the age of seven, no one would ever trade with him again.” He nudged Arthur with his shoulder. “Not that we should put that to the test, of course, just in case the bastard is too insane to care about consequences.”
Arthur nudged back. “Are you and I…okay now?”
“We were ‘okay’ before, I was just angry. You know the cracks you made are not all mended now just because you apologized, correct?”
“Oh believe me, I know.” Arthur sighed. “It…hurts to see him practicin’ with the guards, tryin’ to be ready for the day when we aren’t here to have his back, you know?”
“I know. Eventually it will be that way for all of us, though.” Jack sighed too. “I am not sure where to go from here, to be honest. Returning to Fantastique is…something I would rather not do.”
“Then don’t,” Arthur told him. “Stay here and help out. This castle is the size of a city, Jack, it’s not like we’ll be underfoot.”
“You are staying?”
“For now, yeah. Dad doesn’t need me at home. And an extra sword or two in residence, once the guards are known to be gone? I don’t think that’s a bad idea at all.” He made a face. “And it just feels like splittin’ up…it doesn’t feel right, not yet, and not just because part of me’s not ready for it to happen. I feel like somethin’s comin’, Jack.”
Jack just slightly slumped against him. “So do I. By all that is holy, do not tell Merlin. Or Snow. But perhaps we should tell the brothers and their girlfriend. And Hans, of course.”
Arthur nodded. “Yeah, we should do that.”
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