Fic: The Heart of King Arthur (6/?)
Masterpost: Here
Merlin requested that Cara be there as well in the ‘private talk’ while Arthur was left twiddling his thumbs. He turned his head to look back at the caged dragon, to see how he was doing.
He was still asleep, but Arthur heard Kilgharrah’s voice in his head. It jarred him for a moment since he hadn’t been expecting it.
“Remember Ella,” the dragon told him.
“What, that old story Morgana told me?” Arthur inquired silently, puzzled. “Her stepmother dosed Ella with a sleeping potion and then she slashed…” Arthur drifted off, realization dawning on him. Isn’t that what Morgause said that she had done to a Confessed man? Ordered him to slash his own throat?
Could there be a connection?
“Why are you telling me this?” Arthur asked the dragon.
“-because there is a connection, and you’ll find out soon enough.”
It was as if Kilgharrah could read Arthur’s mind, which left him wondering the extent of the bond he had with the dragon due to Kilgharrah saving his life centuries ago. He wasn’t too thrilled about a dragon being able to hear his inner thoughts however much Arthur appreciated Kilgharrah’s life-saving gesture.
The dragon fell silent and would not say anymore.
Arthur noticed Cara looking at him, an uneasy yet grimly determined look in her blue eyes.
The talk ended and Merlin returned to his seat. He looked older than his outward appearance than he ever had before. It was like Merlin was going to his death, Arthur thought, but the Dragonlord appeared quietly resigned to his fate no matter how much it weighed on him. Kahlan looked upset and uncertain while Cara, well, she just looked annoyed.
Cara stood beside Arthur and she gripped an Agiel in her hand, the other Agiel stored in the strap compartment upon her belt.
“You should have told me,” Kahlan accused of Merlin. She was standing in front of him. “And why now? You know it’s a busy time in Avalon with the transition…” she trailed off, taking a deep breath to collect herself. “And Mother…she…Grandfather, we can’t afford to lose you,” she said firmly.
“Yes, you can,” Merlin refuted, “I am sorry for not telling you about my mother, and I admit that I was wrong in that. I was worried how you would take it.”
“I know now. That’s what matters. All this time, I thought I was alone, that it was a curse. But my grandmother and that blonde woman--”
“Morgause would easily win the worst role model of the universe award,” Arthur put in frankly. “It’s best to avoid her at all costs.”
Kahlan turned her head to look back at her father. “But still, she’s my half-aunt. We share the same blood and the same power. And she’s alive…Morgause is the only person I have who could understand what it means to be a Confessor. If I could find out where she went…” Kahlan mused.
“She admitted to Confessing a man and then ordering him to commit suicide. She’s unstable, Kahlan,” Arthur countered.
Cara smirked. “Congratulations, Kahlan. You officially have a crazy aunt, half-aunt, whatever. You can never escape them,” she said, her lips quirking up into an amused smile.
“I can’t exactly be picky at the moment,” Kahlan said resignedly.
She turned back to face her grandfather. “But I’m not doing what you wish me to do. Just because you feel it’ll be easier--”
“I want Arthur to know that I am speaking the absolute truth,” Merlin tried to persuade her.
Arthur narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like the sound of this. Could this be what Merlin had warned him not to interfere with?
Absolute truth…wait, that had to mean, of course. How dare Merlin even consider such a thing?
“Merlin, no. I won’t let you!” Arthur exclaimed, standing up.
Cara blocked his way. “No, you can’t interfere.”
“The hell I can’t!” Arthur retorted indignantly.
“I don’t want to use my Agiels on you, but I will stop you if I’m forced to,” she threatened him, her eyes piercing his, challenging him to argue with her.
Meanwhile, Merlin continued to plead with his granddaughter. “Kahlan, please. I’m asking you. I want this to happen. You need feel no guilt over it, and Nimue will do what is…necessary to end it. Arthur would never forgive me if you died because of this.”
Arthur knew well that for the Confessed person to be released from Confession, either the Confessor or the Confessed had to die. The problem was that when the Confessed died, being released from Confession didn’t allow them to go back to their life, of their own mind again, as they were dead. It was a sour victory, to be sure.
While Arthur certainly didn’t want his daughter to die or give up her immortality or whatever she needed to do to release Merlin; he was still torn between his love for Merlin and his daughter. Arthur simply couldn’t choose.
“Don’t you dare, Merlin. I swear, you can’t do this! Why can’t you just say what you need to say without Confession? I’ll believe you, I promise I’ll believe you,” Arthur tried to convince him desperately. “I won’t let you die!”
“I’ve made up my mind. You can’t change it,” Merlin informed calmly. “And I truly can’t find it in myself to divulge the details without Confession. If that makes me weak, then I accept that.”
“This is wrong, Merlin. The truth isn’t worth this. This is going too far,” Arthur argued with him.
Arthur noticed Merlin’s expression change, like he was beginning to finally see sense and listen to what Arthur was telling him.
The Dragonlord nodded slowly. “You’re right, Arthur. I’ve been remiss in how I’m going about this,” he acknowledged. “--we should leave,” Merlin declared.
Arthur felt relieved. “Thank goodness,” he said.
He did want to find out what Merlin was hiding, but for now, he felt that it was enough that he had learned the truth about Merlin’s mother, the very reason why his own daughter was who she was.
Cara spoke then, speaking to his daughter, “Kahlan, do I--?”
Kahlan turned around and nodded reluctantly, her face unhappy. “Yes.”
Arthur barely had the chance to be surprised when Cara stuck her Agiel upon his chest, right over where his heart lay.
The pain was excruciating and a moment later, Arthur was dead.
~ * ~
Arthur gasped, his eyes opening at the shock of being alive again. The air rushed back into his lungs. Cara was by him and she gave him a small smile when she noticed he was conscious again.
“Sorry for killing you, but Kahlan’s grandfather was adamant he be Confessed so that he could say what he needed to say. We thought it best that you wouldn’t have the chance to interfere,” she told him. “I gave you the Breath of Life, but you probably realized that.”
“Unless you had all gone mad, I didn’t think you’d want me dead. But, oh, just temporarily is perfectly acceptable,” Arthur said sarcastically.
Cara looked somewhat apologetic and then she pointed out to him, “Well, you’re all better now. Look on the bright side.”
Arthur rolled his eyes at that.
He saw that Kahlan was speaking quietly to Merlin, who was hidden from view with Kahlan standing before him.
“Kahlan?” Arthur tried to get her attention.
Kahlan turned around. He could see that she looked a bit ill. Arthur imagined that it would be rather unpleasant to Confess someone who you consider family and have to deal with any inappropriate behavior…
Bloody Merlin for being so bloody adamant, Arthur fumed silently.
“Are you all right, Father?” She asked. “Grandfather was impatient and he couldn’t wait any longer. He wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to go through with the Confession if you were there to stop it from happening.”
Arthur sighed. “Yeah, Merlin is due for a good whack around the head,” he said, grumbling more than anything else.
Kahlan gave him a weak smile. She walked to him and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Arthur wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for as he was mentally placing all the blame on Merlin.
Kahlan nodded to Cara. “Kilgharrah is revived as well?” She inquired, making sure.
Cara shrugged. “I think so. With the bond between him and the Once and Future King, if I revive one of them, the other one should be revived likewise.” Then she headed toward the dragon, kicking an unconscious Mordred not so gently in the ribs as she passed him. “Hey, Dragon, are you good?” The Elite asked him.
Arthur heard the Dragon mutter irritably. Finally, he appeared to be awake now. “I’m tired of being caged. Get me out of here, you bumbling idiots,” he ordered grumpily.
Cara looked to Kahlan. “Your Quicksilver dagger should do the trick.”
“A dagger? You only have a dagger?” The Dragon uttered incredulously. “These bars require a Quicksilver sword!”
“Kahlan was being sentimental,” Cara told him by way of explanation.
“It was an anniversary gift. Shut up,” Kahlan defended herself. “And the dagger will work. It’s still a Quicksilver no matter its smaller size,” she said firmly.
She took out her dagger and she cut the bars with the weapon. The dagger glowed golden and the bars melted upon contact with the Quicksilver dagger.
Then all the bars disappeared as if the dagger’s contact with just a few of the bars was repulsive to the rest of the enclosure. As such, the entire cage vanished leaving Kilgharrah free of his temporary prison.
Meanwhile, Arthur had a chat with Merlin.
“Merlin, are you all right?” Arthur asked uneasily. He felt like he was dealing with a vicious animal waiting to pounce and strike.
He had seen people Confessed by his daughter before. He had seen how they had acted and how nothing mattered more to them than protecting the Confessor - going as far as sacrificing themselves to save the Confessor’s life.
Arthur knew that Merlin would risk his life for his granddaughter, Confession or no, but the point remained - his mind was not his own, his existence was now dependent on Kahlan’s orders. The love for her would consume him, leaving little interest in anything else but Kahlan and how to…how to…
…please her, Arthur finished quietly. He was having difficulty even thinking it.
Arthur never imagined something like this would happen. But it was happening all right, and he had to deal with it. He desperately tried not to dwell on what would happen when Kahlan finished questioning Merlin.
Merlin looked directly at him. He looked more relaxed and calmer now as if all the tension was eased out of him.
“I’m fine,” Merlin answered him politely like he was commenting on the weather.
“You better not call Kahlan ‘mistress’ or I will hurt you,” Arthur warned him.
“I’m not going to call her that,” Merlin assured him.
“Good.”
But then, Merlin added, “Kahlan told me not to call her that.”
Arthur covered his face in his hands. Well, that ruined it. At least Kahlan had the foresight to set the ground rules.
Kahlan and Cara came back with the dragon following after them.
“Merlin’s Confessed?” The Dragon inquired.
“Yes,” Cara answered him.
“All of you have no idea, do you? No clue,” Kilgharrah said cryptically.
Kahlan looked curiously at the dragon. “What is it, Kilgharrah?”
Arthur didn’t like how Merlin’s eyes were tracking Kahlan’s every move. It was creepy.
“Ask him,” the dragon only said.
Kahlan sighed and turned back to Merlin. “Grandfather, what is the dragon talking about?”
Merlin shrugged, tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Most likely that I’ve been Confessed before, My Lady,” he informed her.
Everyone fell silent. Arthur thought he had heard wrong. Merlin had been Confessed before? There wasn’t a plethora of Confessors to choose from…and surely it hadn’t been Kahlan who had Confessed him before now. There was Morgause, but Merlin hadn’t seen her since she was a child and Morgause had only been five years old then. No matter how morally ambiguous Morgause was, Arthur couldn’t see her Confessing her father at such a young age.
That left Merlin’s mother when she’d been alive. But Arthur wrote that off right away. She was his mother after all.
Kahlan regained her composure first and she said, “All right. I’m sure everyone would love to know who has Confessed you before…”
“I could tell you if you’d like,” Merlin told her easily. “If you really want to know.”
“You know, don’t you, Kilgharrah?” Cara asked the dragon.
“Of course I do. Merlin’s my Dragonlord. It’s a part of the bond to know everything about him,” the dragon said, rolling his eyes.
“…but you’re not going to tell us?” Kahlan wanted to know.
“You Confessed him, you ask him,” the dragon said, then he seemed to rethink his words. “But I would advise you against that. For now at least. Merlin’s mother was a Confessor. Best start from the beginning. Ask him what happened to his mother when she was a child.”
Kahlan asked Merlin what the dragon had directed her to say.
He explained, “My mother was given this antidote when she was a young girl - five or six years old? It was a way to control the Confessor population, the beginnings of trying to contain it. That’s where the 50/50 potential of carriers producing Confessor daughters came in. Except well, the daughter of an active Confessor will always be a Confessor, never a dormant carrier. That couldn't be altered,” Merlin paused, thoughtful, and then he added, “It wasn’t just that though. There were male Confessors during my mother’s time. So, the antidote’s chief purpose was to take away any chance of male children born to Confessors having active Confessor magic. Instead, the son of a Confessor would simply be a carrier for the power, and had the chance to pass the Confessor power on to their own daughters. If it weren’t for my mother taking the antidote, I would have been killed before I was a day old.”
“Why?” Kahlan asked him, shocked.
“You feel faint afterwards, don’t you, when you Confess someone? That keeps you from using the power too often because there’s a control in place. You need time to ‘recharge’ in a way. But, with male Confessors, they don’t have that control. They can keep Confessing as long as they wish, and they’re easily susceptible by the bloodlust. They can never get enough…enjoyment out of Confessing others, having people under their control. Male Confessors always turned out to be ruthless tyrants, never satisfied until they commanded everyone,” Merlin finished. He looked like he had eaten something rotten.
Arthur’s brow furrowed. “Wait, if male Confessors were killed so young, how do you even know how they acted?”
Merlin gave him a strange look and then he turned to Kahlan.
“Answer his question,” Kahlan told him.
Arthur raised his eyes to the ceiling. Cara squeezed his shoulder in an attempt at a reassuring gesture. The last thing Arthur needed though was a reminder of Merlin being Confessed and the fact that he couldn’t ask him a question without Merlin deferring to Kahlan…it left him thoroughly frustrated.
“According to my mother, prior to the antidote, some Confessors couldn’t bear to kill their sons. Their mothers let them live. But no matter how nurturing the mother was to the son, it was futile. Male Confessors remained abominations, and it was more merciful to kill them before the mother grew too attached to her child.”
“So, you could have been like that - a male Confessor,” Kahlan uttered quietly, saddened by the thought.
Merlin shook his head vehemently. “No, I would have been killed before the bloodlust took me over. My mother was strong-willed, I assure you. She would have killed me because it would have been the right thing to do,” he said passionately, “As such, the antidote allowed my mother to let me live.”
“And the antidote - I haven’t had any children yet, but would I need to take it as well?” Kahlan wondered.
Merlin shook his head. “The antidote is already in your blood, My Lady. Nimue and I both checked. It’s a blood inheritance from your great-grandmother, my mother. The antidote doesn’t need to be re-administered. Any sons you bear will be fine.”
Kahlan nodded, looking relieved. “…and your father, he was a Dragonlord? He was Confessed, wasn’t he?”
Merlin nodded. “Yes, that’s how it works. My mother sent him away. She felt guilty for being with him when she knew the price he would have to pay for it. So she decided that it would be easier if he wasn’t around because she couldn’t bear to look at him. My mother thought she could raise me just fine without him.”
“That must have been hard for your father if he was still Confessed to her…” Kahlan mused.
“Yes, but my mother couldn’t bear to kill him,” Merlin answered her with a small shrug. Then he said, “She had me kill him.”
Arthur wasn’t sure he had heard right. Did Merlin just say he had killed his father?
“You killed your father,” Arthur stated in disbelief. “And he was still Confessed, right? So he was no direct threat to you…since you were the son of the woman he was Confessed to.”
Merlin had his hands clasped tightly in his lap. He didn’t answer Arthur, but instead he looked to Kahlan.
“Grandfather? Did you kill your father?” Kahlan asked him.
The dragon cut in with a huff. “You’re not listening to him,” he muttered.
“Yes,” Merlin admitted quietly.
He looked upset when Kahlan stepped back in shock.
“I’m sorry if that makes you unhappy, but I couldn’t disobey my mother.”
“Disobey?” Kahlan uttered, puzzled.
Merlin nodded. “My mother Confessed me when--”
“No, you’re lying,” Arthur interrupted, his tone firm. “What kind of mother would do that?”
Kahlan didn’t look like she wanted to resume the questioning. “No one can lie under Confession, Father,” she said tiredly.
Arthur knew that, but anything to make this admittance false was more preferable than letting this truth sink in.
“It was the antidote,” Kilgharrah pointed out.
Kahlan asked Merlin then. “What does the antidote have to do with what your mother did to you?”
“The antidote managed to be successful for what it set out to do, but it did not come without side effects. My mother was a very emotional person as consequence of the antidote…and she - I knew that she loved me, and she cared for me. But there were many times I came home to find her weeping, asking why everyone seemed to persecute her for being a Confessor. She was a good person, and everyone looked at her with fear in their eyes. I tried to comfort her, reassure her that I still loved her, that she wasn’t alone. Sometimes it wasn’t enough,” he said regretfully.
Merlin continued on, “My mother had me when she was young and she was the only Confessor in the village of child-bearing age. Most, the men particularly of course, worried that she would Confess another man in the village to bear another child. As my father was absent, everyone worried that with no man to ‘keep her happy’, my mother would become restless and turn on the men of the village. My mother always reassured me that she only needed me…that she didn’t need another child. Unfortunately, other people didn’t take her word for it.”
“Oh dear,” Kahlan murmured. “Your poor mother.”
“She bloody Confessed him,” Arthur said under his breath.
He wasn’t too sure if he was all that sympathetic… no matter the emotional turmoil Merlin’s mother had undergone, that gave her no right to Confess her own child. Though he also knew how hard this was for his daughter to hear, to find out how hard it was for her great-grandmother to live as a Confessor. Kahlan had been lucky to have a support system around her - him, Morgana, Merlin, Nimue…-- and later, Richard. And while Kahlan could never sleep with Richard because of the risk of Confession, their marriage didn’t seem to be ill-affected by the restriction from what Arthur recalled of his former life.
“When did your mother Confess you?” Kahlan asked.
“When I was fifteen. She saw me with my friend Morgaine…that was my - our first time. But my mother had grown even more emotionally unstable over the years, and she had had a bad day. And as I was the only person she could depend upon, my mother was quite possessive over me. I think she feared that my attention would shift to another woman as I was growing older. So when I returned home after being with Morgaine… she, well…” Merlin trailed off, not wishing to go on.
But everyone knew what he meant to say.
230 AD
“Merlin, Merlin…you’re not feeling well,” his mother said softly as she sat down beside him on the bed.
She raised his head so that he could drink from the cup she offered him.
The drink didn’t make him feel any better, it just made him feel drowsier. He saw stars blinking in front of him.
“I saw you with your friend Morgaine, Merlin. You know it can never happen. Arthur Quicksilver will marry her.”
“…how do you know that?” he said weakly.
His mother swept aside the dark locks from his sweaty brow. She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.
“A mother always knows,” she said quietly.
She moved her hand to wrap around her son’s neck.
Merlin still had enough semblance of mind to realize what his mother was about to do.
“No, no, please no, please! Mother!” He exclaimed, pleading with her.
His mother hushed him, and would not listen to his protests.
“You’ll be at peace, my child,” she said reassuredly.
And then his mother turned her power on him, her eyes black as she Confessed him.
~ * ~
“…I was Confessed to my mother for ten years. She was killed in battle when I was twenty five. That’s when I was released from her Confession. But while I was Confessed, she told me to kill my father. My mother discovered that I would only receive my Dragonlord powers upon my father’s death. So she wanted to make sure I gained my inheritance as soon as possible.”
“Ten years?” Everyone uttered in near unison except for Kilgharrah who looked preoccupied with finding a comfortable place to lie down.
Merlin looked a bit startled with the surprised reaction.
To be Confessed was one thing, Arthur thought, but to be Confessed for a whole decade - that was inconceivable.
“But what about your friends - Arthur and Morgaine? They couldn’t have just deserted you,” Arthur said in disbelief.
Kahlan put in, figuring it out, “Your mother could have hurt them too…they were afraid.”
“She was still my mother no matter what. The two of them wanted to help me, but yes, they were wary around my mother. And neither wanted to be responsible for killing my mother knowing how I would feel.”
“But after what she did to you, wouldn’t you have been grateful? For being released from Confession?” Kahlan wondered.
“My mother was just as much a victim here as I had been. I loved her, I still love her. It’s those awful stories that people told about her that broke her down in the end. Even after my mother was dead, I was devastated at the loss. And she told me to stay behind before she went out to fight. She said I was too important to lose…but I couldn’t, I couldn’t let her go off alone. My mother had to physically place me in an impregnable room. I couldn’t even use my magic to escape, and I remember…clawing at the door, desperately wanting to get out. But I couldn’t,” he said mournfully.
“Oh, Grandfather,” Kahlan sighed and she embraced him.
After she pulled away from him, Merlin noted, “Arthur told me later that what happened to me spurred him to finally work on his life’s ambition. That while I was lost to them, he could make the most of his life.”
Kahlan nodded. “Crafting the greatest sword in existence, Excalibur.”
“Yes,” Merlin confirmed.
“What? Why didn’t I know about this?” Arthur inquired, irritated. Excalibur was his sword after all. Admittedly, he never thought to consider that someone had to have made the sword. He had just been given the sword by Viviane at the Lake. The thought of its origins just never occurred to him.
Cara smirked, finding this all amusing. “For the true wielder not to know…the fact is the worst-kept secret of Avalon.”
Kahlan pulled out her dagger, the one with the Quicksilver marking on it, and showed it to Arthur. He took the offered dagger from her, taking a closer look at it.
“His name was Arthur Quicksilver… and what made Excalibur the greatest sword was its ability to survive centuries, forever essentially, because of the powerful magic within it. After all, he crafted the sword in the third century and you were given Excalibur in the sixth century. No ordinary sword would survive that long in perfect condition. The Lady of the Lake makes sure the sword is properly taken care of, so that Excalibur will truly be immortal. Freya, my Aunt Viviane’s Ward, is presently the Lady of the Lake and Guardian of Excalibur,” Kahlan explained steadily.
Arthur looked up at her. “Oh? Changing of the guard then?”
Kahlan nodded. “My aunt thought it was her time to go and Freya was more than happy to take on the role.”
“So this dagger...it’s a Quicksilver? Did he make it too?”
“No, one of his descendants made that dagger. It’s Richard… he’s descended from one of Arthur’s sons on his mother’s side. Richard’s father was a woodsman, of course, and he took after him, but Richard also has a natural talent for sword-making. Most of Quicksilver blood have this gift as if their well-known ancestor’s great accomplishment has blessed them with it.”
“That means…if Nimue is Arthur Quicksilver’s daughter, are you telling me you’re related to Richard?”
Kahlan gave a small nod, not looking exactly thrilled about the mention of being related. “Distantly, but yes…we are. Richard is my grandmother’s great-great-great…and so on, nephew.”
“And that’s where Richard Cypher gets his madness for marrying you from. Nimue,” Cara teased her.
Kahlan rolled her eyes at Cara. Apparently this wasn’t the first time they had discussed this by Kahlan’s lack of true annoyance. “Grandmother always says he is most likely descended from the good brother…James, I think? But then she started laughing, so I think she was making it up.”
And suddenly a lot of things began to make sense in Arthur’s head. He wished that this information about Excalibur would have been revealed to him when he had been, you know, actually wielding the sword. Getting it after the fact was a bit anti-climactic.
“We’re sorry for not telling you sooner, but it was meant to be a secret. Not in Avalon though - can’t hide anything connected to you there,” She nodded at Arthur. “When everyone found out he was an honest-to-goodness Quicksilver, he was treated like a celebrity. As it were, they were more than accepting of my marriage to him.”
Arthur returned the dagger to his daughter and nodded at her. “I appreciate you telling me,” he said, feeling rather overwhelmed with all this new information.
Merlin’s mother, Merlin being Confessed before, Merlin killing his father (under Confession but still…) now…Excalibur and Richard being descended from an old friend of Merlin’s… Arthur was part glad to finally know all of this and part exhausted from taking all this new stuff in.
But there was one last thing…Morgause. There was clearly something behind their conflicted father-daughter relationship.
Arthur asked Kahlan if she could ask Merlin about Morgause. She did, but the answer wasn’t one Arthur had been expecting.
“Ella…” Kilgharrah said breezily inside Arthur’s head, reminding him before Merlin set out on his answer.
Merlin told them that after his mother died, Morgaine urged him to flee to a magically protected forest. That people would be coming after him and he was in danger if he stayed in the village. These people were bounty hunters who were sent to capture him…certain to fetch a nice prize for the son of both a Dragonlord and a Confessor.
And his fate wouldn’t have been as simple as death, oh no, the people wanting to get a hold of him wished to experiment on him. Maybe put Merlin into a breeding program, to manipulate the situation so that the 50/50 potential of a Confessor daughter became a 100%...and they could raise an army of Confessors under whatever lord or king’s command. It was a foolhardy plan as one never knew if the Confessor could turn on you, but to some lords and kings, the idea was still quite appealing despite the risks. It would bring order to their land if people were in fear of the ruler’s Confessors sentencing them to Confession.
So Merlin, his mother’s death still fresh and raw in his mind, had to seek a safe refuge.
And in the protected forest, he met the Fae Queen who granted him immortality and told him of the prophecy involving him. Only later did Merlin find out that the son of a king he was destined to mentor was Arthur Pendragon of Camelot. Merlin was so emotionally wound up and stressed, dealing with the aftermath of his mother’s death and being released from a decade’s Confession, that he was angered by this forced immortality.
He hadn’t wanted to be immortal no matter the important reason for it. He didn’t feel ready to mentor anyone at the time and he certainly didn’t want to live forever. Because that meant he’d be forced to deal with all that he had done under Confession, that there would be no possibility of blessed death until he fulfilled his destiny. The Fae Queen had assured him that by the time Arthur Pendragon would be born, Merlin would be ready to properly mentor him. Still, Merlin was extremely annoyed at what he was being put through.
As a consequence, he allowed a nymph of the forest to seduce him and he willingly went along with her sweet but hollow promises. The nymph’s name was Cypress.
He had Morgause with Cypress and he was horrified to learn that Morgause was an active Confessor.
At the time, Merlin was plagued by nightmares and he felt torn between hating his mother and wanting to forgive her, knowing she had been feeling just as lost as he was now. But his mother had destroyed his life, ten years of it, and he lost Morgaine as a result. She had married Arthur after all - a woman at that time had to marry. Though Merlin couldn’t think of a better man for Morgaine than Arthur, he still was devastated about losing his chance with her.
So Merlin had thought that he created a monster in Morgause. He knew well about the 50/50 potential, but he hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time…and the magnitude of Morgause, his own daughter, being a Confessor, tormented him.
He asked the Fae Queen to remove Morgause’s immortality, so that he could kill her.
Arthur immediately spoke up at that admittance. “No, no. I won’t hear this. This can’t be true. You killed Morgause because she was a Confessor?” Then Arthur paused, thinking over what Merlin had said before… about Morgause falling ill when she was five. What if instead of the illness causing her death, Merlin had murdered her, his own daughter. And the reason why Morgause was afraid of Merlin, but also wanted revenge against him was clear. “It was when she was five years old, right? She wasn’t too young for her immortality to manifest, you actively set out to take it away from her. You killed her!”
“Grandfather…” Kahlan began uncertainly.
Arthur could scarcely imagine what his daughter was going through. Merlin had done his best to care for Kahlan and dote on her, and now, she had discovered that the same man had killed his own daughter for the very thing that Kahlan was - a Confessor.
“I understand this upsets you, My Lady, but I was a different man back then. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared…if she turned on me--”
“Morgause is your daughter. Why in the world would she turn on you?” Arthur wanted to know. “Well before you killed her, I mean. Then I could understand her desire to Confess you.”
“My mother Confessed me…who was to say it wouldn’t work the other way around with my child?” Merlin asked right back.
Arthur breathed out. Merlin had had a point there, he admitted grudgingly.
“I tried to make amends for what I did to Morgause when you were born, My Lady,” Merlin spoke to Kahlan earnestly. “I knew it was wrong what I did to my daughter years ago, and I didn’t want to do it again. I had healed from my troubled past by Arthur’s time. Kilgharrah had chosen me as his Dragonlord after Morgause’s death. I went to visit the Dragon’s den to finally take up my duty as a Dragonlord. I spent most of my time with my dragon during those years after her death, before I crossed paths with Nimue. I believed that other people only set out to hurt me, and I couldn’t deal with them anymore. Bonding with Kilgharrah, slowly but surely, made me work through my terrible past.”
Kahlan nodded and then she looked to the Great Dragon with a grateful smile. The magical creature only looked nonchalant, but his smile was a bit smug.
Arthur couldn’t exactly see Kilgharrah acting as a shrink, but whatever he did appeared to have worked wonders on Merlin. One could never tell that Merlin had had such a troubling past by the look of him.
“And how was the fact of your mother being a Confessor hidden?” Kahlan asked.
“I asked the Fae Queen to use her magic to conceal that fact about my mother’s heritage, to make her appear to be just a woman, completely non-magical. So those wishing to do me harm because of my Confessor blood would be denied a reason for seeking me out. As I lived, people would only recognize me as a Dragonlord after my father.”
Arthur suddenly remembered Ella…it made sense now. That had been a story Merlin had told Morgana before she retold it to Arthur. Ella had been blonde like Morgause…and then the stepmother in the tale had, in fact, been Merlin.
Merlin had dosed Morgause with a sleeping potion and he had slashed her throat to kill her. Arthur didn’t know how Merlin could have managed to tell that story to his daughter with a straight face…or maybe, Merlin had told Morgana the tale to remind himself of the awful deed he had committed. That he wouldn’t brush off what he had done.
“Ella was Morgause, right?” Arthur asked the dragon silently.
Kilgharrah gave him a piercing look and nodded. He answered silently as well, “Yes, that’s why the Confessor has made other men slash their throats in retaliation for what her father had done to her.”
Arthur swore. Morgause definitely had issues. He couldn’t blame her. She had been so young when she had been killed…and he dreaded to think if Morgause had felt the knife cutting her throat even through the sleeping potion. If she felt the need to work out her frustration through Confessing others, then most likely yes.
“Morgause forgave you, didn’t she? She had a talk with you,” Arthur said out loud this time.
“Morgause forgave you?” Kahlan asked.
“I told her that I sincerely regretted what I had done to her. I proved to her that I was wholly remorseful for my crime, and she accepted that. I let her go, but I don’t know where she went. But the least I could do is to leave her in peace. She may have returned to her time, to her mother, I do not know. Morgause may seek you out, My Lady, if she so wishes. She knows you’re a Confessor. But you will have a difficult time finding her if you do search for her.”
Kahlan nodded. “Well, hopefully she will visit me at some point,” she said optimistically.
Maybe as a ploy for sympathy, Arthur thought - to express what he had done hadn’t come without consequences, Merlin added, “I paid a price for requesting the Fae Queen take away Morgause’s immortality. The Queen didn’t tell me directly what it was, but I’m certain it was my inability to father a son. I will most likely never have a son of my blood to pass my Dragonlord talent down to.”
But before Arthur, or anyone else, could respond, Arthur felt a sharp pain in his chest. Kilgharrah let out an irritated roar as if something had hurt him.
He turned to see a man who looked like his father, but the expression on his face was one of a mad man’s. It left his father unrecognizable, and Arthur realized with growing horror that his father had shot the dragon.
“Hey!” Cara shouted, annoyed. She made a quick move toward the older man, but he grinned mirthlessly at her.
Uther looked at her Agiels and remarked, “You have magic? I have magic, too.”
And then he practically giggled in mad glee. He disappeared, his eyes turning a pure black, before Cara could attack him with an Agiel.
“Damnit,” Cara swore, glaring at the spot he had disappeared from.
“Father, are you all right?” Kahlan asked in concern.
“I don’t…no…” Arthur breathed out. He pressed his hand firmly over his chest. Even he hadn’t been shot at directly; he could feel how much agony that the dragon was in.
“How the hell can a simple gun hurt the dragon?” Cara demanded.
“Dark magic, it has to be,” Arthur gasped out.
Kahlan looked to be in agreement with Arthur’s words. “The gun could have been enhanced with dark magic. He must have made a deal - to resurrect Mordred, he must have. The amount of dark magic used…necromancy is never without a price. And by his eyes turning black, he’s been playing with dark magic for some time now,” Kahlan concluded. Then she nodded at Cara. “If he returns, make sure to kill him.”
Cara acknowledged her words with a curt nod. Kahlan went over to Arthur and her hand glowed as she healed him. Arthur let out a shaky breath, relieved that he wasn’t in pain anymore. Kahlan smiled at him. “All right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he assured his daughter.
“This is getting redundant,” Kilgharrah grumbled, likewise healed as well.
But something was happening to Merlin. He had his eyes closed and he was mumbling, “No, no, no, no!” He ended on a shout.
His eyes flew open and everyone was startled to see his eyes a pure black with red swirling in with the black as well.
Merlin had his arm extended and his hand was reaching for something…
Kahlan looked to Cara quickly. “You can’t let it reach my father,” she said urgently.
Then Merlin started screaming and he tried to leave his chair, but Kahlan prevented him from leaving his seat.
“Grandfather, please…control it. Please,” Kahlan asked of him.
Arthur could feel a stifling energy within the area around him, but Cara was in front of him, repelling the energy away from them with her hand.
“What’s happening to Merlin?” Arthur demanded. He couldn’t help but shudder a bit when Merlin, eyes still black, looked straight at him and tilted his head at him as if trying to figure Arthur out.
“He’s just a carrier, Kahlan. What’s going on?” Cara wanted to know.
“…and this has been the second time he has been Confessed. It could have caused--” But she was cut short when Uther returned.
This time with a bigger gun.
He smiled obscenely before he pulled the trigger, shooting at the dragon once again.
“Big mistake,” Merlin threatened softly.
Uther was immediately Confessed just by one look from Merlin.
But it was too late. The bullet had been the killing blow to both Kilgharrah and Arthur, by virtue of their bond.
A frustrated Kahlan threw her dagger at Uther, hitting him in the chest and knocking him down with the force of the impact. Cara rushed to Arthur so she could revive him.
Right before Arthur could feel the last vestiges of life leave him, he heard Merlin’s voice inside his head. He was calling to Arthur, “Your Majesty…Arthur…Your Majesty…I have to leave you now.”
“Stop, Cara,” Kahlan directed her.
A big glowing light left Merlin and rushed toward Arthur and the dragon.
“We can’t interfere now. Grandfather has taken care of it,” she said with a sigh, “He’s giving up his immortality.”
~ * ~
Arthur woke up. He felt disoriented after all these near-death experiences he had went through in a short amount of time. But he remembered Merlin’s last words to him.
And his worst fear had been confirmed. Merlin was dead. He knew that he had been living on borrowed time ever since Kahlan Confessed him, but to see the evidence before his eyes made it all the harder.
Nimue had come and she was speaking in the Old Tongue over Merlin’s body, which had been moved to the ground.
Arthur had never seen Nimue look so sad and a bit lost as well. Kahlan and Cara were standing opposite Nimue, both of their heads down.
And Morgana was there. She was wearing a deep purple cloak this time over her dress. Her eyes welled up with unshed tears upon seeing Arthur.
She went to him and told him repentantly, “Oh, Arthur, I should have told you. Now with Father gone, I know it wasn’t right for me to keep it from you,” Morgana told him.
“Morgana, what is it?” Arthur asked worriedly.
When she didn’t answer him, an unhappy look darkening her green eyes, Arthur embraced her in a hug.
“I’ll be giving up my immortality in less than a week’s time, Arthur. Kahlan will be taking over as the Lady of Avalon,” she explained to him.
He pulled away from her. “You’re going to die,” he stated.
“It has to be done, Arthur. The succession needs to continue and the time is now. Kahlan has been preparing for this responsibility for centuries. It’s my time to go,” she told him.
“But you’ll be coming back? Through reincarnation?” He asked her.
Morgana gave him a small smile. “I do not know. This will be the last time I see you for a very long time. That is the only thing I’m sure of.”
Arthur sighed, unhappy that it wasn’t just Merlin who he was losing now. He had remembered his past life yesterday and already, everything seemed to be falling apart around him. Merlin was gone…and he didn’t know when he’d see him again or Morgana now…
“Kahlan and Richard will visit you every so often. I made sure to arrange it for you,” she said quietly, smiling at him.
Arthur nodded. “That’s good.”
“Arthur,” she said quietly.
Then Morgana kissed him, her tears wetting his face. He kissed her back, a desperation seizing him, but he knew it was no use.
He was resigned to living a life without Merlin or Morgana. All the memories that had been returned to him only made Arthur yearn for what was.
But everything came to an end…
~ * ~
After he had said his goodbyes and had a quiet moment sitting by Merlin, trying not to focus on how still his chest was, his heart not beating anymore, Arthur returned home.
Well, more accurately, Nimue took him home as magical transportation was required to leave the warehouse.
And then Arthur had an interesting conversation with her about why she was the way she was. He figured that growing up with three brothers didn’t help Nimue at all in acting like a ‘proper lady’…she became more interested in dark fairytales and testing the limits of her magic versus which pretty dress to wear or brushing her hair. And also, her mother Morgaine, who was a Seer, quite often wished she had been born a boy so she could have inherited her Dragonlord father’s power. She had been rather enchanted by dragons and Nimue was certain her mother would have been a good Dragonlord if she had been a boy.
Arthur now better understood why Merlin and Morgaine had been drawn to each other - they had something in common after all. The two of them were both children of Dragonlords.
~ * ~
Part 7
Merlin requested that Cara be there as well in the ‘private talk’ while Arthur was left twiddling his thumbs. He turned his head to look back at the caged dragon, to see how he was doing.
He was still asleep, but Arthur heard Kilgharrah’s voice in his head. It jarred him for a moment since he hadn’t been expecting it.
“Remember Ella,” the dragon told him.
“What, that old story Morgana told me?” Arthur inquired silently, puzzled. “Her stepmother dosed Ella with a sleeping potion and then she slashed…” Arthur drifted off, realization dawning on him. Isn’t that what Morgause said that she had done to a Confessed man? Ordered him to slash his own throat?
Could there be a connection?
“Why are you telling me this?” Arthur asked the dragon.
“-because there is a connection, and you’ll find out soon enough.”
It was as if Kilgharrah could read Arthur’s mind, which left him wondering the extent of the bond he had with the dragon due to Kilgharrah saving his life centuries ago. He wasn’t too thrilled about a dragon being able to hear his inner thoughts however much Arthur appreciated Kilgharrah’s life-saving gesture.
The dragon fell silent and would not say anymore.
Arthur noticed Cara looking at him, an uneasy yet grimly determined look in her blue eyes.
The talk ended and Merlin returned to his seat. He looked older than his outward appearance than he ever had before. It was like Merlin was going to his death, Arthur thought, but the Dragonlord appeared quietly resigned to his fate no matter how much it weighed on him. Kahlan looked upset and uncertain while Cara, well, she just looked annoyed.
Cara stood beside Arthur and she gripped an Agiel in her hand, the other Agiel stored in the strap compartment upon her belt.
“You should have told me,” Kahlan accused of Merlin. She was standing in front of him. “And why now? You know it’s a busy time in Avalon with the transition…” she trailed off, taking a deep breath to collect herself. “And Mother…she…Grandfather, we can’t afford to lose you,” she said firmly.
“Yes, you can,” Merlin refuted, “I am sorry for not telling you about my mother, and I admit that I was wrong in that. I was worried how you would take it.”
“I know now. That’s what matters. All this time, I thought I was alone, that it was a curse. But my grandmother and that blonde woman--”
“Morgause would easily win the worst role model of the universe award,” Arthur put in frankly. “It’s best to avoid her at all costs.”
Kahlan turned her head to look back at her father. “But still, she’s my half-aunt. We share the same blood and the same power. And she’s alive…Morgause is the only person I have who could understand what it means to be a Confessor. If I could find out where she went…” Kahlan mused.
“She admitted to Confessing a man and then ordering him to commit suicide. She’s unstable, Kahlan,” Arthur countered.
Cara smirked. “Congratulations, Kahlan. You officially have a crazy aunt, half-aunt, whatever. You can never escape them,” she said, her lips quirking up into an amused smile.
“I can’t exactly be picky at the moment,” Kahlan said resignedly.
She turned back to face her grandfather. “But I’m not doing what you wish me to do. Just because you feel it’ll be easier--”
“I want Arthur to know that I am speaking the absolute truth,” Merlin tried to persuade her.
Arthur narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like the sound of this. Could this be what Merlin had warned him not to interfere with?
Absolute truth…wait, that had to mean, of course. How dare Merlin even consider such a thing?
“Merlin, no. I won’t let you!” Arthur exclaimed, standing up.
Cara blocked his way. “No, you can’t interfere.”
“The hell I can’t!” Arthur retorted indignantly.
“I don’t want to use my Agiels on you, but I will stop you if I’m forced to,” she threatened him, her eyes piercing his, challenging him to argue with her.
Meanwhile, Merlin continued to plead with his granddaughter. “Kahlan, please. I’m asking you. I want this to happen. You need feel no guilt over it, and Nimue will do what is…necessary to end it. Arthur would never forgive me if you died because of this.”
Arthur knew well that for the Confessed person to be released from Confession, either the Confessor or the Confessed had to die. The problem was that when the Confessed died, being released from Confession didn’t allow them to go back to their life, of their own mind again, as they were dead. It was a sour victory, to be sure.
While Arthur certainly didn’t want his daughter to die or give up her immortality or whatever she needed to do to release Merlin; he was still torn between his love for Merlin and his daughter. Arthur simply couldn’t choose.
“Don’t you dare, Merlin. I swear, you can’t do this! Why can’t you just say what you need to say without Confession? I’ll believe you, I promise I’ll believe you,” Arthur tried to convince him desperately. “I won’t let you die!”
“I’ve made up my mind. You can’t change it,” Merlin informed calmly. “And I truly can’t find it in myself to divulge the details without Confession. If that makes me weak, then I accept that.”
“This is wrong, Merlin. The truth isn’t worth this. This is going too far,” Arthur argued with him.
Arthur noticed Merlin’s expression change, like he was beginning to finally see sense and listen to what Arthur was telling him.
The Dragonlord nodded slowly. “You’re right, Arthur. I’ve been remiss in how I’m going about this,” he acknowledged. “--we should leave,” Merlin declared.
Arthur felt relieved. “Thank goodness,” he said.
He did want to find out what Merlin was hiding, but for now, he felt that it was enough that he had learned the truth about Merlin’s mother, the very reason why his own daughter was who she was.
Cara spoke then, speaking to his daughter, “Kahlan, do I--?”
Kahlan turned around and nodded reluctantly, her face unhappy. “Yes.”
Arthur barely had the chance to be surprised when Cara stuck her Agiel upon his chest, right over where his heart lay.
The pain was excruciating and a moment later, Arthur was dead.
~ * ~
Arthur gasped, his eyes opening at the shock of being alive again. The air rushed back into his lungs. Cara was by him and she gave him a small smile when she noticed he was conscious again.
“Sorry for killing you, but Kahlan’s grandfather was adamant he be Confessed so that he could say what he needed to say. We thought it best that you wouldn’t have the chance to interfere,” she told him. “I gave you the Breath of Life, but you probably realized that.”
“Unless you had all gone mad, I didn’t think you’d want me dead. But, oh, just temporarily is perfectly acceptable,” Arthur said sarcastically.
Cara looked somewhat apologetic and then she pointed out to him, “Well, you’re all better now. Look on the bright side.”
Arthur rolled his eyes at that.
He saw that Kahlan was speaking quietly to Merlin, who was hidden from view with Kahlan standing before him.
“Kahlan?” Arthur tried to get her attention.
Kahlan turned around. He could see that she looked a bit ill. Arthur imagined that it would be rather unpleasant to Confess someone who you consider family and have to deal with any inappropriate behavior…
Bloody Merlin for being so bloody adamant, Arthur fumed silently.
“Are you all right, Father?” She asked. “Grandfather was impatient and he couldn’t wait any longer. He wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to go through with the Confession if you were there to stop it from happening.”
Arthur sighed. “Yeah, Merlin is due for a good whack around the head,” he said, grumbling more than anything else.
Kahlan gave him a weak smile. She walked to him and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Arthur wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for as he was mentally placing all the blame on Merlin.
Kahlan nodded to Cara. “Kilgharrah is revived as well?” She inquired, making sure.
Cara shrugged. “I think so. With the bond between him and the Once and Future King, if I revive one of them, the other one should be revived likewise.” Then she headed toward the dragon, kicking an unconscious Mordred not so gently in the ribs as she passed him. “Hey, Dragon, are you good?” The Elite asked him.
Arthur heard the Dragon mutter irritably. Finally, he appeared to be awake now. “I’m tired of being caged. Get me out of here, you bumbling idiots,” he ordered grumpily.
Cara looked to Kahlan. “Your Quicksilver dagger should do the trick.”
“A dagger? You only have a dagger?” The Dragon uttered incredulously. “These bars require a Quicksilver sword!”
“Kahlan was being sentimental,” Cara told him by way of explanation.
“It was an anniversary gift. Shut up,” Kahlan defended herself. “And the dagger will work. It’s still a Quicksilver no matter its smaller size,” she said firmly.
She took out her dagger and she cut the bars with the weapon. The dagger glowed golden and the bars melted upon contact with the Quicksilver dagger.
Then all the bars disappeared as if the dagger’s contact with just a few of the bars was repulsive to the rest of the enclosure. As such, the entire cage vanished leaving Kilgharrah free of his temporary prison.
Meanwhile, Arthur had a chat with Merlin.
“Merlin, are you all right?” Arthur asked uneasily. He felt like he was dealing with a vicious animal waiting to pounce and strike.
He had seen people Confessed by his daughter before. He had seen how they had acted and how nothing mattered more to them than protecting the Confessor - going as far as sacrificing themselves to save the Confessor’s life.
Arthur knew that Merlin would risk his life for his granddaughter, Confession or no, but the point remained - his mind was not his own, his existence was now dependent on Kahlan’s orders. The love for her would consume him, leaving little interest in anything else but Kahlan and how to…how to…
…please her, Arthur finished quietly. He was having difficulty even thinking it.
Arthur never imagined something like this would happen. But it was happening all right, and he had to deal with it. He desperately tried not to dwell on what would happen when Kahlan finished questioning Merlin.
Merlin looked directly at him. He looked more relaxed and calmer now as if all the tension was eased out of him.
“I’m fine,” Merlin answered him politely like he was commenting on the weather.
“You better not call Kahlan ‘mistress’ or I will hurt you,” Arthur warned him.
“I’m not going to call her that,” Merlin assured him.
“Good.”
But then, Merlin added, “Kahlan told me not to call her that.”
Arthur covered his face in his hands. Well, that ruined it. At least Kahlan had the foresight to set the ground rules.
Kahlan and Cara came back with the dragon following after them.
“Merlin’s Confessed?” The Dragon inquired.
“Yes,” Cara answered him.
“All of you have no idea, do you? No clue,” Kilgharrah said cryptically.
Kahlan looked curiously at the dragon. “What is it, Kilgharrah?”
Arthur didn’t like how Merlin’s eyes were tracking Kahlan’s every move. It was creepy.
“Ask him,” the dragon only said.
Kahlan sighed and turned back to Merlin. “Grandfather, what is the dragon talking about?”
Merlin shrugged, tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Most likely that I’ve been Confessed before, My Lady,” he informed her.
Everyone fell silent. Arthur thought he had heard wrong. Merlin had been Confessed before? There wasn’t a plethora of Confessors to choose from…and surely it hadn’t been Kahlan who had Confessed him before now. There was Morgause, but Merlin hadn’t seen her since she was a child and Morgause had only been five years old then. No matter how morally ambiguous Morgause was, Arthur couldn’t see her Confessing her father at such a young age.
That left Merlin’s mother when she’d been alive. But Arthur wrote that off right away. She was his mother after all.
Kahlan regained her composure first and she said, “All right. I’m sure everyone would love to know who has Confessed you before…”
“I could tell you if you’d like,” Merlin told her easily. “If you really want to know.”
“You know, don’t you, Kilgharrah?” Cara asked the dragon.
“Of course I do. Merlin’s my Dragonlord. It’s a part of the bond to know everything about him,” the dragon said, rolling his eyes.
“…but you’re not going to tell us?” Kahlan wanted to know.
“You Confessed him, you ask him,” the dragon said, then he seemed to rethink his words. “But I would advise you against that. For now at least. Merlin’s mother was a Confessor. Best start from the beginning. Ask him what happened to his mother when she was a child.”
Kahlan asked Merlin what the dragon had directed her to say.
He explained, “My mother was given this antidote when she was a young girl - five or six years old? It was a way to control the Confessor population, the beginnings of trying to contain it. That’s where the 50/50 potential of carriers producing Confessor daughters came in. Except well, the daughter of an active Confessor will always be a Confessor, never a dormant carrier. That couldn't be altered,” Merlin paused, thoughtful, and then he added, “It wasn’t just that though. There were male Confessors during my mother’s time. So, the antidote’s chief purpose was to take away any chance of male children born to Confessors having active Confessor magic. Instead, the son of a Confessor would simply be a carrier for the power, and had the chance to pass the Confessor power on to their own daughters. If it weren’t for my mother taking the antidote, I would have been killed before I was a day old.”
“Why?” Kahlan asked him, shocked.
“You feel faint afterwards, don’t you, when you Confess someone? That keeps you from using the power too often because there’s a control in place. You need time to ‘recharge’ in a way. But, with male Confessors, they don’t have that control. They can keep Confessing as long as they wish, and they’re easily susceptible by the bloodlust. They can never get enough…enjoyment out of Confessing others, having people under their control. Male Confessors always turned out to be ruthless tyrants, never satisfied until they commanded everyone,” Merlin finished. He looked like he had eaten something rotten.
Arthur’s brow furrowed. “Wait, if male Confessors were killed so young, how do you even know how they acted?”
Merlin gave him a strange look and then he turned to Kahlan.
“Answer his question,” Kahlan told him.
Arthur raised his eyes to the ceiling. Cara squeezed his shoulder in an attempt at a reassuring gesture. The last thing Arthur needed though was a reminder of Merlin being Confessed and the fact that he couldn’t ask him a question without Merlin deferring to Kahlan…it left him thoroughly frustrated.
“According to my mother, prior to the antidote, some Confessors couldn’t bear to kill their sons. Their mothers let them live. But no matter how nurturing the mother was to the son, it was futile. Male Confessors remained abominations, and it was more merciful to kill them before the mother grew too attached to her child.”
“So, you could have been like that - a male Confessor,” Kahlan uttered quietly, saddened by the thought.
Merlin shook his head vehemently. “No, I would have been killed before the bloodlust took me over. My mother was strong-willed, I assure you. She would have killed me because it would have been the right thing to do,” he said passionately, “As such, the antidote allowed my mother to let me live.”
“And the antidote - I haven’t had any children yet, but would I need to take it as well?” Kahlan wondered.
Merlin shook his head. “The antidote is already in your blood, My Lady. Nimue and I both checked. It’s a blood inheritance from your great-grandmother, my mother. The antidote doesn’t need to be re-administered. Any sons you bear will be fine.”
Kahlan nodded, looking relieved. “…and your father, he was a Dragonlord? He was Confessed, wasn’t he?”
Merlin nodded. “Yes, that’s how it works. My mother sent him away. She felt guilty for being with him when she knew the price he would have to pay for it. So she decided that it would be easier if he wasn’t around because she couldn’t bear to look at him. My mother thought she could raise me just fine without him.”
“That must have been hard for your father if he was still Confessed to her…” Kahlan mused.
“Yes, but my mother couldn’t bear to kill him,” Merlin answered her with a small shrug. Then he said, “She had me kill him.”
Arthur wasn’t sure he had heard right. Did Merlin just say he had killed his father?
“You killed your father,” Arthur stated in disbelief. “And he was still Confessed, right? So he was no direct threat to you…since you were the son of the woman he was Confessed to.”
Merlin had his hands clasped tightly in his lap. He didn’t answer Arthur, but instead he looked to Kahlan.
“Grandfather? Did you kill your father?” Kahlan asked him.
The dragon cut in with a huff. “You’re not listening to him,” he muttered.
“Yes,” Merlin admitted quietly.
He looked upset when Kahlan stepped back in shock.
“I’m sorry if that makes you unhappy, but I couldn’t disobey my mother.”
“Disobey?” Kahlan uttered, puzzled.
Merlin nodded. “My mother Confessed me when--”
“No, you’re lying,” Arthur interrupted, his tone firm. “What kind of mother would do that?”
Kahlan didn’t look like she wanted to resume the questioning. “No one can lie under Confession, Father,” she said tiredly.
Arthur knew that, but anything to make this admittance false was more preferable than letting this truth sink in.
“It was the antidote,” Kilgharrah pointed out.
Kahlan asked Merlin then. “What does the antidote have to do with what your mother did to you?”
“The antidote managed to be successful for what it set out to do, but it did not come without side effects. My mother was a very emotional person as consequence of the antidote…and she - I knew that she loved me, and she cared for me. But there were many times I came home to find her weeping, asking why everyone seemed to persecute her for being a Confessor. She was a good person, and everyone looked at her with fear in their eyes. I tried to comfort her, reassure her that I still loved her, that she wasn’t alone. Sometimes it wasn’t enough,” he said regretfully.
Merlin continued on, “My mother had me when she was young and she was the only Confessor in the village of child-bearing age. Most, the men particularly of course, worried that she would Confess another man in the village to bear another child. As my father was absent, everyone worried that with no man to ‘keep her happy’, my mother would become restless and turn on the men of the village. My mother always reassured me that she only needed me…that she didn’t need another child. Unfortunately, other people didn’t take her word for it.”
“Oh dear,” Kahlan murmured. “Your poor mother.”
“She bloody Confessed him,” Arthur said under his breath.
He wasn’t too sure if he was all that sympathetic… no matter the emotional turmoil Merlin’s mother had undergone, that gave her no right to Confess her own child. Though he also knew how hard this was for his daughter to hear, to find out how hard it was for her great-grandmother to live as a Confessor. Kahlan had been lucky to have a support system around her - him, Morgana, Merlin, Nimue…-- and later, Richard. And while Kahlan could never sleep with Richard because of the risk of Confession, their marriage didn’t seem to be ill-affected by the restriction from what Arthur recalled of his former life.
“When did your mother Confess you?” Kahlan asked.
“When I was fifteen. She saw me with my friend Morgaine…that was my - our first time. But my mother had grown even more emotionally unstable over the years, and she had had a bad day. And as I was the only person she could depend upon, my mother was quite possessive over me. I think she feared that my attention would shift to another woman as I was growing older. So when I returned home after being with Morgaine… she, well…” Merlin trailed off, not wishing to go on.
But everyone knew what he meant to say.
230 AD
“Merlin, Merlin…you’re not feeling well,” his mother said softly as she sat down beside him on the bed.
She raised his head so that he could drink from the cup she offered him.
The drink didn’t make him feel any better, it just made him feel drowsier. He saw stars blinking in front of him.
“I saw you with your friend Morgaine, Merlin. You know it can never happen. Arthur Quicksilver will marry her.”
“…how do you know that?” he said weakly.
His mother swept aside the dark locks from his sweaty brow. She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.
“A mother always knows,” she said quietly.
She moved her hand to wrap around her son’s neck.
Merlin still had enough semblance of mind to realize what his mother was about to do.
“No, no, please no, please! Mother!” He exclaimed, pleading with her.
His mother hushed him, and would not listen to his protests.
“You’ll be at peace, my child,” she said reassuredly.
And then his mother turned her power on him, her eyes black as she Confessed him.
~ * ~
“…I was Confessed to my mother for ten years. She was killed in battle when I was twenty five. That’s when I was released from her Confession. But while I was Confessed, she told me to kill my father. My mother discovered that I would only receive my Dragonlord powers upon my father’s death. So she wanted to make sure I gained my inheritance as soon as possible.”
“Ten years?” Everyone uttered in near unison except for Kilgharrah who looked preoccupied with finding a comfortable place to lie down.
Merlin looked a bit startled with the surprised reaction.
To be Confessed was one thing, Arthur thought, but to be Confessed for a whole decade - that was inconceivable.
“But what about your friends - Arthur and Morgaine? They couldn’t have just deserted you,” Arthur said in disbelief.
Kahlan put in, figuring it out, “Your mother could have hurt them too…they were afraid.”
“She was still my mother no matter what. The two of them wanted to help me, but yes, they were wary around my mother. And neither wanted to be responsible for killing my mother knowing how I would feel.”
“But after what she did to you, wouldn’t you have been grateful? For being released from Confession?” Kahlan wondered.
“My mother was just as much a victim here as I had been. I loved her, I still love her. It’s those awful stories that people told about her that broke her down in the end. Even after my mother was dead, I was devastated at the loss. And she told me to stay behind before she went out to fight. She said I was too important to lose…but I couldn’t, I couldn’t let her go off alone. My mother had to physically place me in an impregnable room. I couldn’t even use my magic to escape, and I remember…clawing at the door, desperately wanting to get out. But I couldn’t,” he said mournfully.
“Oh, Grandfather,” Kahlan sighed and she embraced him.
After she pulled away from him, Merlin noted, “Arthur told me later that what happened to me spurred him to finally work on his life’s ambition. That while I was lost to them, he could make the most of his life.”
Kahlan nodded. “Crafting the greatest sword in existence, Excalibur.”
“Yes,” Merlin confirmed.
“What? Why didn’t I know about this?” Arthur inquired, irritated. Excalibur was his sword after all. Admittedly, he never thought to consider that someone had to have made the sword. He had just been given the sword by Viviane at the Lake. The thought of its origins just never occurred to him.
Cara smirked, finding this all amusing. “For the true wielder not to know…the fact is the worst-kept secret of Avalon.”
Kahlan pulled out her dagger, the one with the Quicksilver marking on it, and showed it to Arthur. He took the offered dagger from her, taking a closer look at it.
“His name was Arthur Quicksilver… and what made Excalibur the greatest sword was its ability to survive centuries, forever essentially, because of the powerful magic within it. After all, he crafted the sword in the third century and you were given Excalibur in the sixth century. No ordinary sword would survive that long in perfect condition. The Lady of the Lake makes sure the sword is properly taken care of, so that Excalibur will truly be immortal. Freya, my Aunt Viviane’s Ward, is presently the Lady of the Lake and Guardian of Excalibur,” Kahlan explained steadily.
Arthur looked up at her. “Oh? Changing of the guard then?”
Kahlan nodded. “My aunt thought it was her time to go and Freya was more than happy to take on the role.”
“So this dagger...it’s a Quicksilver? Did he make it too?”
“No, one of his descendants made that dagger. It’s Richard… he’s descended from one of Arthur’s sons on his mother’s side. Richard’s father was a woodsman, of course, and he took after him, but Richard also has a natural talent for sword-making. Most of Quicksilver blood have this gift as if their well-known ancestor’s great accomplishment has blessed them with it.”
“That means…if Nimue is Arthur Quicksilver’s daughter, are you telling me you’re related to Richard?”
Kahlan gave a small nod, not looking exactly thrilled about the mention of being related. “Distantly, but yes…we are. Richard is my grandmother’s great-great-great…and so on, nephew.”
“And that’s where Richard Cypher gets his madness for marrying you from. Nimue,” Cara teased her.
Kahlan rolled her eyes at Cara. Apparently this wasn’t the first time they had discussed this by Kahlan’s lack of true annoyance. “Grandmother always says he is most likely descended from the good brother…James, I think? But then she started laughing, so I think she was making it up.”
And suddenly a lot of things began to make sense in Arthur’s head. He wished that this information about Excalibur would have been revealed to him when he had been, you know, actually wielding the sword. Getting it after the fact was a bit anti-climactic.
“We’re sorry for not telling you sooner, but it was meant to be a secret. Not in Avalon though - can’t hide anything connected to you there,” She nodded at Arthur. “When everyone found out he was an honest-to-goodness Quicksilver, he was treated like a celebrity. As it were, they were more than accepting of my marriage to him.”
Arthur returned the dagger to his daughter and nodded at her. “I appreciate you telling me,” he said, feeling rather overwhelmed with all this new information.
Merlin’s mother, Merlin being Confessed before, Merlin killing his father (under Confession but still…) now…Excalibur and Richard being descended from an old friend of Merlin’s… Arthur was part glad to finally know all of this and part exhausted from taking all this new stuff in.
But there was one last thing…Morgause. There was clearly something behind their conflicted father-daughter relationship.
Arthur asked Kahlan if she could ask Merlin about Morgause. She did, but the answer wasn’t one Arthur had been expecting.
“Ella…” Kilgharrah said breezily inside Arthur’s head, reminding him before Merlin set out on his answer.
Merlin told them that after his mother died, Morgaine urged him to flee to a magically protected forest. That people would be coming after him and he was in danger if he stayed in the village. These people were bounty hunters who were sent to capture him…certain to fetch a nice prize for the son of both a Dragonlord and a Confessor.
And his fate wouldn’t have been as simple as death, oh no, the people wanting to get a hold of him wished to experiment on him. Maybe put Merlin into a breeding program, to manipulate the situation so that the 50/50 potential of a Confessor daughter became a 100%...and they could raise an army of Confessors under whatever lord or king’s command. It was a foolhardy plan as one never knew if the Confessor could turn on you, but to some lords and kings, the idea was still quite appealing despite the risks. It would bring order to their land if people were in fear of the ruler’s Confessors sentencing them to Confession.
So Merlin, his mother’s death still fresh and raw in his mind, had to seek a safe refuge.
And in the protected forest, he met the Fae Queen who granted him immortality and told him of the prophecy involving him. Only later did Merlin find out that the son of a king he was destined to mentor was Arthur Pendragon of Camelot. Merlin was so emotionally wound up and stressed, dealing with the aftermath of his mother’s death and being released from a decade’s Confession, that he was angered by this forced immortality.
He hadn’t wanted to be immortal no matter the important reason for it. He didn’t feel ready to mentor anyone at the time and he certainly didn’t want to live forever. Because that meant he’d be forced to deal with all that he had done under Confession, that there would be no possibility of blessed death until he fulfilled his destiny. The Fae Queen had assured him that by the time Arthur Pendragon would be born, Merlin would be ready to properly mentor him. Still, Merlin was extremely annoyed at what he was being put through.
As a consequence, he allowed a nymph of the forest to seduce him and he willingly went along with her sweet but hollow promises. The nymph’s name was Cypress.
He had Morgause with Cypress and he was horrified to learn that Morgause was an active Confessor.
At the time, Merlin was plagued by nightmares and he felt torn between hating his mother and wanting to forgive her, knowing she had been feeling just as lost as he was now. But his mother had destroyed his life, ten years of it, and he lost Morgaine as a result. She had married Arthur after all - a woman at that time had to marry. Though Merlin couldn’t think of a better man for Morgaine than Arthur, he still was devastated about losing his chance with her.
So Merlin had thought that he created a monster in Morgause. He knew well about the 50/50 potential, but he hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time…and the magnitude of Morgause, his own daughter, being a Confessor, tormented him.
He asked the Fae Queen to remove Morgause’s immortality, so that he could kill her.
Arthur immediately spoke up at that admittance. “No, no. I won’t hear this. This can’t be true. You killed Morgause because she was a Confessor?” Then Arthur paused, thinking over what Merlin had said before… about Morgause falling ill when she was five. What if instead of the illness causing her death, Merlin had murdered her, his own daughter. And the reason why Morgause was afraid of Merlin, but also wanted revenge against him was clear. “It was when she was five years old, right? She wasn’t too young for her immortality to manifest, you actively set out to take it away from her. You killed her!”
“Grandfather…” Kahlan began uncertainly.
Arthur could scarcely imagine what his daughter was going through. Merlin had done his best to care for Kahlan and dote on her, and now, she had discovered that the same man had killed his own daughter for the very thing that Kahlan was - a Confessor.
“I understand this upsets you, My Lady, but I was a different man back then. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared…if she turned on me--”
“Morgause is your daughter. Why in the world would she turn on you?” Arthur wanted to know. “Well before you killed her, I mean. Then I could understand her desire to Confess you.”
“My mother Confessed me…who was to say it wouldn’t work the other way around with my child?” Merlin asked right back.
Arthur breathed out. Merlin had had a point there, he admitted grudgingly.
“I tried to make amends for what I did to Morgause when you were born, My Lady,” Merlin spoke to Kahlan earnestly. “I knew it was wrong what I did to my daughter years ago, and I didn’t want to do it again. I had healed from my troubled past by Arthur’s time. Kilgharrah had chosen me as his Dragonlord after Morgause’s death. I went to visit the Dragon’s den to finally take up my duty as a Dragonlord. I spent most of my time with my dragon during those years after her death, before I crossed paths with Nimue. I believed that other people only set out to hurt me, and I couldn’t deal with them anymore. Bonding with Kilgharrah, slowly but surely, made me work through my terrible past.”
Kahlan nodded and then she looked to the Great Dragon with a grateful smile. The magical creature only looked nonchalant, but his smile was a bit smug.
Arthur couldn’t exactly see Kilgharrah acting as a shrink, but whatever he did appeared to have worked wonders on Merlin. One could never tell that Merlin had had such a troubling past by the look of him.
“And how was the fact of your mother being a Confessor hidden?” Kahlan asked.
“I asked the Fae Queen to use her magic to conceal that fact about my mother’s heritage, to make her appear to be just a woman, completely non-magical. So those wishing to do me harm because of my Confessor blood would be denied a reason for seeking me out. As I lived, people would only recognize me as a Dragonlord after my father.”
Arthur suddenly remembered Ella…it made sense now. That had been a story Merlin had told Morgana before she retold it to Arthur. Ella had been blonde like Morgause…and then the stepmother in the tale had, in fact, been Merlin.
Merlin had dosed Morgause with a sleeping potion and he had slashed her throat to kill her. Arthur didn’t know how Merlin could have managed to tell that story to his daughter with a straight face…or maybe, Merlin had told Morgana the tale to remind himself of the awful deed he had committed. That he wouldn’t brush off what he had done.
“Ella was Morgause, right?” Arthur asked the dragon silently.
Kilgharrah gave him a piercing look and nodded. He answered silently as well, “Yes, that’s why the Confessor has made other men slash their throats in retaliation for what her father had done to her.”
Arthur swore. Morgause definitely had issues. He couldn’t blame her. She had been so young when she had been killed…and he dreaded to think if Morgause had felt the knife cutting her throat even through the sleeping potion. If she felt the need to work out her frustration through Confessing others, then most likely yes.
“Morgause forgave you, didn’t she? She had a talk with you,” Arthur said out loud this time.
“Morgause forgave you?” Kahlan asked.
“I told her that I sincerely regretted what I had done to her. I proved to her that I was wholly remorseful for my crime, and she accepted that. I let her go, but I don’t know where she went. But the least I could do is to leave her in peace. She may have returned to her time, to her mother, I do not know. Morgause may seek you out, My Lady, if she so wishes. She knows you’re a Confessor. But you will have a difficult time finding her if you do search for her.”
Kahlan nodded. “Well, hopefully she will visit me at some point,” she said optimistically.
Maybe as a ploy for sympathy, Arthur thought - to express what he had done hadn’t come without consequences, Merlin added, “I paid a price for requesting the Fae Queen take away Morgause’s immortality. The Queen didn’t tell me directly what it was, but I’m certain it was my inability to father a son. I will most likely never have a son of my blood to pass my Dragonlord talent down to.”
But before Arthur, or anyone else, could respond, Arthur felt a sharp pain in his chest. Kilgharrah let out an irritated roar as if something had hurt him.
He turned to see a man who looked like his father, but the expression on his face was one of a mad man’s. It left his father unrecognizable, and Arthur realized with growing horror that his father had shot the dragon.
“Hey!” Cara shouted, annoyed. She made a quick move toward the older man, but he grinned mirthlessly at her.
Uther looked at her Agiels and remarked, “You have magic? I have magic, too.”
And then he practically giggled in mad glee. He disappeared, his eyes turning a pure black, before Cara could attack him with an Agiel.
“Damnit,” Cara swore, glaring at the spot he had disappeared from.
“Father, are you all right?” Kahlan asked in concern.
“I don’t…no…” Arthur breathed out. He pressed his hand firmly over his chest. Even he hadn’t been shot at directly; he could feel how much agony that the dragon was in.
“How the hell can a simple gun hurt the dragon?” Cara demanded.
“Dark magic, it has to be,” Arthur gasped out.
Kahlan looked to be in agreement with Arthur’s words. “The gun could have been enhanced with dark magic. He must have made a deal - to resurrect Mordred, he must have. The amount of dark magic used…necromancy is never without a price. And by his eyes turning black, he’s been playing with dark magic for some time now,” Kahlan concluded. Then she nodded at Cara. “If he returns, make sure to kill him.”
Cara acknowledged her words with a curt nod. Kahlan went over to Arthur and her hand glowed as she healed him. Arthur let out a shaky breath, relieved that he wasn’t in pain anymore. Kahlan smiled at him. “All right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he assured his daughter.
“This is getting redundant,” Kilgharrah grumbled, likewise healed as well.
But something was happening to Merlin. He had his eyes closed and he was mumbling, “No, no, no, no!” He ended on a shout.
His eyes flew open and everyone was startled to see his eyes a pure black with red swirling in with the black as well.
Merlin had his arm extended and his hand was reaching for something…
Kahlan looked to Cara quickly. “You can’t let it reach my father,” she said urgently.
Then Merlin started screaming and he tried to leave his chair, but Kahlan prevented him from leaving his seat.
“Grandfather, please…control it. Please,” Kahlan asked of him.
Arthur could feel a stifling energy within the area around him, but Cara was in front of him, repelling the energy away from them with her hand.
“What’s happening to Merlin?” Arthur demanded. He couldn’t help but shudder a bit when Merlin, eyes still black, looked straight at him and tilted his head at him as if trying to figure Arthur out.
“He’s just a carrier, Kahlan. What’s going on?” Cara wanted to know.
“…and this has been the second time he has been Confessed. It could have caused--” But she was cut short when Uther returned.
This time with a bigger gun.
He smiled obscenely before he pulled the trigger, shooting at the dragon once again.
“Big mistake,” Merlin threatened softly.
Uther was immediately Confessed just by one look from Merlin.
But it was too late. The bullet had been the killing blow to both Kilgharrah and Arthur, by virtue of their bond.
A frustrated Kahlan threw her dagger at Uther, hitting him in the chest and knocking him down with the force of the impact. Cara rushed to Arthur so she could revive him.
Right before Arthur could feel the last vestiges of life leave him, he heard Merlin’s voice inside his head. He was calling to Arthur, “Your Majesty…Arthur…Your Majesty…I have to leave you now.”
“Stop, Cara,” Kahlan directed her.
A big glowing light left Merlin and rushed toward Arthur and the dragon.
“We can’t interfere now. Grandfather has taken care of it,” she said with a sigh, “He’s giving up his immortality.”
~ * ~
Arthur woke up. He felt disoriented after all these near-death experiences he had went through in a short amount of time. But he remembered Merlin’s last words to him.
And his worst fear had been confirmed. Merlin was dead. He knew that he had been living on borrowed time ever since Kahlan Confessed him, but to see the evidence before his eyes made it all the harder.
Nimue had come and she was speaking in the Old Tongue over Merlin’s body, which had been moved to the ground.
Arthur had never seen Nimue look so sad and a bit lost as well. Kahlan and Cara were standing opposite Nimue, both of their heads down.
And Morgana was there. She was wearing a deep purple cloak this time over her dress. Her eyes welled up with unshed tears upon seeing Arthur.
She went to him and told him repentantly, “Oh, Arthur, I should have told you. Now with Father gone, I know it wasn’t right for me to keep it from you,” Morgana told him.
“Morgana, what is it?” Arthur asked worriedly.
When she didn’t answer him, an unhappy look darkening her green eyes, Arthur embraced her in a hug.
“I’ll be giving up my immortality in less than a week’s time, Arthur. Kahlan will be taking over as the Lady of Avalon,” she explained to him.
He pulled away from her. “You’re going to die,” he stated.
“It has to be done, Arthur. The succession needs to continue and the time is now. Kahlan has been preparing for this responsibility for centuries. It’s my time to go,” she told him.
“But you’ll be coming back? Through reincarnation?” He asked her.
Morgana gave him a small smile. “I do not know. This will be the last time I see you for a very long time. That is the only thing I’m sure of.”
Arthur sighed, unhappy that it wasn’t just Merlin who he was losing now. He had remembered his past life yesterday and already, everything seemed to be falling apart around him. Merlin was gone…and he didn’t know when he’d see him again or Morgana now…
“Kahlan and Richard will visit you every so often. I made sure to arrange it for you,” she said quietly, smiling at him.
Arthur nodded. “That’s good.”
“Arthur,” she said quietly.
Then Morgana kissed him, her tears wetting his face. He kissed her back, a desperation seizing him, but he knew it was no use.
He was resigned to living a life without Merlin or Morgana. All the memories that had been returned to him only made Arthur yearn for what was.
But everything came to an end…
~ * ~
After he had said his goodbyes and had a quiet moment sitting by Merlin, trying not to focus on how still his chest was, his heart not beating anymore, Arthur returned home.
Well, more accurately, Nimue took him home as magical transportation was required to leave the warehouse.
And then Arthur had an interesting conversation with her about why she was the way she was. He figured that growing up with three brothers didn’t help Nimue at all in acting like a ‘proper lady’…she became more interested in dark fairytales and testing the limits of her magic versus which pretty dress to wear or brushing her hair. And also, her mother Morgaine, who was a Seer, quite often wished she had been born a boy so she could have inherited her Dragonlord father’s power. She had been rather enchanted by dragons and Nimue was certain her mother would have been a good Dragonlord if she had been a boy.
Arthur now better understood why Merlin and Morgaine had been drawn to each other - they had something in common after all. The two of them were both children of Dragonlords.
~ * ~
Part 7