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Chapter 21: Close
Gwenivere lay on her side, rubbing her stomach. Clearly, something she'd eaten at dinner was not agreeing with her. It was dark in the chamber that she shared with Arthur, it was well past midnight and she knew, as she lay in the wide bed by herself, that most likely her husband wouldn't come to bed for a long time. Whatever had made a hunting ground out of their home was keeping Arthur up at all hours of the night and occupied entirely during the day. Even when he tried to forget about it for during meals, Gwenivere could see the wheels in his mind turning constantly, thinking about the different possibilities for what was happening.
As Queen, she knew she ought to be more involved in the proceedings, but how could she when Arthur insisted that she stay out of it. It was definitely unfair, especially since Merlin – well, Elladora – was a woman and she was allowed to be present for all of it.
Merlin. She honestly hadn't thought she would see him again and the thought and very nearly torn her and Arthur apart, though she would never admit it out loud. She knew that Merlin was perhaps the kindest soul she'd ever met, but even kind people could get angry. That Merlin was willing to put his differences with Arthur aside and try to help them out of this was mind boggling to her. It was a level of selflessness that was unheard of.
Then there were the children that he had adopted. Obviously they weren't biologically his, the fact that he was a woman aside, the timing was all wrong. The four of them struck her as fundamentally different from other children. The fact that they all possessed magic was just one of the many things that struck her as special. She just knew, in her soul, that these 4 would do something monumental. Something that might the change the world.
Before she had time to dwell on that thought though, even in her half-asleep mind, she became aware of something being different in her chambers. The air felt palpable and tense. At first, she ignored it, bundling down further into her blankets for warmth and watching the moon in the sky from her window. As she watched the window however, Gwenivere saw something move ever so slightly in the far corner of her room.
If she had had Arthur's knack for tactical strategizing, she would have known that making them aware that she knew of their presence was probably her biggest mistake. But Gwenivere, not knowing this, sat up quickly, the blankets falling off her forgotten. She peered around the dark room, before so comforting and now, every shadow was a possible threat.
Suddenly, something shoved her down onto the bed, smothering her scream of surprise.
If he remembered the layout of the castle properly, then Merlin was fairly sure that Arthur was taking him to the main kitchen cellar. Merlin remembered it well, he knew that none of the maids liked going down there, for though it was essentially a large room with many smaller rooms inside, each for storing a different kind of food, it felt cold, dank and impenetrable.
It was the dead of night, and the castle was only dimly lit by the torches that hung on the walls every so often. They caused an eerie effect, bathing the walls in a soft orange that danced and flickered as fire was wont to do.
As they approached the cellar, where Merlin could hear the Knights murmuring below, he noticed something slightly odd.
"Where are the rest of the Knights, the soldiers guard the castle?" Arthur glanced around and then heard the bell on the castle pirouets chime once.
"That signals the change of shift, so they must be in the process of changing posts." He said, as they descended the stairs. Merlin snorted, Arthur looking back at him in surprise at the unladylike behavior.
"If your shift changes are signaled by a bell like clockwork, wouldn't that make it rather easy for the enemy to time their attack in between, and gain the upper hand?" The only indication that he hadn't thought of that scenario was in the minute misstep Arthur took when getting off the last step.
Inside the cellar, Lancelot and Leon stood closest to the entrance, quietly discussing to themselves, while Gwaine, Elyan and Percival were crouched around something a few feet behind them. At Merlin's entrance, the slight whisper of his dress against the chilly stone floor.
"Sire, is it wise to bring a," he looked at Elladora furtively, "woman to see something like this? It's not exactly pleasant to look at." Merlin huffed in annoyance.
"I'd like you to remember Sir Leon, that I am a physician. I've seen many 'unpleasant' things in my time. Not to mention the entire situation with Bertram. I'm afraid there's precious little that would be able to upset me at this point." Merlin regretted saying those words almost immediately as he strode purposefully past Leon and Lancelot to come standing side by side with Gwaine, Elyan and Percival. He very nearly retched at the sight of the young woman that lay like a mangled doll near the far end of the cellar.
It took only a glance to realize that this was Clarine, the young woman who had been found cowering outside Bertram's chambers the night before. Her throat had been split, so thoroughly that only the spinal bone in the middle of the flesh stopped it from becoming a full decapitation. Her face was surprisingly calm for someone dead, her eyes glassy and dull, a perverse mockery of the way they had been when she was alive. Once Merlin got past the fact that a young woman had been so brutally killed for very likely no other reason than to instill fear, he focused on the body, noticing that something was wrong here.
He crouched low, using a finger to turn Clarine's head slightly to the side, ignoring how Elyan went slightly green.
"Where's her blood?" It was strange, that for a woman who's throat had been slit, there was precious little of it pooling around her body. "Her throat was slit so it should have sprayed all over the walls or at the very least be gathering around her body."
"If it's her blood you want, that would be here." Gwaine lifted his torch, the one he'd handed to Percival, to the wall, illuminating it in a bright gold. Merlin got up from his kneeling position and stepped around Clarine's body to step closer to the wall. It was covered in dried blood, now a grisly rust iron red, which Merlin would take to mean that Clarine had been dead for over at least a day. He turned his attention to the writing on the wall, The Dark one comes, and with her she brings death's solemn drums. As he considered the phrase, a symbol that was only half visible in the glow of the torchlight, but when it became obvious to him, the nature of the symbol, Merlin's eyes widened. He reached out and grabbed the torch right out of Gwaine's hand,('hey!') and lifted it closer to the wall, inspecting them. He traced a symbol with his finger, praying that he was wrong, muttering to himself.
"No, no, no!" He turned around, eyes wide as Arthur descended the last steps of the cellar, door banging behind him, decidedly shut. He shoved the torch back at Gwaine, nearly singeing the man's fingers in process.
"Ouch! Elladora, what's gotten into you!" Merlin ignored him, skirting around Clarine, and taking the stairs two at a time, throwing himself against the door which barely rattled under the pressure.
"Elladora, the door does have a handle you know, equally helpful in opening it." Arthur called up to him from the base, but Merlin wasn't in the mood for jokes. He pushed at the door with his shoulder for more leverage.
"If you'd been paying attention my King, you'd have noticed that we seem to have bumbled our way into a trap." The brief sentence was enough to drive the mirth from all the knights, now on high alert.
"How do you know this is a trap?" Gwaine asked, now crouched low, torch in hand, the other Knights following his lead.
"Well, for one, the fact that the entire cellar is painted in runes for containment." Arthur motioned for them to raise their torches and saw, to his chagrin, that entirety of the cellar was peppered in symbols, mostly of 3 intersecting circles, the center of which was a sign that resembled a reverse number four with a line horizontally dissecting it.
Merlin backed away from the door as Percival began to throw himself at the door, becoming more and more frustrated when the slab of wood showed no effect despite being pummeled. Merlin motioned him away, pointing at the lock with his pointer finger. Maybe it had been enchanted shut?
"Alohamorra!" Nothing. He sighed and readjusted himself, becoming more tightly wound as each attempt failed.
"Bombarda!" When in doubt, this spell never failed to set things right. Except this time, the spell ricocheted off the door and bounced back to Merlin, knocking him off his feet and sending him flying back into a pile of wheats, stacked high in an adjoining room. The knights yelped in surprise as Merlin's body went soaring past.
"Elladora, are you alright?" Elyan and Lancelot peered into the room as Merlin shifted uncomfortably on the sacks, trying to find purchase to get himself upright. He happened to look up and see the slack jawed way that they were regarding the room.
"Arthur! I think you need to see this!" Elyan called over his shoulder. There was some shuffling as the King made his way over.
"What is i-" His voice died as he entered the room, eyes growing huge. Merlin was still struggling to get up when he finally found something solid to grab onto to hoist himself upright. Until he noticed that the object he was holding felt decidedly flesh-like. With trepidation, he looked down, seeing that instead of wheat, he had been lying on a stack of bodies.
Feeling nauseated, he practically launched himself off it, unconsciously launching himself at Gwaine, bumping into him. Gwaine reached out and steadied him, eyes focused on the corpses.
"Well, now I know where the guards are." Arthur said, not looking pleased. He approached a body from the pile, and examined it.
"It's odd, they all look like they died of suffocation."
"That's ridiculous. Who would waste time on choking over, " Leon paused trying to get a rough estimate on the amount of bodies in the room. "80 guards, when you could just gut them?"
"There are other ways to strangle a person. Very effective ways." Merlin said grimly. The implications set in very quickly and the men went from investigative to defensive mode. Arthur doused two of the four torches they had, inching toward the door, this time in an attempt to physically jimmy the door.
"Alright, sound off for weapons." There was a flurry of movement as the Knights briefly double checked themselves before responding.
Leon pulled out a sword so large it looked almost comical. "Broadsword, Sire."
"I've only the ring sword." Percival, sounding as close to annoyed as Merlin had ever seen him.
"Short sword." That was Elyan, palming his sword to double check that it was, in fact, there.
"Two daggers." Lancelot deftly tossed them in the air and caught them, at the ready for combat.
"Sorcery." Merlin said, rolling his shoulders despite the look that Arthur was giving him. "Hey, you said sound off for weapons, and right now, it's a weapon."
"I have a mace." Gwaine said. There was a moment of silence as they looked at him, he shrugged. "What? I was bored with the sword, wanted to practice with something different."
The conversation was rapidly forgotten as they all head something drag by the door. Arthur peeked out, his back against the door, only tilting his face slightly to catch a glimpse outside through the grate in the door.
"I can't tell what's going on." Arthur hissed in annoyance, before jumped back as the door squeaked open and a long shadow fell across the entrance, accompanied by a deadpan voice.
"Isn't that normal for you, brother dear? You usually never know what's happening, even when it's happening right in front of you." They jerked back, surprised by the unexpected voice. The shadow grew shorter, until a figure emerged, standing illuminated in the doorway to the cellar.
"Morgana." Arthur snarled, shifting his weight on his legs, and Merlin strode to the forefront, hands at the ready. He'd fought Morgana before and was fairly confident he could win again. Morgana held up a hand, her expression just this side of gleeful. She was dressed to the nines, Merlin saw, in a gown of the darkest black, making her pale skin seem even starker in comparison and giving her lips the distinction of looking like wild berries. Her hair was piled in a chignon that was comprised of half her hair, the rest falling in a comely way around her face.
"Ah-ah. I would be a little more wary about using force Emrys. I have my lovely pet, wandering these halls right now, all I have to do is call him here, but this way is so much more fun." Arthur twirled his sword, holding it defensively as Merlin raised his hand, fingers outstretched.
"I could kill you before you managed to call it. You know I could." Morgana nodded, but didn't seem in the least fazed by the threat.
"I don't doubt that you'd try, but you see, Emrys, you've much more to lose than I do, if you try it." Her arm, that hadn't been visible thus far, yanked something out of their visual range. Gwen stumbled into view, hands clutching the fist that was grabbing her hair from, pulling. When she struggled to get loose, Morgana tightened her grip and shook her slightly.
Merlin froze, even with his magic, he couldn't guarantee that Gwenivere wouldn't become collateral damage in a battle between himself and the King's half sister. It wasn't a risk he could take. He lowered his hands, frustrated at the turn of events. Gwen's own expression mirrored his, less scared and more irate. She attempted to wrench herself free, and Morgana seemed to finally have had enough. She pulled a dagger from a sheath in her belt, holding it up to the Queen's throat.
"None of that now, Gwenivere, I don't want to have to hurt you anymore than I need to." The Queen yelped as the dark sorceress gave a particularly hard twist in her hair, and held the short dagger to her throat, pressing tightly enough against the thin skin there to etch a pink line in the flesh.
"Gwenivere! Morgana, whatever your complaints with me are, they don't involve Gwenivere, let her go." Morgana looked wholly bored with Arthur's supplication, the derision evident on her face. A group of solidly armored men appeared around her, she jerked her head in their direction
"It never ceases to amaze me how much you would do for a mere peasant girl Arthur, and yet, you see the plight of one woman but refuse to see the dilemma of hundreds more. Just like Uther." Arthur stayed silent, mouth working furiously to ignore the insult.
"That peasant girl, used to be your friend, Morgana." Elyan spat from behind Arthur, eyes blazing at the Dark Sorceress. Merlin saw the brief flash of conscience cross the woman's eyes before it hardened again, hardened into the face of a woman who was willing to sacrifice everything for revenge.
The armored men came in and starting clamp irons around their ankles and feet. The knights protested as they were relieved of their swords, the weaponry clunking noisily to the floor. Another man came around with a burlap sack, tossing them in haphazardly. Morgana personally knelt to lock the manacles around Gwenivere's ankles, a perversion of the subservient pose, rising to finish with the wrist manacles.
It didn't escape Merlin's notice that the irons he was being manacled with were different from the others. When they tightened around his ankles and wrists, Merlin gasped, the rush of magic he usually felt, like a flow of fast running water, suddenly stopped. It was like a dam, Merlin could feel his magic swirling around inside him but now there was no out. It was like someone had put a stopper in a bottle, covering the only way to use his magic. The effect was staggering, very nearly disbalancing him.
"Elladora!" Merlin heard Arthur call, as he swayed dangerously on his feet. He focused, trying to forget the feeling of his magic sloshing around inside, not unlike ale in a tanker.
"I'm fine." He managed to get out, sounding far more calm than he felt. These manacles meant he wasn't going to be able to magick his way out of this. Suddenly, things had gotten a lot more complicated. Then he suddenly thought of something he hadn't considered before. The children! His eyes widened fractionally. His mind was going a mile a minute. The fact that Morgana hadn't brought them down or mentioned them in an effort to corral Merlin's attempts at rebellion, choosing instead Gwenivere, told him that perhaps she was unaware of their presence. They had been sleeping when he'd left and he could only hope that by some miracle, he would be able to wrap this up before they awoke, before there was a real threat to them. Merlin couldn't remember if he'd removed the last muffliato spell he'd cast on the room, but was hoping he hadn't or he didn't know how they would survive.
There was abruptly the sound of growling, bizarrely human despite sounding utterly barbaric. One of Morgana's men came into view, dragging something with him by the scruff of its neck. It took a moment of adjustment, until they could see that it was a girl, a girl in a shredded dress, one that might have been a maid's uniform.
"Lords." Lancelot breathed, horrified. "Penelope." With a start, Merlin realized he was looking at the barely human visage of the dignified woman who had taken over Clarine the other day. She snarled in the tight grasp she was held in, head bucking, and Merlin saw, with a sickening lurch of his stomach, the red sign of a glowing sun on her forehead, stark against the filthy skin.
"What have you done, Morgana?" Merlin was appalled. This woman had been perfectly normal just a day ago. What had she done that had reduced the scullery maid to such a state? Morgana seemed entirely unaffected, and shrugged.
"It appears not everyone has the mental capacity to survive being possessed I suppose. Well, I did have her slit her best friend's throat, but then, really, how can you tell? These non-magic types are just so fragile, it's hard to tell what breaks them."
It was nauseating, for Merlin and he was sure that the tightening of Arthur's jaw meant he thought the same, for the compassionate and kind Morgana to have to turned into the abomination that she now was. The woman who had helped liberate Merlin's family, his non-magic family, from thugs and yet have turned into the very thing she had used to despise.
Once Morgana was satisfied that they were all sufficiently tied up, nodded towards the large, oafish man who had Penelope enveloped in her hands. At the signal, he dragged Penelope towards the back rooms, and soon, the growling stopped, replaced by the momentary sound of the sick slide of sword on flesh, ending with a wet thunk. Gwenivere flinched at the butchering of a woman in cold blood, a wide tear slipping down her cheek, unable to reconcile the horrendous act to the woman whom she had once cared for.
"Now that that's taken care of, let's move somewhere a little warmer, hmm?" Morgana said, going over to Clarine's prone body and dipping her entire hand, rings and all, into the slowly congealing blood around the remains. She turned, walking out of the cellar, smearing a symbol on the wall with the ichor, nullifying the trap and allowing them to be removed from the room.
Clunk.
Clunk.
Helga turned over blearily in her sleep, feeling Rowena's warm body next to her in the bed. She opened her eyes slightly, in the direction of the Mistress's bed and saw that it was still stiffly made. Their adoptive parent had never slept in it. She listened carefully again for the sound that had woken her up.
Under the seam of the door, the lights of the torches outside casting shadows, the silhouettes of people passed by their room.
Lots of people.
She padded out of bed and went around to the other bed, on Godric's side. Helga shook him to wake the older boy up, something wasn't right. She could feel it.
"Mmm – Della, let go you troll – wha? 'Lga? Wha' you doin?" Godric slowly tried to come out of his sleep, eyelids heavily protesting. Once he took in Helga's anxious look, he was slightly more alert. He sat up in bed and looked around. It was dark, the only light in the room being the blue-ish glow of the moon high up in the night sky.
"Godric, something is wrong." He quirked an eyebrow. He knew better than to disregard her, but Helga's definition of wrong was definitely subjective.
"Wrong? What's wrong?" She lowered her voice and pointed to the door.
"There's footsteps outside our door, but it's not the one or two of the guards. I know what their footsteps sound like. The trees are too quiet, the stone sounds different. It's constant footsteps too, like an army or something." The redhead bit her lip, her green eyes wavering, it was clear to Godric that whatever Helga thought she was sensing was very real to her and he would have to treat it as such. He nudged Salazar awake and sent Helga to do the same to Rowena.
"Come on, up you lazy oaf."
"Five more minutes." Salazar slapped Godric's hand away. Godric rolled his eyes and hauled the 10 year old up by the collar.
"Up, up. Helga thinks something's afoot." Salazar groaned and shook his head, trying to clear the sleep as Godric crept to the door, and pried it open just a centimeter. Outside their room, in the hallway, there marched a contingent of soldiers. Soldiers very clearly not affiliated with Camelot, by the crest of the sun on their chest plates.
"Helga always thinks something's wrong. Last week it was the radishes, remember? They had killer bunnies coming for them." Salazar groaned, peeking out from under his pillow to shoot Helga an aggravated look. For once, she wasn't bothered, shifting uneasily on her feet, wringing her hands.
"Quiet, you simpleton. If Helga says something is wrong, I believe her." Rowena was awake now, sliding her feet into her slippers, flipping her hair over her shoulders, wrinkling her nose at Salazar. " And don't think I've forgotten about earlier. I'm going to get even, just you wait." Salazar grinned at her, waggling his eyebrows at her, succeeding in irritating her even further.
"Well you're going to have to wait, Helga was right, something's not right here. The castle is crawling with soldiers that aren't from Camelot." Godric said, from his crouched position at the door. He gently closed it, making no noise at all and then slid the latch in place. It wouldn't do much to hold anyone out, but it would buy them time at the very least.
"What? Then who are they?" Salazar was shrugging out of night clothes and putting on his trousers.
"I don't know, but I sure as hell don't want to find out. Mistress isn't here right now, she's never abandoned us before and I don't think she's about to start now." Godric grabbed Mistress's abandoned satchel and put it over his shoulder, helping to tie Helga's cloak around her shoulders. They didn't all have time to change into suitable attire. Salazar managed to change but it would take too long for them all to do it, which meant Rowena, Helga and himself would be gallivanting around in their shifts.
"That means that whoever they are, they probably have them tied up, that's the only reason why there's no sound of fighting. Otherwise, Mistress would be tearing this place apart by now." Rowena ran to the window and peered outside. There was a battalion of men just parked in the main courtyard outside the doors of the palace. It was eerie, the way they stood silently, eyes blank and silent, like they were just waiting for the command to engage.
"There's more outside, what are we going to do? What about Gaius? How are we going to get help?" Once he'd helped Helga, Godric turned to Rowena, meeting her gaze, her eyes full of worry and hair looking more like a bird's nest than anything else. As the oldest of the foursome, Rowena and Godric had a responsibility to take care of their siblings. It was a promise the Mistress had make them take some two years into living together.
She'd sat them down while they had watched Helga and Salazar play in a creek near the cabin and told them with a severe look on her face that should anything happen to her, ever, they were to take of each other first, and to make sure they all stuck together. As the oldest, it was their duty.
"Well, the first thing we're going to do is get out of here. We're not going to be much help if we get caught too." Helga was back to chewing on her lips.
"But how? Ro' says there's more of them outside. How are we going to get out?" Godric grabbed Salazar's hand and Rowena's, who in turn held Helga's.
"We apparate." Salazar looked at him terrified, trying wiggle out of Godric's grasp.
"Are you crazy? You don't remember what happened last time?"
He shrugged. Rowena's eyes brightened at the idea.
"I'd take my chances at getting splinched versus getting caught here, Salazar. We can always grow body parts back, but being captured is going to make us sitting ducks." Salazar screwed his eyes shut, clenching Godric's hand tight.
"Okay, fine, but only because you said so. You guys are going to be the ones explaining to Mistress what happened if I lose a leg."
"Oh, shut up. Now just focus on me -"
"Why you?"
"Salazar! Not the time!"
"Sorry, sorry. I'll be quiet now."
Godric let out a breath and inhaled, closing his eyes, he focused on a place he found safe, somewhere they could get help. He felt the ground jerk away from beneath them and fought the urge to stumble, the others not being nearly as successful. He clearly heard the loud crack that accompanied their disappearance and would never know that they missed their captors by mere seconds as a curious soldier stuck his head in the room to investigate the sound but saw nothing aside from an empty room.
Despite keeping a stoic face, Godric was pretty sure he was going to throw up as they landed on a soft surface. He felt Helga, Rowena and Salazar appear alongside him, or rather on top of him. Clearly they had wanted to go exactly where he did.
"Oof!" They landed in a heap of tangled limbs and somewhere above him, Salazar was wailing about missing two fingernails.
"Oi!" Once Godric managed to get a grip on his surroundings, he realized somehow that while he'd come to where he'd wanted, perhaps he'd ought to have been more specific. Lianora's wide, very awake eyes stared balefully at him from the top of the bed on which they'd landed on.
"What do you lot think you're doing?" Beside her, Della and Earna were drowsily sitting up, rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Rowena looked around as she hopped off the bed, feet hitting the wood floor with a thwack.
"Why was the first place you thought to go, Auntie Lianora's bedroom?" She put her hands on her hips, and Godric's ears burned red. Lianora looked at all of them, clad in various kinds of clothing, from night where, to day wear mixed with nightwear.
"What's going on?"
"You possessed her? How could you, she was just a maid. You, of all people?! You know what it's like for bystanders to get pulled into a war they have no share in! She had nothing to do with any of this. Why involve innocents in this harebrained, nonsensical bid for a throne that you know you have no claim to?"
A sharp yank on Merlin's manacles, the chains of which were in Morgana's hands, told him exactly what she thought of his words. It sent him stumbling and knocking into the armor of the soldier in front of him, clanging his head against a sharp point in the chainmail, a small gash above his left eye bled minutely.
They were being lead into the Great Hall, and a quick glance behind him, revealed that all the Knights were testing their own shackles, being all connected by the chains, and guided by the oafish man from earlier. Merlin saw Arthur quietly talking to Gwenivere, and saw her look of quiet concentration at his words. Once they entered the Great Hall, however, conversation died down as their chains were split apart.
The Knights and their rulers were led to the wall on the right of the throne, shackled to the wall decisively. Their arms were left in the irons around their wrists, but their legs were clipped with chains to hooks in the stone walls, usually used to hold weapons, or on special occasions as holds for decorations. Merlin however, Morgana led to the center of the hall at the front of the dais, where the throne was. Morgana stepped up the stairs and sat down on it with a flourish while her men grabbed Merlin roughly and wrenched his hands up.
As they did, Merlin realized with trepidation what Morgana was going to do but kept his face straight as the manacles on his wrist were hooked on the hook that descended from a chain link that was hung on the point where the candle chandelier was hung. He did nothing but tighten his jaw as the man began to pull a rope of twined metal to hoist him in the air, pulling it down and tying it near the throne. Soon, Merlin was dangling no more than a few feet in the air and moments into it, his arms burned from the sheer weight of his body.
He decided to talk to Morgana, to get his mind off of it, and regain some semblance of control.
"Didn't think your interests were that...unique, Morgana." Merlin smiled as he heard Gwaine choke in surprised laughter. Morgana didn't seem to think it so funny though, an opinion she made abundantly clear by reaching out and kicking the cable that kept him elevated, jostling him and sending ripples of pain shooting through his body. Arthur was leaning closer to Gwenivere, unsure of what to do, he had no weapon and no way of defending himself, especially now that he had to protect someone who had no ability to protect herself against this kind of attack. Gwenivere was shuffled as far as she could go towards Arthur.
"Why is she stringing Elladora up like that?" She whispered to Arthur, who looked at the goings on with mistrust in his eyes. There was an element to this that he wasn't getting. Morgana had called Elladora Emrys, no, there was another layer of context here, he just wasn't getting it yet. While he would have been a lot more vocal had it been just him and his knights, with Gwenivere in here with him, he couldn't risk drawing unnecessary attention to himself or he would find them most likely to use the Queen as a way of torturing him.
In the time that he was thinking this, one of Morgana's men was circling Elladora, he saw, twirling a knife and eyeing her body appreciatively. At Morgana's permissive nod, he suddenly lunged forward and swung his knife at the sorceress's bodice, slicing the upper layer of the fabric, over her torso and exposing it. Arthur saw rather than heard Lancelot and Percival's gasps at the behavior, the two who were most sensitive to the plight of women among them. A white expanse of skin peeked through, though the very top, the part that would melt into her breasts bore some dark red discoloration, almost like a burn.
He didn't stop there, with the bodice effectively cut off from the skirt, the man decided that the skirt was probably a lost cause, grabbing it from the waist and wrenching it down, leaving Elladora in nothing but a torn corset and cotton under breeches with her slippers. Remarkably, through it all the sorceress managed to keep calm, not belying a single instance of vulnerability.
"If you're hoping to embarrass or insult me by putting me in a state of undress, you're going to find that it's not going to work Morgana. I have nothing to be ashamed of, after all, it isn't as if none of the men in this room have never seen the form of a woman unclothed." Elladora looked positively bored. Morgana said nothing, making a flicking motion towards the man, who retreated reluctantly while casting a longing look at her white skin to Arthur's utter disgust. She stepped towards Elladora, twisting the rings on her cheek, holding her hand up to the woman's cheek.
"It might not have had the desired effect, but it certainly does effect you. In any case, I'll take what I can get. The goal here isn't to be quick, or I wouldn't have bothered with the basilisk and Penelope. Well," Morgana admitted, "I did need the maids. Without her, I wouldn't have been able to break the barrier around the castle or get past Arthur's tireless guards. Without the child's blood, I couldn't write those containment runes, something about pureblood of a virgin." Without preamble, she swung her fist back, backhanding him hard across the face, the rings cutting three deep gouges into his cheek. Merlin barely managed to swallow his gasp, while Arthur struggled with his chains, unable to keep his silence as Morgana strode back to the throne, sitting in it leisurely. Merlin winced, he'd forgotten that before she was a mage, she had been an accomplished fighter, her punch had quite a lot of force behind it.
"Morgana this is madness! She's just a woman, what kind of a threat could she possibly pose to you?! Let her down, now. She's just a guest here." Morgana threw her head back and laughed. She propped her head on an elbow on the arm of the throne, and shot him a withering look. She clenched a fist tight and Merlin choked, he couldn't breathe! It was as if something incredibly strong had grabbed his throat and was squeezing hard. Tears leaked out of his eyes as he fought for air. He could hear the Knights demanding Morgana stop, yelling for all they were worth. Then, abruptly, Morgana unclenched her fist, leaving Merlin to pant in exertion. His arms were shrieking in pain, and his shoulders felt as if they were about to break. A quick glance up to his wrists showed that they were raw and red, the cuff digging into his bones.
"I wasn't joking when I said that you very rarely know the truth of what's truly happening around you. This woman, isn't just your guest, Arthur Pendragon." Morgana rose from her seat and stalked towards Merlin, eyes narrowed. "All around me, everywhere I go, they all say to me, Emrys is your doom. Your downfall. You will die at his hand." She turned and shrugged, both hands facing up towards the ceiling. "It seems the prophecies are wrong, Emrys turned out to be a woman. Clearly one with nowhere near the power I have."
If Merlin hadn't been so focused on his iron cuffs, he would have laughed at her. Instead, he worked on keeping his voice steady, he wasn't a Knight, he didn't have the training to keep up pretenses through torture.
"You seem very sure of that." He said, raising an eyebrow, the manacles felt odd. While they did indeed keep the magic in him from being used, Merlin found that it worked more as a conduit than a cage. He didn't seem to be able to pry his cuffs off, but he seemed to be able to make his magic travel through it. The thought was intriguinging, he grappled with it the chain over his hands and continued to talk in an effort to distract her.
"I am sure. But it never hurts to be thorough, does it? I have so much I want to do, and I would hate to be interrupted by some upstart tart that wants to play champion. I learned a couple things while I was away, brother dear." Morgana waved her fingers coyly at him. "This one," She turned suddenly to Merlin, "is from the lovely Kingdom of Caledonia, the sorcerers there are ever just so clever," Brought her fingers together, in a pinching movement. "Crucio."
Lancelot didn't ever close his eyes in the face of danger, but then Elladora's body contorted and the screams began.
God, the screams.
"Alright, you understand that the fact that you come appearing in my room at midnight, as you do, and then refuse to tell me why, presents a fundamental problem, right?" Lianora stood in front of them in her night shift, tapping her foot. Salazar was getting his fingers bandaged by Della, blushing furiously. Godric and Rowena glanced at each other, debating on what to say, whether to say anything at all.
"Mistress is in trouble."
"Helga!"
"We need help Godric! We can't do this ourselves!"
"But -"
"Oh hush, you. Helga, go on." Helga nervously avoided Godric's heated look and forged ahead.
"We're not sure what's happening but we think someone has attacked the castle. Mistress never came back to our room. We just – we needed to get out, before we got caught too. I just know something's happened to her -"
Suddenly, the night was alight with the most anguished cries they'd ever heard. It was barely discernible as human, let alone as a woman. Helga clutched her ears, crouching to try and escape it. Almost immediately, as if in response, the very air reverberated around them with the answering roar of something that sounded just as pained, and ancient. It echoed the pain of the screams that came from within the castle and lamented it, the cry ringing in their ears. As it went on, the roar grew louder and louder, and they realized, eyes wide, looking at each other. Whatever was making that noise was here.
It was close.