Val waved the knights along, and the talking continued.
“It’s so good to see you here,” Merlin whispered. “I mean, I’m glad you made it to Arthur’s court, and he so quickly acknowledged your prowess as an advisor.” For some reason, the use of the word prowess made him turn retroactively crimson. Gods damn innocence. At least he wasn’t giggling every time someone swore, right? “Are you dry? I can get you a rag from the kitchens if—”
“Breathe, Merlin,” Val whispered, not unkindly. It wasn’t Val’s flirting voice, though. Merlin would have to figure out how to stop this backward aging once and for all if he wanted Val’s romantic insinuations in his life.
Which meant enduring more time with Old Merlin.
They’d tried a few spells together the day before, but nothing had taken root. “You really are a conundrum, nothing like you in any of the books,” he’d admitted, sending Merlin away so he could do more research and devise new tests.
He’d told Merlin not to return to the tower until he was called for, which meant that once the meeting dispersed and Gwen slipped him a whisper that they needed to talk, he had the freedom to do it without fear that his old self would punish him with more peat duty.
They gathered in Ari and Lam’s room in the servants’ quarters, a narrow slot of a space that was hardly large enough to hold Val, Lam, Merlin, Ari, and a very round Gwen. Merlin found himself smushed between the door and a concerned Lam. Apparently Merlin hadn’t been the only one to pick up on Gwen’s distress during the round table meeting.
“I need to talk to all of you,” Gwen said. “Last night, I went to Arthur and… I asked him to let me drink from the chalice.”
“And?” Lam asked, pushing with the gentlest tone.
“I asked about the baby,” Gwen said. “I saw myself holding them. I felt them in my arms. So tiny, and beautiful, and…” They were all holding their breath now, because it felt obvious that Gwen wasn’t done.
“What happened?” Val asked.
Merlin found himself upset on a level that he couldn’t even fathom.
“Someone took the baby from me. Not just to hold, but… to keep. I don’t get to keep this baby after they’re born.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Ari said staunchly.
“But it is!” Gwen said, strange iron in her voice. “That’s how the stupid fucking chalice works. We already know that Arthur saw the truth of his tragic future. Why should I be any different?”
“Doesn’t the chalice have Nin’s water in it?” Val asked, casting around for reasons this abominable news could somehow be untrue. “How do we know that she’s not just doing her best to fuck with you? Like she did with me, and Ari?”
“Arthur’s spirit sent us back for the chalice,” Gwen argued. “He trusts it, doesn’t he?”
Val pursed his lips. A small sign, but Merlin knew it didn’t bode well.
Gwen sat down on the tiny bed that Ari and Lam, the two tallest knights in Camelot, had somehow been sharing. “This feels like another horrible, unbreakable circle. My parents didn’t keep me and then Mercer demanded my baby and… now this vision? It just keeps happening. This moment has always been coming for me.” She whipped around to Merlin, hair straying from its elaborate knot, eyes wild. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? Gweneviere doesn’t have a baby in any of the legends, does she?”
Merlin might’ve had a dark haze where most of this time period should be, but he couldn’t lie to Gwen about something that was so clear. “No.”
“Unless it turns out to be Mordred,” Gwen muttered.
“Mordred?” Merlin choked on the name. It was bile in his mouth.
He pitched back to the worst day in his long existence, watching from Nin’s cave as Arthur lost his life to a self-righteous son he hadn’t raised as his own. Each of the legends told a slightly different version of Mordred’s origins, his upbringing. What if they were all hiding the same fact—that he was Gwen’s love child?
Well… perhaps love child was a bit strong, when Merlin thought about it. He could almost picture Kay balking.
Lam enclosed Gwen in a soft, strong hug. “We’re going to be with you when you give birth. You won’t have to do anything you don’t wish.”
“The prophecies disagree with you,” Gwen said, unwilling to give any ground to Lam’s comfort. “And hope is only going to make this worse. What did you tell me, Ara? Hope is a lie that wants to be true.”
Ari shook her head viciously, like she was arguing with her past self and losing. “Some things come true because we make them. We’re here, aren’t we? Making this story happen?”
“Yes, and I hate it,” Gwen said. “Jordan rushed out to save me that day in the street because she knew the story. She wanted to protect me from being kidnapped, because that’s what happens to Gweneviere… and she ended up with an arrow in the neck. And I haven’t been kidnapped yet. So I still have that to look forward to.”
“When we portal back—” Lam stopped abruptly as Val shot them a dirty look. And then everyone looked at Merlin and away in quick succession. Oh, they didn’t want to even think about going home because they knew what it would currently cost Merlin.
Ouch.
Val cleared his throat, practical to the last. “Gwen, if you don’t believe there’s a way we can stop this, what can we do?”
“I don’t know,” Gwen said. “I already lost my planet. My crown. Any shred of respect that came from living in a time when women are treated equally. I thought that keeping the baby safe from Mercer would be worth all of this. Now… now all I want is five minutes before I have to go back to pretending the best parts of my life don’t even exist.”
Ari moved in, putting her arms around Gwen. She murmured into the queen’s ear, smoothed her
