The Royal Scandal *Book Three*

Curse of the Crystals S3 E5

Hi everyone,
I know that it has been a while since my last upload and I am so so sorry about that. I've just really been struggling recently with several things and I've been trying to sort out my place at uni as I will be moving up there next weekend.
I'm regards to my writing I am going to try and still carry on doing it but it might not be every week where there's an upload; it'll all just depend on how much time I've had in that week.

I hope you all understand. Now back to the story ...

At least an hour passed and Merlin still hadn't returned. I know that Taliesin had said they would be a couple of hours but I was hoping he would be back before. As soon as Arthur was up and ready I wanted to leave this place and return home to Camelot. And my mind hadn't stopped whirling, trying to figure out what exactly Merlin was going to be witnessing; Must be pretty important if this Taliesin guy thinks Merlin to be Emrys, something that I still struggle to get my head around.

In his sleep, Arthur had been very restless and I hoped it meant he would be waking up soon so while he did his little sleep dance, I put out the fire and collected all of our supplies (not that we had very much with us anyway) and waited patiently for two things to happen: Merlin to return and Arthur to wake up.

The former of the two options occurred about half an hour after I had finished packing all our stuff together and as I sat by the stream. When I saw Merlin walking back over to me, I immediately sensed something was wrong and I had the strangest feeling of déjà vu back to the Crystal of Neahtid, that was the only over time I had seen Merlin in this exact way.

"Merlin? What happened?" I asked, and rather than giving me a verbal answer he came right over to me and wrapped his arms around me, burying his face in my neck. I lifted my hand and stroked his hair gently and waited for him to say something.

"I did it again," Merlin finally whispered and I barely caught it from how it was muffled into the crook of my neck.

"Did what?" I said.

Merlin pulled back and I could see his hands shaking so I clasped them in one of my hands while the other cupped Merlin's cheek and drew his attention to me.

"What did you do?" I repeated.

"The Crystals ..." Merlin began "... they showed me something that I shouldn't have seen just like before."

"Crystals? Why did Taliesin show you a crystal?" I asked in confusion.

"Not just a crystal. It was the Cave of Crystals. Everywhere I looked I could see the future and it was ..." Merlin trailed off, shaking his head "... it was wrong."

"What did it show you?" I inquired, leading Merlin over to a fallen log to sit on.

"Morgana. She's going to ... she's going to kill Uther," Merlin told me, making my eyebrows shoot up.

"But why? Apart from the satisfaction of his death, there's nothing that she will gain from it. Arthur's next in line so when father dies, Arthur will take the throne not Morgana. Morgana doesn't even have a claim to the throne if that's why she's doing this," I reasoned. "Is she going to try and kill Arthur?"

"I don't know. I didn't see that far," Merlin replied.

"Was that all you saw?" I said.

To anyone else, it wouldn't have been noticeable but I knew Merlin better than he even knew himself so when he hesitated for a split second, I knew there was more which is why I was confused when the next words left his lips.

"That was all," Merlin answered. I knew that there must be more that was troubling him but I didn't push him for any more details, I could see he was already troubled enough by what he had told me.