A Fire Burns Within Me Version 2

Magic Prt. 2

Previously:
The wizard's eyes widened, and the crowd roared in excitement.

"You can not even being to imagine the possibilities you hold." I said. In one move, I sent all the water I grabbed and a small stream of fire at him.

If possible, the audience got louder as the water splashed through them but not—I think—in a bad way. And the match was over.

- - -

"You got me wet."

"I'm sorry, Zoë, you were in the splash zone."

"You got me wet."

I put my hands up in a 'what do you want me to do, you're already dry' motion.

She huffed and stomped to the room.

"How'd it go?" I asked as Frank came back into the training room after his match. The room was slowly getting emptier as the days went on. It was now the fifth day and we were finally getting good matches. Both of us have taken to using our powers more often to win.

Frank just sighed as he dumped his bow and quiver down next to me and held up a finger. He left me sitting on the bench very confused. He returned seconds later dragging a robed person behind him. "I lost." Frank said as he almost threw the person he was dragging onto the bench next to me. As he did, the hood of the robe fell down.

My brow jumped to my hairline. "You lost? With the people we've been seeing here?" Then the face of the robed person next to me registered in my brain. "Merlin? Frank, are you saying you lost to Merlin?"

Frank crossed his arms over his chest. "He's been in the competition this whole time."

"Why'd you never tell us?" I asked, sagging my shoulders. "Do you not trust us?"

Merlin eyed us each carefully. "No." he said finally. "You can't keep a secret."

"We've kept the secret that you're magic from the knights!" I protested.

"True, you haven't said it outright but all of you have not been exactly subtle about it either!" Merlin said. "Remember the other day when Arthur nearly fought that magician who lost all his chances in the market square?"

"Yeah, you stopped them by making the cloth cover of that merchant booth fall on the guy's head!" I said excitedly. "Then—"

"—Then you proceeded to ask Arthur if things like that happen around him to make things magically work out." Merlin finished, giving me the stink eye. "And Frank said there must be someone watching out for him all the time to be able to do things like that no matter where he is."

"That could have meant a number of things." Frank said, waving his hand.

Merlin turned his stink eye to the son of Mars. "Arthur then turned to me with a dangerously contemplative look on his face. He doesn't think very quickly so it's a good thing Estelle decided to bring him whatever she was looking at the time but he was entirely too close to figuring it out."

"That's a good thing, though, isn't it?" I was confused again.

"No!" Merlin said, standing from his seat. "I don't want to put them in that position!"

"But, Merlin, don't you think having them find out here would be better than in Camelot?" I said. "Then they can have time to think things through before you all go home without worrying about needing to uphold the law."

Merlin paused in his pacing at my words. He stared off into space until finally, he glanced at the both of us with new eyes. "You're smarter than you look."