The clockroom

Salem

AN.:// Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Corey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
https://merlin.fandom.com/wiki/Transcript:The_Moment_of_Truth
https://merlin.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

Especially the Merlin wiki helped a lot with this chapter :)
Chapter 4 has been edited.

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After all that had happened, Arthur had trouble looking his manservant in the eyes. 
Or rather, he couldn't stop himself from watching him. 
As contradicting as it may sound, Arthur really was torn between staring at Merlin and quickly looking away, as soon as their eyes met.

The problem was all that the clockroom implied.
Either the dream wasn't actually a dream and this was Arthur's future or his subconscious was telling him that he was already in love with his servant. Which Arthur was certain that he wasn't.
But there was no other explanation for those dreams. What else could they mean?
Never mind IF it ever happened, why the fuck would it be MERLIN???
Of all the people in the world...
Arthur spend more and more time on the training field. He decidedly needed the exercise. Both to calm himself and to prepare himself for all the fights that were to come.
Arthur may die exceptionally young, but that didn't mean he would die easily. The more he thought about his early death, the harder he trained. Arthur was terrified. And it showed in the way that he fought. He was frantic, he took every training instance seriously, as if it were a life or death scenario.
What choice did he have? Two thirds of his life were already over!

Arthur hadn't fought the dark knight the hour he woke up in the clockroom. The immortal creature. It was Uther who had.
And while Arthur was relieved to be alive, another part of him screamed at him how dishonorable that fight had been. How powerless he had been in the moment that he was meant to risk his life for his knights.
He felt powerless in comparison to his father who had actually managed to defeat the creature. And, of course, how close he had come to either being king or dying himself.

Thoughts swirled Arthur's mind that made him question not only himself, but everything he had learned in that clockroom.
The book that his future self had written for him had promised him the dark knight would not kill him and it had been right.
But, where the heck was the sword? The other Merlin knew of the sword. He had said it had been forged in a Dragon's breath. He said that the Merlin of Arthur's time would take care of the whole thing.
But it was Gaius who gave Arthur the sleeping draught. And it was Uther who had planned the fraud.

Surely, Merlin hadn't given UTHER a magical sword! After all the law said about magic, and if Merlin HAD magic, then why would he support Uther? Magic was illegal in Camelot! If Uther found out about Merlin's magic, he'd have him hanged!
Or had Uther defeated the knight in another way? Arthur wasn't stupid. He had seen what a normal sword did to the knight, namely nothing. Was it really possible that Merlin had given such a powerful sword to Uther? But if Uther wielded it, it would make him a hypocrite.

Arthur gnawed on his bottom lip, which he knew was a bad idea during training. One wrong step and he's bite through the soft flesh.

Maybe he really should go and see Gaius about these dreams.
He was, after all, helping Morgana with her nightmares, too. Though, Arthur wouldn't exactly call those dreams nightmares.
And dragging Gaius into Arthur's illegal little hobby didn't exactly sound like a good idea.
The whole concept of the clockroom was suspicious enough as it is. It clearly wanted him to accept magic. Maybe it wanted him to repeal the ban on magic, once he was king.
Arthur couldn't deny the possibility of an ulterior motive.

That is why he now spend his nights in the royal library, researching the history of the clockroom. Sure enough, the source of this strange magic rooted in no other than the work of Cornelius Sigan.