A/N: This story has been in the works for a while now. It's complete, and just needs polishing in the later chapters. If all goes as planned, I will be publishing one chapter each day until the story is complete. Apologies if the summary sounds a bit contrived, but I didn't want to give anything away. As always, 'Merlin' and its characters are not mine, no money is being made with this, etc., etc..

It was strange, the things a body remembered when it was about to die. Merlin recalled his mother's voice, close by the firelight as she taught him to read on winter nights, and Gaius bemoaning his absence and all the tasks that would go undone while he was gone. The sweet smell of lavender clinging to Guinevere like an aura. Arthur's smile in the morning sunlight.

The Prince wasn't smiling now. Arthur was afraid. Merlin saw it in his outstretched hands, heard it in his voice, the faintest of tremors underlying the confident words. He would bet a pound of gold that he was the only one who knew how fine was the thread of control that Arthur clung to. It would be touching, if the prince weren't bargaining for Merlin's life.

The oily-voiced blackguard who held him knew nothing of sentiment and didn't care what Arthur said. The hand over Merlin's mouth tightened, cranking his head back another few inches. He tried not to whimper, but necks weren't made to move that way. The icy blade at his neck had sliced through skin. A trickle of blood ran down his throat, warm against cold flesh before it dissolved in the rain.

He remembered . . .

A Druid woman, grey-haired and bird-boned, had appeared out of the forest mist the night before, her nervous eyes searching the trees. "Emrys," she'd hissed, "Thank the gods. I found you. Please just listen, there isn't much time. Take this." She had shoved a charmstone into his hand, slicing his fingertip with a tiny blade and smearing the drops of blood onto the stone before whispering words of power.

"What- what is this? Who are you?"

"My name is Aisling. I'm here to aid you so far as I can." Fear shone in her eyes. "You must remember something, Emrys," she'd pressed her hands to either side of his face and looked deep into his eyes. Her voice echoed in his head. Mind to mind, they could neither lie nor forget "Remember this, Emrys. The charmstone is bound to the earth, and now to you as well, and the earth remembers. Stone holds the memories of ages within it, keeping it alive long, long past the time that flesh forgets and dissolves. When the time comes- and you will know when it comes- remember that. The earth remembers."

"What is this about? What is this?" He'd held the charmstone on its necklace back to her, but she had closed his fingers around it.

"It it yours now. You will need it. Put it on, and hide it under your clothes. Don't take it off." She gave him a sad smile and began to back away, her gaze flicking to the trees behind him and back again.

"I don't understand . . . Why?"

"Because you are Emrys." She gave him a fear-filled smile before vanishing into the forest with a cloaked companion. They were gone when Lancelot appeared, a question on his lips and worry in his eyes. Merlin had waved it off as he tucked the necklace away, the woman's warning not to take it off still ringing in his ears.

"Everything's fine," he had told the knight.

Fine. It shouldn't have been fine. His last night on earth should have filled with portents, not spent sleeping under a sky thick with stars or awakening to serenading nightingales. They shouldn't have spent the morning joking and laughing as they rode home from border. There should have been more warning than a darkening sky turning to rain. But unkind Fate turned her back on them that day when they went to investigate the bandit attacks. When the ambush broke over them, they were outnumbered nearly five to one. Their attackers were skilled- mercenaries from afar instead of the half-witted bandits they might have expected.

"Get to the trees, Merlin!" Arthur had shouted at him. The prince had been holding his own, fighting off two men at once, giving the warlock a chance to break for the trees. Arthur wanted him to hide. Merlin wanted the space to fight. It had worked, too, turning the tide for the knights of Camelot and driving their attackers back. Right up to the moment a blow to his back knocked the breath and the sense out of him.

When he blinked awake, he was on his knees in the clearing with an armored knee in his back, a hand over his mouth pulling his head around, and a blade sharp as a wintry wind pressed to his throat.

He couldn't hear over the thundering of his own heartbeat or the shallow rasp of his breath. He didn't need to. Arthur's negotiations were failing. Merlin saw it in the prince's eyes. And their attackers had regained their feet, were closing on the knights, preparing to take them all down while they were distracted.

'Take up your swords! Defend yourselves!' He wanted to warn them. Defeat loomed, and they were too worried about him to notice. He caught Arthur's gaze through the rain, gave him a pleading look, 'Draw your sword! I'm not important," Merlin sent the thought, knowing Arthur would never hear it, still wishing he would, though it would betray his secret. But secrets didn't matter. Not now. Only Arthur mattered.

And the enemy was almost upon them.

"Fight, Arthur, please . . . " He begged the prince to see the danger he was in. "Save yourself."

His captor's arms tightened around him and the blade pressed harder. His eyes widened. He knew what came next. "When the times comes, remember." He heard Aisling's voice again, a whispering echo louder than his own breathing. "The earth remembers." He knew what he had to do.

Merlin closed his eyes, protecting himself from the hopelessness in Arthur's eyes, and Arthur from the golden flash in his own. He gathered his awareness deep within, pushed it outward and down, into the ground at his knees where the solid earth would remember that, once, there had been a soul called Merlin. He heard an animal howl from Arthur. His heart quailed at the sound. Then it faded.

The blade's bite was as cold and as deep as any winter night.