There is power in a name, so Morgana told herself as she stabbed the tiny needle prick into her index finger and allowed the ruby liquid to well and trickle stickily down her palm. In her other hand she held the dagger by its handle, truly magnificent and subtly decorated by gems of the same deep crimson hue.

She would have preferred emeralds, to remind him of her eyes.

Above her the stalactites stabbed downwards, dripping slow drops into pools of clear water.

Tenderly, she allowed the blood to drip down from her finger like the stalactites, staining the cool silver of the blade and enamelled gold of the handle. Gold, like a pretty girl, had the power to dazzle, when offered such treasures men often became blind to anything else. And a named blade always found its target.

The blood bubbled at the strange utterance of syllables that curled off her tongue. It hissed and sank into the metal as if it were soft butter or crumbling cheese.

She dipped the dagger into a water pool at her feet, stirring up a crimson cloud as she washed the excess blood from the knife-edge.

She held it up before her to admire her work, running a finger over the newly engraved surface. There was power in a name, power that would do the owner no good against her.

She settled the knife into its wooden case. The time had come to warn the King.

Bertie Potts was a farmer. He rose before the sun and consequently slept long before twilight.

He got up that morning to check the cows but as he opened the gate into the fields he felt a familiar wintery chill steal over him.

It was so sudden, yet similarly a feeling he felt sure he'd been acquainted with a long time before, that he allowed his instincts to take control, abandoning his cows and sprinting back to the house where his daughter Gale Rolfe stood heating milk in the kitchen.

Upon arriving and seeing her safe yet slightly indignant face as she enquired, "Why are the cows in the vegetable patch?" he recalled the sudden chilled feeling he'd experienced as the same icy sensation when Gale had come to him running and howling of her husband's sudden death a couple of years previous.

Subconsciously, the same emotion had sent him rushing to check on her.

"I forgot to close the gate," he told her, walking calmly back through the open doorway and ignoring her incredulous stare, "Good luck on your milk rounds today."

Silently he prayed for them both that such a horrific occurrence as what brought on the funny feeling last time would not repeat itself.

Merlin was having a dream.

Freya was there but she also wasn't. She seemed to drift in and out of the dream at seemingly random points. One time her hair was damp and dripping, a string of pond weed hung from her neck like a magnificent ornamented necklace and she apologised for getting his bedroom floor wet.

Another time she didn't really look like Freya but insisted several times that her friends needed to tell him something, however her friends later turned out to be small minnows that swam away in fright when Merlin tried to make a move towards them.

The last time Freya wasn't there at all, he just felt as if she should be. He was alone somewhere very dark and immensely cold and the only sound was a soft drip drip drip,like water running off a stalactite.

Something warm and wet hit his cheek and he reached up a hand blindly to check it. The drops continued to drip, this time falling down his face like tears.

It was thicker than water and searing hot.

Merlin woke up.