The council meeting had been in session for two hours now. In those two hours, the council had not managed to move on from their first topic of discussion and Merlin was incredibly bored. He could tell that Arthur was too. Merlin considered trying to sleep where he was standing but knew that if he did that the King would throw a goblet at his head. Royal prat, thought Merlin moodily.

A sudden bang jolted the warlock from his thoughts. Morgana and a bunch of other rather minor sorcerers stood in the middle of the room. Morgana had Aithusa with her as well. Before anyone could say anything, Aithusa jumped away from Morgana and half hopped, half flew across the room to Merlin and nudged his leg with her head. Absentmindedly, Merlin reached down to stroke the baby dragon's head whilst everyone else in the room stared at the dragonlord incredulously.

"Merlin! What are you doing?" exclaimed the King as his sister yelled "That's my dragon!" Merlin growled angrily. Aithusa was his dragon, not Morgana's. He would not allow the witch to corrupt the baby dragon he had hatched from its egg. 'Also,' Merlin thought savagely, 'secrets are the worst and I can't be bothered with them anymore.' If he hadn't been grumpy and bored when Morgana arrived he probably wouldn't have considered revealing himself even now.

As it was Merlin turned to face the witch.

"Actually Morgana, Aithusa is my dragon. I hatched her from the egg that was in the tomb of Askanar."

"Wait," Gwaine put in, "I thought only dragonlords could hatch dragon eggs. Didn't the last of the dragonlords die?" Merlin nodded.

"Well sort of, but since the last dragonlord, Balinor, was my father when he died I became the last one. I commanded the Great Dragon leave Camelot and never attack again." Arthur looked as if someone had slapped him round the face with a dead fish.

"Great. He's a dragonlord. Attention back to me please." Snapped Morgana angrily, annoyed to have lost the advantage of a dragon. "I'm still a high priestess of the old religion and I have these magical minions. You're all going to die slowly and painfully." Merlin smirked but didn't say anything.

Morgana threw a fireball at Arthur. Merlin didn't need to say a word as he froze the fireball in mid-air. Morgana looked outraged. Turning to her 'magical minions' she demanded to know which of them had stopped her spell. They looked as perplexed as she was. Apparently no one had noticed Merlin's blue eyes change to gold. Merlin smirked again. Turning back, Morgana chose a new target – Merlin. This time Merlin caught the fireball in his hand.

"WHAT?" The word echoed through the room as it was voiced by all its occupants except Merlin himself and, oddly, King Arthur.

"Not bad." Merlin said to Morgana. "Not as powerful as Nimueh's spell but then she'd been using her magic longer than you have."

"Nimueh threw a fireball at you?" questioned Leon. "When?"

"Yeah, it was just after Arthur got bitten by the questing beast. We got into a fight on the Isle of the Blessed after Gaius died."

"But Gaius is alive," pointed out a random noble. Merlin smirked once more.

"Only because I exchanged Nimueh's life for his after she hit me with her fireball." Morgana's mouth fell open. She knew that only someone with the power to mirror life and death could have done such a thing. She had been trying (and failing) to gain this power for years.

"But Nimueh died when she was struck by lightning." One of Morgana's 'magical minions' informed the other occupants of the room.

"It wasn't natural lightning." Merlin smirked at him. The minion gulped.

"He must be bluffing." This came from one of the other sorcerers. Merlin imitated Gaius's infamous eyebrow, non-verbally challenging the sorcerer. The 'magical minions' looked at each other and each sent a different spell at a different member of the royal court. Smirking, Merlin created a shield that separated everyone in the court from the sorcerers before the spells could hit his friends. He didn't speak a single word.

" Who?"

"What?"

"How?" The other sorcerers were now eyeing Merlin warily. Merlin smirked again at their confusion. He briefly wondered why he'd never revealed himself like this before. It was liberating to say the least. He felt he ought to introduce himself properly though.

"I am not just the last of the dragonlords." Merlin declared. "I am the warlock who killed the high priestess Nimueh and who defeated the immortal sorcerer Cornelius Sigan, who was said to be the most powerful of all sorcerers. I am the one who has taken council from the Fisher King and I have seen Avalon while still alive. I am the lover of the Lady of the Lake. I hatched the light of the sun and I command the Great Dragon. I have thwarted every attack against Camelot and her King since I came here. I control the elements and hold the power of life and death in my hand. I am the king of the Druids and I am magic incarnate. I am Emrys and I am immortal."

Morgana had turned paler and paler as Merlin spoke. When he declared himself to be Emrys, the witch fainted. One of Morgana's minions still looked sceptical and demanded that Merlin prove he was Emrys. Merlin smirked one final time. Blasts of light in different colours shot from his hands at each of the sorcerers. Still no words had been spoken. When the lights hit each sorcerer fell back unconscious. One of them was now bald, another wore a pink dress and a third seemed to have sprouted feathers like a bird. The last 'magical minion' was now a girl. Merlin conjured ropes to tie up all the sorcerers and Morgana then dropped the shield and turned to face his king.

"Thank you Merlin." Arthur nodded at the warlock then turned back to his council. "Now as I was hoping to discuss earlier, I've been considering lifting the ban on magic."

A/N: In case it wasn't obvious Arthur has already worked out that Merlin has magic in this fic, he just reveals himself to Morgana and the rest of Camelot.