Sorry!

I promise I haven't abandoned this fic! I can't even believe it's been so long since I've updated. I got my first teaching job and…wow. I practically forgot what writing for fun was. I've basically forgotten about anything and everything outside of school. It didn't help that I was already at a writer's block with this story and had been struggling with it for about a month and a half. But lately, I haven't really had any free time. And this chapter has seriously been a pain to write. I changed the beginning about five times. And I'm so so so so so so so sorry about how long it's been since my last update. *bows head in shame*

FORTY: A Wall (237 days)

Merlin woke with a start, his mind struggling to make sense of his surroundings. He was on the hard ground, which wasn't what had him disconcerted. What disconcerted him was the fact that there was no bedroll beneath him. Why would he have gone to sleep without a bedroll? It was dark enough that it had to be the middle of the night. There was no reason for him to sleep without his bedroll.

And his neck…There was a dull pain there, a subtle throbbing -

The collar.

He remembered. The collar had been placed on him two days earlier - perhaps closer to a day and a half - and he had been trying almost nonstop to get his magic to break the damn thing. He wasn't successful. He wasn't even sure he was making any real progress. He must have fallen asleep while working on it.

Again.

He'd done it about four times since he'd started, but he'd never stayed asleep longer than an hour each time. This time, he knew he'd been asleep for several hours-it had still been daylight when he'd dozed off.

He was deeply unsettled by the effect the collar was having on his magic, and he was more than ready to have it gone. It was almost worse than actually being separated from his magic. The way that his magic seemed to…tremble the closer it got to the barrier that the cold iron had created was disturbing, to say the least. And the more he forced his magic against the barrier, the more exhausted his magic seemed to be.

He'd always thought of his magic as something as highly instinctual, almost sentient. This experience merely confirmed that belief beyond a doubt. His magic was frightened.

He was certain that his magic could destroy the cold iron's barrier, if he could just get his magic to cooperate long enough to do it. He had to keep pausing, giving his magic a chance to recover between attacks on the barrier. Until he could break it down, there wasn't much that any of them could do except wait and hope for a rescue.

A rescue party would be sent out, eventually. Merlin knew that Kerenza was likely to already be concerned. They'd both known, when he'd promised to limit his teleportations, that he wouldn't be able to keep that promise. It had now been at least…thirty hours, give or take a few, since he had last gone to Camelot. Kerenza would be concerned, as would Gaius. And they would most likely share their concerns with Gwen.

The queen would arrange for them to be found.

But it would take time for a search party to be organized. The earliest a search party would be sent out would be at sunrise, which was still several hours away. They were currently camped only two days away from the castle - having circled back around the edges of Camelot, taking shortcuts where they could to get home faster.

So they were looking at a minimum of two days before anybody reached them. Four days was much more likely. Assuming, of course, that the villagers didn't take them somewhere else before help could arrive.

Instead of moving their prisoners, the villagers had surprisingly set up their own camp nearby. They had only come toward their captives three times, to give them stale bread and murky water. They seemed to be waiting for something, but that could quickly change. They could decide at any time to move their prisoners.

Their best option was for Merlin to just get the collar off. They couldn't wait around, hoping to be saved. They would have to get out of this on their own.

He glanced around, trying not to make it known that he was awake. The last thing he needed was a hovering villager. It was unlikely that they'd suddenly post a guard, but Merlin was still cautious.

Merlin wasn't really surprised to currently see the villagers all in their own camp, although there did seem to be an argument in process, despite the time of night. He couldn't make out who was fighting, or what about, even when he craned his neck.

"Two people rode into their camp about three hours ago, just after nightfall," a familiar voice said softly, just to the left of Merlin. Arthur. The king was sitting near Merlin's head, looking even more exhausted than the warlock felt. The rest of their group was asleep. "My guess is Alined and Trickler. Both riders were cloaked, but I can't think of who else it would be."

Sighing, Merlin sat upright. He tugged at the collar, even though he knew the gesture was entirely pointless. The metal wouldn't budge.

Arthur was watching him closely. "Can you really…?" he trailed off, nodding at the collar to emphasize his point. His voice was skeptical.

They hadn't really talked since Merlin had been collared, but he knew that the king was struggling to believe that he could truly break the collar. It had, after all, been nearly two days with no progress. The doubt was evident in his voice.

The warlock inclined his head. It wasn't a question of if, but rather a question of when. "You know how cold iron works, don't you?"

The king rolled his eyes, huffing indignantly. "Of course I do, Merlin. Everyone knows. Cold iron takes away a sorcerer's magic."

"Not exactly. It might seem that way. You see, it creates a barrier, like a…wall between the magic and the sorcerer. An impossibly tall wall that can't be climbed over, and is too thick to be broken. A solid wall. The magic is there, but it can't be reached or even glimpsed by the sorcerer. But I…it's different for me."

"Because you're a warlock," Arthur guessed, "and not a regular sorcerer." They were both keeping their voices low, though it was obvious that none of the villagers were paying them any mind. They were too focused on whoever had ridden into their camp.

Merlin nodded in response to Arthur's question. "I think so. There's still a wall, but it's not as thick. And it's like it's clear. I can see my magic on the other side. I can interact with my magic. I'm slowly coaxing it into attacking the wall, but it's a slow process. It's like trying to break down castle doors with a mallet instead of a battering ram. And it's like my magic is trying to hide and actively trying to resist me, which my magic has never done before. But it truly doesn't like the wall. Each attack against the wall draws energy from my magic."

Arthur just shook his head. He thought it strange - and a bit frightening - to hear magic being described as though it were a living being. Merlin tried to avoid doing it, because he knew how much it unnerved his king. "You fell asleep," was all he said, though, his tone emotionless. "Again."

"Sorry," Merlin mumbled. He hadn't meant to, of course.

Arthur didn't respond.

They were quiet for several minutes, listening to the muffled and indistinct sounds of arguing coming from the villager's camp.

"This wall…What is it made of?"

Merlin frowned at his friend. "What do you mean? It's a figurative wall, Arthur. It's not actually made of anything, except energy, I suppose."

"I know that. I just…Well, you obviously visualize it as a wall in your head. So, what kind of wall?" Arthur was almost squirming. It was obvious that he wasn't exactly comfortable with what he was asking. He didn't fully understand magic, and that still made him a bit nervous sometimes. Arthur was a warrior. He was used to dealing with things in a physical way. He didn't always like the way that magic tended to be…theoretical.

Merlin struggled to describe the wall in his mind. As he'd said before, it was a figurative wall. He didn't exactly see it so much as sense it. "I don't know, Arthur. It feels…cold, I suppose. Like stone or ice."

"Hmm. Can you break it from your side? You said that it's a slow process, but can it be broken from the other side? Maybe it would go quicker if you were attacking from both sides."

The warlock shook his head. "If that were possible, cold iron wouldn't be nearly as effective as it is. Magic is the only thing effective against it. Most sorcerers can't break it because they can't command their magic with the wall in place. I can command mine, even through the wall. I'm doing everything that I can."

The king sighed. That wasn't the answer he'd wanted to hear, obviously. It wasn't the one Merlin had wanted to give. But he couldn't change the facts.

Kerenza chewed her bottom lip as she stared into the darkness ahead of her, her hand gripped tightly around Merlin's wooden dragon. She'd snatched it from his chambers before leaving. She had thought about using one of his other neckerchiefs for her tracking spell, before deciding against it, for two reasons.

One, Arthur had made him destroy all of his neckerchiefs, with the exception of the one Kerenza had kept. Two, the carving held more sentimental value for the warlock, making the spell stronger.

"We're getting closer," she muttered, mostly to herself. She was sure that the two knights just behind her heard her, though.

Almost immediately after Merlin had left, she had felt her protection spells suddenly disappear. Which meant that something had managed to destroy them all at once. She had placed some extremely powerful spells on that neckerchief, so whatever had managed to break them had been strong.

Merlin was in danger.

She had gone directly to Queen Guinevere, trying to clamp down her rising panic. She didn't even want to think about what kind of trouble Merlin had managed to get himself into this time.

Kerenza had worried that her concerns would be brushed aside and scoffed at, but she should have realized that Guinevere would never do such a thing. The queen had flurried into action, organizing a group of knights to travel with Kerenza to find Merlin and assess the situation, while she remained behind with the council to begin moving the army.

The young sorceress had never regretted not knowing a teleportation spell as she did in that moment-not that she was powerful enough to perform one. But it would be so much better if she could simply say a few words and be beside Merlin.

"Kerenza, we need to stop," one of the knights said. She didn't know his name. She didn't know the names of any of the men she traveled with. These weren't the knights that she was familiar with, Arthur's personal knights, nicknamed the Knights of the Round Table. She knew that they could be trusted, of course-Guinevere wouldn't have sent them with her if they couldn't. She just didn't know them.

"We can still see where we're going," she argued. Even though it was past midnight, their path was lit. She had surrounded them with a large sphere of light, guiding their way. The light was spelled so that it could only be seen by their group. Hopefully their approach wouldn't be noticed until it was too late.

"The horses need rest," the burly knight gently said. The other five knights said nothing, letting their leader come to a decision with Kerenza.

She sighed. She knew that he was right, that they couldn't work the horses too hard, even if she felt that she could go through the night. "All right," she said quietly, dismounting. "But only for an hour."

"We all need rest. We won't do King Arthur or Lord Merlin any good if we're too exhausted to fight."

Kerenza scowled. "No more than three hours."

Yeah, so I think that chapter was another one of my shorter ones. But it's better than nothing, and if I'd tried to make it any longer, it would have been another month before it got posted. So here it is.I seriously don't know when my next update will be. I'll try really hard to not let it be so long again, but I honestly can't make any promises. My brain is usually fried at the end of the school day. Those kiddos really drain me.

Quill: You're not being rude. Again, I'm sorry for taking so long. My days have seriously been melting together and I honestly hadn't realized how long it had been. Work has kind of taken over my life.

TheFallenApple: Life. But now I'm back.

RainbowUnicorn: I didn't abandon it! Sorry, sorry, sorry.