CHAPTER FIFTEEN
-GUIN-
The Labyrinth Trial
The final chamber awaited beyond—a yawning mouth framed by towering archways of pure obsidian that seemed to hunger rather than welcome.
I clutched the Whisperstone even tighter, hoping and praying that Merlin's magic wouldn't fail me.
Inside stood two figures.
Arthur.
But not the jaded king of recent years. This Arthur was younger—radiant with purpose, eyes alight with conviction. He was not the tyrant I despised, but something dangerously harder to dismiss: a man who believed he was building a better world.
Beside him stood Merlin—but he, too, was different somehow.
Not the mentor I remembered. This version of him was altered.
His features were warped with ambition, his hands stained with what looked disturbingly like blood.
Shadows clung to him like living ink, writhing beneath the surface of his skin, coiling in and out of his robes like serpents birthed from old magic.
As the eerie tableau unwound around me, panic tightened my throat at the thought that if the Whisperstone had failed me, Arthur and his court would experience the same thing I was.
But then I remembered Mordred mentioning that this journey would only take place in our minds, not our bodies.
So all of this was occurring in my mind's eye—safe from the penetrating gazes of the court.
And, if not, I still had the Whisperstone to protect me.
With this grounding knowledge, I relaxed and allowed my attention to return to the scene before me.
Both of them turned to face me.
"Which master will you serve?" they asked in unison, both extending their hands, fingers splayed like winter-bare branches grasping for the last warmth of a dying sun.
"Mer," I began immediately.
Think first. Don't just respond.
The voice in my thoughts cut through my immediate impulse to respond, and I found myself hesitating, my mouth half-open with Merlin's name still forming on my lips.
Something in that internal warning made me pause, made me truly look at what stood before me rather than simply reacting to a familiar face.
I allowed my eyes to wander back to this version of Merlin, taking a moment to study him anew, burdened by the weight of conflicting emotions.
Merlin's gaze bored into me with a voltage that sent a ripple of unease through me.
Shadows snaked across his features, deepening the lines of a face with something akin to desperation.
His form flickered, shadows warping with barely contained fury that changed his expression.
His eyes, once pools of wisdom, reflected paranoia, darting, calculating.
This was certainly not the man I knew. The Merlin who had found me, who had given me purpose and power, bore little resemblance to this creature of shadow and ambition.
Where was the patient teacher who had spent hours explaining the delicate balance of magic?
Where was the man who had spoken of justice and freedom with such conviction that I'd willingly risked everything to serve his cause?
The younger Arthur stepped forward. His movements were fluid, purposeful. He didn’t wield his presence like a weapon, the way the Arthur I knew now did. He didn’t need to. His gaze locked with mine—not cruel, not condescending, but genuinely searching.
"What if everything you believed was wrong?" he asked softly.
"I don't understand."
"What if Merlin didn't rescue you… but repurposed you? What if you’ve always been a tool—fashioned in secret, hidden until you were useful, your true worth kept from you until it served his end?"
I stiffened, shoulders squaring even as my heartbeat faltered. "Merlin is not the tyrant you become."
"What if what you call tyranny is simply necessity by another name?" Arthur pressed.
"The result is the same no matter what you title it."
Arthur shook his head. "You see cruelty. But what if that supposed cruelty is the only shield against a fate far worse that would overcome all of Logres?"
I shook my head. "Your words don't make sense."
"Learn to see beyond what your eyes perceive, Guinevere," Arthur said, narrowing his eyes at me. "Look more closely at me and look more closely at Merlin."
"I know Merlin well."
"Do you?" Arthur laughed. "What if he only ever showed you what he wanted you to see—pieces that confirm his story?"
The words settled over me with raw truth, and while I wanted to argue them, I couldn't—because I didn't really know what Merlin wanted.
I didn't know what I was to him. I didn't know why he'd sent me on this mission and not another of his students who would have been better suited to the task.
Even though I'd said I knew Merlin well, the truth was I didn't.
"I… He saved me. He taught me to use my magic when I had no one else."
Arthur’s eyes held mine. “Did he teach you to use your magic for yourself? Or for him?”
Silence bloomed between us like a wound. I remembered the warmth of Merlin’s guidance, the gentle encouragement. But I also remembered the moments of control, the secrets, the times I hadn’t questioned him—because he hadn’t allowed room for questions.
"You are more than a blade to be wielded," Arthur said, his voice a low rumble. "But only if you choose to be."
Beside him, the strange version of Merlin didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His presence alone—the visual embodiment of manipulation and fury—was enough.
"And I am not the man you believe me to be," Arthur continued.
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Perhaps you didn't start as a tyrant, but you definitely became one."
He shook his head. "What you see are the choices I've made, the decisions that you deem wrong and tyrannical. But you have not dug deeply enough, Guinevere."
"What does that mean?"
He moved in, taking a deliberate step closer to me.
With that simple motion, the younger version of him—full of na?veté and unrefined potential—started to dissolve, blurring at the edges until it fused seamlessly into the older version I was more familiar with.
In that moment, the youthful charm and fervor gave way to the visage of the formidable king, a man carved from the stone of responsibility and burden.
His face bore the lines of battle and the weight of a kingdom resting squarely on his shoulders.
"Do you know why I made the decisions I did?"
I nodded. "To rid Logres of magic."
He paused, and a small smile lit the corner of his lips. "And why should I want to do that?"
I paused because I didn't know why. Why had Arthur outlawed magic? He believed it evil, I supposed. But why? On this subject, I was stumped. I didn't know. Not that it mattered because the result was still the same.
Or did it matter?
All of a sudden, I saw the truth presented in the Labyrinth.
This maze was designed to test the emotions I harbored—those negatives that existed within my personality.
The guilt I'd felt over the death of my parents.
The shame I harbored regarding my lustful feelings toward my enemy.
And now the short-sighted conclusions I'd drawn before I had all the facts.
The maze existed to display the looking glass's image—the opposite perspective.
As I watched, Arthur's face returned to that of his younger self, before he had made the decisions he had.
The innocent Arthur, as I liked to think of this version of him.
The Arthur who stood before me now wasn't the man who had threatened me at the lake while taking liberties with my body, nor the jaded king who ruled from Camelot’s marble throne with cold eyes and clenched fists.
He was the idealistic boy who had once pulled a sword from stone with dreams of justice burning in his heart.
And I wondered if he could be that boy again—if that child still existed somewhere within him.
"I saved you from certain death," said shadow-Merlin in an almost accusatory voice. "I trained you. I gave your power purpose. Your loyalty belongs to me by right and oath."
"And I offer more than vengeance," the younger Arthur countered, his tone clear and noble. "I offer you the chance to serve something greater than one man's grudge."
I studied them both, my heart pounding.
Yes, Merlin had offered me sanctuary. He had taught me. But he had also wielded silence as a tool and withheld truths like a man playing a long game with pieces he refused to name.
And Arthur? I didn’t know him. But was there something more beneath the fury, beneath the command and control? Was there more to the tyrant?
“You both speak in half-truths," I said finally, looking at them both. "You both speak of justice—but seek control in your own ways.”
The figures wavered, their outlines like reflections on broken water.
This wasn’t the real Arthur. Nor was it the real Merlin. These were projections—distillations of doubt, conjured by my own mind in order to test me. These were the doubts I held deep within myself. Questions that only I could resolve.
I looked between them then—Arthur and Merlin—seeing endless shades of gray. They were no longer simply black and white—the tyrant and the savior. They were both much more three-dimensional.
"I will find the truth for myself," I continued. "And I will decide which path to walk, not by oath or loyalty, not by prophecy or fear—but by choice." I paused and breathed in deeply.
"Then who do you choose?" Merlin asked.
"Neither of you."
The moment I spoke those words, the two figures began to dissolve—first Merlin, his robes unraveling into shadow, then Arthur, his boyish face fragmenting into dust. The obsidian walls of the dark chamber fractured like glass, the walls suddenly bleeding light.
And then—
I was returned.