The Breaking of the Shield
The chamber was silent, save for the wet, rattling gasp of a dying King. The curse was like a shard embedded in Arthur’s chest, pulsing with dark energy and overpowering his heartbeat.
“I can’t pull it out,” Emrys whispered, his hands hovering inches above Arthur’s skin. They were shaking. For all his power, the High Lord looked small. “If I touch it with magic, it will shatter. It will shred his heart from the inside.”
“Then do something!” Sir Leon cried out, but his voice died away when he saw the look in Emrys’s eyes. It wasn’t the look of a powerful sorcerer; it was the look of a man watching his world end.
“There is only one way,” Emrys said, and his voice was so hollow it chilled the blood of every knight present. “The shard needs a different heart to feed on. I have to bridge our spirits. I have to pull the shard into myself, through the marrow and the blood.”
He looked at Arthur’s pale face and for a second, he wasn’t a High Lord, he was just a man terrified of the dark. He knew what this curse was. It was a Void-Blade. It didn’t just cause pain; it erased the light in a soul, inch by agonizing inch.
“You can’t,” Sir Percival breathed, realizing the gravity. “Emrys, the Druids said your magic is tied to your life. If your spirit breaks…”
“Then I break,” Emrys snapped, his eyes flashing gold, not in anger, but in a fierce, desperate resolve. “But Arthur lives.”
He didn’t wait. He didn’t explain further. He reached down and gripped Arthur’s hands.
The moment the bridge was formed, Emrys’s head snapped back. A sound escaped him that wasn’t human—a low, guttural vibration of pure trauma. The black shard in Arthur’s chest began to vibrate, then slowly, agonizingly, it dissolved into smoke, flowing up Emrys’s arms.
The knights watched, paralyzed by horror. They saw Emrys’s eyes turn a flat, terrifying black as the Void entered him. His skin didn’t just turn pale; it began to crack, glowing with a sickly, necrotic light. He was literally coming apart. The sheer pressure of the curse was trying to unmake the High Lord, and Emrys was fighting back with every thread of his existence.
He wasn’t doing it to show off. He wasn’t doing it for their respect. He was hunched over Arthur, shielding the King’s body with his own, even as his own mind was being scorched by the darkness. He let out a choked, bloody sob, his forehead pressing against Arthur’s as he forced the last of the poison out of the King and into his own chest.
“Please,” Emrys wheezed, the word barely audible through the blood in his throat. “Please, Arthur… stay.”
With one final, violent surge of magic, the shard vanished from Arthur. Arthur’s chest heaved as he took his first full breath in hours. But Emrys was thrown across the room as if hit by a titan. He slammed into the stone wall and crumpled.
The knights didn’t move toward Arthur. They didn’t even check the King first. Their eyes were fixed on Emrys.
He lay in a broken heap, his indigo robes scorched, his hands mangled and blackened by the magical fire. He had nearly shattered his own divinity—the very thing that made him Emrys—just to keep a single mortal heart beating.
There was no triumph in the room. Only the sight of a man who had looked into the abyss and stepped in, so his friend wouldn’t have to. The knights stood in the presence of a loyalty so absolute it terrified them. They realized then that Emrys didn’t just serve the King; he was a living sacrifice for him.
The Shackled Magic
A month of relative peace had passed when a merchant from the distant Northern Isles arrived at the gates of Camelot. He carried curiosities rarely seen in Albion, but one item caught the knights’ collective eye: silver manacles etched with jagged, anti-magical runes.
“They suppress the flow of the spirit,” the merchant explained, his eyes darting toward the Citadel. “Even a god would be rendered as harmless as a babe while wearing these.”
Sir Leon and the others brought the shackles to the King. To them, it was the perfect solution—a way to have the High Lord’s presence without the constant, underlying threat of his power.
In the council chamber, they presented the silver bands. “If you truly serve the crown,” Leon argued, “you will wear these. Give us the peace of mind you claim we deserve.”
Emrys stared at the silver, his face drained of color. For the first time, his eyes showed true fear. “You do not understand,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “My power is not a sword I can simply put down. It is my breath. It is the blood in my veins.”
Arthur, weary of the constant bickering and seeking a way to quiet his knights’ lingering fears, looked at the manacles and then at his friend. “If it brings peace to the kingdom, Emrys… I ask this of you. Put them on.”
Emrys looked at Arthur for a long, agonizing moment. The betrayal in his eyes was silent. “As you command, My King,” he said softly.
He snapped the bands around his wrists. As the metal touched his skin, he let out a sharp, choked gasp, stumbling as if he had been struck. He looked up at Arthur, his golden eyes suddenly dimming to a dull, hollow blue. “Only you can open them now, Arthur,” he whispered. “The lock is tied to your will alone.”
The Fading Shadow
Over the next few weeks, the change was subtle at first, then devastating. Emrys grew deathly pale. His skin became translucent, and he moved with the fragility of autumn leaves. He was always cold, his hands shaking as he poured wine or held scrolls.
But the knights were pleased. They saw a man they could finally control. They ignored his coughs, his stumbling gait, and the way he often had to lean against the cold stone walls just to stay upright. Even Arthur, caught up in the administration of a growing Albion, looked past the hollowed cheeks of his servant. He saw the silence as stability, not as the slow death of a soul.
Finally, during a quiet evening meal, Emrys collapsed. He didn’t just faint; he fell like a man whose bones had turned to dust, hitting the floor with a terrifying silence.
The Weight of the Key
The Druid Elders arrived within the hour, summoned by a panicked Arthur. When they saw Emrys on the bed, they recoiled in horror.
“What have you done?” the eldest Druid cried, her voice echoing with grief. “He is not a man who has magic. He is magic. You have severed his soul from his body! He is suffocating in his own skin!”
She rushed to the bedside and placed her hands over the silver bands. She began to chant, her power flaring, but the silver didn’t budge. The other Druids joined her, their collective voices shaking the room as they poured every ounce of their ancient strength into the locks.
Nothing happened. The silver remained cold and unyielding.
“It is impossible,” the Elder whispered, her face ashen. “There is a power here—a binding force so absolute that it defies the Old Religion itself. We are not strong enough to overcome it. But there should be no power in this world stronger than Emrys. How can his own shackles be more powerful than he is?”
Arthur stepped forward, his heart sinking into his stomach. “He… he put them on himself,” Arthur confessed, his voice barely a whisper. “I commanded it, and he obeyed. He locked them with his own hand.”
The Druids froze. They looked at Arthur with a mixture of terror and loathing. “He didn’t just lock them,” the Elder realized. “He poured the entirety of his will into the lock. He used his own immense power to bind himself, to ensure he could never break free on his own. He committed a slow suicide to prove his obedience to you.”
She turned back to Arthur, her eyes burning with tears. “Did he say anything? Did he tell you how to open them?”
Arthur felt a cold shiver race down his spine. He remembered the words Emrys had whispered in the council chamber. Only you can open them now.
“I am the key,” Arthur realized, his voice cracking. “He put his life in my hands.”
Arthur approached the bed. He looked at the frail, broken man who had served him despite the banishment, despite the fear, and despite the shackles. Arthur reached out, his hands trembling as he touched the silver bands.
He didn’t use a key. He didn’t use a spell. He simply closed his eyes and poured every ounce of his regret, his love, and his desperate need for his friend to live into the silver. I am sorry, he thought. Forgive me. Come back to me.
With a sound like a heartbeat, the manacles snapped open.
The surge of magic that followed was like a tidal wave. The room was flooded with a brilliant, golden light as the severed power rushed back into its host. Emrys’s body arched off the bed, his lungs gasping for air as if he were a drowning man reaching the surface.
The Sovereign’s Shackle
The golden light that had flooded the room faded into a cold, haunting gray. Emrys was no longer floating, no longer glowing; he lay slumped against the pillows, a hollow shell of the man he had once been. Though the silver bands lay shattered on the floor, the damage to his spirit was etched into the deep lines of his face and the trembling of his hands. He looked as though he had aged a thousand years in a single month.
Arthur sat on the edge of the bed, his hands still hovering near Emrys’s wrists as if he could still feel the phantom heat of the locks. Behind him, the knights stood in a jagged line, their faces pale with a shame so deep it had robbed them of their speech.
It was Sir Leon who finally broke the silence. He stepped toward the foot of the bed, his voice trembling with a raw, desperate confusion.
“Why?” Leon whispered, looking from the broken man to the discarded metal. “We were arrogant. We were cruel. We pushed those bands toward you because we were afraid of a shadow. But you… you are the High Lord. You are the Lord of the Druids. You could have brought this castle to its knees with a single word. Why did you put them on? Why did you let us kill you?”
Emrys slowly turned his head. His eyes were no longer burning with the fierce gold of a god; they were the weary, fractured blue of a man who had looked into the void and stayed there. He looked at Leon, then at Percival, and finally, his gaze settled on Arthur.
He tried to speak, but his voice was a thin, rasping thread, stripped of its former melody.
“I told you,” Emrys whispered, his breath hitching in his scarred chest. “In the hall… on the first day… I told you who I was.”
He reached out a trembling hand, feebly brushing the sleeve of Arthur’s tunic. A small, sad smile flickered across his bloodless lips—a smile that held more pain than any scream.
“I am Arthur’s to command,” he said, his voice barely audible in the stunned silence of the room. “My will… my magic… my life. They are not mine to withhold. If the King asks for my silence, I will be silent. If he asks for my power, I will give it. And if he asks for my death…”
He let out a shaky breath, his eyes closing in exhaustion.
“…then it is his to take.”
The knights recoiled as if they had been struck. They had spent months fearing that Emrys would control Arthur, never realizing that the truth was far more terrifying: Emrys had given Arthur the power of a god, wrapped in the absolute obedience of a servant. He hadn’t been a puppet master; he had been the most loyal soldier Albion would ever know, willing to be unmade by the very man he protected.
Arthur let out a choked sob, leaning forward to press his forehead against Emrys’s cold hand. The crown felt like a leaden weight upon his head. He had wanted a servant who was loyal, but he had nearly destroyed the soul of the world because he hadn’t understood that true loyalty doesn’t need a cage.
In the silence of the sickroom, the knights finally understood. They didn’t just see a sorcerer anymore. They saw a devotion so absolute it was holy—and they vowed, in that moment, that they would never again ask the High Lord to bleed for their peace of mind.
The Covenant of Albion
Three months had passed since the silver shackles had been shattered. The hollowed look in Emrys’s eyes had begun to fade, replaced by the steady, ancient light that defined his soul. Though he still bore faint silver scars around his wrists—reminders of the price he had been willing to pay—he walked with a renewed grace as he entered the Great Hall.
The atmosphere was no longer heavy with suspicion. Instead, a solemn, reverent silence gripped the gathered court. The knights of the Round Table stood in two perfect lines, their swords unsheathed and pointed toward the ceiling, creating an arch of cold steel.
At the end of the hall sat Arthur, not on his throne, but on a simple stone seat, wearing the cloak of the High King.
Emrys approached. He was dressed once more in his fine indigo robes, but he wore no jewels, no sigils of his druidic rank. He reached the center of the hall and, for the first time in front of the entire court, he dropped to both knees.
The sound of his knees hitting the stone echoed like a thunderclap. He looked up at Arthur, his voice clear and unwavering, carrying the weight of a thousand years of prophecy.
“I have served you in the shadows, and I have served you in the mud,” Emrys began, his gaze locked onto Arthur’s. “I have worn your chains and I have carried your burdens. Now, I give you the only things I have left to offer.”
He placed his right hand over his heart and his left hand on the floor before Arthur’s feet.
“I am yours, Arthur. My will, my magic, my life. I bind them to the crown of Albion and to the man who wears it. Where you go, I shall go. What you command, I shall fulfill. My soul is the shield of your kingdom.”
The air in the room hummed with a sudden, golden warmth. This was no ordinary oath; it was a cosmic tether being woven between the King and the Sorcerer.
Arthur stood. He did not ask Emrys to rise yet. Instead, he stepped down from the dais and placed his hand upon Emrys’s head, his voice ringing with the authority of a King and the love of a brother.
“I accept your oath, Emrys,” Arthur declared. “And in return, I swear my own. I am your King, but I am also your brother-in-arms. My crown, my sword, my honor—they are sworn to protect you as you protect us. I vow that your magic shall be the light of this realm, and I shall never again ask you to dim it.”
Arthur reached down and gripped Emrys’s forearms, pulling him to his feet.
Then, Sir Leon stepped forward from the line of knights. He did not look at Emrys with fear, but with the profound respect of a man who had seen true courage. He held a crimson cloak in his hands—the cloak of a Knight of Camelot.
“High Lord,” Leon said, his voice thick with emotion. “We once believed that a knight was defined by the sword he carries or the blood he spills. We were wrong. A knight is defined by the heart that beats for his King and the sacrifice he is willing to endure for his brothers.”
Leon stepped closer and draped the crimson cloak over Emrys’s indigo robes.
“You have bled for us. You have suffered for us. You have carried the weight of our arrogance and the weight of our kingdom. You do not need a sword to be one of us.”
One by one, the other knights stepped forward, placing their hands on Emrys’s shoulders or clashing their gauntlets against their chests in a salute.
“Emrys of the Druids,” Arthur announced, his voice filled with pride. “You are my advisor, my friend, and a Member of the Round Table. From this day forth, we walk as one.”
The Great Hall erupted in a cheer that shook the very foundations of the Citadel. As Emrys stood among the crimson-clad men, he finally felt the last of his ancient loneliness dissolve. He was no longer a god among men, nor a servant in the shadows. He was a brother among brothers, and for the first time in his eternal life, the High Lord was home.
The Seat of the Sorcerer
The council chamber felt different today. The air was no longer thick with the stale scent of fear and unspoken accusations. Instead, it was bright, filled with the morning sun and the low, rhythmic hum of the knights settling into their seats.
At the head of the Great Round Table sat Arthur. To his left was Sir Leon, the first of his knights. But to his right, there was a new chair. It was carved from the dark wood of an ancient rowan tree, its back etched with silver runes that shimmered with a soft, steady light.
Emrys walked to the table. He still wore the crimson cloak over his indigo robes, a striking blend of Camelot’s heart and the Druids’ soul. As he reached his seat, the knights did not look away. They did not reach for their hilts. They simply nodded—a gesture of respect between men who had stared into the abyss together and returned.
Arthur stood, resting his hands on the table.
“For years, this table has been a symbol of equality among warriors,” Arthur began, his voice steady and proud. “We have lived by the sword and died by the sword. But we have learned that the strength of Camelot does not lie in steel alone. It lies in the spirit that guides the steel.”
He looked at Emrys.
“Emrys, you have proven that loyalty is not found in the absence of power, but in the choice to use that power for others. You are not a knight, for your path is woven from a different thread than ours. But you are, and forever shall be, the Sorcerer of the Round Table.”
Emrys took his seat. As he sat, the silver runes on the chair flared with a warm, golden light, recognizing him. He looked around the circle—at Leon, Percival, Gwaine, and the others. He saw the scars he had shared with them, and the trust he had earned through fire and blood.
“I accept this seat,” Emrys said, his voice no longer thin or trembling, but resonant with the strength of the earth itself. “Not as a lord over you, but as a brother beside you. My magic shall be the dawn that breaks before your swords, and the shield that stands when your armor fails.”
Sir Leon raised his cup. “To the Sorcerer of the Round Table!”
“To Emrys!” the knights roared in unison.
The council began. They discussed harvest reports, border patrols, and the building of new schools where magic would be taught alongside medicine. Emrys spoke, and for the first time, his words were not filtered through the King’s mouth. He spoke as himself—a man of immense power, yet a man who belonged.
The “invisible” servant was gone. The “dangerous” warlock was gone. In their place was a friend who sat in the light, his hands resting openly on the table.
As the sun rose higher over Camelot, the shadows finally retreated. The King was no longer a puppet, the knights were no longer blind, and the Sorcerer was finally, truly home.