The pools awaited circles of luminous water suspended in air, each reflecting not faces, but moments in time. Nimue guided him toward the largest. As his feet touched the surface, warmth spread through him and memories stirred awake. A crown. A dragon's cry. A father's shadow.
Nimue knelt beside him. "Rest now, little king," she whispered. "We will return what was taken."
Arthur closed his eyes as the water closed over Arthur without weight and the lake helped him remember. There was no drowning panic, no cold shock. The pool held him the way a mother's arms might firm enough to keep him, gentle enough to let him breathe. Light filtered through the liquid in slow-moving sheets, each ripple carrying images that were memories.
He stood in Camelot as it once was.
Not the broken world of scavengers and failing towers, but a city of impossible brilliance. Spires of white stone and gold pierced the heavens, banners blazing beneath twin suns. Dragons wheeled overhead, their roars songs of dominion.
He stood at the edge of a vast balcony, fingers curled around a rail too large for his hands. Behind him loomed a presence like winter forged into flesh. Uther Pendragon. His father. Uther's armor shone with silver-white alloy and ancient gold, etched with sigils that pulsed in time with the dragons' wings. When he spoke, the world listened. In the shadows hide Morgan too fearful to face their father.
Below them, Camelot stood with its people filling the streets shouting their name… The vision lurched and there were fires everywhere. Camelot burned. The sky tore open with screaming contrails as fleets burned their way through orbit. Orbital rings shattered, raining fiery debris like falling stars. Sirens wailed. Shields flared and failed.
Arthur felt himself pulled forward, helpless, as the palace shook. In the great hall, two figures stood facing one another. Uther Pendragon. And Vortigern. His uncle. Uther's eyes burned. "You fool, you sold your soul for power you do not understand."
Above them, the world screamed, the ceiling shattered into starlight as two colossal shapes burst into the sky. The Dracothion who was still chained came out of its prison, radiant and vast, wings spread like living constellations, scales blazing with suns and galaxies.
And something dark and twisted. A shape of absence and hunger, wings cutting holes through the light, its form defined by what was missing rather than what existed. Darkness coiled around it, devouring stars as it moved.
Light and darkness collided. The impact tore the heavens apart. Arthur felt the shockwave in his bones as dragonfire clashed. Knights fought and died in the streets. Dragons screamed, towers fell, people ran.
And through it all, Arthur saw himself, small and terrified, being dragged away by Merlin, the wizard's face grim and desperate as he began to speak words that bent time and fate. "I'm sorry," Merlin whispered to the boy in the vision. "This is the only way."
The spell tore Arthur free. Camelot collapsed behind him, swallowed by fire and shadow.
-
Arthur gasped and sat upright, water cascading off him in sheets of light that evaporated before touching the ground. He was shaking.
Merlin was there instantly, kneeling despite his bad knees, gripping Arthur's shoulders like he might vanish again. "Arthur," Merlin said hoarsely. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
Arthur laughed weakly through tears. "Two. And you're still terrible at pretending you're not worried."
Merlin broke. He pulled Arthur into a fierce, shaking embrace. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry for everything my boy."
Arthur hugged him back. "It's alright. It was not your fault. I know everything now."
Nimue approached, Morgan at her side. Morgan looked much different from the shy girl he grew up with in the castle that always followed him and hid in his shadows. She was much more confident and assertive from before and from the magic radiating off of her it seems like she developed great power and found her path in life.
Arthur was happy for her and didn't hide it as he smiled at her. "Hi," he said. "Sister."
Morgan froze. Then she punched him in the arm and hugged him so hard he nearly fell over. "Idiot," she muttered in the crock of his neck.
Ser Ector cleared his throat loudly from behind them. "It's good to have you back," he said gruffly, wiping his one good eye. "My king," he added, emphasizing that final word.
Arthur stood. He knew Ector was right, he was the rightful ruler now of Avalon, the master of the Albion coalition and needed to free his people from the yoke of tyranny, his uncle. At that thought, his sword answered. Agreeing with him and giving him a sense of confidence.
Arthur met each of their gazes; Merlin, Nimue, Morgan, and Ser Ector. "Well let's go reclaim a throne!"
-
Far from the lake, above the dying skies of a once great world, Camelot. A King awoke in a cold sweat. Vortigern lurched upright in his bed as if dragged there by invisible hooks, breath tearing in and out of him. The silk-and-nullweave sheets tangled around his limbs.
He was haunted by the same nightmares. The dream tore him from sleep like a blade from a wound. He sought comfort in the canopy that rose above with suspended holo-banners of victories from a hundred campaigns, endlessly looping in slow procession. Dragons broken. Systems annexed. Kings kneeling.
Concubines stirred at his sudden movement. They were chosen carefully, gene-crafted beauties and political hostages alike, wrapped in gauze-thin fabrics that shimmered with subtle glamours. Some reached for him instinctively, murmuring soothing words rehearsed a hundred times. Others froze, trained well enough to read the warning signs in his posture.
Vortigern's heart still thundered against his ribs, it feeding his body dark, foul draconic blood. The nightmare clung to him. "Leave," he rasped. The word carried weight. Power. Dread. Control.
The concubines slid from the bed and scattered like startled birds, bare feet whispering across heated marble. One lingered half a breath too long, eyes flicking to the tremor in his hand. Vortigern's glare sent her fleeing.
The doors sealed with a sonorous clang, rune-locks sliding into place. The chamber dimmed, lights shifting to a low, ember-red glow. Silence returned thick, oppressive, broken only by the faint hum of the palace's fusion spine far below. Vortigern pressed a hand to his sternum. It burned.
He was plagued with the same recurring nightmare. It had begun the same way it always did. A throne room not his own. White stone. Gold inlay. Dragons carved into the walls with reverence rather than domination. He stood there alone, wearing a crown that felt wrong, too heavy, too honest.
Then the boy appeared. Always a boy. His eyes were always the same, Golden, blazing with power and judging him.
In the dream, Vortigern would shout. Command. Threaten. He would summon guards, dragons, armies but nothing answered. The throne room would crack, fissures racing along the floor, light pouring up from below like dawn breaking through a grave.
And the boy would walk toward him. Each step made the crown heavier. Each step made the walls whisper names Vortigern had buried centuries ago. Usurper. Kinslayer. False King.
At the last moment, always at the last moment the boy would raise a sword of light and starlight and memory. And Vortigern would wake screaming.
Slowly, he rose from the bed. His chamber was vast, its ceiling lost in shadow pierced by drifting holographic constellations. Pillars of black stone rose like frozen lightning, each engraved with the names of conquered realms.
Between them stood a painting, that of his brother which he could never get rid of. He always stared at him with those cold and ruthless eyes. And they called him the monster, the tyrant. He was nothing compared to his brother.
He crossed the chamber toward the great window, feet ringing against the polished floor. With a gesture, he dismissed the privacy wards. The transparent alloy panels cleared, revealing Camelot below.
The sight twisted something in his chest. Camelot sprawled across the planet's surface like a wounded giant. Once, its towers had pierced the heavens, silver and gold blazing beneath twin suns. Now many stood dark or half-ruined. Orbital rings, once symbols of unchallenged dominance shed burning debris nightly, streaks of fire carving scars across the sky. Banners hung limp, threadbare, their sigils faded by centuries of neglect.
For years now, the world had been quiet. Not peaceful. Quite in the way only a conquered thing could be as people were too exhausted to dream for a better tomorrow. Until now. Vortigern felt it as surely as he felt his own heartbeat: a disturbance moving through the population like a low-frequency signal. Whispers in the undercities. Glances held a moment too long. Pilgrims gathering where none had gathered in generations.
Hope. He bared his teeth. Hope was a killer. A mind-virus. It spread faster than rebellion, infected faster than propaganda could contain. You could crush armies, burn cities, shatter bloodlines…but hope? Hope was a difficult beast to root out.
Already word had traveled that the Sword of Kings had been drawn out of the stone.
Worse yet none of his legion of knights, bounty hunters, dark wizards, psionic trackers, guild assassins, could yet find the one who drew the sword but he already knew who it was. As much as it was an impossibility he knew it was his nephew.
For hundreds of years he ruled unopposed, ever since he overthrew his brother he had been looking high and low for his brood with religious fervor. Spies, divinations, purges across a thousand systems. Nothing. No children. No heirs. No ghosts.
In time, complacency had crept in. He had told himself the brood had died—lost to time, war, or fear. But now here he was, showing up out of nowhere to take the Sword of King.
It had been the height of foolishness listening to those clan elders. When he could not pull it free himself, no matter what rites, sacrifices, or enhancements he attempted after that old coot did something to it.
He had listened to the clan elders. Let it stand, they had said. Let it remind the people there is no true king but you. He had thought it was a great way to crush the spirits of any who wished to oppose him to see that they had no true king except him.
After centuries of the facade and this humiliation ritual it had become dull and repetitious. And that is when they struck. He had to give it to them, they were clever and patient
Vortigern turned toward the inner sanctum of his room. He needed to do something about this and put a stop to these foolish ideas growing into people's heads. There was one eternal king and that is him!
Here, the light dimmed further as if illumination itself feared to intrude. The walls were not stone but something older, scaled, dark, faintly alive. They flexed subtly as he passed, responding to his presence like the hide of a slumbering beast. The air grew colder with every step, the hum of the palace fading until only a deep, distant pulse remained.
At the chamber's heart stood a circular dais etched with sigils that hurt to look at directly. Above it hovered a sphere of condensed darkness, its surface rippling like liquid night. Vortigern knelt. The act was not submission. It was recognition. He pressed his palm to the sigil at the center. Blood, his blood welled instantly, drawn out by the ancient rite. The shadow sphere shuddered, expanding, swallowing light.
It had taken him a long time to find this. He had been working in the shadows of his brother and the mad wizard to locate this. Centuries of digging through forbidden archives, interrogating dying elders, deciphering half-burned scrolls.
Long ago when their ancestor founded their house they had worked together with the Dracothion riding it into battle to take down something. Some vile and dark, twisted and malign. The evil reflection of the Dracothion, its twin brother!
Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/4011087177902876/
"Master," Vortigern said, voice steady despite the tremor in his chest. "I require your counsel." It was dead but nonetheless its presence was still in the world and he had been feeding it its kin, growing it, trying to resurrect it.
The darkness deepened. Then it spoke. Not in sound, but in pressure, in gravity, in the sense of something vast turning its attention toward him. "I SEE YOU ARE IN QUITE THE PICKLE"
The voice was ancient and cold, layered over itself like echoes in a void. The twin of the celestial dragon where one embodied the stars and skies, the other was empty given thought.
"He has returned," Vortigern said. "The child. The heir."
A pause. Then amusement. "OF COURSE HE HAS. STORIES DEMAND THEIR KINGS."
Vortigern's hand curled into a fist. "I will not be undone by myth."
"MYTHS ARE THE BONES OF REALITY, LITTLE TYRANT. YOU BUILT YOUR THRONE UPON ONE."
Silence stretched. Then Vortigern lifted his head. "Help me."
The darkness writhed, forming the suggestion of vast wings, coiling stars snuffed out one by one. "I WILL.BUT ALL GIFTS HAVE COSTS."
Vortigern smiled, a thin, dangerous thing. "I have already paid far worse."
The shadow deepened as something ancient and hungry opened its eyes and smiled. The board was set. The king had returned. And the war for the soul of Camelot had truly begun.
-
Author Note: Who is this dragon? Can you guess.