━━ ⦗the swan princess! ⦘
❝ you're beautiful!
thank you, but what else?
... what else is there? ... ❞
███████████ 𝙞𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝
the courageous odette teaches the
once and future king a less...
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chapter fifty-two 052. thawing a king's heart
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THE GREAT DRAGON'Slaughter made Merlin set his jaw and clench his hand around the base of the torch. It echoed around him, bouncing off the cavernous walls deep beneath the underground tunnels of Camelot. The King was enchanted, it had to be the only explanation. Somehow, Lady Catrina had used her magic to make him completely and utterly under her spell, and the only one who would be able to help Merlin stop her was also the one creature in all of this land he never wished to see.
He sighed and stood there, waiting for the Great Dragon to finish. When he thought his laughter would die down, the enormous beast bellowed out another round of wheezing gasps. Merlin never knew a dragon could laugh so much. He scowled at the creature whose wings ruffled and his golden scales glinted in the torchlight. A hot breath that stank almost worse than Lady Catrina washed over Merlin and he almost considered walking right off the ledge into the abyss below.
"This is not funny!" snapped Merlin after a while. Every time he had to face the Great Dragon, he was filled with the same fury he felt after he realised the creature had tricked him into sacrificing his own mother to Nimueh at the Isle of the Blessed. To save Camelot from the horrible Cornelius Sigan, Merlin had to ask for the Great Dragon's help once again, but it did not come without a price.
"Oh, it is! It is!" cackled the beast. "The thought of Uther marrying a troll, ha! Was it a very public affair?"
Merlin gritted his teeth. "Public enough!"
The Great Dragon heaved another thunderous boom of laughter.
"Do not laugh!" shouted the young warlock, not in the mood for the dragon's games. "If she cannot be stopped, Arthur will never become King and Albion will never be born!"
Those words seemed to sober the Great Dragon enough for his wings to fold and his body to settle on the rocks. "I am sorry," he said after a brief pause, though he did not sound apologetic at all. "You are right, of course."
Merlin rolled his eyes. He gestured the flames of his torch up towards the dragon. "How can we break the enchantment?"
The Great Dragon chuckled, and the sound vibrated across the cavern, making chips of loose rocks fall from above. "These are not trifling ticks. Troll magic is very powerful."
He would not accept that. "There has to be a way."
"The only way you could break this enchantment is if Uther were to cry tears of true remorse."
Merlin nodded, his heart racing. And then his heart sank. "How do we make him do that?" he murmured, feeling as though he had reached another stone wall impossible to break through.
