Chapter 13

Morgana easily got Arthur to come as Hadrian who saw both Arthur and Morgana smiled and said"Well now since the prince has arrived we have to get to work."Arthur narrowed his eyes and asked, "Are you sure there is a creature down."Hadrian nodded and replied, "Yes we saw it when taking a sample of the water. It's a creature created by magic" Arthur in ager questioned, "Why didn't you tell father about this?"

Hadrian sighed and answered, "We couldn't your father already took Gwen a prisoner for the whole plague, we knew if he would blame Gwen for conjuring it."Arthur wanted to deny it but he couldn't as he knew this was true as he already looking through some of the archives on what caused the whole purge. But everything recorded before the purge had been destroyed so he knew Uther was covering up something. Also, he noticed that the purge occurred just after his mother's death,Arthur had gut feeling the purge was related to his mother's death not because magic was dark.

Morgana spoke, "Then let's go we cannot waste time."Arthur was surprised and asked, "Morgana is coming with us."Hadrian nodded and replied"Of course she is do you think any of us can stop her if she made up her mind, also I trained her so she will be okay."Morgana grinned while easily taking her sword and taking a few practice swings as she follwed Hadrian and Arthur as they met Merlin by the entrance to water source.

While they went down to the water source Arthur asked"Did you see that monster here?"

Merlin looked around and replied"yes it jumped out of the water."

Hadrian found tracks of the monster as he spoke"guys I found tracks."All of them followed it as they quickly found our resident monster who was not as scary as it first appeared as Arthur was the first one to attack but only for it to slap the sword away from him as he tried to defend himself with torch as both Hadrian and Morgana cane to his aid with Morgana dodging it's claws and slashed it's hand off.

Hadrian was close behind with slash takes away one it's legs as it tried to attack Arthur who used his torch as Hadrian telepaticaly told Merlin"Use the spell to finish it off."

Merlin was shocked but quickly chanted"Lyfte ic þe in balwen ac forhienan."Arthur swings the torch as Merlin's spell blows flames into the Afanc, incinerating it.

While Arthur seeing it die sighed in relief and said"I had enough adventure for today."As they were going back Hadrian spotted something nearby it was some sort of egg as Arthur saw the and asked"What is that?"

Hadrian answered, "It is the egg thought which the Afanc came from and the mark it has is something I recognized from my father's journals."Arthur and Merlin saw how serious Hadrian was as Merlin questioned"What is that mark?"

Hadrian explained"It is the Mark of Nimueh, she was Nimueh was a High Priestess of the Old Religion twenty years ago. She was friends also with your father and was an adviser to him in all matters related to magic."

Arthur was surprised "My father was friends with a witch."Hadrian nodded and replied"Yes, I don't know what happened, but from what I read from the journals your father asked Nimueh for something dealing with magic and Nimueh warned him the magic will always seek balance, would result in consequences, and your father seemed to ignore it. After that, your mother died giving birth to you and your father went crazy blaming witches for doing dark magic."

Arthur was shocked hearing this as he guessed that his mother's death was a result of magic,but the warning about balance echoed in his mind as he wanted to learn if his father just blamed the witches because of his mother's death. Arthur decided to search for the truth about all this, while Hadrian gave the remains off the egg to Gaius, who took it to Uther to tell him about Nimueh, while this caused Uther to be slightly scared, but he did quickly release Gwen.