Merlin sits up, moving as far from the wall as he’s able, and for a moment, it’s like seeing him for the first time again, like when Eric first stumbled into this cave, and he blazed with wisdom and power.

“I said, don’t lie,” he shouts, and his voice echoes off the stone like a roll of thunder. “You know what you were supposed to do, and you failed. You turned away from your duty, and you disrupted the cycle of death and rebirth. You ignored your destiny, and your cowardice has given The End a chance to destroy everything once more.”

He sags and coughs up more of what ought to be blood, but it’s black and thick as pine resin. The moment is over. He looks old and broken again. And Eric feels nothing but rage.

He thinks about the first time he was told all of this. The war between good and evil, dark and light, with Middleton as the battlefield. How this place, this town, was special, how it was poised at the center of a universal balance, in this world and so many other hidden dimensions.

The End wished to claim it, and bring about eternal death and destruction. Eric had to save this town to save the world, to keep it in the light.

He sacrificed his childhood, risked his life, battled demons and monsters and things he barely understood before he was old enough to drive. He saw innocent people killed. And then it was all taken from him in a moment, leaving him broken and alone.

And now he learns, apparently, it wasn’t enough.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he says. “Again? You want me to do it all again?”

“No. I want you to finish what you started.”

“I did,” Eric insists. “I did my job.”

“You let your friends take your burden.”

“I found allies. I found another way.”

“I told you what was required,” Merlin says, wearily. “The only way to stop the dark sorcerer, the only way to prevent The End from winning — ”

“You told me I had to die.”

Merlin looks at him with something almost like sympathy. “Yes. Magic always demands a sacrifice. Colchester upset the balance. You had to die to restore it. To stop him. It was necessary. Instead, you let your allies fight for you, and they paid part of your price. But it wasn’t enough. And you knew it.”

“I was seventeen!” Eric shouts. “I had my whole life ahead of me! And you wanted me to die!”

Eric is prepared for Merlin’s anger. He’s not prepared for Merlin to laugh in his face.