The Royal Scandal *Book One*

The Wraith S1 E9

💚 Edited - 22/01/2021 💚

With the sudden appearance of father and his new determination to fight this thing and protect his son, everyone was muttering to each other in confusion and undeniable excitement.

Morgana leant over to me from her seat, panic evident on her face.

"What is he doing?" Morgana whispered to me.

"I don't know," I replied nervously.

"He's gonna get himself killed; does he not realise? And anyway, where's Arthur?" Morgana asked.

"I haven't seen Arthur since yesterday but I get a feeling he didn't agree to this, not willingly anyway," I muttered the last bit.

As he got further and further into the arena, people were talking louder and more and more excited to see their King fight. Something they probably hadn't seen in many years.

Ignoring all the chatter, my father continued to walk into the centre. The black Knight currently had his back turned to my father and was facing the empty thrones and myself. It was unclear whether or not the black knight had noticed what was happening and if he did, he showed no signs of realisation.

Suddenly, I had a thought. If father is fighting, where is Arthur? Wait a minute, that must mean that he is using the sword that was burnished specifically for Arthur. I've only met Kilgharrah once but he didn't seem like the most forgiving of creatures. I would say people but Kilgharrah is a freaking dragon. Would he burn Merlin when he found out?

Father stopped beside the black Knight and turned to face him.

"You can have what you came for," Father began, causing the black Knight to turn and face him, the rest of the crowd had fallen silent and were listening intently. "The father, not the son."

A servant entered the arena and took away my Father's cloak. What the hell is my Father doing? As much as I hate his laws and ways of ruling, Arthur is not ready to be King despite everything I told my Father. Not that I didn't think he could win.

Actually, that was exactly what I thought. He hasn't fought anyone in proper combat in so long that he, truth be told, might not be very good. Gotta have faith though, am I right?

He then looked over at me and gave me a small smile and a nod to which I just stared back confused. When has my Father ever showed that he did have some sort of humanity left in him? He's probably just doing this for his reputation.

They both put on their helmets and faced each other for the final battle. They got into their fighting stances and even through the helmets, I could see them glaring daggers at each other. Drums echoed through the arena loudly, bouncing off each person who sat there in silence. It was like since the black Knight came to Camelot, everyone and everything has just been quiet. It really was quite eerie how they did that.

As the drums ended, the black Knight and my Father began to fight viciously. Each of them getting hits and each of them receiving just as many. It has been many years since I've seen my Father fight anyone like this. It was evident as he was getting beaten pretty badly.

It was strange though; I had no intent of stopping this fight. There really wouldn't be any need, he should win once he gets back into the flow of the fight. After a couple minutes, Father started to dodge the black knight's ferocious attacks and instead went to hit back causing them to clash swords.

They continued to fight getting more and more violent as neither side wanted to fall knowing the consequences. My Father then whacked the black Knight round the head knocking his helmet off. Little did we know what we were about to see.

Regaining his balance, the black Knight turned to face us all except a face wasn't what we saw. Instead it was a weird looking, dark, wrinkled, ugly, zombie sorta thing. The whole crowd gasped shocked and my Father stepped back confused. However he didn't have time to panic as the Knight, or whatever it was, the wraith was it? began to fight back stronger.

This strength meant that my Father was knocked to the ground and the only thing stopping him from being beaten was his shield. I stood up and was tempted to go and stop it until I saw the saw the sword that was made for Arthur, was stabbed into the wraith.

The wraith began to smoke and then blew up in flames creating a horrible screeching noise in the process. After a few moments of burning, screeching, and smoking, the wraith basically exploded into millions of tiny pieces. If it wasn't so serious, I would have thought it was really cool.

My Father got up and took off his helmet. Everyone stood up and cheered for their King, who had miraculously destroyed a wraith!

Guess he isn't completely useless after all.

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