The next morning found Morgan not in her warm, deliciously soft bed under an equally delightful goose-down blanket, nor banging on Nicholas's door demanding answers as she had briefly contemplated, but in a cold, drafty chamber of scrolls where a sharp-eyed, suspicious man made noises of disapproval each time she unrolled a scroll or turned a leaf. He complained even more bitterly each time she dared ask for something else.
And it was barely dawn.
After a terrible night's sleep passed dreaming of swords and darkness and skirmishes against things that one did not normally find on the field of battle, she had descended into the bowels of the university where she had hoped to find something to ease her mind about the state of affairs in the kingdom of Neroche.
She realized, with a start, that she was resting her chin on her fist and staring at the shelves of manuscripts without really seeing them. She shook her head to clear it, then rose and wandered about the room of scrolls. She wandered the chamber until she found herself standing before a large book. It had been set in a place apparently built for this exact tome, for it fit in its niche with neither too much nor too little room.
Morgan looked at the keeper of records. He was beginning to wheeze, which she took as a sign she might be standing near something quite interesting. She raised one eyebrow in challenge.
"You cannot," he squawked, finally.
"Master Dominicus, I am only taking it over to the table to read it. I am not putting it in my pack to then sell off to the highest bidder the moment I can escape through the front gates."
He hopped down off his stool and strode over to her. He frowned fiercely. "I, at least, will carry it to your place. Have you washed your hands?"
"I haven't eaten anything to dirty them."
"Then perhaps you should?and return later."
"I'll manage without, thank you."
He frowned a bit more, then carefully and with great ceremony removed the book from its place and carried it over to the table. He set it down reverently, then he spun around and glared at her.
"Do not tear the pages."
"I wouldn't dare."
He watched her as she sat, then hovered over her until she slowly drew a dagger from her belt and very carefully set it down next to her. Then she looked up at him pointedly. He scowled, but retreated to his seat with all the dignity he could likely muster, under the circumstances.
Morgan looked at the book before her, then carefully and with a terrible sense of inevitability, opened the cover and turned over the first leaf.
The Tale of the Two Swords.
She should have known.
She sighed and began to read it again. But this time, however, she found herself reading the tale of Queen Mehar and King Gilraehen with a new eye, ignoring the romance that seemed to be slathered all over the story at every opportunity, and finding that there were several details she had missed.
She'd known that Mehar had forged her sword with her own hands and laid upon it many enchantments. That the queen had possessed the wherewithal to make such a thing left Morgan with warm feelings toward her; that she apparently knew how to use it as well was another thing to like about her. Mehar had been rumored to be a spectacular horsewoman as well as a lover of all things bright and sharp. Morgan supposed she could even forgive the woman her dabblings in magic for those two things.
Morgan hadn't remembered, however, that Mehar had possessed the magic of Camanaë. Even she had heard enough of Nicholas's tales over the years to know that Camanaë was a powerful matriarchal magic?one that Lothar had been from the beginning determined to eradicate from the face of the earth. If that was the magic that Mehar had bound into her sword, it was powerful indeed.
Morgan was half surprised that the blade still existed. One would have thought Lothar would have made a special effort to find that sword, or steal the sword, or destroy the sword.
She mused about that possibility for several moments. What would happen, she wondered, if the sword were destroyed? Would Neroche cease to be or would it merely limp on in a crippled fashion?
She wasn't sure she wanted to know.
She continued to read about Harold the Brave, Uisdean the Wise, Edan the Fearless. She continued on through the years, finishing with King Anghmar and his lady wife Queen Desdhemar. It was his son, Adhémar, who sat the throne at present. The line of kings had always retained some bit of magic, some more, some less, but always enough to keep Lothar at bay.
Where the current king stood on matters of magic, she couldn't have said. She knew nothing of him save his name, and that only because she could not be in a battle where she did not either fight alongside or against half a dozen men whose parents had obviously thought his name to be a good one for their own sons. But of the king himself, she knew little. She had troubles enough of her own without adding to them things he should have been seeing to himself.
She sat back and sighed, wondering if she had the stomach to read through any more histories of any of the other kingdoms who were so dependent on the strength of Neroche. Watching the world unfold before her eyes was wearying.
She turned the leaves back toward the beginning, glancing idly at pieces of history, wondering how it had been for those who had gone before and done such glorious deeds?
The Wielders of the Sword of Angesand will come, out of magic, out of obscurity, and out of darkness…
Morgan went still. That was part of Mehar's prophecy, but what could it mean? That there were three poor, unfortunate souls predestined to carry a sword so magical that all sensible souls would flee from it? She pitied any who found themselves so burdened. At least she would never find herself in such terrible straits.
