Adhémar drew himself up. "I like to know what's going on."
Miach opened his mouth, then shut it. There was no place to begin that Adhémar would have the patience for and even if he did have the patience for it, Miach wasn't certain he wanted his brother to know anything about the direction in which his thoughts were going.
"Nothing," Miach said, pushing past his brother. "Go see to the horses, would you? "
"How dare?"
Miach didn't stay to hear the diatribe. He walked into camp, found his pack and a bit of ground that was relatively free of rocks, and rolled up in a blanket.
It was an extremely odd dream, that dream of Morgan's. It was obviously vivid enough that she could recall spells from it. The possibility of her dream actually being memories was a tantalizing one, but one he couldn't begin to take seriously until he had further information. But where to find it?
The chamber of scrolls at Chagailt. Aye, that was the answer. Chagailt was not far. He could slip in, do a bit of searching in the musty manuscripts, then rejoin the company before they went much farther north.
He considered north for a moment or two. There was only so much country before north ended in Lothar's land, or the sea. Just where was Morgan planning to go anyway? And why had she chosen such a journey?
Miach sighed deeply and closed his eyes. Too many questions and not enough answers.
Morgan had magic.
It was an astonishing turn of events.
Chapter Fourteen
Morgan rode slowly with her company, realizing that she was going to have to make a course decision soon. She thought about Miach's map and knew that though Angesand was large enough and Neroche substantially larger, she would eventually have to bear west to reach Tor Neroche. Her route would bypass most of the places Camid and Paien were looking forward to.
They would not be pleased.
She sighed and looked down at her hands. They were the same hands she had possessed the whole of her life. Sure. Steady. Comfortable with a blade. Then how was it that after six-and-twenty years of life, her hands should suddenly be capable of something so completely foreign and abhorrent to her?
She had woven a spell of un-noticing.
She had undone that spell as well.
She touched the mark over her brow. It had burned like hellfire when it had been made, and continued to burn for days afterward, as if there had been something put into the wound to make it so. But during those days of discomfort, she had not resisted the pain, knowing that it would burn not only into her flesh but into her soul just exactly what she had become and what she was capable of.
How was it, then, that this magic should catch her so unawares and slip into her being with such little fanfare?
She thought back over the past several months. Her mercenary activities were nothing notable. Her journey to Lismnr was unremarkable?
She froze. Unremarkable?
She realized with a start that it was her journey to Nicholas's orphanage that had started it all. Actually, it was touching Nicholas's blade at the orphanage that started it all. She had begun to dream, dreams of sword and spells and darkness.
But mostly darkness.
But why? Why would something that was entrusted to her by a man who sheknewbeyond all doubt loved her and never would have wished her ill cause her such grief?
She couldn't fathom it.
The knife in her pack was silent now, but that wasn't always the case. Indeed, as she gave it more thought, she realized that it tended to sing to her when all else was quiet. When she was preparing to sleep. Likely while she was asleep as well.
But what was she to do? Leave it behind? She could not. Though it was tempting to fling it as far away from her as possible, she knew she could not. She had been charged with protecting and delivering something to the king of Neroche that was obviously quite powerful. She could do nothing less than her duty where it was concerned.
No matter the personal cost.
She suspected that personal cost might be quite high.
Unless she could find out more about it. Perhaps if she knew whose blade it was, or how it fought, she might be able to fight it in turn. She wished for another visit to the chamber of records below Nicholas's university.
