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Dust rises when she opens the cover.
The first pages list curses tied to blood, bone, memory, and inherited magic. Fiona traces the entries without touching the brittle ink.
“Here,” she says.
A reference describes wounds left by necromancer-forged weapons. The entry offers no cure. It directs the reader toward three sealed histories and a study of chaos rejecting death-bound magic.
Fiona copies the references into the ledger.
“This may explain why your power cannot remove it,” she says.
“Explanation is not relief.”
“It is a beginning.”
She looks toward the deepest shelves.
“Where do we search first?”
I lock the index cabinet but leave the reading table open to her.
“With every record concerning the necromancer’s blade.”
For the first time in its history, a human stands inside the ancestral library as a trusted participant in House Morwen’thir.
Together, we walk toward its deepest knowledge.
17
FIONA
One month later, I cross the inner courtyard carrying a basket of herbs against my hip.
Winter sunlight strikes the snow and throws its glare against Morwen’thir Stronghold. Neptherium veins gleam across the black walls. The wind tugs at my cloak, catches the end of my chestnut braid, and pushes loose crystals over my boots.
Fresh rirzed fills the basket. Bundles of fylvek grass lie beneath it, along with three fever roots and a clay pot containing a medicinal shrub that has proved more stubborn than delicate. I am taking everything to the smaller workroom beside the solarium.
The herbarium now occupies nearly every usable shelf.
New planting beds line the southern wall. Copper scraps cast sunlight into the darker corners. Briar has organized the jars, labels, and treatment records according to purpose. Human servants bring seeds saved from kitchen stores and roots gathered beside the lower road.
They bring injuries too.
A month ago, they entered the solarium only after checking the passage for the Zagfer healer. Now they arrive quietly but without shame. Cuts are cleaned before they fester. Fevers are reported before servants collapse. Briar keeps the treatment schedule and defends it with an authority she would once have feared to claim.
The kitchens have changed as well.
Sarveth shortened the hearth rotations after reviewing the evidence I collected. Human scullions receive meals at times when they can actually eat them. The Zagfer steward protested until Sarveth compared the new spoilage figures with the old.
Losses fell within ten days.
Perrin no longer carries heavy cauldrons. He works near the cool preparation tables and attends lessons with two other servant children after the evening meal.
The hierarchy remains.
But it is no longer permitted to disguise every failure as human weakness.
I am halfway across the courtyard when voices rise near the lower gate.
