2
The Blackbird declared he meant to begin their work that night.
Braithe exchanged an anxious glance with Morgana, knowing how weary she was, but the Blackbird had made it clear he considered the matter to be urgent.
Morgana said, “Very well, sir. At least the anteroom will be empty at this time. We can go now.”
Braithe walked a little ahead of them as they left the residence to go to the Temple. The starlit evening was warm. The three of them walked through the sanctuary, past the menhirs that held up the roof, circling the great stone where the sword of power rested once again, then on into the anteroom.
The starlight didn’t reach into the windowless space.
Morgana tweaked a candlewick between her fingers, and it sprang to life, driving back the thick shadows.
Braithe had always thought the Temple should improve the anteroom.
Its benches were hard and its walls hung with sheets of drying moss that made the room dark and strange.
The moss was full of various insects that flitted near the ceiling.
Morgana liked that, as she loved all nature’s creatures, but the moss made Braithe feel itchy.
The anteroom was intended to be a daunting place, which she supposed it was.
It was where the unworthy came to beg magic from their betters, and where the heavier their purses, the stronger the magic would be.
It was all illusion, though, as she had come to understand.
The reality, at least if Priestess Morgana sat on the dais, was that every supplicant was treated the same.
Their tribute, large or small or nonexistent, meant nothing to Morgana, and it was one of a thousand reasons for Braithe’s devotion to her.
When a country woman approached the dais to beg for help, eyes wide with fear of the mysterious magic swirling around her, trembling hands holding whatever she could afford for tribute, Braithe thought of her mother.
Her mam had struggled to raise a too-large brood on a too-small croft, which was why Braithe had been sent to the Temple.
Braithe’s sisters, country women all, probably had babes of their own by now.
It comforted her to know that if they needed help and could find their way to the Temple, Priestess Morgana would provide assistance without demur.
Braithe helped the Blackbird up onto the dais, where he sat in one of the priestesses’ carved bogwood chairs.
Morgana settled into another. Braithe handed her the cup of divination stones and cleared a space on the low table so Morgana could throw them.
The Blackbird leaned forward to watch, his spotted hands braced on his knees, and Braithe knelt beside the table, ready to assist.
Morgana took up the cup of stones, held it in her hand for a moment, then spilled its contents onto the table. She leaned forward to read the pattern. The Blackbird did the same.
Braithe did, too, although she was shy about it.
She had little luck seeing the patterns on her own, but sharing in Morgana’s magic often allowed her to see them, even occasionally to interpret them.
In this instance, the air hummed with the combined powers of Priestess Morgana and the Blackbird, and Braithe’s bones tingled with it.
It was a sensation that had frightened her when it first happened but now was welcome.
It was an indication that she perceived its presence, despite her lack of the gift.
Threads of magic ran through the Temple, accessed to varying degrees by the priestesses and occasionally an acolyte.
No one seemed to know for certain how magic had first come to the Isle.
Some believed it had been left behind by the priests of old, long gone from Lloegyr.
Others were convinced it was the Lady who had endowed the Temple that bore her name with her own legacy of fae magic.
Priestess Niamh had some magic. Priestess Olfreth did, too.
There had been a young priestess, Joslyn, whose magic showed great promise, but she had not lived long enough to fully develop it.
And of course, there was Priestess Morgana, who had more magic than anyone on the Isle—more than anyone in the world, Braithe supposed.
What Braithe wanted most of all, had craved since she was a young acolyte, was to have magic of her own.
Real magic, not the borrowed kind that came from being near Morgana, but magic she could wield at will.
Magic she could depend on. She knew it was pointless to wish for it, simple country girl that she was, but she did, just the same.
The quiet in the anteroom was nearly absolute, as dense as the shadows in the corners.
Not even the chatter from the acolytes’ dormitory reached there.
For Braithe, the pungent scent of moss and willow branches festooning the walls had come to be synonymous with the work performed here.
She closed her eyes to allow herself to soak in the atmosphere as she waited.
It seemed a very long wait. Usually Priestess Morgana’s deep sight brought swift answers, but apparently this was not one of those times. When Morgana sat back, grunting in frustration, Braithe opened her eyes.
Morgana rested for a moment while the Blackbird sat with arms folded, head drooping so that his hat brim hid his face. Braithe knew he wasn’t asleep. It was an attitude he often adopted.
After a time, Morgana stirred and reached for a saucer and a handful of herbs.
There was mistletoe, always vital in divination, and thyme and lavender and a bit of burdock from one of their foraging ventures.
She tore the leaves in pieces and dropped them into the saucer.
When she snapped her fingers above them, a thin tendril of smoke curled into the air.
In a short time, the herbs turned into fragrant ash.
Braithe inched closer as Morgana stirred the ashes with her forefinger. The Blackbird lifted his head to watch. “Nothing,” Morgana said, her deep voice rumbling against the flagstones. “You are right, sir. Something is wrong.” She turned to Braithe. “We need the scrying bowl from my bedchamber.”
Braithe scrambled to her feet and hurried out of the anteroom.
She came back with the wide, shallow bowl under her arm and a small pitcher in her hands filled with rainwater collected by the acolytes.
She set the bowl down and poured the clear water into it.
It shimmered against the black lacquer surface, as reflective as any mirror.
Braithe knelt once again, as close to the scrying bowl as she could get, her bones thrumming in anticipation.
Morgana had to ignore the impatience of her companions as they waited for her to begin.
She was aware of the mage’s intent regard, hidden beneath the brim of his disreputable hat.
Braithe barely kept herself from bouncing with excitement, despite the gravity of the moment, clearly hoping she would see what Morgana did.
The tension in the anteroom grew as Morgana leaned her head against the high back of her bogwood chair.
The sculpted leaves and grasses and boughs carved into it were symbols of the Lady.
She felt their hard outlines against her scalp, reminders that there was witchery in the work that could only come from the fae.
One would need a knife constructed in the White City to carve bogwood. And one would need to be fae.
Morgana had no inclination to carve, but she could have.
She was fae, although that truth was a carefully held secret.
Outside of the White City, only Braithe and the Blackbird knew.
Morgana, already set apart from her sister priestesses by her special abilities, had no intention of adding awareness of her true nature to the many things that made her different and caused resentment.
There was great prejudice against the fae on the Isle of Apples and in Camulod, indeed throughout Lloegyr, and there was good reason.
None of these were the things holding her back from the task ahead, though.
Her failures with the divination stones and the ashes alarmed her more than she wanted her companions to see.
She had always been confident in her power.
Confidence made her stronger, her thoughts clearer, her outcomes more reliable.
Only in one instance had her personal magic been blocked by another’s, and she feared it was happening again.
The sense of being held back felt alarmingly familiar.
If she tried to scry and failed a third time, it would imply terrible things for the boy king, for Camulod, and for the Temple.
She pressed her palm against the Lady’s sigil that hung at her breast, leaned forward in her chair once again, and addressed herself to the scrying bowl.
The Blackbird bent forward, too, although he had already declared his failure in the matter.
Braithe sat still, her hands clasped before her, gazing into the water with an intense expression on her freckled face.
The anteroom had been silent before. Now it seemed there was no sound in the world besides their own breathing.
No bird sang beyond the walls. No acolyte laughed in the distance.
It seemed the whole Isle fell into a reverie as Morgana began this new work.
She gazed into the surface of the water, made reflective by the black lacquer beneath.
She breathed slowly in, and even more slowly out, pursing her lips as she concentrated.
For long moments nothing appeared, although the water shivered with tiny ripples, despite the air being perfectly still.
Then, little by little, an image emerged, as if it were being painted there, stroke by stroke.