Page 4 of The Faerie Morgana
Braithe’s tears never fell. She let Morgana’s hand guide her, and when it was lifted, she gazed in wonder at the perfect paste in the bottom of the bowl. Shyly, she lifted her face to the older girl. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I don’t know why it’s so hard.”
“It is just new to you,” Morgana said. She didn’t smile—Braithe had not seen her smile—but her cat’s eyes glowed with warmth. “Next time will be easier.”
Morgana was right. The work did get easier, but Morgana herself had everything to do with that. Braithe felt the envious eyes of the other young acolytes on her as Morgana showed her how warm a syrup should be, how much wine a tinctureneeded, how lumps and crumbs could be smoothed out of a remedy. Braithe wasn’t sure why Morgana had singled her out, but it was the greatest gift she could have given her. Braithe’s confidence grew, and her courage swelled. She began to take the teasing of her comrades in stride, dimpling, laughing without embarrassment.
She began to make friends, even to feel affection for some of the other acolytes, but those feelings were nothing compared to what she felt for Morgana. She was deeply, passionately devoted to the older acolyte, and when one of the other girls tried to tease her about that, she did not laugh.
When Morgana put her special touch on a potion, its power intensified instantly. Her salves were the smoothest and strongest. Her tinctures were clear as water but always effective.
Braithe often watched her settle a cork onto a jar without touching it. A spoon Morgana wanted flew up into her fingers before she reached for it. Braithe gasped when she saw a candle wick burst into flame, tweaked between two of Morgana’s long fingers.
To Braithe, there was no one, not even any of the Nine, who could compare to Morgana of the Isle. Morgana was all magic, and Braithe would not be mocked for admiring her.
Four years after Braithe arrived at the Isle, the boy from Camulod was admitted into the Temple sanctuary, the first male to do so in Braithe’s memory. Someone said King Uther had once tried to get in but had been turned away. She didn’t know if thatwas true. There were always tales spinning through the dormitory, and most of them were just rumors.
On this day, though, the boy—the prince—was welcomed with ceremony by the priestesses themselves. The acolytes, eyes bright with excitement, were allowed to join the Nine to observe. On their knees, they clung together, whispering, watching everything, thrilled at this deviation from their daily routine.
Braithe knelt beside Morgana, so close to the stone she could have touched it, had she possessed the courage. The nine priestesses in their black robes sat in their ceremonial bogwood chairs, long sleeves draping over the armrests to skim the flagstones of the floor. Above their cowled heads, the chair backs rose in intricately sculpted shapes, leaves and grasses and boughs, all symbols of the Lady. Ordinary knives couldn’t carve iron-hard bogwood. The chairs had been shaped long, long ago, and everyone understood there was magic in the work, the kind that could only have come from the fae.
The Blackbird led the boy into the Temple, and to Braithe’s surprise, the Blackbird nodded to Morgana as he drew near the stone. As she rose, she laid the flat of her hand on Braithe’s shoulder to indicate she should remain where she was.
Morgana stood a full head taller than the boy. He was younger, perhaps Braithe’s age. Morgana wore undyed robes, without any discernible style, but elegant on her long body. The prince wore a fine tunic of blue, the color of royalty, and sleek lambskin leggings. His hair was as yellow as the tansy that grew on the riverbank, his smooth cheeks pink with youth.
He was the most beautiful boy Braithe had ever seen.
The lad turned to stare at Morgana as if he was unsure who she was. His eyes slid to the Blackbird’s wrinkled face, then back again to Morgana, and he caught his lower lip between his teeth as if to stop himself from asking. No one spoke. The Temple fell silent, so quiet Braithe could hear the lake water lapping the shore, even the creaking of the rowboat that had brought the boy to the Isle and which bobbed now on the limpid waves washing the dock.
The Blackbird gestured to Morgana with his gray-bearded chin. She took up a position near the stone, opposite the niche from which the sword protruded, while the Blackbird stood to one side. The boy, whose name had not been spoken, took two tentative steps that led him to the sword. He stood gazing at it, still chewing so fiercely on his lip Braithe feared his mouth would bleed.
The Blackbird said quietly, “Now, my lord.”
The lad’s eyes, blue as lake water, bright as a spring sky, flashed up at him, then back to the sword. The hilt was barely within his reach, the pommel broad and heavy. He stood on his tiptoes to take hold of the grip, wrapping his fingers awkwardly around it. The blade was all but invisible, thrust deep inside the carved niche of the stone, where it had rested time out of mind.
The boy pulled. Nothing happened.
He reached up with his other hand, and with both hands gripping the hilt as best he could, he tugged and twisted, the effort visible on his face. His features were fine, eyes lined with pale lashes, a short, straight nose, the full lips of a lad not yetmature. Braithe found she was holding her breath, watching him, worrying for him.
What was the great sword for? No one had ever explained why a piece of granite with a sword nestled in it lay in the center of the sanctuary. Acolytes asked, but they were hissed into silence by whichever priestess heard the question. None had ever dared ask the Blackbird. The acolytes whispered among themselves sometimes that if someone made the Blackbird angry, he would turn them into a toad. None had ever witnessed such an event, but they were convinced it was true.
The boy’s eyes glistened as if he might weep with frustration, or embarrassment, or shame. Braithe couldn’t guess which. Perhaps all of those things. As he settled back onto the soles of his feet, hands hanging empty beside him, her heart quivered with sympathy.
She knew that feeling of shame. She had suffered it more times than she could count.
Then Morgana—her Morgana, as Braithe had come to think of her, her protectress, her idol—raised one hand. The palm was turned out, the fingers spread, such long fingers it sometimes seemed she must have extra knuckles. Braithe held her breath again as Morgana’s dark-lashed eyelids closed and her chin dropped. Her hand didn’t move. Braithe, staring at it, could have sworn there was a light in the palm, a glimmer, as of a candle seen at a distance.
The Blackbird spoke in a voice so low Braithe might not have heard it if she had been kneeling farther away. “Once again, my lord.”
The boy rose high on his toes one more time. He seized the grip of the sword with both of his hands so that his thumbs crossed just below the pommel. Morgana’s chin dropped further, and a single faint crease appeared on her forehead as she held her hand steady where it was.
The sword moved.
The boy drew a breath of surprise and pulled again.
The sword shifted outward, the great blade shining silver in the afternoon light.
Once again, the lad pulled, and awkwardly, in little jerks, the sword slid free of the stone. It was long, and Braithe thought it must be fearsomely heavy. Holding it with his two hands, the boy lowered the point, letting it settle cautiously on the dirt between the flagstones.
It was a stanza come to life, one she had recited a hundred times. She whispered it now, barely loud enough for her to hear it herself:
