The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus

Chapter 67

Magda was dimly aware that she was lying on something soft. She slitted her eyes, squinting. The light hurt her eyes.

She was shivering all over. She realized that for some reason she was not simply cold but also soaking wet. She remembered, then, that it had started raining fat drops of icy rain when they had been out in the woods. She didn’t think that she was still in the woods, but she was having difficulty, between bouts of shivering, trying to figure out where she was.

She saw the hazy figure of Merritt moving about not far away. It was comforting to see him.

Her vision wouldn’t focus but she could make out a table and a chair. There was a bit of red on the table. She saw statues, stacks of books, scrolls, bones, and all sorts of strange devices sitting everywhere around the floor. There were lit candles around the room, too, some on low tables, some on the tops of short pillars, some on the table.

As the room came more into focus, she realized that she was on the wicker couch in Merritt’s home. She had no recollection of how she had gotten there.

Merritt came closer and quietly bent over her a little, moving his hands in the air above her, sweeping them from her head downward. As his hands moved, she felt her frigid, soaking-wet dress turn dry. By the time he had worked his way down to her feet, she was completely dry. The bone-chilling cold melted away as a calming, radiant warmth seeped back into her bones.

But she still hurt everywhere.

“Am I still alive?” she managed.

Merritt turned to look at her. He smiled.

“Quite alive. We’re at my place, in Aydindril. It was closer than trying to make it to the Keep. I wanted to get you in out of the rain. It was quite the storm. You were in trouble. The reaction of all the elements combining was greater than I had hoped, but not as bad as I had feared. The breach held.”

His fingers touched her shoulder. “You were strong, Magda. You did good. But I was afraid to try to make it to the Keep.”

“You carried me?”

He nodded. “I didn’t think . . . well, I thought it best to get you in out of the rain here, and see to making sure that you’re all right as soon as possible.”

“The sword,” she said, licking her cracked lips.

“What about it?”

“Did it work, Merritt? Were you able to complete the key?”

His handsome smile widened. “Thanks to you, yes. Thanks to your strength and determination I was able to do it.”

“You did it . . .”

“We did it.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ve healed you, but more than anything you need to rest, now. I can’t use magic to give you that, and you desperately need it.”

In the dim recesses of her memory, she recalled him holding her head in his hands as he worked to save her. She had been healed before, so she had known what he had been doing. His touch, though, felt different from any healing she had felt before. It had fierce intensity, yet a warmth to it that calmed her and let her relax so that he could do as he needed.

She could remember only bits and pieces of him bent over her, holding her head, as the rain poured down on them. She did remember, though, how much she hurt, and how terrified she had been that she would die there in the dark woods.

Magda didn’t know what had needed healing, but she was aware that for a time she had been on the other side of the veil of life.

Merritt had come after her and brought her back.

“Is it still night?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “It’s morning.”

“Morning?” Magda tried to push herself up on her elbows, but she couldn’t seem to muster the strength. “Merritt, we have to go. We need to get to the dungeon. We need to find that sorceress who defected. If she’s even still alive. If she is, they could execute her at any time.”

Merritt’s hand on her shoulder gently pushed her back down. “I know, but right now you have to rest. I healed you, but if you are to recover, you still need to rest. I can’t do that part for you, and you can’t do anything if you don’t finish getting better, first.”

There was something serious about his tone. She looked up to his face. His eyes revealed the level of his concern. The look in his hazel eyes gave her a ripple of terror.

“Am I going to be all right? Am I going to live?”

A touch of his smile returned. “If you rest. Your body needs sleep to fully recover.”

Magda narrowed her eyes, peering, trying to focus her still-blurry vision to see the sword at his hip. Trying to focus her eyes gave her sharp pains in her temples. She didn’t see the scabbard there at his hip.

Merritt saw where she was looking and gestured. “It’s hung on the chair.”

“Please,” she managed past the pain in her throat. “Can I see it? I want to touch it.”

Merritt scratched his temple. “Sure.”

He went to the chair sitting before the table with the red velvet where the sword used to lie. When he drew the blade from its scabbard hanging on the chair, the room filled with the clear ring of steel. It sounded the same, yet somehow different. The ring had a nature to it that resonated with something deep inside her.

He brought the sword to her, holding it out in both open hands. Magda reached up and touched the hilt, running her fingers over the raised letters of the word Truth.

She stretched both hands toward it, wanting it, needing it. Merritt let her lift it from his hands.

Magda laid the blade down the length of her body, feeling the satisfying weight of it against her. The hilt rested on her chest just beneath her chin. At that moment, after all she had been through, it was more comforting than any blanket. Knowing that it was now complete was gratifying beyond words.

She held the hilt with both hands, letting the deep satisfaction of knowing that they had done it seep through her.

Merritt had accomplished the near impossible. The key was complete. Magda had managed to do her small part to help him and as a result the Sword of Truth was now complete.

Though she was ungifted, she could clearly feel the power of the magic the sword now possessed. It was power unlike anything she had ever imagined. It churned the way the storm had. It held more power than the storm had. It was fury and rage and love and life all folded together, over and over, blending them into the finest layers of something new, something remarkable.

This was now a weapon unlike any other, more than any other.

It felt so good holding it, knowing that they had done it, that she never wanted to let it go.

Magda let out a deep breath of contentment and, with the Sword of Truth held in both hands, lying down the length of her, listening to the steady drumming of rain on the roof, she allowed herself to succumb to sleep.