The First Confessor (Sword of Truth 0)

“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.

Chapter 68

“Are you sure that you’re all right?” Merritt asked in a quiet voice as they made their way up the broad hallway. “I know I would feel more confident in your recovery if you had gotten more rest. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

This section of the Keep was reserved for the Home Guard. The hall was simple stone block walls, beamed ceilings, and plank floors. There were barracks, dining halls, and assembly rooms down various corridors. As they passed intersections, she saw that some of the halls were filled with soldiers. Iron brackets held torches with flames that flapped in the breeze as they passed. The hall smelled musty, punctuated with the heavy aroma of pitch each time they passed a hissing torch.

Two soldiers in polished armor breastplates over blue tunics, their heads bent close in a confidential conversation, were walking swiftly toward them. Magda waited until they passed and were out of earshot before she answered Merritt.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Really. Stop asking me, would you?”

As they marched down the long corridor Merritt glanced over with a skeptical expression but didn’t answer. From time to time he looked over at her out of the corner of his eye, as if checking to make sure she was still upright.

Magda wished it weren’t so late. She had slept the entire day, and on into the night. No matter how much she might need rest, she didn’t want to sleep any more. She was strong enough to do what had to be done. That was all that really mattered at the moment.

“Don’t I look fine?” she asked.

Merritt finally smiled. “Yes, you certainly do look fine.” His face reddened. “I mean, you look like you’ve regained your strength.”

Magda smiled at his look of embarrassment.

Truth be told, she didn’t feel at all fine. She was so exhausted that she could hardly put one foot in front of the other, but she was more concerned that the sorceress from the Old World might be executed before they could get to her. It might be their only chance to get information about what the enemy was up to. She couldn’t afford to worry about how tired she was when there was so much at stake.

Despite the late hour, she expected General Grundwall to still be up. She knew him to be ferociously dedicated to his duty of protecting the Keep and those who lived and worked there. She remembered Baraccus often reminding General Grundwall to get some sleep or he wouldn’t be good for anything. The man rarely took the gentle reminders to heart.

By the clusters of men crowded around t

he archway to the Home Guard’s headquarters, she was sure he would be there. Some of the soldiers in blue tunics and light armor clutched papers or scrolls, waiting to give the general their reports. Other men were gathering for their patrols. The dozens of reflector lamps along the stone walls outside the archway reflected sparkles of light off polished armor and weapons that all the men carried. It was a decidedly male environment that made her feel out of place.

As Magda and Merritt made their way up the corridor, past soldiers coming and going as well as clusters of men discussing their work and their plans for the night, she spotted the general coming out of the arched opening to his headquarters. He was average height, but built like an oak tree, with thick arms and a neck that started flaring right from his ears down into his broad shoulders. She thought that he looked like a man who could shove a mountain aside if it was in his way.

He spoke to various people with brief, direct orders, sending men on specific types of patrols, or telling officers how he wanted watches run, or taking papers with reports from waiting men even as he was talking to others. He scanned each report and thanked the man giving it. Before long he had a sheaf of papers in his big fist.

When General Grundwall spotted Magda weaving her way through the swarm of soldiers, his face lit up with a big grin.

Magda instantly went on alert.

The general smiling like that was out of character. He was a serious soldier, healthy and fit despite the gray at his temples. He often rode with his men or walked miles and miles of patrols through the Keep with them, up and down countless stairs as he checked that his people were safe. He was focused and serious. He was not a man to smile casually.

Since the strange deaths at the Keep, he was, if anything, short-tempered. He felt that the murders reflected poorly on him personally. That the deaths continued put him continually on edge.

But here he was grinning as if he were at a ball and full of wine.

“Lady Searus! So glad to see you,” he said as he rushed up to her.