Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(32)

“The speck you see inside is the blood of Gargi Vachaknavi,” Eskander said. “She was the most brilliant woman of several dozen ages—famous enough that even the male-dominated courts of ancient kingdoms couldn’t deny her honors. She lives on in that stone. And you are the one to wear it now.”

“I’m not brilliant,” she said. She felt humiliated, oddly enough. Small and fearful and unworthy. “Please take it.” She held it out. He shook his head.

“You aren’t Gargi,” he agreed. “But you are something else. Something I feel certain that lady would find worthwhile to nurture. Put the ring on, Morgan.”

“No!”

He put his hands on her shoulders and gazed down at her. His son had the same look. The same hidden warmth buried under layers of severity. “Put the ring on. I’m here. I won’t abandon you.”

She felt her tired eyes fill with tears. When those tears fell, they tasted bitter. “I feel so wrong.”

“Then I will help you,” he said. “Do you trust me?”

She did. Against her will. Against all her experience. So she nodded, took another breath, and tried to put the ring on her right hand. No, that felt wrong. It belonged on her left, on her middle finger, and as it settled against her skin she felt something wash over her. Not power. Emotion. Welcome.

The power came after, a wave that crashed in on her and buried her deep, screaming silently and rolling in the ocean of gold. Drowning in the deep, rich flood of something primal and powerful.

She felt it wash her clean inside. It burned, and it hurt, but she’d felt this before; she knew to hang on and wait for the relief. And it came, oh, it came cool as water through her veins. She flinched, shuddered, and looked down at the ring on her hand.

She hadn’t imagined it. The red spot in the stone was moving. As if the honey under the surface remained liquid and sweet. She felt . . . free. Light. Strong. Strong enough to bring this entire tower down around her, to level cities, to burn out stars.

It was terrifying and wonderful.

“No one should have this power,” she whispered. “No one.” But she didn’t want to give it up, either. There was a feeling that the ring itself had decided this and not her. That the ring believed in her, if such a thing was possible.

Eskander still held her shoulders, but he was looking at her completely differently now. There was a sharp assessment in his eyes, and a light frown between his brows. He was reading her on a deeper level than just the physical.

And he finally said, “The ring will help you with what you need. Whatever that may be. But don’t underestimate it: it will judge your intentions, too. It’s intelligent, in a way; it’s also inherited Vachaknavi’s loyalty to the Great Library. That’s why this ring was put away . . . because the ring began to sharply disagree with the Obscurists Magni over the years about the course the Great Library was on. It will warn you first, then stop you, if it feels you are doing wrong.”

“What if it is wrong?”

“Then you have to change its mind,” he said. “But you can’t take it off, Morgan. It’s meant to be on your hand now. It will stay until it feels it’s time to go.”

“This isn’t—this isn’t alchemy. It’s sorcery.”

“It comes from a tradition that didn’t see the distinction between the two,” he said. “There’s nothing to fear here. Now, go to bed. Rest. And help Thomas in the morning.”



* * *



—

She intended to follow those orders, truly, but when she wandered out into the curving corridor, out to the central core with the lifting chamber that carried her to her old bedroom doorway—a bedroom that still contained things she’d left behind, full of past bad memories—she couldn’t go in. She went to the kitchens and ate a bowl of soup standing up. The woman on duty was baking bread, and the rich smell of it made Morgan’s mouth water even though her immediate hunger was sated.

Morgan took a hot roll with her up to the highest public level of the Iron Tower: the gardens. It was just as she’d last seen it, bursting with color and life. The singing of birds in the trees and the splash of fountains made something restless in her go temporarily still, and she stretched out on one of the long garden lounges, curled on her side, and finally allowed herself to sleep with the roll still clutched half-eaten in her hand.



* * *



—

I’m dreaming, Morgan thought.

She was floating in the ocean, staring up at a dark sky shot with stars. Watching comets streak across the blackness, trailing fire. She was happy.

And then she was drowning.

It felt as if a rope had been tied around her middle and a giant pulled her down. As if she was falling from a great height, the water rushing around her, her hands waving and grasping for the peaceful surface. She tried to hold her breath. Couldn’t.

But when she breathed, she received air—fresh air that smelled of flowers and earth.

Then she was standing on the sandy floor of the ocean, which was also lit by a rising sun, and a young woman floated in the sea across from her with her legs crossed. She wore a bright yellow silk sari that fluttered in the water’s ripples. “That’s beautiful,” Morgan said, and the words came out as odd little bubbles that somehow made sense, though she heard no sound at all.