From Under the Mountain by Cait Spivey

Author:Cait Spivey [Spivey, Cait]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781942111399
Publisher: REUTS Publications, LLC.
Published: 2016-01-23T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Morgana’s sword hissed, glowing red-orange and shimmering with heat as she swept it through the air. She held it in one hand, the other hand beside the blade, fingers twitching as she manipulated the magic surrounding it. As her fingers moved, the molten metal twisted, changing from a longsword into a curved saber. A few more movements of her hand, and the blade cooled rapidly, holding its new form. When the blade shone silver again, Morgana swung it with considerable force at the sparring dummy she’d animated. The dummy’s head flew across the room; she pulled it back with a gesture and reattached it, then drew her hand back to melt the blade again.

The spell was one she’d been working on in her spare time for a while. She’d taken a forging spell which heated the blade without a furnace, designed for smithies on campaigns so that weapons could be repaired on the march, and added the cooling component so that the process was much faster. She’d been practicing her timing: her goal was to make it battle-functional, so that a witch could repair a weapon or armor on the field as quickly as possible. It was no replacement for traditional forging, but it was enough to get through a battle.

Morgana had gotten quite good at the spell, but she still liked to practice because it took her mind off of other worrisome things. Tonight, it was her sisters she was worried about. She at least felt like she was making some progress in the troubles of her region, after the Artan Forge fiasco. She and Aasim had discovered the source of the sandstorms, and while they still had no idea what was making the winds leave the Wastes now, they at least had a better idea of how to protect against them. Her sisters were not quite so lucky. Olivia had underworld creatures getting loose in her forests, and the report of Fiona’s latest seal on the gate was unsettling. Poor Aradia was no closer to halting the sea’s retreat, and everything else in the South had come to a standstill as people congregated at the ports, both to help bring goods in from stranded boats and to scavenge what they could from the take. Fear was beginning to grip the peninsula, and zealots were bringing it to the capital.

Angrily, Morgana stabbed through the wooden torso of the dummy. She was a savvy politician, but not nearly as patient as Olivia or Aradia. She detested empty talk and the fear-mongering tactics of the human government. Adenen was already beginning to feel the backlash of the wizards’ presence at Artan, in the form of cowardly, anonymous notes and packages with curses and superstitious sachets. They were too afraid to do more, too afraid to actually deny service to Adenen—for now. Governor Derouk had written to Evadine Malise, and the knowledge of Morgana’s allegiance with the Atithi wizards was rippling from Del back into the west. Doubt was beginning to gnaw at the people.

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