After Seren and Dradge left—the former eager to return to his estate, the latter to sleep, at her insistence—Lyara spent the next hour kneeling in the corner of the library, in the flickering dark, face turned toward the promise of a sunrise she couldn’t see. She whispered every prayer she knew by heart, then dug out more of her father’s books to read through a few others. She didn’t mean to cry, but it felt necessary and so she did, softly, wiping her tears away as soon as they escaped.
Her heart screamed within her chest—how could she even consider doing this, much less agree to it?—but in her mind she already knew the truth. It had to be done. Some dastardly corner of her soul wanted to do it. Better heresy be committed by someone who’d feel the proper remorse than someone who didn’t understand at all.
Finally she drew in a breath, dried the last of her tears, and picked herself up from the cold, stone floor.
She started with Ivard of Gebrama’s On History. His short section on Gallian was mostly speculation and far less than detailed, but Randre’s Account of the New World filled most of those gaps. Though both men steered into the fantastical when describing the blade itself—probably a natural response when standing in the presence of such an immense power.
Gallian rarely drew the sword unless it was to call down lightning from the sky.
That wasn’t something she could replicate, but she also figured it was Seren’s problem. What she had was already a proper challenge for any artist, and her fickle muse leapt at the chance to pursue it. That monster whispered sweet wonders in her ear.
This will be your legacy. This will live longer than colored oil on canvas.
And if she had her way, Seren would never touch it.
She did a few rough sketches first, letting her hands work as they willed while she kept those passages of text in mind. The results were…tolerable. Next, she rooted through the religious volumes—skipping the prayers this time—to see what they had to say.
Fantastical was an understatement.
She blew out a breath, unsettling the strands of dark hair that dangled over her face, as she slouched in her chair. This was the wrong approach.
She jumped to her feet and moved to a different section, picking out one of her past suitor’s graduation work: Swords of Avaron, from Year 1 to Year 132, by Berwin Bontalenta. She’d actually gone on four dates with that fellow; he’d commissioned her to draw the illustrations.
She flipped a few pages in, until she reached the section labeled Year 5. She’d read through all this dribble at one point in order to properly draw the ideal blade of each era, all she needed now was the reminder.
She turned to a new page in her sketch pad and tried again, keeping the historical context in mind this time, instead of just the official historical accounts. The image she produced was plain, the blade shorter than modern weapons, with a two-handed hilt. Gallian’s sigil, inlaid above the fuller, added an air of regality, but no one in Edras would believe this sword belonged to the fonfyr.
Well, Berwin probably would.
Lyara tore out that page and started again, this time blending the two ideas together. The proper size, with jewels on the hilt. The authentic sigil, with the symbols of the other Fidelis houses lining up the fuller. In her haste, her palm smeared some of the charcoal lines, but that didn’t matter. This was an Ìsendorál Edras would believe in.
Perhaps that meant the Fidelis would as well.
She rose and shoved the parchment on top of the books on the nearest shelves. She’d need more than heresy to make a King.
Kneeling, she rummaged through the drawer that made the lowest shelf—the one place in the library her father permitted her to store her sketchbooks. She rooted through to the bottom, where she’d hidden the improper sketches she’d made of Dradge when he’d earned General.
Lyara flipped through to the final sketch, Dradge standing proud and regal as the actual King stood hunched and withered. The sketch was better in her memory, but the image it captured remained just as potent.
She’d paint this tonight. She didn’t know yet how to best use it, but she knew she’d need it. This was her key: a glorious, momentary capture of the truth.