Page 8 of The Faerie Morgana

The conclave to choose the next priestess stretched through the long summer twilight and into the hours of darkness.

Food and drink were brought and consumed.

The Blackbird had to get out of his seat to walk around the chamber to relieve the aches in his body.

Iffa fell asleep, and Niamh had to prod her to stop her snoring.

Still they wrangled. Preela cast the stones, and when she could find no pattern in them, Sheelah snapped, “Give them to me! Why do you bother, Preela?” But Sheelah didn’t see the pattern, either.

Sennet touched a burning spill to the leaves, then bent over the ashes, her forehead furrowed. Murragh burned one candle, then another, leaving only the third to light the chamber when night fell.

Names were put forward, argued about, praised and criticized, but no conclusion had been reached. The Blackbird tugged at his beard to keep himself alert. Not until the first gray fingers of dawn crept through the single high window did he intervene.

When the discussion waned into silence, he spoke. “Why,” he asked, in a tone devoid of emotion, “has no one mentioned Morgana?”

Iffa startled out of her doze. “Morgana? Who said Morgana? I oppose her!”

“On what grounds, Priestess?” the Blackbird said.

“She is—she is arrogant. And impertinent. We would get nothing done!”

A new voice spoke. “We’re getting nothing done now.” Everyone except the Blackbird turned to stare at Joslyn, the youngest of the priestesses. The Blackbird gazed straight ahead, his beard twitching as it did when he was amused.

Niamh growled, “This is tradition. It’s how the decision has always been reached.”

Joslyn, thin and small and tending to timidity, pressed her hands to her flaming cheeks. “I’m exhausted, as I’m sure we all are. Everyone has something against everyone else, and we haven’t even begun to talk about Morgana.”

“I don’t want to talk about her,” Niamh said. “Iffa is right.”

“Because she’s arrogant?” Joslyn said. She sat very straight in her chair, and though her face still burned, she faced her sister priestesses with something like courage. “Why should she not be? She is more gifted than any of us.”

“She is not!” Iffa said, looking down the great arch of her nose at shy Joslyn.

Joslyn held her ground. “She is. We know it, and she knows it. She has a right to be proud, and she belongs in a priestess’s chair.”

“She’s too young,” Sennet said.

“Does age matter?”

No one replied. The Blackbird stirred himself, rising to his feet with the aid of his staff. He pointed to the divining table. “Preela, pour out the stones again.”

Everyone obeyed the Blackbird’s commands. His word would be, in the end, the final one. No one remembered why that was, but no one questioned it. It had always been so, since long before any of them came to the Lady’s Temple.

Preela picked up the cup of black and white pebbles and poured them in a stream onto the surface of the table, then stepped back.

The Blackbird bent over the table, eyeing the pattern the stones made, then looked up, scanning the circle, fixing each priestess with his gaze.

“You see it, do you not? Tell me you see it.” When there was no answer, he pointed with his staff.

“Niamh, you’re the eldest. You have been through more of these conclaves than anyone, and you have deep sight. Tell me what the stones say.”

Niamh levered herself out of her chair and walked to the table.

She braced her hands on her knees to bend forward so she could look down at the little rivulets of white and black flowing across the brown wood, separating, curling back until they met in a wider stream, then parting again.

With a little “Hmm,” mostly under her breath, she straightened.

She turned to her sister priestesses with her hands spread wide in defeat.

“Water-born,” she said sourly, and stumped back to her chair.

The Blackbird waited. One by one the priestesses stepped forward to lean over the table.

Every one of them nodded acknowledgment, though he suspected only Olfreth saw the pattern.

Aside from Niamh, Olfreth was the only priestess with deep sight.

For her, the pattern in the stones would be more than a vision.

It would show her the future, show her what was to be done, and why.

Her gaze met the Blackbird’s, and she gave a sharp nod.

Water-born.

Morgana.

Morgana tried to sleep, but without success.

Braithe pressed her to eat something, and then, yawning, sought her own pallet.

Morgana lay down for a time, but tension made her muscles twitch, and in an hour she was up again.

She made her way out of the dormitory, where the other acolytes lay dreaming, and walked down through the garden to the shore.

She wondered sometimes at how much she loved the lake, since her first voyage upon it had been so traumatic.

It was true, though. She thought of it as Ilyn, as the common people called it, rather than its formal name of Camulod Lake.

She loved the smell of the water, the tang of fish, the heavier tinge of willow and reed and moss.

She liked the slap of modest waves against the rocks, and the rustle of bigger ones when the wind came up or when the moon was full.

She savored the glisten of moonlight on the water at night, and the shimmer of the morning sun on a calm day.

She usually found peace beside the lake, but on this night, with the new moon peeking now and again through scattered clouds, there was none.

She made her way to her favorite beach and knelt on the pebbly sand, hugging herself against the midnight chill.

“I am through with waiting,” she murmured into the night.

“If the chair does not come to me, I will leave the Isle.”

A sudden swell of something powerful and strange rose in her body without warning.

It started in her belly, then bloomed upward into her chest, her throat, her head.

She clasped her hands together, wondering, even as a small brown owl soared down to the beach.

The bird strutted toward her with round, unblinking eyes fixed on her face.

She whispered, “What is it, little sister?”

The creature stopped inches from her knees, dark eyes gleaming. Morgana waited, her lips a little apart, marveling at the sensation of something opening in her, some compulsion coming to life, a compulsion she had not known was there.

The owl blinked once, twice, before she began to spread her wings.

As the bird’s wings rose and stretched, Morgana mirrored the owl’s movement. She stretched her arms up and out. Her palms opened, and her fingers straightened. She came to her feet, rose to her tiptoes, and then, in a rush of energy and power, she lifted from the earth.

She looked down at herself, expecting to see dangling legs, a flowing robe, but her clothes lay below in an untidy pile.

She wore feathers instead, brown and gray and warm.

Her arms were wide wings with fringed tips, and her feet had become talons tucked close beneath her.

Instinctively, her wings moved in slow, powerful beats.

The owl flew ahead of her, and she followed, stunned by the sensation of inhabiting a body so different from her own, thrilled with finding she could leave the ground behind.

Her wings flapped until she was high above the lake, and then they were still as she glided in the wake of her guide, soaring above the trees, carving a great circle over the water.

She should be frightened. She might fall. She might not be able to regain her own shape. She might get lost and never find her way back to the Isle of Apples. She accepted all these possibilities without caring. None of it seemed to matter in the face of this exhilarating feeling.

She followed her companion, turning when she did, flying higher when she did, swooping to brush the treetops with the soft feathers of her belly when she led her there.

They flew for sheer pleasure, with no goal, no destination, not even, though her ears picked up the rustle and squeak of some small creature, searching for prey. The sky was brightening with the first light of dawn when, at last, she began to tire.

Her companion, as if she knew, led her back to the beach where she had found her. She glided to the ground, and Morgana followed, landing lightly, easily, her talons digging into the damp sand as she settled.

Her body began to feel heavy again. Her feet were not neat little talons but bigger appendages, with long toes and tender soles.

Her arms lost their feathers, her breast its downy roundness.

The weight of her increased until, without looking, she knew she had resumed her human shape.

The owl was gone. The air chilled her bare skin, and she reached down to the mound of her discarded clothes.

She slipped into her chemise, then shook out her crumpled robe. As she pulled it over her head, she saw Braithe staring at her from the path through the trees, her eyes brimming with tears.

Braithe gaped at the owl-become-Morgana, not aware she was crying until she tasted the salt of her tears. She tugged at the roots of her hair, thinking she must be dreaming, that she needed to wake up. She tried to speak, but her tongue wouldn’t respond.

Morgana spread her arms as if to say Here I am , but she didn’t speak, either. For long moments they gazed at each other, until finally Braithe managed to close her mouth, to moisten her tongue, and to croak, “What were you doing?”

“Flying.” Morgana lowered her arms and smoothed the skirts of her robe. “I was flying.” She spoke casually, but Braithe caught the undertone of amazement in her voice.

Three brown feathers fell to the ground, and Braithe hurried to pick them up. She held them in her palm and looked into Morgana’s face. “You were— I saw—”

“Yes,” Morgana said. “Yes.” Her eyes flashed gold.