“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.