Gaius came barreling into the room the second after Gwen wailed. "Get her out of the room NOW!" he shouted. The maids were shocked but did as he asked. The moment that Morgana's head crossed the threshold of her room, she began breathing again. Gwen and Freya rushed to her as she opened her eyes and blinked twice. Then she tried to sit up.
"What happened to me?" she asked. "Why do I feel so...strange?" she asked.
"It was a charm," said Gaius to Morgana, Gwen and Freya. "It makes a person lose all will to live, and you had had a terrible shock to begin with. When Lancelot was kidnapped, someone placed that charm in your room."
"But why did she stop breathing?" asked Gwen.
"Seventeen days after the charm is put in place, the victim loses the ability to breathe, and suffocates. I got you out of the room in time, or you would have died, Morgana."
Morgana looked dazed. But the old sharpness of her eyes and mind was quickly returning and she shook her head.
"Ah well. Now we have to find it." said Gaius.
An army of maids and footmen were turned into the room with orders to search for a small piece of black stone with a weathered symbol on it.
"But how did you find out?" asked Freya, who was offering her arm to Morgana as support as Morgana tested her feet.
"I was looking over my books when I ran into this passage-quite by chance. You'll be all right now."
"Thank you," she said with a smile.
Morgana was temporarily installed in another room while the maids continued to search for the charm. At last, one of them found it under the bed. It was fastened to one of the beams there by a bit of thread, and the minute that the maid pulled it loose, a terrible sound filled the room, echoing as it went-the sound of Morgana screaming in despair. By the time it was over, everybody was extremely unnerved.
"What was that?" asked Gwen in a whisper.
"The charm was bathed in Morgana's tears on the day of the kidnapping, most probably." said Gaius. "I want this charm to be destroyed. Take it to a smith so that nothing else like this can ever trouble Morgana again."
"I have a question, Gaius," said Freya over dinner. "Is Morgana going to have a baby, or were her symptoms caused by the charm?"
"They were caused by the charm," said Gaius with a nod. "Those symptoms among many others."
"Will Aunty be all right now, Mamma?" asked Ania.
"Yes, my precious," said Freya, hugging her daughter close. Ania was so like Merlin, in her ways and her thoughts. She comforted her mother unspeakably when Merlin was absent.
Morgause was watching from her crystal ball, made of stone hacked from the Crystal Cave.
When she saw the charm, she stiffened. That was not something she had sent with the man she'd dispatched with the mission of kidnapping the traitor Lancelot. What was it? Where had it come from? And who wanted to kill Morgana, anyway?
She paced up and down her tower room. It was terribly confusing-and not to mention worrying. Morgana was in danger, and not from her. Merlin and Arthur were somewhere in this kingdom. She had no idea of what was going on. Who wanted Morgana dead?
Well, she thought, her lip curling, I can place Lancelot under the impression that she is dead. I will send two guards to walk by his cell while talking about her, and saying it is terrible that she died.
Morgause dispatched two guards at once to do that very thing, and then returned to her seat to think. First, Lancelot had to be killed. Then, she had to find Merlin and Arthur. She knew, now, how to break that blood ward on Camelot. Merlin, she was sure, would not know this, for the secrets to breaking blood wards were locked in the oldest of books bearing the darkest of magic.
To do this, she needed to make a brew. She had most of the ingredients already; soil of Camelot, to render its ward useless-the hair of a two-headed-horse, and the foot of a water demon-things like that. The one she missed was strong wine-but that would be in the kitchens. She needed a full cupful of Merlin's blood, as he was the one who had cast the spell. That would probably be slightly more difficult to obtain.
She remembered gleefully that the one who cast a blood ward could never be protected. Merlin was as defenseless as ever...but Arthur...him she would leave till the brew was done. Perhaps, she thought doubtfully, he had found a way to guard himself.
What she did not know was that now Merlin did not hold the power of the caster of the spell. Merlin himself did not know this, and had found many protection spells for himself, in place of the ward.
And she did not know that within Camelot was a child who could accomplish anything magically. She did not know that Ania had sung in the tongue of dragons through an entire night while her parents slept, and shifted truth.
Shifting truth was something that was very, very delicately done. Morgause herself could not do this. Ania had shifted the fact that Merlin had cast the spell-changed what had happened in the past. And now the power and vulnerability of the creator of a blood ward rested on the shoulders of Ania Linden Ambrosius.