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Maevis sipped her fresh thimble of whiskey, then continued; “What I never directly told you, and what I couldn’t bring myself to say in front of your husband, was that we were.. Umm..”

“Bumpin’ uglies?”

“Bedfellows?” Peggy and Skye had spoken at the same time.

“I was going to say lovers, but if you’re going to be crude about it-”

“Ima sorry, Mae. Go on with yer story, and I’ll get Skye’s things together for tomorrow,” Peggy replied with a cheeky smile as she set the whiskey bottle down.

With surprise in her tone, Skye asked; “Ye don’t want to stay for it?”

Peggy flashed a small smile; “Don’t ye worry about it. Mae already told me a good chunk of it, and I now know the rest from when Tidas was here.. Ima sure there’s some things Mae would prefer to only ye about as well.”

“I’m grateful to you, Peggy, but aye. There’s things that I feel only Skye should know,” Maevis’ voice was apologetic as she spoke.

.....

After assuring her wee friend that her feelings were intact, Peggy left the room to check and see if her clothes were dry yet. Zazzy was sleeping cozily against Skye’s legs, so Peggy had let her be. She was most content near her mother, and wasn’t currently causing any problems in her unconscious state.

Once Maevis heard the latch from the door click, she chuckled slightly, then spoke; “That woman is something else..”

Skye smiled at the comment. Peggy truly was her rock; she built her up when she needed it, and was as blunt and hard on her as she needed to be. Skye loved Lidia, but she’d always been more akin to an aunt to her, than an actual mother. Peggy was the one who had taken care of her throughout her life.

Whenever Skye was sick, or needed someone to talk to, Peggy was the one there for her. She was the one who’d listened to her thoughts and feelings, and was the main person she leaned on when Tidas had supposedly died. Genie was her confidant, but Peggy was her mother, and most trusted female companion. Skye couldn’t imagine her life without Peggy in it.

Skye was starting to lose herself in the thoughts until Maevis cleared her throat; “There’s some bits of information on the legend I know about that you won’t find in those research documents. There was other notes and documents about the legend, but they’d been destroyed in a fire. I didn’t know it myself until I’d seen the inside of the box, and recalled a conversation with the king.”

Confusion covered Skye’s face; “When? How?! Did it start In the library?”

Maevis grinned at her friend’s enthusiasm; “Calm down, lass; I’m getting to it.. I had asked if Magnus knew of the legend, and after a bit of extensive storytelling on his part, he’d explained that he wasn’t sure what documents had been destroyed, but recalled that it had started in the Rare Tomes section. It’s the reason all rare tomes and artifacts were now placed in that special storage we were in earlier. It was originally a kind of safe, so the conversion was relatively simple.”

“Wait, how do you know that there were more documents?” Skye asked, the confusion in her face growing.

Maevis’ expression went slightly solemn; “Because they were the papers Tiberius and I had added.. There should’ve been an additional folder with maps to the old capital, and another book with our research in it. The fact that they’re not here leads me to three possible conclusions.”

“The first is that Tiberius wife had them destroyed. I find it highly unlikely since she never knew that we were the ones that figured out the spear’s location..”

“The second is that someone had the materials checked out, or that they’d been placed somewhere else. Considering the research was written by Tiberius himself, I thought that they might be being held in the MacArthurs private archives, but I checked.”

Skye perked up a bit; “The MacArthurs have a private collection?! How did ye get to it to check? Did Magnus-”

Maevis’ laughter cut Skye off; “Oh, dearie.. I’m far more knowledgeable about this palace than any human here. Marco may have done a wee bit of renovating, but the secrets I know are built into the very bones of this place.. I’m sure that they know some of them, but not all..”

“Tiberius had died before before he could show Edmond all the passageways. There’s some places here that no one has stepped foot in Since Tiberius and I were there last; that includes the records room. The layer of undisturbed dust on everything was proof of it.. I couldn’t find our research though.”

Skye was shocked at the revelation. ‘I wonder if there’s any information on the Warrick bloodline there?! I bet that if there’s any records left, that’s where they’ll be! Should I tell Maevis about me conversation with Maggie?’

As Skye argued with herself in the back of her mind, she listened to Maevis as she continued; “Anyway: back to topic.. Based off of what Dr. Lyberth told you, anything pertaining to the legend within the library, he’d gathered for you ahead of time, correct?”

Skye nodded to Maevis; “Aye, Tidas had requested him to.”

“If it’s not in the library, then my third possibility is the most likely conclusion. Based on the given variables and factors: the fire Magnus told me about was most likely set on purpose.. ”

Fury clear in her voice, Skye asked; “But why? Why risk starting a fire Within the library?! Why not just steal the bloody research?”

Maevis sighed; “I don’t know that, but I know why they burned our research: the location of the spear.. Tiberius and I had retrieved it to use it in the last war that involved most of the kingdoms. Sai, like always, was the only one with sense enough to stay out of it.”

“What happened? What caused the war in the first place?”

Maevis scoffed, extended her arm, and requested more whiskey before she kept going; “A woman, of course.. Tiberius’ wife to be exact.”

After Skye gasped loudly, she refilled her own glass as Maevis continued; “She really was a beautiful woman, and Very dedicated to Alcon as their Queen.. But her dedication was mostly to the nobles. She only cared about the common folk to a point. If that point affected her personal comfort level, then it wasn’t worth it.”

“Did she care about Tiberius at all?” Skye inquired, but immediately regretted it.

While deep sadness etched on her face, Maevis answered; “Aye, she did.. And he cared for her as well..”

Skye lurched in her chair; “WHAT?! I thought you two-”

“We loved each other, but we were also realistic. I knew Tiberius and I couldn’t be together for very long; I’m a Fae. My lifespan is ten to twenty times the length of a human’s.. But we wanted to enjoy any time we had together. A Manic friend of ours had made me an item that could make me human-sized, and we were able to, umm..”

“Be lovers?” Skye replied with a wee cheeky grin.

Maevis actually flashed Skye a full smile as she said, “Aye..”

A bittersweet grin immediately took the place of Maevis’ happy smile. ‘She must miss him something terrible.. Would I be able to handle watching the man I love marry another? Nope.. I could never share Tidas.. But what if we’d been in their position? If I wasn’t the Catalyst, or if me father wasn’t Lucas Moonstone; would we be together?’

As Skye thought seriously on the matter, she’d concluded that she’d most likely would’ve done what Maevis did: whatever it took to be with the man she loved. If she had been a regular commoner, the best she could’ve hoped for was to be an informal mistress.

Unless the commoner’s family had extremely high standings in high society, a woman was not permitted the official title of Official Mistress for royals. That was a title usually reserved for female nobility. Without the king’s friendship, Skye’s father most likely wouldn’t have been nearly as successful as he’d been. Therefore making Skye unworthy to even be that much to Tidas.

“So let me get this straight; you and Tiberius found the spear, used it to win the war, then Tiberius died from it, correct? Like Roland Snare’s wife?”

Maevis’ voice was filled with grief; “Aye.. He died for the same reasons, too. But unlike the Snares, we didn’t get a warning from a Urisk.”

Skye perked up; “An Urisk? What’s that? A Fae, I take it?”

Maevis nodded; “Aye. They be fairy-type Fae, technically, but are the size of humans. Like most brownies and gnomes, they don’t have wings. They’re usually hermits due to their appearance, but often seek out humans and other Fae to converse with out of loneliness. I believe that’s the creature that warned Snare.”

“Most act as unofficial guardians to the people that live around their homes. They generally live in places like swamps, lakes, or near other various bodies of water. They’re usually harmless, but are considered bad omens due to their appearance. You know how easily humans are scared by the unknown,” Maevis sipped her whiskey as she finished speaking.

After Skye’d processed what Maevis had said, she spoke; “Roland said that the royals had betrayed them.. Are you saying that Tiberius’ wife betrayed him?! But you just said that they cared for one another! Why would she do that?!”

Maevis’ eyes were stern as she stared off and spoke; “They did love each other, they just live the kingdom more.. More than each other, more than me..”

Maevis felt the whiskey beginning to kick her in her ass. She’d drank too much too fast, and was now regretting it. She didn’t want to share her personal feelings about Tidas’ ancestors. She felt it most likely would just complicate things, so Maevis was doing everything she could to keep her emotions in check.

Noticing her struggle, Skye extended her finger, and mostly healed Maevis of her drunken state. It helped getting her emotions back in check, and the old Fae couldn’t be more grateful for it. Grabbing a chip and munching it away, she readied herself for her friend’s questions.

“Why did she betray Tiberius? Was she ordered to by a relative or the like?”

“No.. The truth is, I was the only one that saw it as a betrayal. Tiberius never would’ve put his own life before his people’s. I knew it then, but I still hated Bella for letting Tiberius die. The last time I ever saw her, she’d told me that it was what Tiberius had wanted.. I screamed at her and told her that she didn’t really love him. That if she’d loved him as much as I did, then she would’ve happily traded places with him, like I would’ve.. Like how I tried to..”