Liora spent the entire morning making copies.
She had considered taking the five marked artifacts into Calderport.
The idea lasted less than a minute.
Removing objects from the Reliquary for personal research violated every habit she'd built over the past three years. Those artifacts belonged in their cases until Aldric Voss ordered otherwise.
So instead...
She brought the research to paper.
A clean sheet lay before her.
The black river stone rested beside it.
Liora measured the symbol with the edge of her thumbnail, then carefully reproduced every curve and angle.
One line.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Three graceful arcs meeting at a single point.
When she finished, she set the drawing beside the original and compared them in silence.
Close.
But not perfect.
She started again.
By midday she had drawn the mark five separate times, once from each confirmed artifact.
The manuscript.
The river stone.
The iron key.
The carved figure.
The brass fitting.
