“Hurrrh. The Shin’a’in sssay, ‘therrre are only two powerrrsss in a warrr—the sssworrrd and the ssspirrrit, and the sspirrrit will alwaysss win out.’ If Kelvrrren wasss a warrrlorrrd, we would all sssurrrely be in trrrouble,” Treyvan said in all seriousness. “Hisss ability to find powerrr in the mossst minorrr of thingsss isss unnerrrving.”
Hallock looked back toward Kelvren. “I think he really needed to tell me all of that. It seemed very important to him, even though it exhausted him to say it.”
“He wantsss morrre than anything to feel effective,” Treyvan observed. “But, I sssuppossse, ssso do we all.” Pena arrived by his side and offered an unlatched case which Treyvan delicately reached into. He pulled out a fist-sized sphere of glass, perfect in every dimension. With a calculating look he asked Hallock, “Do you know what a Heartstone isss?”
It was dusk.
Whitebird set the last of the empty bottles and cups aside, then arose from her knees beside Kelvren. “Those should strengthen you,” she said encouragingly, “and keep you going through what’s to come. Everyone is ready.”
Kelvren stood up on all fours for the first time in days. He shook all over from the muscle strain, but he did not buckle. Whitebird folded her arms, squeezing herself in worry. Ammari shuffled close from the rear of the nowemptied tent. Kelvren pulled his shoulders back and raised his head to look her in the face. “Thisss isss a tale that tellsss itssself,” he rumbled wearily, forcing a raised-crest smile. “Pena hasss sssomething forrr yourrr ssson. If my ssstorrry endsss this night—hisss ssshall go on. I have a favorrr to assk of you, Ammarrri. Yourrr—liquid light—sssparrre a few jarrrsss for Genni Ssstaverrn. Frrrom me.” He lifted his head up to his shoulders’ height, and Ammari cupped his lower jaw in her hands and rested his beak against her bosom. She tucked her chin down and kissed him on the curve of his beak. “You’ll be all right, Kel—you will be.”
His breath was hot against her body, and he trembled as he turned aside and took his first step toward the circle. “If I am not, I ssshall fly with yourrr husssband firrrssst of all.”
Whitebird, Rivenstone, and Pena stepped in instantly to help him from the tent, but he warned them off. With wingtips dragging, Kelvren trudged to his fate on the hill.
Spectators had gathered, but guards kept them a hundred feet from the Changecircle. They parted to let him through as he approached, and several murmured encouragements to him.
All of the “gimps” were there among them.
Treyvan awaited him several horselengths from the edge of the faintly-glowing Changecircle. “It isss not too late to refussse thisss,” he said to Kelvren in Kaled’a’in. “You may ssstill live if we use the other method.”
“Live. But not fly, or rrrun even? Neverrr climb a back again? I’d rrrather die,” he chuckled weakly. “No—I must try this.”
Treyvan shrewdly asked, “You already have plansss for what you will do if thisss rejuvenation ssssucceedsss, don’t you?”
Kelvren smiled slyly. “Oh, yesss. A few. If you’rrre in a fairrr fight, you didn’t plan it properrrly. If this worksss, it will mean more than if I lingered on. It will be a gloriousss life—or a gloriousss death.” He dipped his head solemnly. “Thank you for giving me the chancsse at eitherrr, my lord Treyvan.”
Treyvan bowed his head, mirroring Kelvren’s own motion. “The sssite has been prepared. You must go in alone, and lie down in the exact centerrr. When I rrreleassse the sssequencsse, you mussst rrraise your wingsss if you can, and breathe deeply. In that inssstant, cassst your ssselfhealing ssspell. If you can ssstand, then ssstand. If you can—” He paused, obviously trying to hide something. “If you can fly then, fly. Ssstraight up, as far as you can.”
Kelvren said the obvious. “If I can’t fly then, I burn.”
Treyvan looked down. “Yesss,” he said softly.
Kelvren stared at the center of the circle. His heart beat harder as he stepped across the circle’s edge, and more than a hundred people held their breath.
Pena stood at Treyvan’s side, with a look of dismay and sorrow on her face. “He doesn’t know it’s a Heartstone—does he,” he asked Treyvan.
The gryphon mage looked down at her with a look of resignation. “No. He doesssn’t know.”
Pena’s eyes glittered from the reflected lights that were starting up from the ground as Kel approached the circle’s center. “It is probably best that he doesn’t.”
Whitebird and Rivenstone walked up beside them. “Treyvan’s made a minor node,” Pena explained to Whitebird and Rivenstone, “But it’s channeled into a Heartstone—a purposely fragile one. It’s why Treyvan used glass. When the spell reaches its height, it will consume itself. Even a tiny Heartstone will release its power in a saturated burst.”
Treyvan nodded. “I didn’t tell him. I completed the node hoursss before I buried the glasss sssphere. And the control pointsss I burrried, arrround the rrressst of the cssircle, are not to draw the power in from outssside. They are to contain the power and dirrrect the burst upward from the center. If his sssyssstem ressstartsss—he will absssorb it. If it doesss not—hurrrh. He will only feel pain forrr a few ssseconds.”
Ammari and Jeft approached the four that were speaking Kaled’a’in. “What’re you all talkin’ about?” Jeft asked.
“We arrre—wishing Kelvrrren luck.” He stepped toward the circle and spread his wings widely as Kelvren neared the center. “It isss time.”
Pena ushered the humans back to where the Herald and his Companion stood even with the soldiers, locals, and patients who came to see the fate of their gryphon. Dusk descended further, making the light from the Circle even more apparent. Kelvren neared the center and walked around the packed earth there, until he faced the crowd.
He lay down on his belly, and carefully and deliberately folded his wings.
Treyvan stepped to the edge of the Circle, sat on his haunches, and pulled his wings straight back behind him. Faint beams of light broke through the ground around the perimeter. The light of the nearer control points visibly pulled toward him as his wings swept slowly back. Treyvan spread his arms wide, curled his claws toward the sides of the Circle, and swept his wings forward again. The light pushed back and caused the next nearer points to flare brighter.
Kelvren watched Treyvan—and then looked at every one of the gathered crowd. A sharp eye could see that tears ran from his eyes and dripped from the hook of his beak.
He laid his head down flat on the ground and his wings slumped.
The sixty control points around the perimeter blazed fully now, all of them matched columns of light tapering to a foot high. Treyvan went back to all fours and walked a horselength farther from the crowd, and stopped again at the edge of the Changecircle. He sat up, raised his forearms higher than before, and swept his wings back then forward again, harder. All the perimeter lights swayed inward and another ring of them blazed up from the ground in unison. Another massive flap of his wings, and a third ring shot up and steadied, encompassing Kelvren. Arcs of energy extended from one light to another, seemingly randomly, and then all at once they made a stable, steady pattern which looked like a stained glass rosette.