Ceera? He couldn't get enough moisture in his mouth, enough breath in his lungs to speak for a moment.
"It's done," she whispered. She sounded harsh, like the winter she had been so sick she lost her voice. "Release the Threads slowly, so I can feel the power flow back in."
"We should put it back in the center--"
"No. It's... not tame. But it is an ally now. Still dangerous, but an ally if we respect it." She made a sound, as if she tried to laugh but was too tired. "Mrillis, please, I'm drained dry."
He bit his lip to keep from cursing--he wasn't quite sure who he wanted to curse--and slowly relaxed his mental hands. Ceera turned, letting him see the shimmering, silver-blue pile she had labored over. He blinked more sweat out of his eyes and took some of the power slipping past his fingers to enhance his sight as dusk fell around them.
"It's a bracelet." He knew he sounded stupid, but it had to be the weariness talking through him.
Ceera had formed the star-metal into a simple circle of metal links, a triple chain of squares held together with another square every three links. He laughed when he made out the star-shaped clasp that closed the loop.
"For our Lady," she said. "Just because she's our mother. To protect her."
"She'll cry and scold you for wasting so much effort on her, and she'll cherish it always." He nodded and watched as the silver-blue shimmer didn't so much grow as intensify when he released more of his grip on the Threads.
"An ally," Ceera said, and nodded in satisfaction as he untwisted the Threads that protected his mental hands.
She reached out a shaky, dirty hand and with one finger touched the bracelet sitting on the anvil. It chimed softly, at the back of their minds, but there was no other reaction. Ceera flashed him a triumphant grin, scooped up the bracelet and clutched it in her fist.
"It's cool, though it was molten such a short time ago." She smiled and released a long sigh. "It's like stepping into a cool spring surrounded with mint and apple blossoms. It wipes away all my aches, physical and mental."
"No matter how much better you feel," Mrillis said, and bent to grasp her arms and lift her to her feet, "you're getting a good night's rest right here before we head back."
Ceera stuck her tongue out at him, but she didn't argue. Despite claiming that she felt quite wonderful with the star-metal bracelet safely around her wrist, she let him clean up her tools and set up camp and make their dinner. She sat still, leaning back against a tree trunk and smiled, her eyes half-closed, as if entranced.
They didn't speak aloud. Ceera showed him what she had done, the things she had sensed, the paths she had followed with her spirit more than her mind. There were things that couldn't be understood with words, not even with mental images, but with the soul. She couldn't have spoken of all she went through, even if she had the strength. It was beyond words, beyond the finite boundaries of their physical lives and experiences. She put the images and sensations of her experience directly into his mind.
Mrillis knew it would take weeks to completely digest what she had shown him, so he could talk about it and teach it to others. And he knew, even then, there was still so much that only they two would ever understand, could never convey to others. He was glad of that, and yet mourned; knowing some skills and knowledge would be lost to the World when they died.
They didn't return to the conversation he wanted to pursue, about their feelings for each other. Ceera fell asleep almost as soon as they ate and she had finished sharing directly into his mind. Mrillis sat up late, watching the moon glide across the sky, keeping watch over her. It was enough for him to know she didn't want Endor, but she did want to be with him.
* * * *
Ceera claimed she felt perfectly fine when she woke in the morning. After conferring with those who had kept watch, greatly encouraged by this first success, Mrillis and Ceera did not return immediately to the Stronghold. They went on to vales within a few hours' ride and hunted for more fragments of star-metal, to work it and make it malleable for use. They agreed not to take all the star-metal in each vale, but only a small portion. Sometimes the only bits of star-metal they could find were the size of pebbles, sometimes little more than dust.
Ceera went through the 'taming' process with star-metal, like making twisting sweets, several times before she had enough to make another bracelet. Mrillis adapted the protective magic Le'esha had taught him to set up a self-sustaining barrier around the tiny bits of star-metal Ceera had 'made truce with', so they could save and collect it for later use.
The Rey'kil guarding the vales reported a decrease in the collected power once Mrillis and Ceera had physically removed the refined star-metal. Lygroes needed its vales, the pools of power that fed their imbrose. No one wanted to go back to the dry times when there wasn't enough power.
After long debate, the leaders of the Rey'kil found only one answer to the dilemma. Mrillis and Ceera would have to travel to Moerta and focus all their efforts and experimentation on the heavy concentration of star-metal in that land. They were delighted. Endor shouted with glee so loudly when they told him the news, the Threads reverberated long afterward.
Then the Noveni nobles heard what Ceera and Mrillis had learned to do.
"I am truly sorry, my friends. You have been open and honest with me and my Council, to avoid accusations of prejudice and lies and plotting against the Noveni." Afron Warhawk sighed and looked around the wide meeting hall in the highest levels of the Stronghold.
Though it had only been a few months since Mrillis had seen the king, the change in the man had shocked him. The Warhawk looked years older. Mrillis wondered if the uneasy peace took a harder toll on the warrior king than years of conflict had ever done. He recalled the few times the leaders of the Rey'kil had been locked in disagreement, how both sides of the question had fought to stay civil and not decay into cruel words and argument. Mrillis wondered if the Noveni Council was more a problem to Afron Warhawk than a help, and they were the cause of the high king's weariness.
"The nobles have spoken, and the Council of Lords will march on the Stronghold and on Wynystrys to make their demands if I do not speak to you," the Warhawk continued. He nodded to Le'esha and Breylon. "You have always been gracious, and it irks me to have arrogant fools decide they can order you to come stand before me in the judgment hall of my fortress." A wintry smile broke the stiffness of his beard, which now showed more gray than gold. "They were none too pleased with me when I told them I would come here to make my request of you."
"Some of our people have chosen to forget that you are our hosts and allies," Lyon added from his place at his brother's left hand.
"And friends who could squash us like insects if we forget our manners," Athrar added from his place at Queen Elysion's right hand. His voice was thick with the surliness that only adolescent boys could attain.
Mrillis grinned. Knowing Athrar and how the boy disliked the arrogance displayed by many members of the Council, he could imagine how the demands of those nobles stuck in the boy's throat. He was glad he had forged bonds of friendship with the royal family, even unknowing, so long ago.
"Fortunately for all Noveni, the Rey'kil never forget their manners or history. If only our people could be so wise," the Warhawk said, nodding. "The meat of the matter is this: the Noveni nation wants all star-metal removed from Moerta."
"You must be joking!" Haster blurted. He turned to Breylon and Le'esha. "I swear, I did not know what those ingrates planned, or I would have told them myself how impossible it is."
"I tried to tell them," Lyon said. "I read to them the meticulous reports Mrillis and Ceera made, to impress on them how much work goes into the removing and refining of just barely enough star-metal for a bauble." He gestured at the bracelet which softly glowed, silver-blue, on Le'esha's wrist. "I told them they were ingrates. I reminded them that Rey'kil live among our people on Moerta to draw away the poison.
"That is no longer enough for them--they want the source, the root removed. And, they seem to think they are most reasonable that they do not expect it all removed within a single season, but over time. Perhaps the space of ten years."
"Make it thirty years, and you still would not have all the star-metal gone from Moerta," Mrillis said, almost choking on the effort not to roar the anger burning in his chest. These were his friends, after all, and they had come to the Stronghold in an effort to dilute the insult of the Noveni demand.
"Actually..." Ceera looked around the gathering of Rey'kil leaders, and blushed enough to be visible. "It might not be as hard as we at first thought. I have noticed a certain... magnetic quality to raw star-metal. Conceivably, if I gathered a large enough mass together after it was refined, but before I made it into something--"
"It would draw other pieces of star-metal to it, as the boundaries of its influence expanded," Breylon said, nodding. "But my dear child, that would require weakening the cage maintained around the star-metal, to allow it enough power to draw more raw ore to itself. That could be dangerous."
"Everything we have done is dangerous. Going against the Nameless One is dangerous, even when he has been quiet so long," Master Prothis offered from his seat in a shadowy corner. "What worries me, and has worried many, is that the heir to the Queen of Snows takes these risks."
"She is capable. She is cautious. She is perhaps the only one with the necessary skill and strength and soul-knowledge to accomplish such strange and new tasks," Le'esha said. "Ceera is my daughter, though she did not come from my womb. Do you think I would put her in jeopardy if I did not have total faith in her skill, strength, wisdom and discretion?" She rested her elbows on the arms of her chair and steepled her fingers so the tips of her index fingers just touched her chin.
"Even if I had a small, niggling doubt, I would still allow her to attempt this feat because I know Mrillis will always watch over her, guard and guide her. I have come to believe the Estall made Ceera for this destiny, and the Estall formed Mrillis to be her guardian, guide and shield. He has the strength to stop her, and she will listen to his advice when she will listen to no one else. I trust him, because he is my son, though he carries none of my blood."
She looked back and forth between the two young people as she spoke, and her eyes glistened with proud tears that didn't well up or fall. Mrillis stood, took a step forward, and bowed deeply to her. Ceera pressed both her hands over her trembling, smiling mouth and closed her eyes. Two silver tears trickled down her cheeks.
The scholars, enchanters, the Warhawk and Lyon argued, trying to find a way around the demands of the frightened and thankless Noveni. Mrillis sat beside Ceera and listened. It amazed and amused him a little to realize he felt no anger toward the nation that would never be satisfied no matter what the Rey'kil did for them. If anything, he felt only weariness.
Outside the Stronghold, the last of the winter winds blasted the ancient stone walls. Though the Northern Sea tossed, white with foam and ice, spring hovered nearby, poised to flow across the land. Soon, he and Ceera would walk down the restored tunnel from the Stronghold to Wynystrys, climb on board the first ship to cross the sea that season, and go to Moerta to battle star-metal. Just as he had always dreamed.
Yet, they would not destroy star-metal and release its power into the Threads that connected and fed the imbrose of every Rey'kil. They would battle like a horseman battled a spirited horse, not to destroy and dominate but to form it into a willing ally. They would make it into tools to serve the Rey'kil. That was nothing he had ever dreamed, until now.