Elion looked at Kael as if assessing an incomplete sculpture. Her golden eyes, which had once sparkled with mischief, now burned with an almost stormy determination. She crossed her arms, her body leaning slightly to one side, and then clicked her tongue disapprovingly.
"Enough," she said, the word laden with an ancient authority that silenced even the echoes in the hall. "Be quiet, Kael. You're coming with me."
Kael opened his mouth to protest—out of duty, pride, any shred of reason—but Elion's gaze silenced him. There was a fire there that spanned centuries. A force that shaped forests and changed the course of rivers. He closed his mouth.
"Good," she said, and then turned with an almost theatrical lightness, her red hair flowing like a living cloak. Her eyes fixed on Exelia.
"You." The word was a sharp crack in the air.
Exelia immediately assumed a guard stance, firm, but her eyes betrayed her fear. Elion pointed at her with a finger that seemed to glow with amber and embers.
