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‘What did he say?’ Talen whispered to Oscagne

‘He offered to do violence to anyone who objected to his daughter’s passage’ Oscagne replied His voice was also profoundly respectful, even slightly choked with e out like a silver trumpet as she also declared that her child was fit and ready to assume her place as an adult

‘She wasn’t supposed to say that last bit,’ Danae whispered in Sparhawk’s ear ‘She’s adding things’

‘You know your mother,’ he smiled

Then the Queen of Elenia turned to look at the assee as she also opened her robe and drew a silver-hilted sword Sparhaas startled by the professional way she held it

Then Mirtai spoke to the king and queen

‘The child entreats passage,’ Norkan told the Androl spoke his reply, his voice loud and coreement Then they too drew their swords and stepped forward to flank the child’s parents, joining in their challenge

The song of the Atans soared, and the truain

Mirtai faced her people and drew her daggers She spoke to them, and Sparhawk needed no translation He knew that tone of voice

The song raised, triuhly-chiselled stone block In the centre of the altar lay a black velvet cushion, and nestled on it there was a plain gold circlet

The song swelled, and it echoed back from nearby ht, a star fell It was an incandescently brilliant white light streaking down across the sky Down and down it arched, and then it exploded into a shower of brilliant sparks

‘Stop that!’ Sparhawk hissed to his daughter

‘I didn’t do it,’ she protested ‘I ht have, but I didn’t think of it How did they do that?’ She sounded genuinely baffled

Then, as the glowing shards of the star drifted slowly toward the earth filling the night with glowing sparks, the golden circlet on the altar rose unaided, drifting up like a ring of s kind of yearning, and then, like a gossamer cobweb, it settled on the head of the child, and when Mirtai turned with exultant face, she was a child no longer

The reeted her

CHAPTER 20