The doors closed behind them with a heavy thud, cutting off what little remained of the deafening crowd outside.
For a moment, the chamber was quiet.
Cael Varin stood just beyond the entrance in ceremonial white and gold, his pale golden eyes moving across the six Blessed waiting for him. Bright orange hair, carefully combed into something far neater than its natural state, stood out against the pristine clothing, while his shorter frame and slightly chubby build gave him a softer, more youthful appearance than the grand title attached to him suggested. There was little about the roundness of his face or the lack of muscle beneath his ceremonial clothes that immediately called to mind a divine champion.
Still, he was the Arbiter.
Their attention naturally settled on the final member of their group, some openly curious about the ordinary looking boy Elyndra had chosen, while others were content to simply watch.
The six people standing behind them reacted differently.
Their eyes touched Cael first before moving past him toward Korin.
The enormous orc standing behind Rokhan was the least subtle about it.
Vorga Ashmaw unfolded one massive arm from across his chest, the movement causing the muscle beneath his armor to shift against its straps as his eyes dropped toward Korin's feet. He watched the spacing between each step, then followed the movement upward toward his hips and shoulders before finally settling on his hands.
Only then did he look at the sword.
There was nothing hostile about his expression. If anything, the broken tusk protruding from one side of his mouth gave the slight movement of his lips an almost approving look.
Korin walked like someone who knew how to fight.
That seemed to be enough for Vorga, and his arms folded across his chest again.
The older elven woman beside Serenya was less obvious.
Tanila Thyr rested both scarred hands over the top of her wooden staff, her long, thin fingers remaining perfectly still as Korin entered. Faded blond hair streaked with silver fell around the scar crossing her left eye, while the missing tip of one ear showed through the strands tucked behind it.
She barely looked at his sword.
Her attention stayed on him.
Korin's age was obvious. The smoothness of his face made that difficult to hide, regardless of how impressive the white and gold armor looked around him.
Yet Tanila's eyes narrowed slightly as she watched the way he entered.
He wasn't looking around nervously, and that was what caught her attention.
His eyes moved, certainly, but never too quickly and never for long enough to make it obvious what he was studying. His hands remained loose. His shoulders were relaxed. Even with six strangers openly watching him, his breathing hadn't noticeably changed.
One of Tanila's scarred fingers tapped once against the wood of her staff. Twenty, perhaps younger. Her damaged ear shifted slightly as she continued watching him, seemingly more interested by that realization than concerned by it.
A whisker twitched farther down the chamber.
Sair Vex was smiling.
The Fox Beastkin had been smiling before the doors opened, and judging by the lazy amusement sitting across his face, Korin doubted much could convince him to stop.
Amber eyes passed over Cael before settling briefly on Korin.
One of Sair's reddish ears turned slightly toward him.
The smile remained as Sair looked away without bothering to examine the sword or armor. Korin couldn't tell what, if anything, the Fox had learned from that brief glance. There had only been a twitch of a whisker and that same irritating smile.
Korin found himself watching Sair for a moment longer than Sair had watched him.
That was probably intentional.
Then something clicked.
Very quietly.
Korin's attention shifted toward the human woman standing near Tova.
Veska Renn was staring directly at his chest.
More specifically, her artificial eye was.
The metallic iris contracted with a faint mechanical sound, shrinking until it was little more than a pinprick before widening again. A weak amber glow shifted toward something closer to pale yellow as her gaze traveled over the markings worked into the surface of Korin's white and gold armor.
Korin slowed slightly as the eye focused on him. He could almost feel it moving across his armor as Veska examined him.
It passed across the gold detailing near his shoulder, stopped briefly over a marking near his chest, then moved immediately toward the sword across his back.
The artificial iris adjusted again, focusing closer. Korin resisted the urge to turn his shoulder away as Veska leaned forward slightly, apparently finding something considerably more interesting than she'd expected.
Her normal eye narrowed while the artificial one continued changing focus, tracing the markings along the visible portion of his scabbard before moving toward the hilt.
Then it changed color again.
Korin finally looked directly at her.
Veska noticed, and her mechanical eye immediately returned to normal as a smile spread across her face.
Korin raised an eyebrow.
Her smile widened.
Apparently that was all the explanation he was getting.
The Dragonkin beside Silas presented an entirely different problem.
Vaelor Dreth looked like he'd rather be somewhere else.
The tall Dragonkin stood with his weight shifted lazily toward one side, charcoal scales catching faint traces of light while one hand hung loosely near his waist. His pale gray eyes were half lidded, and the broken horn curving backward from his head only added to the generally worn appearance of someone who had already decided this gathering was taking too long.
His eyes passed over Cael, moved briefly to Korin, and then immediately settled on the sword across his back.
For the first time, some of the laziness disappeared.
Vaelor's gaze followed the length of the scabbard, taking in its size and placement before stopping at the hilt above Korin's shoulder.
He stared at it for several seconds.
Korin waited for his eyes to move toward his hands.
They didn't.
Vaelor seemed far more interested in the weapon itself than the man carrying it.
His own hand remained hanging lazily near the sword at his side.
Eventually, his heavy lidded eyes rose toward Korin's face.
Their gazes met.
Vaelor gave him a small nod.
Then the Dragonkin's eyes drifted away again, his posture immediately returning to something bordering on bored.
Korin wasn't entirely sure what had just been decided.
And then there was the last guardian.
She hadn't looked at him at all.
Oria stood behind Elyra with one enormous shield resting beside her and a sword longer than most of the people in the room secured across her back. Silver gray metal enclosed her entire body so completely that Korin still couldn't determine which portions were armor and which belonged to the person underneath.
A narrow blue glow shone from behind her visor.
It wasn't pointed at him.
It wasn't pointed at Cael.
Oria was staring into an empty section of the chamber.
Korin followed her gaze.
Nothing.
His eyes returned to her.
The blue light shifted faintly.
Oria's helmet moved perhaps an inch to the side as if whatever she was watching had moved.
Korin looked again.
Still nothing.
Then her helmet turned.
The blue glow settled on him.
It moved down his body slowly, lingering briefly over his armor and sword before returning toward his face.
For perhaps two seconds, Oria studied him.
Then she looked away.
Back to the empty air.
Korin waited.
She didn't look back.
"...Interesting."
One of Vorga's massive shoulders shifted as the orc glanced toward him.
"First Eidoryn?"
"No."
Korin looked once more toward the empty space in front of Oria.
"First one I've seen more interested in nothing than the eleven people standing around her."
"I know what she's looking at."
Veska said it without looking away from the little metal piece she had started turning between her fingers again.
Korin glanced toward her.
Her artificial eye clicked softly as its iris expanded.
"What?"
"An old fight."
Korin's eyes returned to the empty space.
Veska continued casually.
"She's watching an old fight."
Oria's helmet turned.
Immediately.
The blue glow of her visor settled directly on Veska.
Veska stopped fiddling with the piece in her hands.
For the first time since Korin had entered, her grin faltered.
She lifted both hands slightly.
"Don't worry. I won't spill."
Oria continued staring at her.
Veska's mechanical eye contracted once.
"But you really should pay more attention to the present instead of the past."
Silence.
Oria's visor remained fixed on her.
Veska slowly lowered her hands.
"...Just saying."
The blue light brightened slightly.
Veska looked away.
Korin stared between them.
"So there actually is something there."
Veska glanced at him.
"Was."
"Was?"
"That's usually how the past works."
A small twitch ran through Sair's whiskers as his sly foxlike smile widened.
Korin looked toward him.
Sair immediately looked somewhere else.
Veska continued turning the little piece between her fingers as if she hadn't just revealed something Korin was fairly certain she hadn't been supposed to.
Korin looked back toward the empty space.
An old fight.
There was nothing there now. No damage on the floor that he could immediately see, no blood, no weapons, not even a mark that suggested anyone had ever fought in that particular section of the chamber.
Yet Oria was still watching.
Her helmet shifted slightly.
Following something.
The enormous shield remained perfectly still beside her as the faint glow within her visor tracked an event only she seemed capable of seeing.
Korin found himself wondering how old the fight was.
Yesterday?
Ten years ago?
A hundred?
The thought was interrupted by a deep voice.
"So."
Vorga unfolded his arms, one massive forearm dropping to his side.
His eyes settled properly on Korin now.
"Twenty?"
Korin looked toward him.
"Something wrong with twenty?"
"No."
The orc's broken tusk shifted slightly as his mouth moved.
"Just wondering what Valmyr knows that we don't."
"That assumes Valmyr knows something."
Sair spoke without turning toward either of them.
One reddish Fox ear had rotated in their direction, however.
Korin noticed.
So the bastard had been listening the entire time.
Veska snorted.
Tanila's scarred fingers tightened slightly around her staff, though the older elf offered no comment.
Vaelor didn't even bother lifting his head.
Oria was still watching the dead fight.
Korin let his eyes move around the room again.
Now that he had stopped walking, the differences between them were becoming easier to see.
Vorga had measured the person carrying the weapon, watching movement before steel.
Tanila had barely cared about the weapon at all. She had watched him instead.
Sair had given him almost nothing, which Korin suspected was exactly what the Fox wanted.
Veska had practically taken his armor and sword apart with that artificial eye without ever touching either.
Vaelor had done the opposite of Tanila. He seemed considerably more interested in Korin's sword than Korin himself.
And Oria-
Korin glanced toward the empty space again.
He wasn't even sure Oria was entirely in the same moment as the rest of them.
Seven guardians from seven different Dominions, none selected by the same people and none chosen for exactly the same reason.
Yet when the doors had opened, all six had done some version of the same thing.
They had acknowledged Cael.
Then measured the man standing behind him.
It wasn't disrespect toward the Blessed.
It was habit.
The teenagers in front of them had been chosen by gods.
The people standing behind them had been chosen for something far less divine.
Each Dominion had searched through its strongest, most capable, and most trusted people before deciding who would stand beside their Blessed. They needed someone capable of protecting a sixteen year old carrying the favor of a god, but that alone wasn't enough. A guardian couldn't be someone who would die buying their Blessed a few extra seconds to escape.
They had to survive too.
Every Dominion had chosen with the confidence that their guardian could be thrown into hostile territory, surrounded by enemies, cut off from help, and still somehow find a way to bring both themselves and their Blessed home alive.
That was why none of the six seemed particularly concerned about standing in a room with the others.
They understood what surrounded them.
Monsters chosen to protect miracles.
And every Dominion believed theirs was the one who could survive the rest.
Click
A second set of doors opened at the opposite end of the chamber.
Everyone turned.
Two figures entered.
The first was an elderly man dressed in the ceremonial robes of the Concord. He looked well into his seventies, with thinning silver hair swept neatly back and a long white beard falling across his chest. A polished wooden cane struck the floor with every step, though he seemed to be walking considerably faster than someone his age had any business attempting.
Beside him walked a girl around the same age as the Blessed.
She was dressed entirely in white, her robes simple and clean compared with the elaborate ceremonial clothing worn by many of those gathered within the Concord. Short white hair stopped neatly around her jaw in a straight bob, framing a youthful face that remained remarkably composed as she entered.
Her hands rested calmly together in front of her as she walked, every step measured and a small, pleasant smile resting across her face.
Only her eyes betrayed her.
They were practically glowing with excitement.
Her gaze traveled across the seven Blessed with barely concealed fascination, lingering on faces she'd clearly already seen in paintings, reports, or whatever stories had managed to reach the Concord since the Descent. She didn't gawk or crane her neck toward them, but there was something unmistakably enthusiastic in the way her eyes moved from one to another.
It was the look of someone trying very hard to behave normally while standing in a room filled with people she'd only ever heard stories about.
The elderly man beside her was making no such effort.
He made it perhaps halfway across the chamber before stopping.
His cane struck the floor.
His eyes moved across the Blessed.
Once.
Twice.
Then again, apparently just to make certain none of them had disappeared.
His mouth slowly fell open.
"Seven."
Nobody answered.
The old man's grip tightened around his cane.
"Seven."
His voice was louder this time.
A smile began spreading across his face.
"Seven!"
The girl beside him glanced toward him.
"Grandfather."
"ALL SEVEN!"
His voice echoed through the chamber.
He threw both arms outward, momentarily forgetting that one of them had been responsible for holding his cane. The polished wood clattered against the floor.
He didn't notice.
"ONE HUNDRED YEARS!"
The old man dropped to his knees so suddenly that the girl finally lost some of her composure, one hand moving slightly as though she were considering whether she needed to help him back up.
He raised both trembling hands toward the Blessed.
"One hundred years these halls have waited! One hundred years since seven divine lights last descended upon this world, and now, before these unworthy old eyes, all seven vessels stand beneath the same roof!"
His eyes were already watering.
"THE ARBITER!"
Cael stiffened slightly.
"The Verdant Heart!"
His head snapped toward Serenya.
"THE CRIMSON FANG!"
Rokhan was next.
"The Chronicle! The Whispered Smile! The Emberforged! The Pale Requiem!"
With every title, Orren somehow became louder.
By the last one, his voice had risen to something halfway between a proclamation and a religious breakdown.
He pressed both hands against the floor and bowed until his forehead nearly touched the stone.
"Praise the Seven! Praise this century! Praise these halls for surviving long enough that I might witness this day!"
A brief silence followed.
The girl in white looked down at him.
"Grandfather."
"YES?"
"Your cane."
Orren looked beside himself.
The cane lay several feet away.
"...Ah."
The girl calmly stepped over, retrieved it, and held it toward him.
"Thank you, Mira."
"Of course."
He took it.
Then immediately seemed to remember the Blessed were still standing in front of him.
His eyes widened all over again.
"Seven."
Mira's smile grew slightly.
"Yes, Grandfather. They're still here."
"Remarkable."
Using his cane, Orren pushed himself upright with considerably less dignity than he'd entered with. He straightened his robes, wiped quickly at the moisture gathering beneath his eyes, and attempted to compose himself.
It didn't work.
The enormous smile remained.
"My deepest apologies."
He placed one hand reverently against his chest.
"I had prepared a speech."
Mira looked toward him.
"You practiced it all morning."
"I did."
"And last night."
"Yes."
"And yesterday morning."
Orren's smile faltered slightly.
"Thank you, Mira."
She inclined her head.
"Of course."
Orren cleared his throat.
"I appear to have forgotten all of it."
His eyes wandered across the Blessed again.
"Understandably."
He bowed deeply.
"I am Orren Vale, Senior Keeper of the Concord Hall and humble servant of the Seven. For thirty eight years, I have personally overseen the preservation and preparation of these halls for this exact day."
He gestured toward the girl beside him.
"And this is my granddaughter, Mira Vale."
Mira stepped forward.
Unlike her grandfather, she didn't bow herself halfway to the floor.
She simply placed one hand over the center of her chest and lowered her head with practiced grace.
"Greeting's, I am Mira Vale."
Her voice was calm and clear.
"It's an honor to meet all of you."
She raised her head.
The pleasant smile remained exactly where it had been.
Her eyes, however, immediately started moving across the Blessed again.
Up close, the excitement in them was even harder to miss.
Orren noticed.
"My granddaughter has been looking forward to your arrival almost as much as I have."
Mira's eyes remained on the Blessed.
"Almost."
Orren slowly turned toward her.
"Almost?"
For the first time, Mira's smile became slightly amused.
"You've been counting the days for thirty eight years."
"I have been fulfilling a sacred responsibility."
"You have a calendar beside your bed."
"That is entirely unrelated."
"You cross off every morning."
"Mira."
She finally looked toward him.
"Yes, Grandfather?"
Orren stared at her.
Mira maintained the same perfectly innocent smile.
For several seconds, the old man seemed to search for a response.
Then his attention wandered back toward the Blessed.
His indignation disappeared instantly.
The smile returned.
"Seven..."
Mira sighed quietly.
But the excitement in her own eyes never faded.
A few seconds passed before she glanced toward her grandfather.
"Grandfather."
Orren was still staring at the seven Blessed.
"Yes?"
"The Council."
Nothing.
Mira waited a moment before trying again. "The Council wanted to speak with the guardians."
Orren blinked, his expression remaining completely blank for several seconds before his eyes suddenly widened.
"Ah."
Mira's smile tightened slightly.
"Yes."
"The Council!"
Orren straightened so suddenly that his cane struck loudly against the floor.
"Of course. Yes. The Council requested an audience with each of your esteemed guardians before today's proceedings begin."
His attention finally moved away from the Blessed and toward the seven people standing behind them.
The reverence didn't disappear.
It simply lessened enough for him to remember why he was actually there.
"If you would follow me, they are waiting in the adjoining chamber. It shouldn't take terribly long."
Orren motioned toward the doors he'd entered through.
Nobody moved.
His hand remained extended.
The seven guardians remained exactly where they were.
Orren looked between them.
Korin stood behind Cael with his hands resting loosely at his sides. Vorga hadn't unfolded his enormous arms. Tanila remained beside Serenya with both scarred hands resting over her staff, while Sair's expression still carried that same pleasant smile.
Not one of them took a step.
Even Vaelor's previously lazy expression had sharpened slightly.
Orren slowly lowered his hand.
"...Ah."
Mira glanced at him.
Orren tapped his cane once against the floor.
"Yes. Right. Of course."
He gave a small, embarrassed laugh.
"Guardians."
The word seemed to explain the problem to himself more than anyone else.
He had just asked seven people specifically selected to protect the most valuable teenagers in their respective Dominions to walk into another room and leave those teenagers behind with people they had met only minutes ago.
Orren shook his head.
"Forgive me. I should have expected that."
He looked toward Mira.
"Mira, if you would."
She nodded.
"Of course."
Mira stepped away from her grandfather and walked toward a small section of the floor near the center of the chamber, several of the guardians immediately turning their attention toward her. She stopped over what appeared to be an ordinary piece of pale stone. There was no lever, crystal, or mechanism that Korin could see.
Mira simply lowered one hand and pressed her fingers against the floor.
Mana moved.
The reaction was immediate.
A thin white line appeared beneath her palm, followed by another, and then hundreds more erupted outward at once.
Korin's eyes widened slightly.
The lines raced away from Mira in every direction, spreading across the stone like cracks made entirely from light. They climbed the walls, crossed the pillars, wrapped around the enormous doors and continued upward toward the ceiling.
More appeared beneath them, then more beneath those, until within seconds Korin completely lost track.
The chamber disappeared beneath white.
Thousands upon thousands of lines overlapped one another, so densely packed that the original stone became difficult to see beneath them. Circles formed inside circles. Symbols crossed through symbols. Geometric patterns appeared across the floor only to disappear beneath larger ones as another layer activated above them.
The walls were worse.
Arrays covered nearly every available surface.
Some were enormous, stretching from floor to ceiling, while others were so small and tightly packed that dozens fit within the space of Korin's hand. Lines connected one formation to another until it became impossible to tell where one array ended and the next began.
Even the air changed as mana pressed against the chamber from every direction.
Vorga's folded arms slowly separated while Tanila lifted one scarred hand from her staff. Sair's smile remained, though the twitch of one whisker betrayed that the display had finally caught him off guard. Beside them, Veska's artificial eye began rapidly contracting and expanding as she attempted to follow the overlapping formations, seemingly unable to decide where to focus.
Vaelor no longer looked bored.
Even Oria had finally stopped watching the past, the blue light behind her visor moving across the walls as layer after layer continued activating around them.
Korin stared upward.
He recognized some of what he was seeing.
Defensive arrays. Barrier formations. Reinforcement patterns.
Others were unmistakably offensive.
And there were far more of those than he would've expected.
The deeper he looked, the worse it became.
Destroying one wouldn't disable the system. The lines branched too often. Individual formations overlapped with others, and several seemed to exist solely to reinforce or protect the arrays around them. Even if someone knew exactly what they were doing, breaking through enough layers to compromise the chamber would take time.
Time none of them would have.
Orren smiled proudly.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Nobody answered.
His smile grew.
"I think so."
He lifted his cane and pointed toward the glowing chamber around them with the pride of a man personally responsible for every line.
"What you are looking at is more than a century of work. Every Keeper of the Concord for the last hundred years has added to it. Every Council has funded its expansion. Every generation has improved what the generation before them left behind."
He tapped the glowing floor.
"The amount of mana required to establish the foundations alone could have supplied a small city for decades."
His expression became almost offended.
"And the cost!"
He placed a hand against his chest.
"Do not ask me about the cost."
Mira looked toward him.
"You bring up the cost constantly."
"Because it was astronomical."
"You didn't pay for it."
"That does not make the number less upsetting."
Mira's smile grew slightly.
Orren cleared his throat and returned his attention to the guardians.
"The point is that your Blessed will be safe."
He gestured broadly around them.
"These are not merely barriers. There are defensive arrays, suppression arrays, detection arrays, containment formations, reinforcement systems and, should someone be particularly determined to make a terrible decision..."
His smile became almost disturbingly cheerful.
"...quite a few offensive measures."
Korin looked toward one of the brighter formations on the wall.
"Quite a few?"
Orren's eyes followed his.
"Several thousand."
Korin looked back at him.
Orren seemed immensely proud of that answer.
"Possibly more."
"You don't know?"
"After the first few thousand, counting became an exercise in vanity."
Veska's mechanical eye continued flickering as she studied the walls.
"Redundant activation paths."
Orren immediately pointed his cane toward her.
"Yes!"
Veska's eye focused on another section.
"And the barriers are layered."
"Yes!"
"Some of the attack formations are hidden underneath the defensive ones."
Orren's eyes practically sparkled.
"YES!"
Mira gently pushed his cane downward.
"Grandfather."
Orren cleared his throat.
"Right."
He turned back toward the guardians.
"Even someone of your considerable abilities would struggle to force their way through this chamber once it has been fully activated. More importantly, you could not do so quietly. The instant even one major formation is disturbed, every Keeper, guard, and Council member within the Concord will know."
His expression softened, although the fanatic enthusiasm never completely left his eyes.
"Your Dominions would never have agreed to send their Blessed here if we could not promise that."
That seemed to matter more.
The guardians looked around the chamber again, but whatever surprise the initial display had caused was quickly replaced by calculation. None of them had suddenly become comfortable with the idea of leaving their Blessed behind, but there was little point denying what surrounded them.
Korin followed several of the glowing paths across the walls one last time, watching them disappear beneath dozens of other formations before reappearing somewhere else entirely. He still didn't like it, and judging by the others, neither did they.
But Orren wasn't wrong.
The chamber wasn't simply protected. It was a fortress built and refined over a century for this exact moment, and anyone foolish enough to attack the seven Blessed inside it would have to tear through generations of preparation before reaching even one of them.
Orren seemed to recognize the moment their resistance began to weaken.
"And Mira will remain here."
Seven pairs of eyes moved toward her.
Mira stood calmly beside the still glowing activation point, her short white hair almost disappearing against the light covering the chamber. She met their attention without the slightest hint of the excitement she'd shown while looking at the Blessed earlier.
Orren rested both hands proudly over his cane.
"She knows the Hall's formations better than almost anyone currently alive. Should anything happen, she can activate the appropriate defenses immediately."
Mira glanced at the white light surrounding them.
"They're already active."
Orren paused.
"More active."
"There are three higher levels."
Korin looked at the walls again.
He wasn't sure he wanted to know what those looked like.
Orren smiled.
"Precisely."
Silence returned.
Then Vorga moved first.
The enormous orc glanced toward Rokhan before stepping away from him.
Tanila followed after a moment, giving Serenya one last look before the end of her staff tapped quietly against the floor.
One by one, the others relented.
Sair pushed himself away from where he'd been standing, the familiar sly smile returning to his face. Veska reluctantly tore her artificial eye away from the arrays, though it continued adjusting as if trying to memorize as much as possible before she left. Vaelor followed with considerably less concern than he'd shown moments earlier.
Oria's blue visor remained fixed on Elyra for several seconds.
Then she turned.
Korin was last.
He looked at Cael.
The boy looked back at him.
For the first time since they'd entered the Concord, there would be a door between them.
Korin's eyes briefly moved toward Mira.
She noticed.
Her posture remained perfectly composed.
"Nothing will happen to him."
Korin looked at the thousands of glowing lines covering nearly every surface around her.
"That's a confident promise."
Mira's small smile didn't change.
"I know this room, and I know what I've been entrusted with."
Her eyes moved briefly toward Cael before passing across the other six Blessed.
"I'll keep all seven of them safe until you return."
She paused for only a moment.
"Even if it costs me my life."
There was no hesitation in her voice. No dramatic weight placed behind the words, no tightening of her expression as though she understood she'd just offered something extraordinary.
She said it as casually as if she'd promised to keep the doors closed.
Korin studied her for a moment longer.
Mira was sixteen.
The same age as the seven teenagers standing behind her.
She'd introduced herself barely minutes ago, and now she was offering her life for seven strangers with a smile still on her face.
Something about that sat poorly with him.
But this wasn't the time to question it.
If anything, she appeared confused by his continued hesitation.
"Besides," she added, glancing at the thousands of active arrays surrounding them, "I don't expect it to come to that."
That was apparently all she intended to give him.
Korin looked at Cael once more.
Then he followed the others.
Orren waited beside the adjoining doorway until all seven guardians had passed through before following them himself.
The door began to close.
For a moment, the two groups remained visible to one another.
Seven Blessed on one side.
Seven guardians on the other.
Then the doors met.
The Blessed were alone.
Almost.
Mira turned around.
Seven teenager's stared back at her.
Her perfectly composed expression remained exactly where it was.
The excitement immediately returned to her eyes.