The silver rose from him without summons, without ceremony, as though it had simply grown tired of remaining beneath the skin.
It came the way heat came through iron, first a slow suffusion, then a pressure that refused containment, light bleeding through flesh and along the bones until the air around him seemed to take notice and make room.
It had the quality of something remembered by the body rather than the mind.
The same silver that had come when the dragon had pressed him into the unmade dark, when the weight had driven breath from his lungs and the body had reached its quiet decision that inward was no longer acceptable.
That same light now gathered, thin as mist at first, then thickening, settling about him in a low, breathing halo.
The garden's sourceless glow dimmed in its presence, as though it recognized a claimant with better credentials.
The desert sky faded one shade.
Not darkened, It yielded.
Vothanael stepped forward.
