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“Yes,” Dilys said.

“You’ll help him kill me, then you’ll kill him,” I said.

She said nothing, but her light flared a little brighter. It was the magical equivalent of that little smile that you can’t always keep from your face. That satisfied, things-are-going-my-way smile.

Crystall collapsed, and I thought for a moment that he wouldn’t get back up, but he did. He began to crawl, painfully, slowly, toward that golden glow.

I started to go forward and help him, but the ring pulsed harder, and I took that as a sign. I stayed where I was. I let him do that slow, piteous crawl. His white hair, which I knew in the right light wasn’t white but almost clear, like crystal or water, dragged on the ground, like a rich cloak fallen on hard times.

Dawson said, “Do you want us to help him?”

“No,” I said in a low voice. “I want her to help him.”

He gave me a look, then when my look didn’t make any sense to him, he did the look with Brennan and Mercer. Mercer said, “But won’t she kill him?”

“Not if she wants to be saved,” I said.

“I don’t think she’s the one who needs saving,” Mercer said.

Dilys yelled at me. “Aren’t you going to help him, Princess?”

“He’s not here for me.”

“You speak in riddles,” she said.

Crystall continued his agonizingly slow crawl across the field with its dead and wounded. But it was clear now that he wasn’t aiming for me. He was crawling inexorably toward that golden glow.

“Do not let him throw his life away, Meredith. If he tries to harm me in this condition, I will destroy him.”

“He’s not here to harm you, Dilys,” I said.

“Why else is he here but to save you and your humans?”

Crystall had reached the edge of the golden light, but had not quite touched it. The light, like sunlight will, sparkled through his skin and hair as if he were made of his namesake, crystal. Her light caught rainbows along his body. Small, winking colored lights, to chase back the dark.

He put out his hand, and the moment it entered the circle of her light, he knelt and looked at her. The blood on his body gleamed as if formed of rubies.

“What magic is this?” Dilys asked, but her voice was not the burning thing it had been.

Crystall stood, and walked into that light. His body began to glow, like sunlight on water, or the reflected light on diamonds. He moved into her sunlight, and reflected it, making it a thing of beauty.

“What are you doing to him, Meredith?”

“It is not me who is doing it.”

Crystall was almost within touching distance of her golden, glowing form. He stood there, tall and lithe, his body lined with muscles, but lean like a runner. He had always had a delicate strength. He was like a jewel thrown into the sun, gleaming with rainbows from the tips of his hair to every inch of bare skin. The wounds had closed, as if just being near her power had healed him.

She looked…frightened. “I am no healer, but he is healed. How is this possible?”

Crystall held his hand out to her.

“What does he want?” she yelled, and the fear was plain in her voice. “Take his hand, and you’ll know.”

“It’s a trap,” she said.

“I wear the queen’s ring, Dilys. I saw you burning with the heat of the summer sun, and thought, ‘Where is her balance?’ Where is her coolness to keep her from burning everything to death?”

“No!” She shouted it at him.

Crystall simply held his hand out to her, as if he could hold that shining hand out forever.

Then her golden hand began to move, as if of its own accord. Her fingertips brushed his, and the golden heat became half silver, and I saw the waver of heat meet the sparkle of water in front of them, like the sun on the surface of a summer lake.

Then they were in each other’s arms. They kissed as if they had always kissed, though I knew they had not. He had never been her lover, her god to goddess, but he was what was left. He was the coolness she needed, and I had called what I could find.

Her glow banked to a hard, yellow light as if she were carved of it. Crystall glowed as if he were formed of rainbow