Thrall - Christie Golden [71]
The moons, the Mother and Child, did not care what was transpiring at the Nexus. They continued to glow softly, their blue-white radiance reflected back to them by the gleam of snow, the smooth surface of blue scales. It was beautiful, and haunting, and Thrall found his eyes held not by the shouting dragon, wings beating in the wind, but by the still quietude of the moment.
And slowly other heads turned as well. Turned away from Arygos and his promise of magic as a tool. Turned toward the breathtaking sight of celestial bodies in perfect alignment, in the wonder of their breaths freezing on the cold air.
And Thrall realized that in the choice between two ways of being—between Arygos and his invocation of the glory of the past and promise of the future, and simply beholding the Embrace—the blue dragonflight had chosen the stillness … the magic … of the moment.
Arygos kept shouting, bragging, begging. And yet the blues did not seem to want to listen. Like statues, which they looked like under the blue and white light of the two moons, they continued to focus their attention on the Embrace. They seemed … surprised by how beautiful it was.
Thrall thought that the combined blue-white radiance seemed to cast a magical illusion of its own on the still leviathans themselves. They seemed to glow with an exquisite illumination, and so compelling was that illusion that Thrall turned from observing the two moons to watching the dragons.
And then the light shifted. It seemed to diminish, passing from Arygos to the entirety of the assembled dragonflight. Even Thrall knew he was included in the generous radiance. And then, slowly, it faded from them as well.
It did not fade from Kalecgos.
And then Thrall understood.
This ritual was not an intellectual exercise. Nor was it about a vote among the blues for who they thought would be the best candidate. It was not about the “title” of Aspect, given to one who would use it as a tool only for himself and his flight.
The celestial phenomenon was called the Embrace. This was about the heart of the blue dragonflight, not its brain. The new Aspect could never be granted powers by thought alone. The titans had done what they felt was right. And so now, in this moment, had the blue dragonflight.
They had listened not just with their minds but with their hearts, when Thrall and Kalec had spoken. They had watched Thrall watch them, and noticed his reactions. It would seem they had heard him, about living in the moment, about the wonder with which they should regard their own lives, their own abilities, their own selves. Even more, when something truly beautiful and magical—with a strength that came only from its grace and rarity, and that offered no dominance or power—had come their way, they had turned toward it as a flower turns its face to the sun. And their hearts had been moved from fear to hope, from shutting out to letting in.
The glow around Kalecgos increased, even as the glow faded from the other dragons and then from the sky as the Blue Child moved out of its mother’s loving embrace.
Kalec’s breath was coming quickly, his eyes wide with wonder. Suddenly he leaped into the sky. Thrall lifted a hand to shield himself from the brilliance emanating from the newly born Aspect. Kalecgos was almost unbearable to look upon now, so bright was he, like a star—no, a sun—radiant and beautiful and terrible. His was now the ultimate mastery of arcane magic, given willingly, with hope and love and trust, by his flight, by the Mother and Child, by the echo of what the titans had willed, long ago.
And then suddenly, as his wings seemed to almost tear the sky as they beat, something unexpected happened.
Kalecgos laughed.
The joyous sound tumbled from him, bright and crystalline as the snow, light as a feather, pure as a mother’s love. It was not the