Through Jeremiah, the croyel clutched at Stave; failed to catch him. Stave was too swift. Snatching up Covenant’s ring, he rolled aside, evading Jeremiah’s hands—

—rolled onto and over the Staff of Law.

Then Linden thought that she heard Stave shout her name. From the core of the clashing theurgies, she seemed to see a black shaft like a spear arc through the air toward her as though it had been aimed at her chest.

She dropped the Sunstone. Pure reflex enabled her to reach out and catch the Staff.

In that instant, she was transformed.

Stave. Of course. When she needed him most.

Of the Haruchai, he alone knew how to silence his thoughts. Perhaps that skill—or the discipline to attain it—lessened the entrancement of the palace. He must have felt her absence and broken free when none of her other companions could do so. If he had been bestirred by Anele’s return, he had not paused to rouse anyone else.

The touch of the Staff restored Linden’s health-sense. Earthpower lifted her to her feet. The torn flesh of her fingers and palms seemed to heal itself. Stave had renewed her true heritage, the birthright that she had wrested from her parents’ legacy of despair.

Jeremiah had already clambered upright. The croyel was summoning enough wrath to crush every bone in Stave’s body.

Without a heartbeat’s hesitation, Linden flung flame and Law into the fight.

She wanted to hurl her fire everywhere at once. Liand needed her. Covenant needed her urgently. Stave had no defense: not against the croyel’s theurgies. The skest might advance at any moment, rallied by Roger or the croyel. Surely one or both of them would turn their powers against her? If they were given an opportunity, they could transport themselves out of danger.

But she was limited by her mortality. She could not focus on so many perils simultaneously.

Trusting that Stave could fend for himself—that Roger and the croyel were done with Liand—that the skest were too frightened to advance—Linden threw her desperation at Covenant’s son.

If Covenant’s hands were crippled or burned away, no power known to her would repair them. Like Mahrtiir’s eyes, like Stave’s eye, they would be permanently lost. Covenant would not be able to hold Loric’s krill. And he would be in too much pain to call up wild magic from his ring.

Linden wept for her son; but she fought for her former lover.

She had defeated Roger once before. She had faced his ferocity and croyel’s together, and had prevailed. But here she was hampered by Kevin’s Dirt. And she could not draw on the supreme energies of the EarthBlood. As soon as Covenant failed—as soon as Roger and the croyel joined their strengths against her—she would die. Magma and malevolence would extinguish her.