Hefting its weight in his hand, he slowly rose, calculating the exact route he must take to get him to the Camber seal as soon as possible. In his side-vision he could see the target area perhaps six or eight strides ahead and a little to the left. Never taking his eyes from those of his opponent, he began walking slowly toward her, angling slightly to the left so that his path would coincide with the seal. Then, just before he reached it, he flung down the gauntlet, ahead and to his right, at Charissa’s feet. As it clashed onto the marble floor, he stepped onto the seal.

For Morgan and Duncan, tautly observing all of this by-play with growing apprehension, the young king’s actions seemed incomprehensible at first: to take on a sorceress of Charissa’s stature against fearsome odds, and potentially with dire consequences. From the glance he had shot them before descending the steps, it was evident that he had some plan. But only as he detoured subtly toward a particular seal on the cathedral floor did they guess how his reasoning might have gone. But as far as they could tell, there was no reaction as Kelson flung down the gauntlet and stepped onto the seal.

Charissa looked disdainfully at the gauntlet for a moment, then caused it to fly to her hand, tossed it to one of her waiting guards. Then she bowed slightly and stepped a few paces closer to Kelson. Never had Kelson looked so terribly young and alone.

“Is the Challenged ready to proceed?” Charissa said, the words of long-formulated ritual rolling from her tongue with practiced ease.

Kelson inclined his head. “He is ready.”

Charissa smiled and stepped back a few paces, raised both arms in a low-murmured spell. Instantaneously, a semicircle of blue fire sprang up behind her, a graven line of sapphire ice that took in half the great circle of saints’ signs.

She lowered her arms and stepped back several paces more, still within the arc of that circle, then gestured patronizingly to Kelson.

Kelson took a deep breath. Now was the supreme test. For if he could not answer Charissa’s spell, it would mean that he had lost his gamble, that the power was truly lost. And he had felt nothing when he stepped onto the Camber seal—no stirring of power within him, no reassuring flicker of recognition that the crucial connection had been made. He would not know until he tried his hand at magic for the first time.

Breathing a silent prayer to the renegade saint on whose seal he stood, Kelson, too, raised his arms above his head—a single, fluid movement, as he had seen Charissa do.