Red heat seared my flesh, empty blackness struck me deaf and dumb, and cool blue power touched my skin with ice. Blue for tears, I thought. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear but for the sound of dragon breath in my ears. Blindly I raised my right hand and felt for the gem. I couldn’t feel the staff or the Bane against my fingers, but the cold gem glowed with a wealth of power and I covered it with my hand.

One moment I struggled against the Bane and the next the rush of power was gone. I gulped in air, and my sight returned as if it had never left me.

The gemstone in the mouth of the bronze dragon glowed with cool purple-blue light. I neither felt nor saw either the heavy blackness of the trapped revenants or the red magic that answered to the master of the Bane.

I leaned against the staff, which was the only thing holding me up.

I couldn’t sense any magic except for the slight pulse that made the gem glow, illuminating the tent with blueish light. I was too tired to probe the nature of the magic that caused the luminescence, but light could easily have been the result of leftover magic when Farson’s spells were released. Blood and tears, I thought, remembering Oreg’s belief that the magic could break free.

Oreg had made me kill him to break the spell that bound him to Hurog. It did not seem at all strange to me that those dragon spirits bound to the Bane would be willing to make an equal sacrifice.

There would be time to analyze later. Now there was a battle going on outside the tent—and as soon as I could stand on my own, I needed to get out and help. But even as the thought came to me, I realized that although there was quite a bit of noise, the familiar sound of battle had disappeared sometime while I’d been struggling with Jade Eyes and the Bane.

Jade Eyes.

I started to kneel down and check the mage, but just then he rolled off Oreg. I worried for a moment, because in my current condition a kitten could have knocked me over, but he lay limply on the floor, and Oreg sat up.

Oreg looked around, a hand to his head. He glanced at the Bane, let his gaze linger on Jade Eyes, and said, “Missed all the fun, did I? I can’t believe I let him take me from behind.”