“Paksenarrion,” the Knight-Commander said, “your hands on her shoulders, please.”

Now Paks came behind her. Dorrin felt enclosed, sheltered, safer than she had felt in her entire life.

“Breathe slowly,” the Knight-Commander said. She breathed … in … out … in … out … there came a pressure, building along her bones, as if from within them, as a weather change made pressure in her head. It grew; she concentrated on breathing slowly, steadily, as it pushed and squeezed inside her, as the warmth from his hands and the sensation of light from Paks’s touch on her shoulders merged until finally with a sudden rush, a stream of cold fire raced through her body. She gasped at the intensity of it, and then it was gone, leaving behind a sense of great spaces burst open from within.

“Dear me,” the Knight-Commander said.

“She has it,” Paks said.

“She does indeed.” The Knight-Commander’s voice deepened. “What have I done? What have I loosed?”

Dorrin could scarcely hear him. In her mind, in her heart, the new spaces were both dark and sparkling with light, a clear winter’s night, cold and clean. What was this?

This is magery, came the answer, a voice she had never heard. Sonorous. Joyous. This is your heritage, Dorrin of Verrakai. Use it well. Music rose in her mind, music dimly recalled from earliest childhood. No human music, this, but the music she had imagined the gods might play.

She opened her eyes; the Knight-Commander, still holding her hands, was staring at her with an expression of wonder and horror mixed.

“What—?” she asked.

“Dorrin—you have it all.”

“All?”

“The magery, all of it. As great as any I read of, in the archives, and more than I have ever known to exist in these days. What my predecessor locked down, and well he did so. I do not know yet if I did well to loose it.”

“What did you hear?” Paks said from behind her.

“A voice,” Dorrin said. Suddenly tears burned her eyes and ran down her face. “I—I can’t believe it was—” But she did believe. “Falk,” she said. “It was Falk.”

“What did he say?” the Knight-Commander asked.

“He said This is your magery. Use it well. Only—I don’t know how.”

“You will,” Paks said.

The Knight-Commander nodded, and dropped her hands. “Dorrin, if Falk approved the restoration of your powers, then it must be the gods trust you to use them well. I doubt any of your family have near as much, though they may have more knowledge how to use what they have. I suspect you will learn quickly … there are hints I can give you. What do you most want to learn?”

Dorrin repeated what she had told Paks.

“A shield for yourself and those you lead should be the simplest; as a soldier, you know how shields function, and you’ve seen Paksenarrion in action.”

Dorrin tried to imagine such a shield; she felt a mental nudge, then another, and then felt a tingling in her head that ran down her body.