Branna, Grallezar, and Valandario all knelt to conserve their energies. Besides the maintaining of the ritual circle, their primary task was to lend Dallandra some of their own life force should the senior mage require it. Branna summoned her dweomer sight and saw the auras of the three within the circle: Arzosah’s strong dragon etheric double, Avain’s weak one, and Rori’s human form, hovering uncertainly above him.

Dallandra sent a pulse of blue light along her sword that burrowed into the dragon’s body just at the joining of his spine with his skull. A line of light sprang out from the space just above and between his eyes in answer, a tendril like that of a vine seeking purchase on a wall, waving back and forth, reaching for Dallandra’s aura. She held up the sword and caught it, then turned and tossed it Arzosah’s way.

The dragon caught it on a line of light emanating from her own aura. The two began to tangle, but Arzosah’s dweomer had vast strength behind it. As Branna watched the two tendrils separated again and floated downward toward Avain. Arzosah used a spear of light from her own aura to manipulate the thread from Rori’s aura and fasten it to Avain’s solar plexus.

“Now!” Dallandra called out. She used the sword to describe a sigil in the air above Rori’s head. The line of light thickened and began to pulse, unwinding just like the thread of Evandar’s chosen imagery. It flowed to Avain and began to wrap her round, while Arzosah guided it, carefully, patiently, spinning the thread around her just as, indeed, a spindle collects the spun thread from a spinning wheel. Standing beside Rori, Dallandra used her sword, flicking it this way and that, guiding the thread free of the dragon’s body in front of her, to allow Arzosah to catch and claim it for Avain’s etheric double that slowly, ever so slowly, began to take shape and size.

Thanks to the flying threads, the glittering blue light, and the mists of etheric substance flowing and forming between the two dweomermasters, Westfolk and Wyrmish, Branna couldn’t see either of the two physical bodies they worked upon, not even Rori’s massive frame. She planted the end of her staff on the ground in front of her and clutched it with both hands.

When she glanced at Grallezar, she saw golden light pulsing in bursts from her falcata and traveling across the circle to Dallandra’s aura, lending it power and strength. Valandario stood ready to do the same should the Gel da’Thae master tire. Branna would be the last resort, the apprentice who could offer little but who stood ready to give all she could if called upon.