He came out from behind the Summer Tree, and he was no longer a child. Naked as Cernan, he stood, but fair-haired as he had been from birth, and not so tall as was the god. He was about the height, Paul realized, with a numbing apprehension, that Finn had been, and looked to be the same age as well.

“Dari…” he began, but the nickname didn’t fit any more, it didn’t apply to this golden presence in the glade. He tried again. “Darien, this is what I brought you for, but how did you do it alone?”

He was answered with a laugh that turned apprehension to terror. “You forgot something,” said Darien. “You all did. Such a simple thing as winter led you to forget. We are in an oak grove and Midsummer’s Eve is coming on! With such power to draw upon, why should I need the horned god to come into my power?”

“Not your power,” Paul replied as steadily as he could, watching Darien’s eyes, which were still blue. “Your maturity. You are old enough now to know why. You have a choice to make.”

“Shall I go ask my father,” Darien cried, “what to do?”

And with a gesture he torched the trees around the glade into a circle of fire, red like the red flash of his eyes.

Paul staggered back, feeling the rush of heat as he had not felt the cold. He heard Cernan cry out, but before the god could act, Brendel stepped forward.

“No,” he said. “Put out the fire and hear me before you go.” There was a music in his voice, bells in a high place of light. “Only once,” Brendel said quietly, and Darien moved a hand.

The fire died. The trees were untouched. Illusion, Paul realized. It had been an illusion. He still felt the fading heat on his skin, though, and in the place of his own power he felt a helplessness.

Ethereal, almost luminous, Brendel faced the child of Rakoth. “You heard us name your father,” he said, “but you do not know your mother’s name, and you have her hair and her hands. More than that: your father’s eyes are red, your mother’s green. Your eyes are blue, Darien. You are not bound to any destiny. No one born, ever, has had so pure a choice of Light or Dark.”

“It is so,” came Cernan’s deep voice from the trees.

Paul couldn’t see Brendel’s eyes, but Darien’s were blue again and he was beautiful. No longer a child but young, still, with a beardless open face, and so very great a power.

“If the choice is pure,” said Darien, “should I not hear my father as well as you? If only to be fair?” He laughed then, at something he saw in Brendel’s face.

“Darien,” said Paul quietly, “you have been loved. What did Finn tell you about the choice?”