Honor and Blood

Tarrin considered that, and found it… inefficient. They'd lead with their Goblinoids when they sent in their attack force. Tarrin thought about that a moment, and realized that they could eliminate that threat without having to expend energy destroying them. He turned towards the statue of the Goddess, her icon, but she cut him off.

"I know what you're about to ask," she said audibly, though the statue didn't move. "I'll tell her how to make it."

"Was that-was that-" Jula stammered, going pale.

Tarrin nodded simply. "The Goddess," he told her.

Jula clutched her amulet tightly in her paw, staring at the statue in awe.

"What is she going to do?" Miranda asked curiously.

"Show Je

"Ah, very smart," Miranda said approvingly.

"Wards take more energy to form than battle spells, but they last as long as you set them to last," Tarrin told her. "It's not as tiring to just let the enemy kill themselves."

Miranda chuckled. "I'll say."

Things quickly got very fast, very violent, and very chaotic. The Demons reached the city gates, and began to batter against them with their fists. In a sudden flash, the obelisk on the far side of the battlefield began to glow, with robed men and women surrounding it, chanting sonorously, and Tarrin could sense an oppressive weight suddenly form on the Weave, as if it meant to bottle up the flow of magic. He felt Je

He felt it clearly. He felt the presence of the Goddess suddenly rise up from the Heart, rise up and directly face this new power. Her presence caught him up with her, caught up Jasana, even Jula, causing all three of them to have their awarenesses drawn up into the Weave even as the Goddess laid her hands upon them and commandeered their power. The Goddess took control of them, caused them to Circle, and then joined her power to theirs in a way Tarrin did not think possible. The direct might of the Goddess flowed through him, flowed through all three of them, and his senses were suspended in favor of the alternate reality of the Weave.

He was within one of the strands, facing a rolling mass of liquid blackness that sought to consume the rainbow light generated by the flows within the strand. It was a seething mass, without form, boiling angrily in place as its progress suddenly was impeded. He could feel Jula beside him, within him, a part of him, even as he was a part of her. Jasana was on his other side, joined to him in a similar ma

"THIS WILL NOT BE," they heard her voice thunder through the Weave, directed at the black mass before them. "Didst thou think that if thee violated the strictures, I would not be permitted to do the same? Take back thy power, or I will strike at thee, Val. In this place, thou canst not hope to defeat me."

"I fear thee not, Niami," came a hissing reply. "Come then, and strike at me if thou dares."

"As thou wishes."

What happened next could not be explained in rational terms. He only had a sensation of the entirety of the Weave flooding into him, sending him spiralling to the upper limits and constraints of mindless pain, only have to have it vanish in a heartbeat, replaced by a glowing light that suffused him with boundless pleasure. His mind, linked to the Goddess, saw into a fraction of her being in that fleeting moment, and his mortal mind shuddered away from the vast immensity that stared back at him from that place, nearly drove him mad as his mind tried to understand what it found there. That indescribable power suddenly lashed out, driving into the roiling blackness like a shaft of solid light. He felt the titanic clash of power that took place in the Weave, which suddenly began to thrash and tremble as it struggled to remain intact against one force that sought to destroy it and the other that sought to protect it. The shining bar of light seemed to be sucked up by the black cloud without effect, but then the main Conduit seemed to reach out into the strands, providing its power to protect the integrity of the strand in which the confrontation was taking place. When that happened, the bar of light became blindingly bright, and it blasted into the cloud with renewed vigor, puncturing it, penetrating it, causing it to fold in on itself where it was struck by the magical light. He felt it drive through the darkness, then carry back to its source, the mafeli as a guide to track back to the origin of that power. That might struck at what was there, causing it to recoil and retreat, even as he became dimly aware of the earth shaking beneath his feet. What the Goddess had done had carried such power that it had literally shaken the earth.

In the real world, out beyond the walls of Suld, the black stone obelisk that was the mafeli flared with a sudden incandescent light, then exploded with such force that it killed every man and woman that had been tending it, sending shards of smoking black stone catapulting hundreds of spans into the air.

For a lingering moment, the divine union of their minds to the Goddess remained, until she seemed to become aware of them. She laid a hand over their minds gently, repairing the damage that being exposed to her true power had caused them, then doing something to Jula, and then he felt her retreat from them.

As one, all three of them collapsed to the ground, weak as kittens. Jesmind gave out a strangled cry and took turns checking on Tarrin, then Jesmind, but Jula lay on her back, staring blankly up at the sky, as Miranda tended to her. Tarrin felt like all the life had been sucked out of him, but he also felt his strength begi

Just looking at her told him everything. For one, she was nude, her clothes having been destroyed by what happened to her. The Circle had been too much for her power to bear, the communion between the two sui'kun and the Goddess had caused her to go beyond the limits of her body. But instead of being reduced to ash, the Goddess had shown her the way, had accepted her into the fold, despite the rather unusual circumstances. Tarrin stared at her, sensing it in her, realizing that the Goddess had done it to her to protect her life.