The crackle in the air wasn't just static this time— it sounded like a hundred tiny bells chiming out of sync, threading through the hush the elves still held.
Sylara flexed her toes against the damp floor of the arena, reassuring herself that the living earth would not surge up and hurl her aside. Bark-brown loam pressed cool between each toe, but every other sensation ran hot: the hammer of her pulse, the sting of sweat along her hairline, the prickle of tiny arcs licking up her calves.
Across the circle the Guardian Beast inhaled, and the breath drew in half the light with it.
Its lungs must have been bellows; the ribs flashed under storm-blue fur like iron hoops beneath sailcloth. Lightning crawled from one crooked antler to the other, racing the span in a heartbeat before falling away in silver streamers that hissed against the air. Sparks pattered to the ground and winked out in little puffs of ozone.
