Umber

The next morning Po makes what will be, one way or another, his final attempt. He meditates beforehand, looking for guidance and wisdom. As he does so, his feet twitch as if he were walking and his lips move, though you cannot tell what he says.

Po slowly returns from his meditation and begins preparing an area in the dirt for the sword and himself. Using a broken limb from a bush, he sweeps out a circular area in the sand, placing the sword in the middle in preparation for the ritual. Before kneeling down next to the sword he calls to his companions around him. He thanks them for their unwavering support and recounts the events of his meditation. "The Avangion spoke to me, and gave me guidance and a new name. If for whatever reason this goes poorly, know that I will be with you in some form." With his mind at ease and his heart true, he kneels down next to the sword and prepares himself one last time to try and heal the sword, no longer naming himself just "Po" but Drak Po, Wrath of the Avangion.

“I shall call it Harbinger of Light, to signify the shift in power to the Avangion and the sword’s role in it.” He throws this thought and all of his energy into the sword, and as he does so, his lips begin to blue and his hair becomes rimed with frost. But steady he remains, and the sword begins to glow, first red, then blue, then white-hot. From ten feet away your hair curls from the heat. The air burns, and the sand under the sword melts to glass.

Still kneeling, Po leans forward and grasps the sword, palms smoldering. He holds it close and high, then strikes out and down. It flows like quicksliver, shaping itself into a narrow longsword, the blue stone in its pommel shining with an inner glow. It cools instantly, and Po loses his frosty pallor.

He hands the sword back to Reign, with – finally – a sense of triumph, and as he lets go, the sword flares.

“What was that sound? Did you hear that?” asks Po, but no one did. “I heard that horn again. The one from our trial.”

And Po knows, without knowing how, that for the first time in centuries, somewhere to the north in a room of obsidian and sand a mile beneath a tower known as Spinecastle, a new image of a sword hangs upon the walls.

(With thanks to Jesse for his contributions to this posting.)