The Rift War Read Free Page A

share the news, that
he didn't notice the streamers of gold, silver, and blue light swirling around Emrillian's workshop
until he ran into them. They were as tangible as streamers of spun sugar, brushing against his
skin and startling him out of his thoughts.
    Grego 's bare skin prickled a little where the light had touched it. Amazed as he always
was, even after all these years, he reached out one hand, brushing his fingers against a
particularly vivid streak of royal blue. Sparks fizzed and spun around his fingers where they
penetrated the light. Still moving forward, he pressed his hand deeper into the light, enjoying the
somewhat pleasant, faintly ticklish sensation. Such a strong reaction among the Threads
protecting the Rakkell estate meant only one thing: Emrillian was at work at the forge in her
workshop, taking another step in the project she and Grego and Mrillis had shared for three years
now.
    The construction of a suit of armor entirely made of star-metal, for Emrillian to wear in
hand-to-hand combat with Edrout. She had sworn at the age of twelve to destroy the enemy
enchanter so her father would not have to face the man again.
    Grego stepped out of the forest and into the intricate gardens surrounding the main
house of the Rakkell estate. The lights swirled and spun in a dome around the large workshop
that sat a good hundred meters away from the manor house. Mrillis' voice came from the
workshop, answered a moment later by Emrillian's rich alto. Relieved to be able to share this
perilous news as soon as possible, Grego pushed through the barrier of light and came out the
other side, feeling as if he had taken several whiffs of pure oxygen. His skin tingled all over as if
scrubbed clean. He pushed the door open, and knowing how Emrillian worked, he moved quietly
and slowly. It was not wise to distract or startle her while she worked star-metal.
    Emrillian stood in the center of a globe of silvery-blue light, eyes closed, hands spread
midway between shoulder and waist. A glowing, molten mass of silver-blue metal, almost the
same color as her eyes, churned in mid-air, suspended by green and white streaks of light coming
from her fingers. She moved her left hand out, and the metal streamed out and flattened into a
sheet. She raised her right hand, just a little, and pointed with her index finger, twirling it, and
the sheet of glowing metal folded in on itself, again and again, as if it were a paper being
compacted into a packet. Then she flattened it into another sheet, and again folded it. Flattened
and folded.
    Grego remembered to breathe. He had watched her do the exact same thing not two
moons ago to a piece of fine steel, working it and tempering it and folding it, then shaping the
hot metal with a stone hammer until she formed it into a thick cuff to protect an archer against
the snap of the bow string. Emrillian had quite a reputation as a metalworker among their
Archaics friends, and the bow guard, engraved with the image of a drakag, had been a gift for a
friend of theirs when she graduated to Valor rank.
    With star-metal, the streamers of light and the slight movements of her fingers were
Emrillian's tools, rather than the forge, the anvil, the tongs, and hammer.
    "Grego!" She lowered her hands. The cuff floated gently down to the granite surface of
her worktable and the sphere of light surrounding her faded to nothing. She wiped sweat off her
face and then wiped her hands on the seat of her loose trousers. "What a nice surprise. It's more
than a moon since you visited."
    "Is the armor finished?" He nodded to Mrillis as the man stepped out of the shadows at
the other side of the workshop to join them at the table.
    "Why?" She laughed and raked her hands through her sweat-damped hair, white and
gold touched with red highlights. It had come loose of her braids in the strenuous work and the
gusts of air and thrashing of the Threads, as always, and hung past her waist. Her silver-blue eyes
sparkled with the