Outside the obelisk, Noah turned and nodded once toward Hvitrmarr.
She understood before the gesture finished. Where a colossal white queen had stood in the ruined gold, white flame gathered inward and folded, gigantic mass drawing down through itself in a spiral of pale sovereign light, and when the light thinned a woman stood in the wreckage of the gardens.
Tall. White-haired. Twin spiral horns of ivory rose back from her temples, and her eyes had not changed at all, gold with ring inside ring for pupils. Her robe was white and dazzling and it was not cloth. Causes moved through it!
She rolled her shoulders once inside a shape she had not worn in a long while, and said nothing.
Ryaenara looked her up and down and made a small sound of pure appreciation as she whistled.
Damodred did not look at all, because a mountain does not turn its head for a change of clothes!
