The ingot of moon-silver lay on the stone slab, cooling from a song-born heat to a ambient temperature that still seemed to hum with latent potential. Its smooth surface, a captured piece of moonlight, threw back the awed faces of the gathered community. The effort of the harmonic forging had left them drained, a collective exhaustion that was part physical, part spiritual. But beneath the weariness thrummed a new, terrifying energy: the thrill of power.
They had done the impossible. They had answered the test.
The question now was how to deliver their answer. The ingot itself was the message, but the medium of its delivery was a matter of fierce debate.
"We send Dern back with it," Finnian argued, his usual joviality replaced by a soldier's grim logic. "Let him take that shiny rock to his boss. Let them see what we can do. No risk to us."
