Not far from where Dame Sybyll's army camped, an outcropping of rock surrounded by large boulders stood out from the forest around it like a stone finger pointing toward the distant Southern Steppe.
As the sun sank toward the horizon in the west, two figures standing atop the stones seemed to glow faintly in against the darkening sky, seeming to the people gathered below as if they were surrounded in faint halos that shifted from cool, icy blue to vibrant silvery green and half a dozen other colors in between.
Even brighter than the setting sun or the energy surrounding the people atop the stone was the shining, iridescent sword held by the taller of the two figures that glowed so brightly that it cast dancing, color-shifting shadows on the people watching from the ground below.
