The force that erupted from his arms was everything he had left.
Not a measured, calculated expenditure — the full, unrestrained output of someone who has identified a problem and has decided that the problem is more expensive than the cost of solving it. The Soaring Grapes talent extended outward like invisible shackles, wrapping around the birds with the gripping, binding authority of something that did not negotiate with its targets about whether they wanted to be held.
You are not going anywhere.
The thought had the specific, compressed intensity of a vow rather than a wish — not a hope that the birds would stop but a declaration that they would, the distinction between the two carrying everything that remained of his star energy reserves behind it.
Most of them stopped.
