"Arathôr vel'kamin."
The whisper echoed in Gandloaf's ear as if someone had spoken directly into his mind.
He woke suddenly, still dark outside, his whole body tense. It wasn't a nightmare. It was something else, a strange, warm sensation, pulsing in his chest like a second heart.
Connection.
He felt a new connection. One more beyond the dead forge he had in his own workshop. As if an invisible line had stretched across the mountain and touched something distant that now responded.
He got up from the makeshift bed in the corner of the workshop, went to the furnace, and just by getting close to it, the flames ignited on their own. Without new coal, without lighting a fire.
Isabela and the guards had killed themselves trying to keep that furnace properly lit all night. And now it lit on its own at his touch.
Gandloaf's eyes shone, literally, his irises turning orange-gold every second, a reflection of the active Flame Path coursing through his veins.
