Brian Rathbone: The Dawning of Power

One of the guests yelled for Miss Mariss and she turned. Prios stood near the doorway, his slate in hand. "Sinjin?" it said.

"That boy best not be in my kitchens again. He'll eat us all back into starvation," Miss Mariss said before she stormed into the kitchen. From behind a cutting block, a small hand reached up and grabbed three pieces of bacon. "You'd best get outta my kitchen, boy!"

With a guilty smile, he darted from the kitchen. Miss Mariss chased him out with a broom, but she was not fast enough to catch him. Prios stood shaking his head as Sinjin darted out the doors and ran down the streets, eating his bacon without slowing.

"Do you really think we're going to discover anything?" Strom asked Osbourne as they hauled more sand through the halls.

"Who knows?" Osbourne said. "Milo says if we look hard enough, we're bound to find something."

"All I know is we've been through at least fifty bags of sand already, and I'm getting tired of carrying them."

"Me too."

As they returned to the mighty hall where Catrin conducted her experiments, Milo pulled a crucible from the furnace and began to pour it into the mold. Strom watched as Catrin waited for the exact right moment to insert the sliver of dragon ore. She looked older, as if the weight of her responsibilities had aged her more quickly than the rest. Still there was strength about her… and determination. She never gave up on one of her ideas; at most one might be set aside for further contemplation.

Strom wondered what it was that made her so sure things were going to go badly in the future. Things were going so well, he thought perhaps they should all take some time to enjoy themselves. Instead he was hauling sand to the furnace. Osbourne gasped beside him and Strom watched. Each time she had tried, Catrin had produced a brilliant light that lasted only a few breaths, but this time, as the molten glass captured the charged sliver in its embrace, a warm, steady glow radiated from it. Even as it cooled, the light continued to shine. No one spoke for a long time until the glass was cool enough to touch.

Catrin picked it up in her hand and smiled. "Sometimes the smallest things can make the biggest difference."