Paksworld

Location:  The palace in Chaya, in Lyonya, shortly after Kieri’s arrival

Present: Paks,  Dorrin (POV), the Knight-Commander of Falk

Some snippage for this use, but the main events are here:

The room brightened.   Paks had come alight, not as bright as in the battle, but enough to cast a soft glow through the room, drowning the light of the candle Dorrin had lit.

“You, I suppose, will take on the role of her supervisor?”

Paks shook her head.  “Not I, sir.  She is a Knight of Falk.  It is not my place, and I have no call to go with her.  I do have a call to aid her here and now.”

The Knight-Commander closed his eyes a moment, then shook his head.  “Arguing with paladins is like arguing with wind and stone.  I would say I hope you’re right, but the light you cast is evidence of the origin of your words.  Dorrin, give me your hands.”

Dorrin knelt before him and raised her hands; the Knight-Commander took them both.  She felt nothing at first, then warmth flowing into her arms, like and unlike what she’d felt when Paks took her hand.

“Paksenarrion,” the Knight-Commander said, “your hands on her shoulders, please.”

Now Paks came behind her.  Dorrin felt enclosed, sheltered, safer than she had felt in her entire life.

“Breathe slowly,” the Knight-Commander said.

She breathed…in…out…in…out… there came a pressure, building along her bones, as if from within them, as a weather change made pressure in her head.   It grew; she concentrated on breathing slowly, steadily, as it pushed and squeezed inside her, as the warmth from his hands and the sensation of light from Paks’s hands on her shoulders merged, until finally with a sudden rush a stream of cold fire raced through her body.   She gasped at the intensity of it, and then it was gone, leaving behind a sense of great spaces burst open from within.

“Dear me,” the Knight-Commander said, in a mild voice that covered some other emotion.

“She has it,” Paks said.

“She does indeed.”  The Knight-Commander’s voice deepened.  “What have I done?  What have I loosed?”