Rynn still didn't move, so Ebontyne sighed and sat down beside her.
"I can't make you feel better, Rynn," she said, looking off at the setting sun. "Do you want to talk a bit? Just until you feel up to getting on with things?"
"Flying to our deaths, you mean?"
"If you want to think of it that way," was the infuriatingly patient reply. How could the woman do that? One moment as steady as a rock, and the next as sharp as steel.
Some part of Rynn wanted to make a biting reply, to goad Ebontyne into unsheathing that steel on her. It would give her anger a visible target.
"How do these work?" she asked instead, touching the pouch with the Jewels in them.
There. That would be a safe topic. She looked at Ebontyne and knew the woman wasn't fooled. The notion of 'talk' related to personal problems, not stuff like this.
"I know you have to hold them closed in your hand to activate them, but what happens then?" Rynn went on.
Ebontyne sighed again, and Rynn caught a glimpse of the old woman the War Mage should be. "One of two things. If you're not Bonded, you go mad. You can't survive without an anchor, and that's sort of what a soul is. You won't age or die without help, but you won't be in a position to appreciate it."
She paused to flick a red beetle off her knee. "If you are Bonded, the part of you that isn't tied to your dragon is absorbed into the Jewel."
"What do you mean?"
"Look." Ebontyne plucked two strands of long grass-like growth sprouting from the side of the rock she was sitting on, and tied the end of one to the end of the other. "This strand is Morghus, and this one is me." She broke the latter where it started to go into the knot and dropped it. "There's still a bit of me there, an anchor reinforced by Morghus' soul."
"What if Morghus' soul crystal was taken?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Fortunately, dragons are too smart to give their soul crystals to anyone but their Bonded. Of course, there are dangers there. Look at Kaeros."
"Navaros' dragon?"
Ebontyne nodded. "Getting back to the Jewels. You feel strangely empty, but get used to that after a while. It's odd, though nothing more than that."
"It felt horrible," Rynn said softly.
The War Mage stared at her, then the pouch. "You didn't use-"
"No. I...Navaros took my soul in Shiv'arass. I remember what it felt like."
She nodded and laced her fingers together, looking at Rynn with a surprisingly gentle expression. "It does feel like that initially."
"So. You don't age and won't die, but what about you? Your Jewel doesn't even exist any more, so how does that work? I thought you said you'd die when you destroyed your Jewel."
Ebontyne's jaw tightened a little, telling Rynn it'd be best to tread more softly with this topic. "There were experiments with the Jewels before they were put to common use. Destroying a Jewel will release the soul trapped within, and that soul will enter the nearest sentient being it can. It can't enter something like a tree or a rock. If there's nothing around to anchor to, it'll disipate unless it's very strong."
"Delon's soul isn't anchored to anything," Rynn said, feeling sick.
"It's different in the Rift, so don't worry about him. My Jewel was apparently destroyed by the fallen angel, and it absorbed my soul. Don't ask me how, but I can feel that my soul still exists." She shook her head angrily. "I should have asked the angel to tell me where my soul was, not merely my Jewel. In any case, it now contains my soul. I don't pretend to know that much about the Fallen, but perhaps, because they, like the Jewels, never change, neither do I."
"Never change?"
"They're constant. They stay in one place, their needs are always the same, they don't die. I have no idea if they're unkillable. If they're not, I might still have a chance." She shook her head again. "Our experiments showed that if someone's soul was released into a second mortal being, it would be different to that. The first would share the lifespan of the other, which would be shorter with the strain of two souls on him. The first would not age, but if either died they both would. However, the second would feel any pain the first felt, but not the other way around."
"Does this mean that the angel feels your pain? Or that if you die, it will? If it dies, you will? Isn't a soul released if a...vessel dies?"
Ebontyne waited impatiently for her to shut up. "'No' to the first three. The angel isn't mortal, remember? That means it doesn't age and die like... well, like you do. I don't know the answer to the last. If the soul is released from a mortal vessel, I've never heard of it re-anchoring."
"So we have to get Navaros to use a Jewel...that will free Delon's body? Make him insane until I get my brother's soul back where it belongs? How will I do that?"
"You never ask them one at a time, do you?" the War Mage growled. "Theoretically, Delon will be insane if this works, yes. But you have to remember that the soul we're dealing with isn't entirely human. There's a chance the Jewels won't be powerful enough to contain a partially draconic soul. I don't know what will happen if that turns out to be the case, and let's worry about Delon's soul when we get that far, yes?"
The talk had, in fact, calmed Rynn down somewhat. She nodded and got to her feet. "I guess we should get to Mount Tibor, then."
"About time." Ebontyne stood and went over to Morghus, who lowered one wing to help her mount. "Let's stop Navaros before he casts that spell."
"When we do," Rynn said, "and this is over, let's try for the Fallen Angel."
"Why? It'll be dangerous, if it's even possible."
"What have you got to lose?"
Ebontyne scratched her neck thoughtfully. "We'll see. Come on."
Rynn climbed astride Arokh, who was airborne before she'd even seated herself properly. She suddenly felt her stomach churn with renewed fear as the two dragons began their flight, and closed her eyes to the receeding wastelands. The warm wind seemed to burn against her face.
She was Drakan's only hope. Rimril had believed it. So did Ebontyne.
For some reason, she couldn't.