But it was too late. There was a shimmering to his side, and the sword appeared in his hand.

A sword that was glowing white-hot from heat.

His immediate reaction was to drop it, to let go of it, as the heat of it assaulted his senses. He flinched away from it as he let go, rolling to the side as it clattered to the rocky ground, his heart going from slow to racing in half a breath. Adrenalin surged through him as it anticipated pain from his blunder.

Pain that never came.

His breathing becoming quick and shallow, he looked down at his paw, and saw that it was totally unmarked. Impossible! He could feel the heat of the sword. He could feel that it was so hot that it would instantly blacken flesh that came into contact with it. Yet it had not so much as singed him. The heat of it made his face feel tight, but it had not burned him. How could he feel the heat, yet not be burned?

"Tarrin!" Sarraya said in a strangled tone. "Are you alright?"

"It, it didn't hurt me," he said in confusion. He reached out towards it, felt its heat… but felt no pain. He reached closer and closer, but still there was heat but no pain. Then he put a finger on it and immediately recoiled. Again, he felt the heat, felt that the metal was a little rubbery from the heat, but there was no sizzling of flesh or singing of fur. "Sarraya, I can feel the heat, but it's not hurting me!" he exclaimed in shock, touching the weapon again. Then, courage bolstering him, he reached down and wrapped his paw around it, picking it up off the rock. He could feel the heat radiating against him. The air around it was so hot that it could burn the lungs, yet it did him no harm. He held it close to his vest for a moment, a vest that was already blackened from the exposure to heat before. He touched it to the leather, which immediately began to hiss and burn from contact with the blade. Then he shifted it and put the flat of it against his chest. Again, he felt the heat, but there was no pain involved with it. He pulled it away from his chest, and saw that aside from a bit of ash from the leather of the vest that was left behind by the blade, it didn't leave a mark on him.

"Amazing!" Tarrin exclaimed in awe. "Is it the sword?"

"It's you," Sarraya said quietly. " That's what the Sha'Kar woman meant!" she shouted suddenly, startling him. "That's what she meant when she pointed out that the heat should have already killed you! Whatever it is that's doing it has to be-"

"It's an aspect of a Weavespinner," he concluded for her. "I noticed that in the fight, that fire wouldn't hurt her. Oh, it burned her clothes, but it wasn't hurting her. I guess Weavespinners can't be hurt by heat, or fire. I wonder why."

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Sarraya laughed. "Fire is one of the few things that can hurt you, Tarrin. Or at least it used to be."

It was a weird feeling. He, Tarrin Kael, was now utterly invulnerable to heat. But he just didn't feel very much different than before. It's not like it was something flashy or gaudy, like when he was turned. Not something noticable, something that separated him from the rest of humanity. But Sarraya was right, it was very much welcome. It would keep the desert's heat from bothering him, at any rate.

But then again, it hadn't been bothering him before. It did at first, but days went by and he felt more and more comfortable. He thought it was because of his regeneration… but maybe it wasn't. Maybe, as he grew closer and closer to this new level of power, maybe this aspect of it had begun to appear in him. Maybe his tolerance for the heat had to do with his magical power and not his Were regeneration.

Tarrin chuckled ruefully. Cook a piece of meat enough times, it gets to the point where it can't get any more done. Maybe that's what happened to him.

"What do I do with this?" Tarrin asked, holding up the sword.

"I can't cool it off, it may damage the metal," Sarraya replied. "Just put it aside and make sure it stays flat. It's so hot, it may bend if you don't lay it flat."

He nodded, fidgeting the sword on the rocky flat until he found a position where the blade laid flatly on the ground. The leather bindings around the hilt were burned off, but that wasn't a great problem. "Alright, now what?"

"Now?" Sarraya asked. "Now we rest. You need to recover before we can start off again. While you're resting, I'm going to go over there and study it," she motioned at the pillar of smoke. "I've never had the chance to study a rift before. It should be interesting."

"Make sure you take notes, or Phandebrass will never forgive you," Tarrin told her, rising up onto his knees, then shifting into cat form. He then curled up into a small niche in the rock, near the heat of the sword, and closed his eyes. "I'll be right here," he told her in the manner of the Cat.

"Alright. I'll see you in a while."

Sarraya flitted off, leaving him to his rest. It was the first time he'd been in cat form since the trek across the plains of Yar Arak, but there wasn't any hollowness or pain this time. He was too weary, and he'd been too long in his humanoid form, had enough time to sort through the complex emotions that his cat side could not tolerate, the emotions that caused that pain in the first place. The eyeless face that always seemed to be behind his eyes also dimmed with the shift, as human morality was subjugated to the purity of instinctual thinking. It was something of a respite from the guilt that eyeless gaze incited in him, to lose himself in the serenity of the now, where the future and the past were nothing but empty shadows, and the present was all that mattered.

He relaxed, and allowed himself to drift off into a contented sleep. He'd have many things to think about later, but for now, all he wanted to do was sleep.

A day's rest did wonders for his body, but did little for his mind.

The memory of what the Goddess told him had slowly seeped back into his mind as he rested, and it caused him to have strange, disjointed dreams while sleeping in cat form. He usually didn't have memorable dreams when he slept in cat form, because his thoughts were filtered through the instincts of the Cat, but these were powerful thoughts, powerful images, and they were strong enough to penetrate into his alternate mental state.

He remembered the entire conversation with the Goddess as a dream, a dream he knew was nothing but recalled reality. After that, he dreamed about Allia and those with her. He dreamed that they were standing on a ship's deck, staring at a horizon filled with smoke, and a sense of foreboding seemed to hang over them like a pall. There were dark shadows over them, over all of them, but they seemed to focus around Dar. He dreamed of Keritanima, dreamed of her standing on a mountain of screaming skulls, weeping tears of blood as she ripped the fur from her muzzle and commanded the skulls to be silent. He dreamed of Jenna, standing before a massive steel door that glowed red-hot from heat, reaching out to it with no concept of the danger it posed, walking towards it steadily and stepping over the burned, smoking bodies of their parents. He dreamed of Faalken, his curly hair matted with spoor and the flesh torn from his face, standing on a rock spire and holding a flaming sword aloft. Just behind him stood Jegojah, his sword bloody and a resolute look on his withered features.

And he dreamed of Jesmind, standing in a small, cozy cottage before a fire, holding something small in her arms. He could see nothing but her back, but there was a sense of resolve in her that radiated from her. She turned to look at him, and the determination shone on her face like the sun. She held out whatever it was in her arms, and when he looked down at it, all he could see was a mass of blazing light.

The dreams disturbed him, deeply, because all of them held a grim sense of danger in them. What danger could they be in? And why did he dream of Faalken? Faalken was dead, long dead. What did the dreams mean? Even in his slumber, he fretted at the meaning behind them, if there was any meaning at all. It could just be his worry for his friends and sisters, his yearning for Jesmind, the sorrow over Faalken that had never truly eased inside him causing it. After coming so close to being Consumed, after having his magical abilities altered in such a manner, maybe the dreams were just an extension of the anxiety he felt at what had happened to him, and what he would have to face in the future.