Read Dawn of the Valiant (The Valerious Chronicles: Book One) Page 131

Whispers brought the huddled form to open his eyes and peer around the room. The vibrant colours of the flora surrounding Christill caused him to regain his wits and rise up into a sitting position. He was back in the Shrine of Nyrune, yet he was not the same person that he had been when he had entered this sacred place. There was a new part of him that pulsed and coursed through his body, like the beating of a second heart. As a newborn fawn, out of the instinct passed down through generations, takes its first frail steps, Christill forced the magic throughout his damaged body. Bones were mended and skin sealed together with the healing powers of Nyrune's magic.

  The stone blocks making up the walls of the large room began to tremble and fall. Christill willed his magic out into the open and placed a protective barrier above himself. The crumbling chunks of building rolled off the green shield to come crashing by Christill's side.

  Standing up and stretching out his traumatised muscles, Christill came to realise that he felt complete. The life force burning in his fingertips, the energy of Teefarrnur, was now sealed in his body, fulfilling the final step in the path of one of the Children Valerious. But Christill knew that this was not how it should be. Nyrune had cried out to him in that final moment and he had seen pain and fear. In the magic that she had passed to him, in that last moment on the Third Plane, there was something more. A presence that he could not place, yet cried out to him like the clarion call of the warrior's horn.

  The images he had been forced to endure flashed through his mind once more. Christill shook his head and headed for the exit of the Shrine resolutely. The entire Academy was falling to pieces around him, but the powers of his goddess protected him. He walked with a distressed mind down the once beautiful corridors of the Academy of Nyrune. He had business with Skiye.