Prim wanted to ask what was the point of owning such a power if it was never to be used, but she was distracted, now that she was standing still, by a curious sensation transmitted into the soles of her feet from the ground.
In a way it was but a faint reverberation, and yet it came over and over again, with quickening pace, and the fact that it was shaking the ground itself bespoke some great power behind it. The fight on the islet had bated for a few moments as the combatants, drawn apart to a safe distance, caught their breath. The angel’s sword was making a fiery road across the lake between him and Prim, as when the sun sets across a great water. Within it she could see ripples that coincided with the thuds she felt in her legs.
The sprite lacked that connection to the ground and so was slower to sense it. Perhaps she was now alerted by those ripples, or by the snapping of thick branches that could be heard in the forest spreading away from the shore of the lake. She beat her wings several times and shot directly upward to a great height as if to survey the area, then dove toward the forest. She pulled up before getting involved in the trees and veered back toward the place where the sandbar was rooted to the beach. Her light grew brighter. Prim got the idea that she was both lighting the way and acting as a guide star for whatever was coming through the woods and shaking the ground with those heavy footfalls.
A sudden shifting of the light told her that the angel had brandished his sword. Turning to look at the islet, Prim saw that the angel had risen from kneeling and partly unfurled his wings. He had felt what Prim had felt and was looking toward the shore of the lake.
A small tree fell over near the shore; this was clearly visible in the illumination cast by the sprite.
A moment later Edda emerged from the woods. She was not quite running, but striding briskly, and each footfall shook the ground and discomposed the water. She crossed the beach in a few strides and started walking up the sandbar toward the islet.
Prim, for her part, had been expecting something like a hill-giant, or at least one of the enormous wild beasts with which Spring had populated the forests of the north. That it was Edda made sense to her, of course; but she could not help looking at the angel to see his reaction. Did it make sense to him? Did angels know about giantesses and wild souls and talking ravens and sprites? Were they taught about such things in some kind of angel academy? Were they omniscient? Or did El prevent them from knowing about such prodigies, so as to better control them?
Halfway along the sandbar, a young tree got in Edda’s way. She put her shoulder into it and it went down. Its entire root ball emerged from the loose ground and she kicked it into the lake. This did not go unwatched by the angel, who now spread his wings wider and bent his knees, preparing to spring into the air.
Burr had other plans. With a great swing of his spear he severed the angel’s right wing from his shoulder. It fell to the ground gushing aura. A moment later the other joined it.
Staggered and unbalanced by the loss of those appendages, the angel was barely able to raise his sword by the time Edda strode onto the islet. In spite of the fact that there was a foe to his side who had just inflicted grievous damage upon him, the angel chose to face, and to brandish his sword at, the unarmed woman coming directly for him. He raised it on high above his head, poised to bring down a killing blow.
Burr rang down one of his own, severing both of the angel’s arms between wrists and elbows. The sword fell back onto the stone and clattered and scraped its way down into the waters of the lake, which did not extinguish it but now glowed from within.
Edda spread her arms wide. She wore a long cloak that hung from them like dark wings. Without slowing her pace she met the angel with the full front of her body and embraced him, shrouding his form in her garment.
By the time Prim had run up the sandbar to the