"What's the difference?"

The Ancients separated Weavespinners into two groups, kitten. Sui'kun and Da'shar. The term sui'kun doesn't mean what you think it means, because the Sha'Kar language changed over time. What you thought meant soul fire actually means Blessed Soul. Those Weavespinners were the ones born with such potential that their elevation to the Weavespinner status was pre-ordained. Like you and Jenna. They are hand over fist over the Da'shar, a term that means Favored, because of the fundamental differences in the level of power you can control. Sui'kun like you have the power to wield High Sorcery alone, and that fact doesn't change just because you've become a Weavespinner. Da'shar can't do that, nor can they pull off some of the tricks of raw power that you can.

"You mean Jenna could have used High Sorcery all this time?" Tarrin gasped.

Yes, Tarrin. In fact, it was her first touch on High Sorcery that caused her to lose control. We can only thank my mother that you progressed enough to be able to guide her through it.

That startled him. Jenna had touched High Sorcery! And her very first attempt nearly killed her! Now he appreciated why the Goddess had stuck him in his Were-cat body. He had been only a little older then Jenna when he first touched that power, and without his Were body and its powerful resistance and regenerative powers, without someone to guide him to the Heart, he would have been Consumed in that first experience.

I'm glad you finally fully comprehend and appreciate why I had to do what I did, kitten, she said soberly. I didn't want to do it, because I knew how much pain it would cause you. But I had to keep you alive, and it was the only way.

He nodded silently.

My time is growing short, kitten. I have to go. You'll know what to do with Jenna when the time comes, but for now, know that she and your parents are safe and well, and out of danger. You can talk to her when she wakes up, but be careful what you say.

"I will."

Good. I'll talk with you again later, kitten. Be well, and know that I love you.

And then she retreated away from him. The sense of her presence never really left him anymore, but he could tell when she was close enough to talk to him and when she wasn't.

She left him with many things to think over. Jenna could use High Sorcery! Actually, it made a sort of sense. If the ones like him and her were so strong, it was no wonder that it was more or less a given that they would become Weavespinners. After all, the raw power of High Sorcery was enough to overwhelm someone using it alone, so it was a guarantee that a sui'kun would eventually face being Consumed, usually the first time he happened across High Sorcery. The da'shar were the ones that stumbled into being Consumed by either accident or circumstance, but had presence or skill enough to find the Heart before being destroyed. Those would be very adventurous Sorcerers, ones very strong and willing to experiment and gamble.

Keritanima.

He had no idea how he knew that, but he knew it. Keritanima was just such a Sorcerer. Keritanima was extremely powerful, much stronger than even the members of the Council of Seven when taken on a one-on-one basis, and would have been the jewel of the Tower if not for Tarrin's eclipsing abilities. She used her power alot, and she was willing to weave spells in ways nobody had ever thought to try. She took too many risks, and it was eventually going to catch up with her. Keritanima was the prime example of what he thought a da'shar would be, a Weavespinner who found the power more or less voluntarily.

Sometime in the future, Keritanima was going to face her power, and either take the next step or be destroyed by it. If he had anything to say about it, she'd be taking the next step.

There were also things he didn't understand, such as how Weavespinners enriched the Weave, and there were no immediate answers for that. Not even guesses. It was a process of complete mystery to him, and without clues, there was nothing to go on.

He laid there, looking up at the sky, musing over what he had just learned. A great deal, from the sound of it, and it would take him some time to fully absorb the many things the Goddess had taught him. But he didn't mind. The desert gave him time if anything, time to lay there and attempt to understand that which was honestly quite beyond him.

If anything, he had time.

To: Title EoF

They were off again at the rising of the sun.

Sarraya wasn't too happy about it. Taking a look into her tent showed him why. She had conjured up just about every item of luxury she could imagine, including spectral servants to do her bidding. He had never seen such creations before. Sarraya called them mephits, and from her explanation, they were semi-aware representations of nature, kind of like half-formed spirits, weak enough for nearly any Druid to summon and control, and stupid enough to be no threat of breaking free of that control. They were the first stage in the path to summoning Elementals, she explained, though very few ever managed to get past the mephit stage. Summoning Elementals was the ultimate expression of power for a Druid, and Sarraya told him that only a handful could do it. Sarraya was not one of them.

A few moments of instruction had shown him how it was done, and he filed away the ability to summon mephits as another aspect of his Druidic power that he doubted he would ever seriously use.

At least he got a good explanation of why so few Druids could summon Elementals, a much more rational explanation than Sarraya's previous talks about them. "It's not the Druid, it's the Elemental," she told him. "I have the power to summon an Elemental, but I don't have the power to control one. Druidic Elementals are an order of magnitude stronger than the Elementals that you Sorcerers and the Wizards can conjure. That means that it takes supreme power, skill, and willpower to keep one of them under your control. The only real difference is that Druidic Elementals don't go berserk when the break free. They simply go home, and the backlash of that against the Druid is usually enough to kill her."

"I didn't know Wizards could summon Elementals," Tarrin mused.

"What they call Elementals," Sarraya said scathingly. "They're hardly more than a mephit. Sorcerer's Elementals, on the other hand, are formidable. Mainly because Sorcery is, at its heart, magic dealing with elements. Fire, Water, Earth, Air, they're spheres of Sorcery, so that makes the Elementals they conjure very powerful. Sorcerers are much more attuned to Elemental magic than Wizards."

"That makes sense," he agreed.

That got him to thinking about magic in general, and of course his thoughts drifted to Jenna. She was probably still sleeping, trying to recover from the tremendous ordeal which she had endured. He remembered how he felt after he woke up from his own ordeal, so he felt pretty sorry for her. She'd probably go crazy without her magic-Jenna loved being a Sorcerer-but that would pass when she was ready to use her new magic. And he'd be there for her when she was ready to learn, to teach her what he had to struggle to learn for himself.

He still felt a little bitter over seeing his family and not being able to spend time with them. It had been so short! Just enough to give them some warnings, and then he was gone. He played at the idea of trying to find his way back before they left that morning, even going so far as to entering the Weave and trying to find the path he had taken from within it. But the shifting nature of the Weave had erased all traces of his passage. It was like trying to track someone by scent who was swimming in a river. It just couldn't be done. The flowing power within the Weave had carried away the traces of his passing, and its surreal nature when viewed from within made it impossible for him to find his way. It was a good thing that it required no tracking to return to himself; just by wishing to do so, he could return to his body any time he wanted to do so.