The candles flared, becoming impossibly bright. Their light rose like a wave, no longer gold, but pure, blinding white. Voices, faint and ethereal. The sound of wind whistling through reeds. The voices arranged into harmony, at first simple, then growing in complexity until it was like a river bearing down on her, like the rush of wind through heath, like the pounding of the sea on stones. Sabíana fell to her knees. Three Sirin sat over the dead warrior’s body and sang. The first—her wings green as the forest—cried tears of fiery joy. The second—her wings like living sapphire and
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