Free Venom and Song by Wayne Thomas Batson

be merciful .
    The high cleric signaled to a pair of flet soldiers near the northern entrance to the hall. They worked at a locking mechanism, releasing a thin chain, and then they began to pull.
    Alwynn stood and strode to the metallic cone in the center of the hall. As he removed the cone, he said, “May Ellos bless us with a clear sky and an unhindered path through the forest canopy.” Beneath the cone was a large deposit of the same crystals used in the dremask braziers. But these were clearly crafted by the Elves’ most gifted stonecutters. Ordinarily geometric, rigid, and sharp, these crystals were cut into the likeness of a lush flowering plant with seven star-shaped blossoms.
    Alwynn returned to his seat. He and the other elders gazed upward.
    The Elves stirred in their seats. Whispers filled the hall. And for many breathless moments nothing happened. In a repetitive cycle, Tommy looked from the crystal flowers to the elders to the roof of the hall and back again to the crystals.
    Kat, also staring up, leaned over. “What do you—?” She never finished the question.
    High above them all, a pinprick of light pierced the sea of murk in the hall’s vast ceiling. A thrilled murmur grew from the Elves in the balconies. The excitement intensified as more and more Elves realized what was happening far above. The distant point of light became a beam, focused and narrow, traveling down through the dust. The noise level grew exponentially, but the Elves were not cheering or shouting. It was more like a spontaneous release of joy and wonder, like small children at their first fireworks display. Gasping. Giggling.
    The ray of sunlight plunged down until it struck the sculpted crystal plant. In a split second, the single beam divided into seven. A thin ray of light blazed out of each of the crystal flowers and struck Tommy’s, Kat’s, Autumn’s, and Kiri Lee’s medallions. Taller than the others, Jett had to scoot down for the stream of light to hit his. By contrast, Johnny and Jimmy had to sit up a bit higher in their seats. Now the split rays of the sun struck each of the seven medallions, and for a few moments, each of the young lords seemed to have a captured star emblazoned upon his or her chest. Keeping their torsos still, the teens turned their heads this way and that, grinning and staring.
    Alwynn, the elders, Goldarrow, Grimwarden, and the others smiled with deep satisfaction. A few of the oldest Elves had seen a similar ceremony before . . . but it was long ago when the Elves of Berinfell were still free to walk in the sun’s light. In the underground, it was something more beautiful than they could have conceived.
    Then there came a series of sharp gasps. The high cleric sat bolt upright in his chair. The sunlight blazing on the lords’ medallions increased in intensity tenfold. Within the bursting brightness came sparkles of color. Suddenly needle-thin rays of light—deep sea blues, sunset reds and oranges, forest greens, amethyst purples, and sunflower yellows—fired out from each medallion and streamed in all directions. Crisscrossing strands of light filled Luminary Hall.
    â€œLook!” Tommy exclaimed. “The light beams . . . they’re hitting all the Elves . . . all of them!”
    This the elders had not expected, and those assembled there had never seen anything like it. From the seven medallions, thousands of thin lines shot out in all directions, some striking the crystal flowers and reflecting toward the Elves seated behind the young lords. Every single Elf in the hall had a personal sunbeam blazing on his or her chest or face. Some laughed. Some wept. Some played with the light and ran their hands through it. Even the Elven children had streams of light.
    â€œAlwynn, what does this mean?” asked Manaelkin Zoar, one of the elders.
    Even Alwynn was unsure, but he answered, “It means Ellos smiles upon us.”
    The light