This task achieved, he felt a strange sensation tingle up his sword arm. He compared it to the corporeal feeling he had when a thunderstorm was in the offing, but a hundred times stronger. As if to confirm that the union of the runes had triggered some mysterious force, the entire blade glowed as red as when the smith had forged the metal at its creation. Cadfael yelped and almost dropped it, noting in the same instant that the gold circlet also turned fiery red. He expected blistering heat to sear his flesh, but when he tentatively touched the armlet with a fingertip, it was cold and instantly returned to its natural colour. He slid it from the blade and wriggled it back on his arm. The blade, too, at his touch, regained its steel grey no longer tinged with orange—nor was the sea, for the
