Kael didn't take it immediately.
He looked at the stone in Fen's outstretched hand the way you look at something you suspect is going to change the shape of your life, and you're not ready, and you know you're not ready, and you also know that readiness was never part of the arrangement.
"What does it do," he said.
"I don't know exactly," Fen said. Which, from Fen, was a sentence that cost something. He didn't admit incomplete knowledge easily. "Oren gave it to me and told me it would matter when it mattered. That's the full extent of what I have."
Kael looked at Oren.
Oren said, "Your grandmother's book. Third chapter. She describes it as an anchor's anchor." He paused. "A Sovereign needs something to tether to when the power gets too large. The person they tether to needs something
