Her throat has tightened around a hard aching knot, stopping her speech. It doesn't matter, Kim thinks. There's no answer she could give anyway, not to a statement such as that.

Silently, she reaches out with her left hand, taking hold of his-- and then with her last ounce of strength at the end of this all-too-long night, she raises her right hand once more, lifting the ring with its blood-red stone high into the air.

And as she does, the Baelrath blazes alight around them, painting the world in wild crimson fire as Kim Ford crosses between the worlds with Arthur Pendragon, the Warrior Condemned, returning at last to Fionavar--

--and to war.