White flames erupted from the glacial Relictus, washing over its wounds with the comprehensive authority of something that had decided the wounds were provisional rather than permanent. The crystal plates reformed. The bleeding stopped. The body that had been diminished returned to a configuration that was not its prior configuration but something grander, the engagement's damage converted into the raw material of the improvement rather than simply absorbed as loss.
Platinum flames erupted from the nine-headed Relictus in the same instant, the crowns that had been lost reforming above the heads that had lost them, each new crown carrying a slightly different quality than its predecessor as though the process of losing and recovering it had refined the connection between the head and the crown rather than simply restoring the original arrangement.
Both of them were stronger than before the damage.
They went back to fighting.
