The wind picks up again, without warning, to drown out the sound of his mortal name. The boy Ronan wants to answer that call, to turn his head and go where he's beckoned. Ordinarily, he would never ignore it. But only the forest should be speaking to him here.

Ronan's body slumps forward and falls apart, the winds wearing it down into a pile of blue petals. The air picks them up, scatters them across the forest floor until they become oily black feathers, and the feathers become a raven. The Greywaren's dark wings carry him toward the sky. He darts between branches and breaks through to soar over the trees. All of them wave wildly at him, rejoiced to see him in flight, and he greets them with a sharp, "Ha!"