With the complete power of time now coursing through him, Sylas's command over temporal law became almost instinctive, as natural as breathing. Furthermore, the combined force of the Valar's chorus had pushed his strength beyond its former limits, elevating him to a higher plane of power.
Under these conditions, the time reversal on the golden tree Laurelin suddenly accelerated, and then spread, leaping across to the silver tree Telperion, pulling both Sacred Trees into simultaneous reversal.
Five thousand years. Six thousand. Seven thousand...
Ten thousand years of reversal passed in an instant.
The Two Trees, which had stood unchanged for ages, utterly devoid of life, began to recover at a speed visible to the naked eye. Their dull, withered trunks flushed with vitality. Bare branches erupted with leaves, golden-green on Laurelin, silver-green on Telperion. The fatal wounds left by Morgoth's spear sealed themselves and vanished without a trace, as though they had never existed.
Then the Two Trees blazed with light.
An impossibly brilliant radiance, gold and silver intertwined, erupted from their restored canopies, brighter than the Sun, brighter than the Moon, more dazzling and beautiful than either. The light swept across all of Valinor in an instant, then surged beyond, spreading across the whole of Arda.
Far away in Middle-earth, humanity stared in astonishment toward the west. The sky was suffused with gold and silver, and the night became brighter than any day. Every race across the continent recognized it for what it was, a miracle.
In Valinor, the Elves wept with joy. Those who had lived in the age of the Two Trees, who remembered their radiance firsthand, were overcome with emotion. Across the Blessed Realm, whether from the Vanyar of Valmar, the Teleri of Alqualondë, or the Noldor who had returned from exile, Elves streamed westward in pilgrimage toward the light.
The Vanyar of Valmar, nearest to Ezellohar, were the most ecstatic of all. The silver and golden bells of the city rang in jubilant unison, their pealing chorus celebrating the rebirth of the Trees.
At Ezellohar itself, Sylas and the Valar stood engulfed in the radiance, their figures nearly invisible within the flood of light.
But this was not like the scorching heat of the Sun. The light of the Two Trees was something altogether different, warm, gentle, and infinitely pure. Though the surrounding world was transformed into a wash of gold and silver, one could keep one's eyes wide open and gaze directly upon the Trees without pain.
Bathed in their radiance, Sylas felt an extraordinary warmth suffuse his entire being, a sensation of comfort, peace, and deep purification, as though every impurity in body and spirit were being gently burned away.
The Valar's song faded into silence. They gazed upon the resurrected Two Trees, and smiles, rare, genuine, radiant, broke across their divine faces.
Sylas, too, emerged slowly from his daze.
He felt as though he had been dreaming. In that hazy state, he vaguely recalled entering the River of Time mid-song... traveling relentlessly downstream... encountering his future self at the end of all things. He remembered the blue gemstone sinking into his brow. And he remembered, with vivid clarity, the sensation of absolute command over the power of time, as though the entire River of Time had merged with his being, flowing through him without resistance, without boundary, without end.
His heart surged with excitement. Had it truly happened? Had he actually reached the terminus of time and obtained complete temporal authority?
But even as the thrill rose within him, he felt the power receding. As the Valar's singing faded, the strength that had elevated him to the level of a Lord of Time, a Vala-level existence, rapidly diminished. His power contracted, settling back down to his true rank: that of a high Maia.
The sensation of loss was palpable. That feeling of transcendent, boundless power, the ability to hold the entirety of time in one's hands, was something one did not easily relinquish.
Sylas understood what had happened. The Valar's combined chorus had temporarily amplified his strength to their level, and in that brief window, he had seized the complete authority of time. But without the Valar sustaining him, his power could not maintain that elevation. The towering structure, stripped of its scaffolding, returned to its original height.
Yet after only a few seconds of disappointment, excitement overtook him once more.
Though his strength had reverted, the knowledge had not. He had taken an extraordinary shortcut, leveraging the Valar's power to obtain temporal authority far earlier than should have been possible. Under normal circumstances, he would have needed to reach Vala-level strength on his own before claiming complete dominion over time. That could have taken ages beyond counting.
Instead, Sylas had defied convention entirely. He now possessed the answer before completing the proof.
It was as though he had been given the solution to an impossibly complex equation. The answer was already his, verified, absolute, certain. All that remained was the work of reasoning backward, filling in the steps, until his own strength could independently sustain what he already knew to be true.
He had obtained the introductory mastery of a Lord of Time. The next step was simply...
By continuously accumulating strength, Sylas could eventually shatter the threshold and advance to true Vala-level power on his own merits. His gains from this endeavor were already immense beyond measure.
But the surprises were not yet over.
The Two Trees did not possess true sentience, no more than any other plant. Yet like the mimosa that folds its leaves at a touch, they responded instinctively to the world around them. And these were no ordinary trees. Created by Yavanna's song of creation and nurtured by the tears of Nienna, they were imbued with a divinity and power far beyond anything that grew from common soil.
The Two Trees seemed to know that Sylas had saved them.
Instinctively, gratefully, they repaid him.
Light poured from their restored canopies, not the passive radiance of illumination, but something deliberate, almost conscious. Twin streams of luminescence flowed downward like liquid gold and silver, converging upon Sylas and sinking into his body.
Laurelin's golden light nourished his divine essence, causing it to expand and deepen. Telperion's silver radiance fed his soul, strengthening his spiritual power from within. For a breathless moment, Sylas himself became a source of light, his body and spirit radiating a gentle, sacred glow, as though he had become a living vessel for the mingled brilliance of gold and silver.
Before Sylas could fully absorb what was happening, the Two Trees stirred again.
To the astonishment of the assembled Valar, the radiance of the Trees suddenly dimmed, as though their light had been temporarily spent. But almost immediately, a surge of magical power coursed through both trunks.
The golden tree rapidly produced a fruit, large, luminous, blazing with solar fire. The silver tree bloomed a flower, pale and exquisite, glowing with cool, lunar radiance. Both grew larger and larger, their light intensifying until the trees themselves appeared to be crowned with a miniature sun and moon.
At last, when the fruit had ripened and the flower had fully opened, both detached from their branches, floated gently downward, and hovered in the air before Sylas.
"This!" Sylas stared, scarcely believing what he saw. He looked instinctively toward the Valar.
"Take them, Sylas!" Varda said, her voice bright with happiness. "You revived the Two Trees. This is what you deserve."
Yavanna smiled warmly and nodded her agreement. "This is Laurelin and Telperion's gratitude to you. Accept their gift."
Manwë, too, gave his assent, and none among the Valar raised any objection. The fruit and flower were given to Sylas.
Sylas was overwhelmed, equal parts elated and astonished. These were the sacred fruit and flower that had once become the Sun and Moon themselves. And now they were his.
He named them the Fruit of the Sun and the Flower of the Moon.
The Fruit of the Sun was vastly different from its mother tree. It burned with an intensity beyond mortal comprehension, radiating sunlight and heat so fierce that Sylas dared not touch it with bare hands. Iron and steel would melt to slag upon contact. Fortunately, Aulë, the great Smith, presented Sylas with a specially crafted treasure chest, forged to contain the Fruit's terrible heat. Without it, the artifact would have been nearly impossible to handle.
The Flower of the Moon, by contrast, was cool and serene, but no less precious.
With the Two Trees now fully restored, the mission was a complete and triumphant success.
From this day forward, so long as Yavanna continued to tend the Two Trees and Nienna continued to water them with her tears, the Trees would bear a new sun-fruit and moon-flower once every thousand years. Varda could then use each fruit and flower as the core for a new sun and moon, populating the vast, empty reaches of the universe with ever-more star systems, filling the darkness with light and life.
The implications were staggering. The Two Trees had become an infinite engine of cosmic creation.
Having accomplished such an extraordinary feat, the Valar were filled with joy. They invited Sylas to accompany them into Valmar to participate in the great celebration of the Two Trees' resurrection.