But I don’t answer, because the truth is I don’t have one.And then what?
The future where I succeed is such a fragile possibility that I’ve never dared imagine what I would do with my life once I had magic again, and now I stare aimlessly out at the landscape rushing beneath us.
In what world will High Earth just go away and leave me to it? Will I spend the rest of my life flying between anchors and repairing them so that we can keep magic? What happens when I die?
Then my breath catches for a wholly different reason as I actually look down for the first time. “Is this Guayabo?”
Nariel rests his head on my shoulder, and my heart thumps again.
I am in so much trouble.
“It is what’s left,” Nariel says as we pass over the ruins, circling us around so I can get a longer view.
I turn my face toward his, which is a mistake, because it puts my lips very close to him.Focus, Sierra.“Did you ever see it before?”
“When it was a city? Yes. The Cloud Forest was powerful enough that once upon a time wizards here nurtured the power spot and in turn powered their infrastructure with its magic.”
“Like they do in High Earth.” I pause, trying to remember how old this place was from whenever I last read a Costa Rica guidebook. Ancient, like the fallen angel talking about it so casually—fun question with absolutely no relevance to current events, do age differences matter with immortals?—but I thought it had still been inhabited in the last thousand years. “And so that all would have come undone when our magic was stolen.”
“Yes, though with their careful stewardship they managed for quite some time still. But eventually, the protections faded.”
So much lost. Ways of life, knowledge. I can’t even fathom how much.
“There is so much to rebuild,” I murmur. “So much I still have to learn.”
A moment, and then with satisfaction Nariel says, “Yes.”
I turn my head more fully to look him in the eye. “You know, I believed you before when you said you weren’t telepathic.”
Nariel’s lips quirk, but his eyes in this moment look old, so old. A man who has lived through centuries if not millennia.
“Your silences are speaking,” he says. “But even if they weren’t, I remember how I began my journey. You spoke to Seamus of the limitations. You gave him combat spells. You wonder if you’ll ever be able to stop fighting.”
“I won’t,” I say, in this moment absolutely sure.
Nariel nods against my shoulder, gazing out at the ruins of an ancient city. “But it isn’t all about limitations or fighting, Sierra.”
I take his point.
Once we have magic, it’s also about building. And it’swhatwe build with that. That’s why it matters to him that I’m giving magic to everyone, that I make allies and not just go on my own.
No one builds a city of magic like the one that was here alone.
I don’t know anything about building, but no other wizards in this world will thrive alone.
“I get it,” I say thickly.
“Do you?” Nariel asks, and he turns to me.
His lips are quirked, but his gaze is fierce and fathomless. “Because sometimes,” he tells me with that velvet voice, “it’s about soaring.”
And then with an enormous flap of his impossibly powerful wings, he sends us speeding over the trees, my startled whoop of laughter lost to the skies.
Chapter 8
It’s midday when we reach the Monteverde Cloud Forest. Sunny, warm, birds chirping; a perfect day for tourists.
But Nariel descends into an empty parking lot at the tourist entrance. There’s not a single car, no one even to sell tickets.
