I could pretend to fail, but I have never given up in my life—I would have to spend the rest of my days choosing inaction over and over.
Maybe that will buy me time, to have the balls to make a real choice. About something that matters, that no one elsecanchoose. Choices that would never have occurred to me without the Sage of Wrath’s coup.
Maybe, maybe—
My senses ping first, a growing, enormous magical presence closing in rapidly from ahead of me—
—Magic comingfromthe Quiet.
My first thought is that it’s Wrath—shameful relief as I think she has come to own responsibility for the choice, taking it back out of my hands—but a second later I realize the feel of the magic is different.
A dragon.
A different kind of relief, combined with adrenaline.
“Dragon incoming from Sanctuary,” I snap to Learned Muka. “I’ll hold.”
Because holding, at least, I can do.
Forever, if I have to.
A sharp intake of breath, but Learned Muka has decades of training on me and is retreating an instant later to gather my escort and call for reinforcements.
Priests can only fight dragons by combining their power, chanting spells in unison.
But a sage—
A single sage might hold off a dragon.
As a figure emerges from the mist, though, my doubts flourish anew.
Because this is surely a dragon. The immortal grace, the shock of blue hair, the sheer menace radiating from such a slim form—they’re all giveaways, even if I didn’t have my magic.
But Icanclearly sense the dragon’s magic, even on the Quiet side of the Precipice where they remain—which means dragon magic may still work there, while human magic will not.
(An oversight from the Sage of Wrath, or a failure—or an intended consequence?)
Most damningly: dragons do not approach priests in human form unless they have a death wish.
Maybe I’m not the only one shaken by Wrath’s choice.
On instinct, my body flows through a quick pattern, falling into a stance as I swirl my arms in a deliberate form to back up my voice, the lie of feeling strength surging through me as I thrust a hand forward and intone, “Stop.”
My power emerges from my hand like a pale flash of light, bathing the dragon in a field of shimmering gold.
A very wispy gold, from me. My magic crosses the Precipice, but even at this far edge of the Quiet, it’s muted.
But, wonder of wonders, the dragon does stop.
It’s a bad sign that I’m surprised by my own effectiveness.
That I wonder if he in fact stops because he ishumoringme, not because my resolve is powerful enough to meet him in this situation.
“A sage alone,” the man—the dragon—says in a low, threatening voice. “I’d begun to wonder if that ever happened.”
Familiar resolve pools in my gut, like reassurance, like nausea. The priests aren’t wrong about everything—this man has been hunting us; the dragonsareour enemies.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean they are right about everything.
