“The priests will return soon, but I am as close to alone now as I am permitted to be,” I tell him, a challenge in my voice. “Do your worst.”
It is weak to depend on an external challenge to find my own resolve, but right now a fight is just what I need to feel grounded again. To feel like the ground is solid beneath my feet instead of ever-changing waves—
But the dragon lets out a sound of disgust. “Permitted?” he echoes incredulously.
And that’s all.
Is he—waiting on clarification?
Am I about to have aconversationwith a dragon, rather than a battle?
My feet are definitely submerged in water.
I continue moving through a form, but it’s a ponderous, holding one; a gathering, so I will be ready when it is time to act.
Ha.
“No one person should have so much power without oversight,” I say slowly. “Before the priests took on that role, a sage killed an emperor.”
The dragon snorts, smoke coming out of his nose even in human form.
That probably means his dragon form is very close to the surface, and I’ll need to defend against his fire.
I subtly shift my movements with that goal in mind.
“Perhaps the emperor needed to be killed, did you ever wonder about that?” the dragon snaps. “Perhaps some priests need to be too, though that’s hardly news.” And before I can reply, he adds, “And now a sage has refused to kill on command. Tell me, do you think your choices are more fallible than hers, or less?”
It hits me all at once that what I’m hearing from this dragon isanger.
Toward... me? The priesthood, humans? The way the world is? I can’t tell.
“It’s not my job to choose,” I tell him, even as my heart twists, because choosing what to grow is outside my remit; because no wonder I’m having so much trouble today, with theprospect of making a choice of my own, the realization that perhaps I never have, have only defaulted to what others chose for me; and that in itself may be a choice, but it may also simply be an abnegation, andthatis counter to what I am supposed to stand for. “It’s my job to be a divine vessel.”
“Oh, I see.” His voice is bitter; his movements jerky.Any moment now.“So that’s how they do it? They convince you that nothing you do with your power is your responsibility, because you’re not the one who chooses, and you shouldn’t be the one. Then why do you individually embody the spirit of the gods, I wonder?”
I am having a conversation with a dragon.
A dragon who, despite my wariness,mydesperation, has made no move toward actually attacking me. Infuriating, and probably lulling me into a false sense of security so that I will let down my guard, but—
The priests still aren’t here.
“Do you know why the Sage of Wrath created the dampening field?”
The question slips out before I realize I even want to know, let alone that I’m going to ask.
The dragon looks back at me with scorn.
“If you can’t guess,” the dragon says, “you are irredeemably stupid. And I’m not here to provide you with justifications that you’ll let the priests twist into whatever serves their narrative.”
I stop breathing for a moment.
Maybe we are in a battle after all.
I am resolve incarnate.
I willnotstop moving just because a dragon’s words hit me like a barrel to the chest.
But my movements slow to the speed of molasses, because I cannot for the life of me decide how to respond.
