Zan can’t actually bring himself to leave me entirely, though—the mating instincts are too strong now. It’s all he can do to not touch me.
So I feel his gaze hot on me as I dance for him.
Wrath can be an expression of pure fury, but that’s not its only form.
It can be deliberate.
It can be painstaking.
It can be inexorable.
When Jiran arrives—or rather, gets close enough that Zan spontaneously transforms into his dragon form at the provocation of another male in the vicinity of his mate and then Jiran wisely decides to keep his distance—to tell us that the Order will meet us on the mainland-side of the strip connecting Sanctuary Island to the rest of the empire...
I open my eyes.
There is grass beneath my feet, where it belongs.
My ice cream waits for me safe in its house.
I know the names of the trees around me.
My vision is tinged magenta when I say, “I’m ready.”
Ordercohortswaitonthe mainland. This is clearly on purpose, because the land bridge connecting the island to the empire makes for a bottleneck.
Crystal Hollow can’t come in force if they have to come one at a time, or they risk being sunk into the water when the tide comes in. The priesthood has chosen their ground to their advantage.
But Crystal Hollowcame anyway, and I glow fiercer because of it.
They crowd the strip of land.
I don’t really conceptually understand how many people live on the island, and this definitely isn’t all of them, but it’s alot.
They’re not saying anything, but they’re there. Visible, present.
Like a multicolored spear tip of all the many kinds of people who live here ready to smash against a wall of oppressively uniform black.
It’s a stark contrast to the ranks of priests arrayed ahead of them in clear combat formation.
Who either weren’t expecting this show of presence or are planning something horrible—they are holding Teren hostage, after all—because there are more people from Crystal Hollow here than there are priests.
But:
The people of Crystal Hollow make space when Zan and I, flying in from above, land at their head.
They make space for us as we are.
And I have never been more glad—moreproud—that I discarded my sage robe for color than I am now.
The golden light of the Sage of Compassion’s aura disperses with my mere presence, before I’ve even begun to counteract it on purpose, and that tells me a lot.
Wrath is on my side.
Compassion is not, truly, on hers.
At our arrival on the field, at the abrupt shift in the flow of magic, the priests reflexively move into forms, and Learned Mujin shouts at them to hold, preventing movement of any kind.
He is here, of course.
