Mujin and the priests are still moving, because my shield is still settling into place and this is their chance to defeat it, no matter that people they consider their own will have to be sacrificed to do it.
People they consider theirrightto sacrifice, rather than people who have the right to choose to live.
The power is still flowing out of me. The priests can kill me before it finishes.
But I also know that I tried this once already, and it didn’t change anything.
Or, it didn’t change enough.
But I will build on that.
It’s time to take my old kata and do something new with it.
I didn’t want to go back to war.
But this is different.
I willmakeit different.
Because that’s what sages—that’s whatpeople—are for.
I know, in a moment of crystal clarity—thank you, Eraya—what kind of sage I want to be.
Fighting can be the most compassionate thing you can do for another person.
It can also be the most compassionate thing you do for yourself.
I can be full of wrath and ice cream and love for a dragon all at once. I deserve to have it all.
And making my wrath felt is what protects that space for me, and everyone I care about, to be able to be all of ourselves.
I’m worth fighting for, even if I’m on my own.
So is everyone.
I move harder than I ever have before. More powerfully, pouring all of myself into this.
“Yora, you have to stop!” Eraya’s voice is desperate, weak, and it pisses me off.
She has no idea what I’m capable of, let alone whatsheis.
“You’re going to die!” she yells at me. “Nobody wants that but Mujin!”
That does penetrate, but I don’t stop.
It firms my movements; hones them.
“I don’t get to be all of what I can be by making myself smaller,” I say. “In the end, that only serves people who only know how to live by stepping on me.”
The priests are unleashing attack after attack on my shield, halting its progress.
But not stopping it.
“We’re sages so we can be bigger,” I tell Eraya. “So we can follow our own conscience, not anyone else’s, when not everyone can.”
I don’t know if I can do this on my own, but I have five hundred years of preparation at my disposal.
And it matters that I try.
