I take the moment to pass the dragon’s pack back to him, placing it on his back and accidentally brushing his scales.
At that touch, I feel a rush of—I’m not sure what it is, honestly; too quick for me to identify if that was emotion or magic, mine or his, or some combination of the two.
But that’s for later, if we have a later, and right now, I have business.
The spokespriest tries, “Identify yourself. Sages belong to the Order, and you are threatening representatives of—”
“I know who you are, and I’m not impressed.”
Another quick form, my power spilling out of me fast enough to leave me lightheaded.
This is a lot for someone who hasn’t moved in several centuries and who just broke her own working.
But wrath isn’t simply anger; it’s clarified.
Right now, there is much I don’t know.
Icankill these priests, but should I? Do I even want to?
Maybe killing is all I’m good for, like the Order wanted me to believe, but I don’t want to be the person they wanted.
And if I can do something, if I have a unique ability to kill, does that mean I have an obligation to?
After so many years, with people in power still like this, is there any hope that anything can change—thatIcould be something else?
But: I amveryclear on two things.
First, the fact that the Order is still able to operate like this is an obscene affront.
And second:
No matter what else comes, they absolutely don’t get to kill a dragon today.
A ball of crackling magenta magic forms in my hands, growing with every move I make through my kata until it is so big I am looking at the priests through its light, my lens.
“Now you face both a dragon and me,” I tell them. “And I am no stranger to killing.”
My words hang in the air.
The priests are so shocked by this extreme escalation that they actually lose their cohesion;unimaginablysloppy and dangerous for all of them.
But we are both lucky, because my manifestation of this level of magic with so little build-up in my kata-work, depending on shortcuts, is a tactical error, like lifting a weight a magnitude beyond what you’ve trained.
If I actually let this go, itmighthit them.
Or it might disintegrate into nothing beforehand because I don’t have the foundation to maintain it.
Or I might pass out first. Hard to say.
I’m banking on them not knowing what I’m capable of and not being willing to risk their own hides to test me.
Then in my mind I hear the dragon’s voice. «Carefully,” he says. «Don’t commit yourself to a course that will kill you.»
I glare at him fleetingly. Who isheto decide what I can and cannot do? He doesn’t know me any better than I know him.
And Iambeing careful.
If I weren’t, we would all already be a bloody mess.
