Take Back Worlds (Diamond Universe: Sierra Walker #3)

Chapter 3

I t’s like I remember it. No matter the weather or wear, the stone of this tower is white.

White like the symbolic opposite of Dark Earth.

White like how all the angels of Bright Earth present themselves.

And white like nothing natural of this world.

It has an almost sci-fi feel, like an alien pod, though it’s all stone rather than plastic. Pristine, untouched, no natural grooves or lines. Or maybe more like how Babylon 5 kept locking characters in an inexplicably empty room with a spotlight to highlight how alone and powerless they were.

(Brook had a vintage sci-fi phase and dragged me into it as a way to keep in touch while I was traveling. I have seen things you people wouldn’t believe.)

That’s definitely the vibe they want, but not because they want self-reflection or realizations or whatever. They just want you to feel overwhelmed.

In this chamber, I’m surrounded by windows showing each grand magus in their own rooms. They’re oversized, so each of them looks like a looming giant, and they’re on all sides, so you feel cornered and attacked no matter where you look.

Entering the room first means I’m facing them on my own.

But it also means that I’m facing them on my own , not dragged here like a prisoner.

And not everyone else who follows is closing me in, as the grand magi think.

I have people here to back me up.

That is entirely different than my last visit here.

This time, for the first time in my life, I know I have people in my corner.

And I think maybe what Destien also meant was: I’m no longer a child.

It’s time to make sure the grand magi know it.

Although the live portraits of the other grand magi surround me, I look at the center, where the local grand magus sits.

Evram. My former mentor.

I haven’t seen him since the day I defeated him.

The day he tried to kill me with an angelic wand, and I broke it.

And broke the whole magical status quo.

Magic in Low Earth. A new treaty between worlds.

And a huge loss of both power and face for him personally.

Evram sits in a white chair in front of a white table, both of which look like they’ve grown out of the floor. And of course they’re both raised above me.

The last time I was here, that had been such a comfort—that my advocate was above all this. That I was in the center and the people who mattered could see me at last.

I’d had so much backward. Big Luke Skywalker “every word of what you just said was wrong” energy.

I look up at Evram now, and his eyes glitter with so much malice it does actually take me aback. Not that he feels it, but that he’s showing it, with the other grand magi able to see him.

I know enough about this council to know that’s a mistake. So either he’s really lost his grip, or he no longer thinks it matters that his colleagues see him like this. Either is bad news for me, and for what I need to accomplish, and so for Sarenac City, too.

But he doesn’t say anything to me, and honestly right at this moment I don’t know what I would say to him—‘Check it out, you still can’t keep me down’? ‘So how’s playing into the angels’ hands working out for you?’ ‘Here’s a second chance at doing your own dirty work, maybe this time you’ll fare better’?—that isn’t going to make my job here harder.

He doesn’t say anything to me.

Nor do any of the other grand magi.

And nothing happens.

I breathe tightly, laser-focused.

Okay. So they’re not going to just try to get the drop on me before anyone else enters. They have something else planned.

So I watch the other grand magi’s reactions as everyone else files in behind me, waiting for a signal that we’re on.

Nariel enters after me, coming up to stand by my side, and by the utter stillness of the grand magi I know that they do not like this, his presence here. They think he’s the one to worry about here, not me.

Then the Lances follow.

I don’t know how normal people think, which makes it hard for me to interact in a casual social way.

But watching the body language of people more powerful than me in a combat situation for signs of what’s to come— that I know in my bones.

So I watch as the grand magi all look a little more confident as the Lances arrive to box us in between them and Grand Magus Evram.

Then their confidence gets a tinge of annoyance when Destien brings up the rear, and the wall seals behind him.

I don’t actually know if there’s a wall there, I realize. Maybe there’s always been a hole, and this has always been an illusion of power.

When we’re all sealed in, Evram and the images of the grand magi in front of me and the Lances and Destien behind, that’s when Evram makes his move.

No verbal warning. The grand magi have still not deigned to say a single word to me. They’re just going to enact their judgment from on high and expect that to put me down and for things to go back to how they always have.

But this time, I’m ready, because whenever I’m in the grand magus’ presence, I’m always ready.

Evram himself trained me for that.

It doesn’t matter that in the last day, I’ve survived establishing a bond and defeated all the angelic weapon-armed Lances and worked interdimensional magic.

From my former mentor, I know better than to expect a break.

I feel his spell, like I felt them downstairs, but it’s such a big spell all around me that the only reason I can feel what it’s doing is that I have known Evram a long, long time.

On instinct, I thrust a spell out below me.

Evram continues floating in his chair while the floor drops out from underneath me, Nariel, the Lances, and Destien.

But we drop right onto a transparent platform of magic made solid.

It can’t have escaped the Lances’ notice that whether he expected them to be able to deal with it or not, Grand Magus Evram just dropped them, too. While I caught all of them, not just myself.

That’s a first impression for the other grand magi that I’m much happier with, though to them I’m sure it makes me look na?ve, like I don’t know what’s about to happen.

Evram’s not done.

This is a place he’s had centuries to spell, and I’ve only been in the room once—not enough time to study it all.

The walls split into panels and float through the air, surrounding us in a sphere.

The Lances don’t miss a beat, immediately going into attack mode. But Nariel doesn’t either—shadows pour out of him as I drop the floor, and he cocoons the Lances inside them.

A temporary measure, but it means I don’t have to dodge spells from beneath me for a minute—at least not from them.

Just the ones I can feel powering up around us, as the wall panels glow white.

With our second floor dispersed, I fly into the air, and so do Evram’s chair and desk, floating in front of me like a god at judgment.

Not today.

I drop altitude fast, past the Lances, hoping the spells from the surrounding panels will hit each other.

No such luck; they’re shifting angle, homing in on me.

But the Lances are now held in the way.

The grand magus doesn’t hesitate.

I wonder if they expected him to, or if they know what they are to him and accept it like I never did.

The spells, fat beams of pure white, cut through the remainder of the shadows, and the Lances’ own shields aren’t sufficient to keep a few of them from being knocked out of the sky.

The oversized visages of the grand magi continue to watch impassively. Like there’s nothing worthy of their attention here.

I bare my teeth in something resembling a grin.

We’ll see about that.

With someone else absorbing the impact from the panels, it still buys me the second I need to manifest my hammer.

I swing it not at the panels, but at Evram’s desk.

I was here long enough that one time to know that many of the spells in the council chamber are keyed to be controlled there.

Lightning swirled with black shadows shoots out of my hammer and crashes into the desk.

But with centuries, Evram has had a lot of time to spell this thing, and it doesn’t crack.

I keep channeling magic through the hammer, more and more, until Nariel bodily grabs me to swoop me out of the way of another shot from the surrounding panels.

Oh, there’s an idea.

“Get us to the other side of the desk,” I tell Nariel.

“Evram is there.”

“And I’ll be delighted to stab him in the back if he doesn’t move.”

I’m watching the battle, but I feel Nariel’s flash of sharp amusement at that.

He gets me.

But I also feel his anger and worry simmering underneath it, and, yeah, same.

As he flies through overlapping blasts in the sky— how —the Lances surround us with their own magic weapons, because of course they do.

“I need shadows!” I yell over the sound of all the explosions.

They pour out of Nariel, and I am whirling them into another magic-eating shield before most of their hits land.

But not all of them.

Two direct shots take out my personal shield, leaving me briefly vulnerable to the one that lights my arm on fire.

Nariel’s fear spikes as I scream. He frantically pours more shadows out as if to tamp down the flames, but this time I am not feeling what he’s feeling.

I am made of wrath.

“To Evram,” I grit out. These are magical flames, and yes they absolutely sure do burn, but they’re not going to ruin my arm. They just hurt like a bitch , and they, and the pain, are intended to last.

Wearing me down with pain while pretending at righteousness rather than facing me head-on is so very these fuckers.

Nariel’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t argue with me during combat.

That’s one person on my side.

And here in the world that was mine, it is my job to navigate this bullshit.

The Lances keep firing, because after our performance with the mages down below, they know that I can’t fire with the shield up, and they’ll be ready.

I have my own personal shield up and ready and reinforced like a mother as Nariel darts up high and then descends on Evram like a bullet.

At the same time, I drop the shield. Extending the hand that I can still bear to move, I fire lightning right at Evram.

He phases out, like a hologram. Damn it.

So it doesn’t hit him, but it also means we too pass right through him as the panels’ next combined shot hits the desk.

After what I did to it earlier, that’s enough to take it out.

And very good confirmation that I absolutely did not want to get hit with one of those head-on.

Immediately after the desk cracks, the wall panels freeze.

Good news, I took out the main control panel.

Bad news, it’s not the only place spells are connected to in here, because Evram isn’t that careless, except with people.

The Lances have kept firing, and with the shadow shield down again, now they surround us once more.

Which very nearly prevents me from noticing that, as if triggered by the destruction of the desk, the walls begin to dissolve into dust. But visible, greenish dust, carried through the air like a mist—

Nariel senses my spike of fear, that immediate knowing what kind of deadly miasma Evram would unleash, and he begins to pour out shadows again for the shield.

But it won’t be enough. I can’t shoot through the shield, and if my personal shield goes down because of the Lances, if I inhale even a particle of that, I’ll be dead.

In my panic, I pull directly on our magic.

And it answers.

I scream as I thrust it out of me.

I hear the boom of a magical shockwave as I blast magic all around us.

The Lances have shields up but are still blown backward with the force of it.

All the rest of the tower—the roof, Evram’s chair, the windows for the coolly watching grand magi—all of it dissolves, vaporizing in an instant.

Nariel holds onto me tightly.

As we start to fall through the sky.

I can practically feel him scrambling around in our magic for anything left, and panic surges in me again.

I took too much, too fast, and Nariel needs magic to live —

I frantically twist to get to my pack, screaming again at the pain of moving my flaming arm even that much, reaching in and pulling a fistful of magic beads out and shoving them at his mouth.

He doesn’t literally eat beads, but my brain is not firing on all cylinders right this second—

But it’s enough.

Nariel absorbs the magic filling his mouth as our descent slows, his magic righting us once more. Then he coughs all the beads out, letting them fall to the ground, as we rise in the sky again.

I’m shaking. With pain, with fear, with rage.

I almost killed him.

I don’t understand this bond, but I knew that was possible and it’s exactly the thing I was scared of and still—

Panic later; this is still a combat situation.

The oversized windows to the grand magi are gone, but smaller images of them flicker back into existence around us.

Including one of Evram, glaring at me.

I glare right back. He didn’t expect me to be able to deal with spells he’s spent centuries building—and gods, given that miasma, no wonder he isn’t here in person—and I did it in front of the grand magi.

Which probably makes him look bad.

And for the first time, it occurs to me that I’m not surrounded by people more magically powerful than me.

I may not have their centuries of knowledge and experience, but I might actually be more powerful than a grand magus. Even before the bond.

Now, with Nariel at my side? There’s no contest.

And now they all know it.

The tension in the air is thick.

Then Destien flies up next to us, handing me a bottle.

My arm is still on fire.

This potion he’s handed me could be anything.

“Don’t you dare—“ Evram begins furiously.

“Help you waste even more time and resources? No, I don’t think I will,” Destien says.

I knock it back, and then go rigid with a rictus of pain.

Nariel is already pouring shadows out of him again when I tighten my hand on his arm and gasp out, “No.”

And he stops.

I love him so much.

I barely breathe as the healing potion goes to work on my arm, taking it from on-actual-if-magical fire to feeling like I’m being stabbed with burning pokers until it finally gets to like a molten heat stage and I take a deeper breath. The worst has passed.

I’ve been told there are healing potions that don’t hurt worse than the injury itself, but they’re more expensive and not as fast. Which means this is the only kind I’ve ever taken.

Nariel feels, if anything, angrier—though whether it’s with me for trusting Destien or with Destien for putting me in that position I can’t tell.

“Now that we’ve dispensed with the preliminaries,” Destien says.

“I notice you were of no assistance, Lord Destien.”

Well what do you know, the grand magi actually speak.

“Grand Magus Evram has already accused me of sabotage once,” Destien says blandly. “Now you can all witness that I did not act against him to aid Wizard Master Sierra Walker.”

“You healed her,“ Evram spits.

“Yes, I did, because I’m here to address our problems. Not to waste more time and magic, which I will remind you are currently both in short supply, making them worse.”

His tone is cool and disdainful.

And on Evram it works like booping a dog on the nose. It’s like I watch him stuff his malice inside and pull himself together and draw himself back up haughtily.

“We didn’t give you the authority to handle this problem to bring them to us alive,” a different grand magus drawls. She sounds amused—possibly at Evram’s expense.

All the while my outrage grows, and I’m so strangled with it I can’t actually form words.

He almost killed us while they watched the show, and we’re now just going to float here and pretend like we’re trading barbs over tea? Are you fucking kidding me?

“I’m sure you’ve all received reports by now on the circumstances,” Destien is saying.

“Yes,” says another grand magus—with a stunning, lyrical voice, because if you have centuries to live why not sound however the fuck you want?—“you have managed to bring the one person we are certain knows how the plague spell works to a place where she can do even more damage. And you think we’ll allow you, and her, free rein?”

That, finally, is what makes me find my voice.

“What,” I say, “the fuck?”

Destien winces, but the damage of my inelegant interjection is already done.

“You think I created the plague?“ I turn back to Evram incredulously. “Are you kidding me?”

“Who knows what lengths you would go to,” Evram says flatly.

But I recognize that tone from him, the uninflected cadence—it’s like a prompt.

He doesn’t believe this. He’s explaining .

I thought I couldn’t be more shocked, but that does it.

I think he’s actually shocked at himself too, because his fingers still on his phantom wand, like he’s holding back another reaction.

While I’m... not gaping, I have better control of my face than that, but still very obviously surprised speechless, that same liquid voice continues, “Oh, perhaps not the first one—“

“She could have been responsible for the first one as well,” another grand magus points out. “She could have made a deal with Bright Earth beforehand, guaranteeing them access to all of High Earth’s power rather than their customary tithe.”

This is so bizarre I can’t help but ask, “How was I supposed to have contacted Bright Earth with no ability to use magic, exactly?”

“It makes far more sense for you to have done what you have if a Low Earth magus from before the treaty escaped the new rules by faking their death, and they’ve been helping you this whole time,” the grand magus says matter-of-factly.

I’m beginning to feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience.

Possibly that’s aftereffects of the potion I just chugged. Normally you sip those.

“So a hypothetical wizard who is hundreds of years old, whose wand you didn’t manage to break because you thought you’d murdered them, has been lying in wait all this time until I arrived? Is that the theory?” I query. “I admit I do see why that idea, that someone of your own age and experience is the one who can challenge you, would be more attractive to you than the reality.”

“Most of us know he’s full of shit.” The drawling grand magus again. “But since you saw how the first plague was set up, you could have figured out how to engineer the second one to steal all of High Earth’s magic as retaliation, redirecting it to Low Earth. And after all you’ve said and done, you can’t deny that you want to punish High Earth for your perceived slights.”

Hoooly shit.

The grand magi are fucking terrified .

Of me, yes, which is why some of them are desperately trying to pretend I can’t be what I am.

But also of the angels, which is why the rest are desperately trying to act as though I’m responsible. Like if they make me go away, so will all their problems.

One human from Low Earth they might be able to handle.

But against all of Bright Earth?

I turn to Destien, who wears an unreadable expression, but I know, I know , he hates having to cater to people this separated from reality, but whose ossified stances are the ones that matter because of their power. “There is... so much to unpack there.”

Destien also has to have realized, even if my former mentor is too bitter to, that if I could have worked spells, or gotten myself back to High Earth to set up spells, I’d have just done that and lived my life out happily here. I doubt he could have convinced them of that, though.

I’m not stupid; I knew the grand magi at least weren’t going to be happy to have me here, despite being the person who solved their last plague problem. It was going to be hard enough to convince them to donate power to help against Bright Earth.

I did not expect them to think that I directly created the problem, rather than blaming the angels. I did not expect the grand magi to actively try to murder me, when already I expect the angels to be trying that as soon as they’re aware of what Nariel and I are doing. This is not the challenge I came here prepared to face.

But it’s the same reason Evram couldn’t solve the problem the first time. They’re not used to looking at angels as a problem.

Low Earth, on the other hand—

“There is nothing for you to do at all,” the silky-smooth grand magus says. “You thought you would come here, and we would allow you to move freely through this world that took you in to teach you how to survive, that now you work to destroy? If you truly are responsible for only what you claim, Evram must have allowed you to be na?ve to think you could come here and we would allow you to leave.”

I look back at my former mentor now, who wears a small smile as the floor from the council room rises up from beneath us, carrying the rigid Lances and revealing what look like grenades that were hidden in the floor, that now power up underneath us, underneath them , glowing blue with magic.

Nariel could transport us out of here, but what would happen to the Lances?

Of course it’s not just one, it’s all of them, because he’s still trying to make an example, though maybe not the one he intends to. Probably he means this to look noble, like when everyone is with him and willing to make sacrifices, they can triumph.

Not that no matter their loyalty and training and performance, he’ll still sacrifice them in an instant to score a point.

My first action revealed to Evram that I’d protect them if I had a choice.

He expects me them to stand there and take the beating to lure me into staying, into getting caught in those magical bombs myself.

Even though he knows the other grand magi are full of shit, he’ll take advantage of it to put me in my place.

I was na?ve as a child, and he took advantage of it, and he was proud of it.

“You made a mistake, Sierra,” Evram says. “You should never have come here. Now, you’re in my world.”

He raises his wand, no doubt to remotely trigger the bombs, and I can’t help it.

I start to laugh.

And laugh, and laugh, and laugh even as Evram’s face twists and he fires.

Nariel senses my magic gathering and dissolves into shadow as lightning erupts all over my body.

I blast it down, targeting every single stupid little bomb at the same time in a hundred arcs. My aim is so precise that while the constructs themselves don’t vaporize, I cut clear through the magic in them to the spell crystals at their center, rendering them useless.

It’s a goddamn waste of my time and magic, because that’s all Evram can do to me now. He can waste my time and magic until I have nothing left and the status quo reasserts itself.

I came here to help these assholes, because their people don’t deserve to be punished, but also because I thought that would make it easier for them to face giving me more angelic weapons that we could use against Bright Earth. A show of cooperation so we could all work together.

But this is where I have to start from?

I know how the grand magi’s world works. I know it’s all pretending to be above everything and not showing real feelings because they’re “weaknesses” and scoring petty shots in some vast game between them that only matters when their bullshit cascades down, but that for them to take you seriously you have to play by their rules of engagement.

I know what “politic” engagement looks like to them.

But honestly: absolutely fuck that.

I’m not taking his goddamn punishment. I’m not going to try to work with them, not like this.

I’m wiping their bullshit off the map.

I came here just to get their help against the angels, but not anymore.

I’m taking this whole stupid system down, and the grand magi with it.

“ Your world?“ I demand. “Now who’s na?ve? You sold it to Bright Earth generations ago. I bet when Koshiel changed the terms—which you didn’t get a say in, remember that?—I bet you explained that High Earth wouldn’t be able to meet the same tithe anymore, and they made noises like they understood, and you just thought they’d accept that? That they’d patiently wait for you to take care of me and then kindly reestablish the previous status quo? After they already deployed a plague to steal your magic because they think of you as disposable pawns? Are you all high ?”

Someone behind me snorts, and I know it has to be Nariel, because the Lances wouldn’t dare laugh in the grand magi’s faces.

Also because I’m facing the grand magi, and I see anger darken their visages.

They still feel like they ought to be able to ignore me, despite present evidence to the contrary, because I’m just some uppity Low Earther.

But Nariel? Nariel was an angel.

And that, they respect.

Which frankly is the whole damn problem, but maybe Nariel can make it work for us, since I evidently can’t.

I can literally feel Nariel’s overwhelming disdain even before he says, “Have you never asked yourselves why Bright Earth didn’t simply cut High Earth off from magic like they did to Dark Earth?”

That... is a really good question, actually. Shit.

I try to act like I have obviously already considered this and know the answer.

(In my defense: I have been a little busy .)

Nariel unfurls his wings, and they take up all the space between the grand magi, making their flimsy images in the air look small, fragile.

Nariel says to Evram, “You’ve figured it out, haven’t you? It’s why you’re on such good terms. You thought that with the tithe, High Earth had nothing to fear from them. But you made a mistake, grand magus,” he says, echoing Evram’s earlier words to me.

“Bright Earth doesn’t have any reason to target us,“ Evram snaps.

“They don’t need one,” Nariel says simply. “They don’t need the power of High Earth at all, but they take it nevertheless, don’t they? To keep you from having it, even if they can’t use it. They even give a portion back to you, in gifts , that you fight over, keeping yourselves at odds so you can’t unite against them.”

“And we don’t need to,” the jaded woman says, the first hint of anger darkening her voice. “If you hadn’t put all of us at risk with your selfishness—“

“If you expect me to apologize for wanting a better life for my people—or even just for myself—you will be waiting a long time,” Nariel says coldly.

Around us, the room starts reforming. I feel it, but I’m not doing it, which means it’s Nariel. Making his impression.

Fierce love for him surges through me.

“But since you mention it,” he says silkily, “let’s remember that Bright Earth brought their first plague upon you out of fear of me , all the way over in Dark Earth, and what I might do with organized spirits. You thought they would see others demanding their due and remain content to keep you as pawns, favored servants, when instead they could have slaves?”

I really want to ask, What do you mean, they can’t use it? But I’m guessing Nariel feels my confusion and doesn’t make me reveal my lack of knowledge out loud.

“To get everyone up to speed,” Nariel says, and I see Evram clenching his jaw—had he figured it out, really? Or was Nariel just trying to put him in a difficult political position?—“Bright Earth can’t steal all but the barest thread of magic like they did with Dark Earth, because too much magic will destabilize their own world.”

The ancient-wizard conspiracist says, “A theory that’s very convenient for you—“

“Have you forgotten, grand magi, that of all of us, I was there, before your so-called treaty?“ Nariel interrupts him. “They tried it that way first, and the earthquakes in Bright Earth were so violent they almost couldn’t work the magic necessary to reverse the spell. I was there , and you can accuse me of lies all you want, but I am the only person in this room who can know the truth.”

A lot of things very suddenly become clear to me.

If there has to be at least a trickle of magic between the worlds, then that explains what I’ve always wondered, why the angels didn’t simply show High Earth how to choke off Low Earth. Why they instead insisted on the wizards of Low Earth still being trained enough not to implode, because that way they can get others to harvest magic for them in small doses that won’t break their world.

It’s why they give away gifts at all: not out of benevolence, but to manage the overflow of magic their world can’t contain.

“Which means,” Destien finally speaks up, picking up the thread, “that we must consider that Bright Earth may be planning to hold the magic stolen from our people in a different world—likely ours—to then deploy it against any world they please without having to spend any of their own power. That is a marked change in the status quo, whatever brought it about, and our current agreement with Bright Earth evidently does not protect us. That is the situation we’re facing, and why I invited the representatives of Low Earth and Dark Earth here to assist with.”

We don’t just need to take down the spell Bright Earth is using to siphon magic from Dark Earth, because they’ll just put it back in place.

We have to undo the most powerful spell that’s been in existence for centuries, and make it impossible for them, with all the power they’ve harvested in that time, to reinstate.

As if the stakes weren’t high enough already.

We have gone from 1) fix the plague and get High Earth to help us survive the angels to 2) keep High Earth from murdering us to 3) also tear down High Earth’s horrible governing structure while still getting them to help to 4) also also unwork a centuries-old angelic spell and prevent them from being able to access it again.

Meanwhile there is no ground beneath my feet, and I am magically and existentially drained from fighting grand magi bullshit.

“You are jumping to a lot of conclusions, Destien,” Lyrical Voice says. “And risking all of High Earth with your dangerous assumptions. Yes, we see you’ve brought the Lances to speak to why you think not killing Sierra Walker is a viable option—“

Oh for the love of gods.

I turn my back on them and ask Nariel, “Does Bright Earth have a way to prevent what I did to High Earth? Reversing the flow of magic?”

“Correct,” Nariel says. “As I understand it, the spell works completely differently. It’s less like a conduit, and more like a vacuum—connecting the worlds, but one-directional.”

I sigh. “Of course they wouldn’t have shown any outsiders their spell.” And of course the grand magi fell for it. Probably the angels offered them a special solution tailored just for them. Ugh.

“This doesn’t matter, because you won’t be doing anything,“ Evram snaps. “It is our people dying while you two play your games, and you won’t be allowed to continue it in High Earth.”

“Wow, if only you could do something about that,” I say to him. “Oh wait, I already beat you once, when you were armed with an angelic weapon and I wasn’t.” I manifest my hammer. “And now I’ve got one of my own.” I turn to the Lances. “You all are super loyal, we’re all very impressed, but if the grand magi tell you to kill me and Nariel together, right now, with Evram behind you and whatever spells he has laid into the tower here already—whatever’s left down there, anyway—do you think you’ll manage it? And do you think you’ll live?”

Dead silence answers me.

They’d try, I know. They’re too smart to say to Evram’s face that he’s out of his league.

But they don’t have to.

And that is why Destien brought them here, even knowing I’d have to fight them again.

“That does not prevent us from removing Destien from his current position,” another woman on the Council who hasn’t spoken before now suddenly says, “since I imagine you will be unwilling to work with someone with whom you have such... history.”

She’s looking at me very, very intently.

This is a hint of some kind, but I am too tired and too angry for this level of subtlety to catch what she expects me to say.

So it’s Nariel who says, “We are perhaps understandably not thrilled with Destien, but he has at least proven himself a formidable opponent.” He smiles, and it’s sharp. “So if we must have a... babysitter, we will accept him. But under no circumstances will we accept Grand Magus Evram, whose work shall we say I have found... less impressive.”

Somehow, this is exactly the right thing to say. Several of the grand magi are smirking now, feeling on more comfortable ground playing into their petty grievances, getting one over on Evram. It allows the Council to think that Destien and I aren’t friends and won’t work together—that was the important thing Nariel wanted us to get from this meeting, and Destien, too—because it cements Destien in his role without him having to make a point of defending it himself, which leaves him free to push for things for us later.

While I have gotten distracted pissing off everyone I’m supposed to be making alliances with, or at least trying to commit to not murdering me.

Nariel, with his centuries of political experience, is by my side, helping without undercutting me, exactly as he promised he could and would.

And it still makes me angry, because I hate that it works, when what I want more than anything is to burn this entire bullshit system to the ground.

I take a breath.

I can do this. I fought them; I didn’t die. I can play this game, if it gets me what I want.

“If that’s all settled, we’ll be taking our leave to get started on solving the matter at hand, since, as Grand Magus Evram correctly pointed out, High Earth lives hang in the balance as we speak,” I say.

Counterbalancing his loss of face pains me in my soul, but I have questions for my former mentor, and I know better than anyone that he’s more likely to answer them if I make him feel bigger.

But then Conspiracy Grand Magus pipes up, “We are not at all settled, and you will not have unmitigated access to High Earth—“

And my tenuous grip on my temper vanishes.

“If I supposedly set up the spells, I’ll be able to take them down no problem, won’t I?” I snap. “But when I come back with proof that this is Bright Earth’s work, I expect a goddamn apology. And by apology, I mean you will help me fix the problem you set into motion centuries ago, if I have to drag the magic out of you with my bare hands. And if absolutely any High Earth spell attacks me while I work, I will make it a point of taking my anger out every single one of you personally.”

And that’s it. There’s no coming back from that.

I have challenged every one of them, which means if I don’t see this through, they will come for me.

Seven of them, millennia of experience between them, against one of me.

And facing only one of them almost caused me to kill Nariel.

It’s not just a matter of losing magic. If I can’t completely dismantle the world order, we’re both going to die.

There goes any semblance of playing nice, or mitigating their concerns, or letting them save face, or keeping my cards close to my chest.

I already regret it.

But not enough to try to fix it.

People are dying , I almost killed Nariel , and the problem is so much more overwhelming than I thought it was and the political situation in High Earth so much stupider, and somehow I am going to have to deal with it but I am just out of fucks. All my fucks are spoken for.

Now I’ve thrown down my gauntlet and definitely made enemies where I needed allies, and it’s time to figure out how in the worlds I am going to back my words up with action.

Because I am not taking it back.

If they won’t help me even to help themselves, then I will hammer out a path without them, like I’ve always had to.

Somehow.

The room around us has been rebuilt—not the same, because that amount of magic left damage that can’t be ignored so easily. But different and strong enough to hold people nevertheless.

I look at Nariel. “Let’s go.”

Wordlessly, he holds out a hand, and this time, in full view of all the people who “matter,” I take it.

But rather than leading me back to the stairs, to descend away from their grace, Nariel’s shadows enfold me, and we vanish.