Chapter 26 #3
I see the component parts of her kata, recognize what they’re building towards, and it makes me angrier, even as I adapt my own form to prepare to absorb it.
It’s a kata that will drain all of her power. She’s pouring her whole self into it simply to stop me—
But when I actually look at her as a person, and not merely a sage, I realize that’s not it at all. Or rather, not all of it.
I see in her gaze that she knows this will be futile, but that she’s doing it anyway.
It will also prevent the priests from using any more of her.
And it belatedly occurs to me that when visible, she can’t not be seen to oppose me, because Mujin holds the strings of her power.
This, then, is a kind of gift to me: taking herself off the board.
Compassion through an attempt to wound.
She’s been listening to me after all.
At the last moment, I adjust my kata’s course.
Not to repel her Compassion, but to absorb it.
Eraya erupts in a shower of gold, like being hit with fireworks at close range.
And I spin, and spin, feeling the zings in my aura.
But instead of snuffing them out, my aura encloses them, wraps around them.
And grows even bigger, using her Compassion like seeds.
I don’t know the name of this tree, but I am growing it.
But as I return to the form I had started before, now with even more power, too late I realize that Mujin has in fact been attending to us, to Eraya’s use of her power, rather than to Zan, who isn’t killing them.
Mujin’s expression isn’t one of wrath, but of contempt, as he marshals the priests at his back to shoot toward me.
Unconcerned that Eraya is between us.
Willing to discard a tool that has served its purpose to him.
I break off what I’m doing, changing gears to another kata to defend Eraya, but I already know I didn’t see it fast enough, didn’t pay enough attention to what Mujin could manage because of my contempt for him—
Eraya’s smile, a final gift, a final stab, because she knows—
Iridescent tendrils of magic form a solid blast from the priests.
But before they move, Mujin falls over.
It takes me a second to realize what just happened, but it’s Teren.
Teren, who’s been making Mujin comfortable with his presence, punched behind his knees so he collapsed.
And it’s like a switch goes off in Eraya’s brain, and she moves, throwing herself toward Teren.
But the Order’s magic still launches, but it goes off-course. Not at Eraya, not at me—
I barely have time to think, Oh shit, Nomi, I can’t be everywhere—
But then Zan is there, because I’m not alone anymore—
And he takes the full force of the hit.
My brain snaps.
All at once, it’s like I’m back in the mode of meditation, alone looking down from above.
Zan, collapsing.
Eraya, tackling Teren before Mujin can turn on him, then seizing and screaming as Mujin snarls and begins draining her life through the magical hold he has on her.
Nomi and a band of Crystal Hollowers surging around Zan’s crumpled form, screaming in Mujin’s face, distracting him long enough for Nomi and Haben to bodily pull Teren and Eraya back to our side, the Sanctuary side.
Back to Zan, whom they form a wall of bodies in front of as if to say, He is ours.
And I realize I am screaming, because he is mine.
And he has a place here, he always has.
I am screaming.
I am screaming for Zan, as I feel power flood out of my body.
With an explosion, the intense aura around me bursts outward in a shockwave.
I know in my bones the size of Sanctuary Island; know exactly how big my shield must be to encompass it all.
The Order does not get to kill a dragon today.
They definitely don’t get to kill my dragon.
And they don’t get to kill anyone else, either.
But:
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 their right to 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 will make it different.
Because that’s what sages—that’s what people—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 what she is.
“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.
Because this shield needs to do more.
This shield needs to be a bridge.
Not cutting us off, but making it safe for us to strive.
For us to reach.
Even if I won’t get to appreciate it myself—
?Forgotten me already??
The suddenness of Zan’s voice in my head makes me blaze.
Some part of me had known Zan was still with me, I think, because otherwise I’d have spontaneously combusted and murdered everyone in sight instead of what I’m actually doing.
It must have been knowledge from the mate bond, I realize, which I hadn’t been focusing on because the mate bond at my core feels like it’s on fire—
Oh. Oh, that’s where so much of my power has been going—to him.
The power of wrath to keep him in the fight.
Wrath for protection, not just destruction.
I can’t regret that.
?Stay with me, Yora,? Zan’s voice says in my head. ?You promised to try to live, gods damn it!?
I did. I am. But—
“I don’t know how to anchor this, except with my being,” I whisper.
I remember the feeling of Zan transformed but unresponsive, with me but not, and know I’m about to do the same thing to him.
Somehow, though, he hears me.
?Anchor yourself with mine,? Zan snarls in my head.
What, so we can both be effectively comatose?! Absolutely not—
Sparks of icy blue light glisten in my awareness, and it takes me a moment to realize what they are.
Zan’s scales.
His dragon power, which is a match for my sage power. Which we know can hold all of each other.
His dragon scales, still full of power, all around Sanctuary Island.
I am not the only one who has been preparing, who has been fighting, for all these centuries.
And it’s not just us, is it?
Teren, freed from his bonds by my shield, puts a hand on my shoulder, and I feel the weaves of his power, too.
The comfort of knowing there are people with me.
When you give of yourself to those who only want to use you, you make yourself lesser.
But giving to people who want to help you be yourself, whoever that is? Who want you to be free?
That comes back to you a thousand-fold.
Nomi, at my other side, supports Eraya. “Everyone here is willing, Yora. Do your worst.”
Oh, I’ll do more than that.
I’ll do my best.
I take the wrath inside me and all around me, and I focus it, and I use it.
The shield ripples again with power...
And then vanishes.
Mujin wastes no time, unleashing another blast at the shield...
That also vanishes.
Because my shield isn’t gone, actually.
It’s smarter.
I grin at him ferally. “Oh, you’re going to hate this.”