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“The preachers are always saying your god gifted Tiran all the fruits of his garden,” Thomil said. “Isn’t it odd, then, for some of the ‘all’ to be withheld?”
“The unbreakable rules of magic are unbreakable for a reason.”
“Women are always told to be kind, be forgiving, be nurturing.” Sciona glared down the walk ahead. “As far as I know, it’s never gotten them anywhere.
“And how do you know that a place like the Otherrealm can actually be seen?” Thomil asked. “How do you know our human eyes can take it?” “I don’t,” Sciona whispered through an irrepressible grin. “Would you like to find out with me?” “Damn it, Highmage Freynan…Of course I would.”
Some last autumn in Thomil’s expression froze over.
She was one soul adrift in an ocean of blood. All the tears in the world wouldn’t wash that from her hands or fill her a channel to Heaven.
Well, Sciona was going to leave an impact. Whatever happened next, whether it led to Hell or Heaven, she was going to have a hand in directing it. Sick or sound, good or evil, she was still Sciona Freynan. And Sciona Freynan didn’t slow down. Sciona Freynan would be remembered.
“I only came back to myself when I decided something: all emotions are just energy, just potential fuel for action. Everything I felt about what I saw—the guilt and the terror—wasn’t poison. It was power.”
“This feeling is energy. And I’m going to do something useful with it.”
“You’re more than half-literate and you know it,” Sciona said. “You’re exceptional.”
This laboratory was where she had first tasted real power, where she had become a monster.
Her kindly mentor was gone. He had been gone before she met him.
I’m starting to understand how ridiculous it is to demand civility when the world is so disgustingly uncivil.
“That’s your idea of a nice day out with your mother? Plotting the destruction of a government?” “Why? You have a more fun idea?”
“I’m too broken to do much with the future, I think. But I’ll see you as far as I can along whatever path you choose to take.”
With her soul in the spiral on its way to Hell, Sciona’s last thought was not of vengeance or legacy. It was of love.
Beside Thomil, Carra gulped in rage. “Uncle! Why am I crying so much?” “Because you’re human.”
Carra sniffed. “Did you love her?” Thomil had to be honest in memory of Sciona if nothing else. “I did. But we’re Kwen in the age of Blight.” He shrugged. “Our fate is to love, and lose, and lose, and lose…”
