Page 159 of Turncloak

Magekind’s current path was abhorrent—yet, in Miret’s eyes, preventable.

The images Harrow described from the prophecy came back to haunt Levan, corpses piled up like sandbags, baby shoes and Saints stones bobbing along the surface of the drowned streets, like the slowcrabs and opalfish in that hellish cave.

Levan’s hands shook violently. He’d almost drowned, and though his brain was trying to forget this fact, his body wasn’t quite so quick to move on. “So you believe that if I follow the Saints’ light, I can prevent the Fifth Prophecy.”

Oh, the irony. His mother had been so certain that the Saints would bring peace to their world, and yet he’d abandoned his belief the night his father cast the first torture spell.

Miret stared blankly at the ceiling, as though he could see the sky through it. “I don’t believe anything at all.”

The kingpin gazed into the flickering orange diamond of the nearest candle flame, imagining it to be the fire of a Wielder corps just beyond Atherin’s city walls.

“Levan?”

“Yes?”

“Will you kill me now?”

A missed step feeling in Levan’s belly, a horrible lurching jerk. “What? No. Of course not.”

Miret’s vacant eyes drifted closed. “Without faith, I am nothing. This is the true meaning of soul death—death of belief. The Saints have abandoned me, and now I am lost.”

And then Miret was asleep. Rasso pressed closer to the old man’s lithe body, rested his furry white chin on Miret’s chest, and fell asleep too.

Levan watched them for several moments, his body cold and empty, his mind a cascade of terrifying calculations. Horror pressed in on him from all angles, not just over Miret’s newfound despondency, but over the decisions he would soon have to make.

He might be able to save Saffron from herself, and the world from Saffron.

Then again, he might not. He might just walk away entirely.

Saints or Augurs.

Head or heart.

Fight or freedom.

Too big a decision for right now. And besides, there was a loose end he needed to tie up.

Reluctant to leave his beloved mentor, he slipped out of Miret’s room and back to the chamber he shared with Saffron, lighting lanterns and candles by the bedside. As the rusted faucets of the crooked white bath started running—he knew he’d be no use to anyone with his well as depleted as it was, and so the simple animal pleasure of warming frozen bones would have to suffice—he lifted his wand tip to his mouth.

“Et vocos, Relar Zamorin.”

For a few seconds, there was no response, and then the sound quality filtering through the wand changed. No voice, no acknowledgment, but the hard breathing of a fast-moving body, the crackle of frozen undergrowth beneath pounding boots.

Relar was on the run.

Instead of accusing him of cutting the rope and leaving them all to die, Levan simply said, “The Whitewings killed the protection I left?”

“Yes,” Relar gasped. “Which means my grandmother is likely dead too.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You’re—what?”

“I wanted to protect you, and I couldn’t.”

“Why in the world did you want that?” Relar said, partly bitter, partly disbelieving, as though anticipating vicious recourse for his stunt with the rope.

“Because you’re who I wish I could have been,” Levan said simply.