The Risen City--A Novel by Isabelle Steiger

Author:Isabelle Steiger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

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THE SMOKE AND ash brought tears to Talis’s eyes, and she coughed every time she inhaled, though her wind dispersed the worst of it before it reached her lungs. If only it could do the same for the inside of her head, where an even worse storm was raging. She had always been caught between the two of them, but now she could no longer go back and forth. Now each of them was determined to blot out the other, and wherever Talis threw her weight, the other would fall.

But each time she tried to reframe the question, she found another answer. Personally, she cared for Voltest more; he was condescending, full of little habits that irked her, but she could tolerate his company, even when it was only the two of them. Ethically, Lirien’s case was damnably clear: she only wished to kill Voltest’s magic, while he would have wiped her out entirely. Worse, if his flames were allowed to rage unchecked, many more people could die.

But if Lirien could kill Voltest’s magic, she could also kill Talis’s. And without him, there would be no one else to help protect her from it. What if Lirien should take it into her head, tomorrow or in ten years, that Talis was too dangerous to keep her power? Would Talis be able to evade her, persuade her? If worse came to worst, could she endure having such a thing stripped from her, or would she rather die?

Worst of all, she had no time to think. She herself was spared from the carnage, floating midair above the burning plain, diverting the ash away from her. But the ground below her looked like some artist’s vision of hell. The grass, the air, everything was burning. Only Lirien did not, could not, burn, but Voltest would destroy everything else in the attempt, until she died not of his flames, but of being unable to breathe from the smoke.

He’d destroy everyone else.

She had asked herself if she could live without her magic. But could she live knowing that she had caused their deaths? Could she live knowing that Cadfael had fought through her tempest to reach her, and she had condemned him and the sister he loved so much to die?

But no, it was more than that. Without Lirien, she and Voltest would lose control again, and eventually they would no longer be able to come back to themselves. They would lash out with lethal violence without even knowing why, just as Voltest was doing now. That, not a life without magic, would be worse than death.

In the end, that was the thought uppermost in her mind. That was the edge on which she turned, when she ran out of time to decide.

She gathered the wind, blew the smoke away from Lirien in a great gust, and forbid the rest of the air from feeding the flames, until they starved and died one by one, leaving only the man at their center, cloak charred to ruins, skin stained with ash.

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