shun mirrors and the sight of her eyes. So she sat before her hearth and hurled
magic into the fires and into the wind and into the gates of hell until she had
exhausted the power to control that power and direct it; then the fire went into
her bones and inmost parts and smouldered there.
Thunder rumbled again, instability in the world, fire in the heavens.
She drew a shuddering breath, tormented the dreams of the fairhaired Rankan and
thrust herself to her feet, took up her cloak and put it on with careful self
discipline.
The door opened with a crash, fluttering the candle flames, which blazed white
for a moment and subsided.
So hard it was to manage the little things. The merest shrug was lethal. The
gaze of her eyes might do more than mesmerize. It might strip a soul. She flung
up the hood and walked out into the wind and the night.
The door crashed shut behind her and the iron gate squealed’ violently as it
banged open. The wind took her cloak and played games with it, with a power that
might have leveled Sanctuary.
“Damn it, no. Let me be.” And Straton left the mage-quarter room and headed down
the outside stairs.
Left Crit, with argument echoing in the room and the dark.
Crit came to the door, came out onto the landing. “Strat,” Crit said; and got
only Strat’s back. “Strat.”
Straton stopped then and looked up at his left-side leader, at the man he owed
his life to a dozen times and who owed him. “Why didn’t you shoot? Why didn’t
you damn well pull the trigger when you came into the yard if you’re so damn