“There is no reliable record of the relationship between the MASO of old and the monarchs of Alti. Some records suggest they were equal powers, others that they were two opposing forces frozen in a delicate balance by the existence of enemies on all sides. There seems to be a consensus that if the external pressures on Alti ever ceased to exist, it would surely tear itself to pieces.”

~ Bek Trent, M.A.S.O

Illian did not return in a week, nor after two. Silver might not have noticed with the grueling pace Holtson had set for them if Cevora had not begun to keep silent vigil over the archway after the week had passed, eyes stormy with a restlessness that Silver was not sure anyone else would recognize; Cevora sought something that was not within the outpost, something that Silver did not think had anything to do with Illian.

For the rest of them, if not for Cevora, every day was filled with endless drills and exercises, an exhausting blur that melded one day into another. By the time the sun set, Silver was often too tired to eat, hardly able to even keep her eyes open. Bek seemed to think it was due to her magical exhaustion, but she knew only that she dreamt every night now; strange, vivid dreams that she forgot by the time she woke. They left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. Sometimes, she felt she had not slept in two or three days. Others, she found herself lying awake in the early hours of dawn, disoriented and groggy. Three more times she fell asleep in the tree, but she made sure no one caught her at it. Everyone, at least, knew that was where she went to be alone, and after being chided by Sori just once, respected that. Even Bek stopped coming to find her.

By the end of the first week, her legs felt like lead weights. By the tenth day, hand-to-hand combat had been chalked into their routine, resulting in new bruises that left her nearly unable to fold her legs when she sat on the dusty earth. All concept of time folded beneath Holtson’s ever-present gaze. Although Silver asked after the progress of Bek’s wounds, he never gave her more than the barest facts. They were healing. Sara believed he would be ready for action within days.

By the end of two weeks, he had joined Silver in practice, and Holtson had given her leave to practice manifesting weapons with the tenyan. To her great chagrin, Bek found the time each day to studiously observe her many attempts. Her magic did not go out of control again. In fact, she could actually manifest the sword on a daily basis – or at least something with a vague resemblance to a sword, or a giant cleaver, or a sickle, or a marauding blob…it really depended on the day – but she still felt the chill of an alien element to her power every now and then. She tried meditating on it, as Ryan had once had her do at the MASO. When she looked toward the center of her being, at the heart of her magic, Silver merely found the silvery gates that had once stood between her and her power hanging askew, a faint sheen of rust slowly creeping along the edges. Nothing changed. No new ideas came to her.

At some point, she determined to ask someone what they thought of all of it. Someone other than Bek. This was partially because, despite her successes, she could tell that watching her left Bek frustrated. From his terse comments on the subject, she had gathered that he wanted her to improve faster for her own safety. But she knew that there was more he did not tell her. His eyes, so often dark and scrutinizing when he watched her work, were the eyes of someone struggling to build a puzzle with pieces that did not fit together.

Perhaps that was why, after nearly three weeks of watching her fall sleep in her dinner, he dragged her to Sara, the witch of the outpost. Ren had a low opinion of witches in general, and he had said enough to make Silver wonder if she really wanted to go see one on purpose; it helped that Sori looked ready to wring Ren’s neck when Silver mentioned her misgivings to the lot of them.

“Go,” Sori had grumbled, casting around the lower floor of the house they shared as if Ren would be there for her to strangle, “Bek is concerned for a good reason. You’ve been wandering around like a drunkard for days. Holtson is afraid to actually have anyone spar with you.”

“He doesn’t need to worry about me,” Silver had grumbled back. “I’m fine. This just isn’t what I’m used to.”

“Oh, really?” Sori raised an eyebrow at her. “Bek does seem like the type to worry a bit too much.” Silver had crossed her arms across her chest, nodding appreciatively.

“Right? I don’t know why. It’s not like he hasn’t tried to get himself killed just about every time I did,” Silver observed.

“I take it you’ve been in mortal danger often, then?”

“Seems to follow me around a bit,” Silver admitted darkly. The woman stifled laughter.

“I could get used to hanging with you guys. Though the mortal danger thing is a bit of a turn off. Now Silver, I’m serious. If mortal danger finds you right now, you’re liable to fall asleep on it. That won’t turn out too well, will it?”

Sara greeted Silver and Bek with a cackle.

“You finally brought her, then,” the old woman ushered them into her workshop amidst more laughter. Silver was not entirely sure what was so funny, but she guessed it was an inside joke from the hours Bek had spent being re-bandaged. He was not laughing.

“She shouldn’t be suffering the effects of magical exhaustion at this point. It’s been weeks,” Bek observed.

“Well,” Sara said with carefully measured patience, “that isn’t for you or I to decide, now is it? Come here, child.”

Silver came to sit on a circle of cleared wood flooring. Bek settled not far away, apparently used to the whole ordeal.

“Now, I hear you’ve been tired,” Sara prompted.

“That’s an understatement,” Bek muttered. Sara fixed him with crinkled brown eyes that nearly vanished into her wrinkles when she smiled. He scowled.

“I’ve been sleeping a lot,” Silver agreed grudgingly, before the conversation became more awkward. Sara nodded understandingly, rubbing a few white hairs between her fingers.

“Sleeping soundly?”

Silver shrugged. “Vivid dreams, so not really. I mostly can’t remember them.”

“And you haven’t been using your magic?” the witch asked.

“Not really. Only to practice manifestation with the tenyan.”

“Ah,” Sara said with a soft click of her tongue, “that old thing. That wouldn’t be the cause. I’ll be straight with the both of you – cases of magical exhaustion generally clear up quickly, if they clear up at all. I’d say whatever’s bothering you has nothing to do with magic. If you want proof,” she held up a white piece of paper pinched between a copper hemostat, both pulled apparently from nowhere at all. “Hold this for a moment.”

Silver frowned, but took it. After nearly a minute, Sara gestured at Bek.

“Hand it to him.” Bek took the paper from her, and again, nothing happened.

“There’s a spell circle on that card, written in linseed oil. If you were suffering from magic exhaustion, your touch would have turned it red. A simple test. Depleting their magic stores seems to cause people to react to magic much like people with no magic do.” Sara held out her hand, and Bek handed her the card. Instantly, it turned a deep shade of burgundy. “As you can see, I am not a magic user. Simple.”

“Then what?” Silver asked, “I don’t know what else to do.”

“I can give you something to help you sleep,” Sara suggested, “or we can talk about your dreams. Illian digs people up from all corners of society. You wouldn’t be the first one to need a good listener more than all the salves and balms in the world. Hah. One day, I’ll start charging for my services again. It’ll be a profitable day. Hmmm.”

Silver narrowed her eyes at the old woman, who merely blinked expectantly.

“I told you I don’t remember most of them,” Silver said.

“But you remember some, child.”

“About the Zara.”

“Of course,” Sara clucked her tongue again, looking down at the card in her hand as if she had already heard enough, “that would keep the king’s most loyal kivgha up at night.”

“Places I’ve never seen,” Silver added.

“Mhmm. Are they frightening places?”

“No.” Silver paused, thinking back, trying to remember something, anything from the images that rolled through her sleeping mind, one after another. “Sometimes they begin with the Zara. Sometimes with the wolf. Sometimes…with a room. A room I can’t find my way out of. One with…endless possibilities, I guess…” she said, trailing off. Sara raised her crinkled eyes slowly to meet Silver’s gaze.

“A room,” she repeated slowly, “of endless possibilities?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you go there often?” the woman asked expressionlessly.

Silver nodded after a moment. “There’s only one other place I go as often as there. A lake,” she paused, closing her eyes to picture it. How many times had she seen it now? Waters as black as space, fire blazing along its shores. “A lake as smooth as glass,” she said, not opening her eyes. A cool breeze came through the window at the edge of the workshop, gentle and pungent with the pines of the Issurak. She could almost imagine the smoke from the fire mingling with the scents of those pines. The breeze stirred some sort of bell, and Silver opened her eyes slowly, turned towards the sound. She had not noticed a string of tiny copper bells hung near the window until that moment.

“Hmmm,” Sara said, clearing her throat. For just a moment, her dark eyes switched to Bek. He was also looking in the direction of the bells. “I have a suggestion for you, child. My work is quite interesting, and with the number of people at the outpost, I have more than enough to keep Cara and I busy; I could use a second apprentice. You could benefit from a few hours a day of physical rest, and I have some poignant teas…they should help you relax in the evenings. Agree and I’ll send word to Holtson.”

“I don’t know how Illian would feel about that,” Silver observed, but Sara was already waving a hand at her.

“Illian will agree. He needs someone more mobile than I am in the field, and I can’t spare Cara. I might as well train you to bandage the fools and hotheads that’ll try to get themselves killed by the king’s army.”

Silver considered for a moment, but finally nodded.

“Yes.”

Despite her agreement, Silver did not waste any time leaving Sara’s workshop. The bells had ceased to ring by the time she and Bek pushed back out onto the dusty streets of the outpost. Elorian was nowhere in sight, but Silver was not surprised; the wolf had taken to basking in the sun with the dragons in the cooler parts of the afternoon.

“Holtson will be looking for us,” Silver said, glancing at Bek. Once again, his expression suggested he was thinking more than he shared when he said, “we can have one afternoon off.”

It was rare for him to take unscheduled breaks, but Silver was not about to argue. She gestured off through the buildings, in the direction of the smithy where they spent most of their evenings. Doing so had been Cara’s suggestion in the beginning. When the girl was not cooking or running errands for Sara, she spent her time magically whittling tree branches into wooden spears and poles for arms practice, or occasionally pulling a finished weapon from Ibald’s works and coaxing it into life – that was a skill only Cara seemed to possess. The smith did not let it go to waste.

Ibald seemed to have settled quickly into the sprawling, one story building that was the outpost smithy. It was perhaps the only building in all of Alti devoid of greenery, most likely due to the trickle of black smoke that oozed daily from a stone chimney above the slate roof. There, the three watched Ibald fashion the metal blades for all the weaponry in the outpost, with Jin’s help. Some nights, he turned to armor instead, carefully attuning each piece to his magic. The majority of his time he simply spent standing over his work, muttering, “That’ll do,” or, “Jin, get o’er here.”

On some, rare nights, he greeted Silver and Bek, small, bright eyes surveyed them thoughtfully as he stood with hands pressed into the hanging crimson folds beneath his black apron. Ibald was the type to laugh at their accents, possibly because he shared Holtson's Sorendellian way of speaking. It was clear he wanted to know where they were from; Silver felt like she had become somewhat expert at evading a clear answer, though she hinted at Atlantis, as Illian had suggested. Ibald seemed to like that, though he clearly did not much care for Atlantians – point in fact, he overheard them talking one day and she clearly heard him mutter, “Despite yer accent, yer a sharp one, eh, Bek. Atlantians aren’t usually.”

After Sara’s workshop, the smithy was sweltering. When Bek and Silver arrived they found that, as with most days, there were two or three boys of about fifteen on assignment to bring water and supplies as Ibald demanded them. They rushed past her and Bek as he bellowed after them, and Silver peered around the door frame to see the smith silhouetted against a blazing fire. Jin was nearby, holding his hands above a set of near-finished blades with his eyes closed, whispering strange and meaningless words. Silver knew better than to interrupt either of them. She angled herself towards Cara instead, settling on an iron stool that she swore had been purposefully molded with the intention of keeping people from sitting around too long. Bek pulled another one out of a dark corner of the smithy as Cara glanced up at them.

“You’re early today,” she observed, balancing the blade of a narrow dagger delicately on one finger, apparently testing it.

“What are you working on, Cara,” Bek asked, eyeing the dagger.

“Ibald asked me to see how this little guy handles my magic.”

“What exactly is your magic?” Silver asked as Cara set the dagger on the table in front of her, seeming satisfied.

“I guess I haven’t really explained, have I, even though you gave me your rope? You know how Jin helps Ibald fashion the weapons with gemstones like these,” she pointed at a tiny, polished ruby set into the pommel of the dagger. “We call them inkervan, the core.”

Silver nodded without surprise. Bek had a similar dagger.

“This way, people can use the power stored in the weapon itself when their own is depleted. For someone with strong magic, the inkervan helps make the weapon more conductive to magic. I can do a little more.” Cara smiled, but it was a smile with a bit of a shadow behind it. “I can’t explain how it’s done, but I can give each weapon a bit of a will of its own. Sort of like a set of pre-coded instructions. If you’re a good shot with a bow but have no time to account for the wind, I could make an arrow that counters any air currents that could change its trajectory. Or if you need to defend in a pinch,” she flicked the knife, and Silver sucked in her breath appreciatively as the narrow blade lengthened and split into three finger-width prongs, the middle one slightly longer than those on either side, “the weapon will change.”

“How many of those can you make in a day?” Bek asked, seeming to appreciate what she had done.

“Oooh, usually only one at most. It takes a lot of focus,” Cara admitted with a smile, “Sara ordered me not to overdo it. And a shape-shifting weapon can’t change shape into something bigger than it already is, so it’s only useful up to a point anyway.”

“It has a set mass,” Bek said thoughtfully, “so no, it wouldn’t be able to.”

He seemed to have settled into brooding over something, so Silver sat in silence for a while, watching Cara test the knife by transforming it into a variety of different shapes. More than ever before, she was certain that this Cara was the same one she would meet in the distant future. There was no way the one the beasts called onkelhra, an animator of the inanimate, could exist as so similar a person across two different eras.

Eventually, wondering what Cara’s reaction would be, she said, “It seems like Sara is going to be taking me on as an apprentice as well.”

“Really?” Cara asked, looking up at her with blue eyes shining. Excitement. Silver was glad that was her response. “That’s a rare opportunity. She’s extremely picky about how things are organized in the workshop. Just warning you. But I have no doubts about you. Oh, I’m so excited. She’s been overworking herself these days. Sara, I mean. There just isn’t enough time during the day…” Cara was beaming. “I’m so excited,” she repeated, looking back at the dagger.

****

By the end of the better part of two weeks, Silver understood why Cara had welcomed her so happily. Everything she had learned in high school biology and chemistry was not enough to prepare her for what Sara had to teach. There were salves, balms, soups, and waxes to be mixed, plants to be dried and tended, an unending array of powders and seeds to be weighed and measured, and on top of it all, a storehouse full of foods to keep track of. Sara had not mentioned just how many people sought medical attention from her in a single day, nor how many sought other services – many, as the old witch had hinted at their first real meeting, seemed to come for no greater purpose than to seek her wisdom in health and relationships.

Not once, as the days rolled past, did the bells ring as they had the day Silver had come, but that was hardly surprising; the air had grown humid and still. She often arrived after Holtson’s training still damp from washing, and remained so for the remainder of the evening unless Bek caught her and forced her dry with magic.

As promised, Sara gave Silver a fragrant green tea to drink in the evenings, and it helped her sore muscles relax, if nothing else. Upon realizing she was literate, which was apparently something to be celebrated, the witch also lent her two books. One was a handy, illustrated guide to the herbs and flowers used in her work. The other was an interesting story about a contingent of the kivgha who had gone to slay the dragon srinn in some bygone era. Silver had the impression most of them had died, but she had not finished the story yet. All in all, it was not like she had a lot of time to read anyway, and doing so tended to make her feel self-conscious; she should not have been able to read a single word in the strange Altian text, but the words came to her, and they did so more easily the wearier she was when she finally sat down to relax.

Bek, meanwhile, had taken to spending more and more time at the smithy. He claimed he was going to give Illian something to work with when he returned. Cara’s work, it seemed, had given him some ideas. Silver had mixed feelings about his sudden absence in her life. Relieved sometimes, lonely others…even irritable. Sori, Ren, and Hiyein laughed at her about it. Nearly every night, the group of them met for dinner, sometimes huddling downstairs afterward to play a few strange Altian games with beads and wood chips. Silver lost a lot, and the rules were too complicated for her to care – there was always a new one when she thought she was winning that turned her prospects to dust. Often, Cevora joined them as well. Whatever history existed between her and Sori, it seemed to have been cleared up after the hatching, and they teased each other like old friends.

So much had changed.

Silver sighed as she stood, face and arms dripping water at the edge of the training grounds. She was considering the work that had most likely piled up for her through her long day of training. Knowing her skin would air dry soon enough, she darted around the training yard to avoid any of Holtson’s drills, making her way towards the dirt road at the heart of the outpost. As she had expected, the dragons, all ten of them now, were sunbathing amid the swirling dust and passersby. Their gleaming eyes watched the surrounding activity sleepily as they curled and uncurled their great wings at their sides.

The hatchlings had become truly large. Silver knew little about dragon milk, though Seijelar had recently commented that it was regurgitated food and not really milk at all, but it had made all the difference in Seijelar’s and Skourett’s previously slow growth. The crimson dragon that now lifted its head to glance at Silver over the shoulders of its comrades was the height of a large pony. The dragon’s neck, of course, made it much taller, and that along with the combined length of body and tail also made it longer across than even the most monstrous warhorse. Seijelar’s companions, with the exception of Skourett, were still much smaller. As the wolf remarked in a very soft rumble when it appeared from somewhere nearby to stand beside her, “The runt has finally hit a growth spurt.” It was remarkable to imagine that they were only just over two and a half months old.

“Flight training,” Silver mouthed.

Seijelar’s emerald eyes narrowed, but the hatchling was climbing quickly to its feet, as was its brother. Both picked their way easily over the smaller dragons and were already at the archway when Silver finally managed to fight her way through the crowds that split around the sunbathing beasts.

“Can’t you guys do that somewhere else?” she demanded half-jokingly when she finally reached the gate. The hoarse coughs that followed could only have been laughter.

She led them out to the usual spot, a tree lined space not far from the outpost where enough water had gathered from the narrow stream – the very same that ran through the trees and under the barrier to the training yard – to form a pool about thirty feet in diameter. Even on such a hot day, the water was pleasantly cool, with a gentle current that kept the worst of the bugs at bay and left the water clear enough for the bottom to be visible. At its deepest point, Silver doubted the pool was much over twenty feet deep, which made it both safe and swimmable for the dragons. Better yet, the pool seemed to have formed in the great, scooped patch of earth where a boulder had once lain, and fragments of that ancient boulder now lined the pool, most overcome by the red and green mosses common to the area. The largest of the fragments still stood at the north end of the pool, rearing up another twenty or so feet into the air and making the perfect edifice from which the dragons could leap to practice their take off.

Turning to look at the trees lining the pool, she called softly – names that were not really names in a tongue used to human language, names that were songs and chitters and whistles. Silver smiled a little to herself, thinking that this was one of the perks of magic that she had not had adequate time to enjoy before she ended up in Alti. She could speak to the birds. Spiders and squirrels, foxes and deer, snakes and beetles and the darting fish of the pond all listened to her whispered words, and she listened to theirs. However, most of the simple beasts did not have anything particularly interesting to say to a human. Only the birds seemed to enjoy her company.

After several seconds, three shapes darted from the upper canopy of the trees, swooping into the lower growing boughs directly overhead. Silver held up a finger, and the smallest of them lit upon it, cocking its cream and chocolate head to one side to fix her with one midnight black eye. It seemed there were sparrows, even in Alti. The other two, a larger, broader winged bird that she thought must be some sort of falcon, and something that resembled a scarlet and gold furred, reptilian bat, remained airborne. By name, she knew them as Ritter, Screet, and Canron. Between the three of them, she guessed they could teach the dragons to glide, flap, soar, dive, and pretty much anything else they needed to learn.

“I brought flax again, and a few of those berries,” she said, watching the beasts’ reactions. By the way they ruffled their feathers and cocked their heads, she knew they were pleased.

Silver motioned them into action and settled herself onto a shady section of earth directly below the trees, where she could keep a safe watch over the dragons without being burned by the still searing summer sun. Leaned back against a tree, she stared out at the wide-open expanse of water, squinting against the glare of molten sunlight on its surface. The wolf lay beside her, pressed up so close against her skin that she wondered if the beast wanted to tell her something. When she looked down, it was to find Elorian’s burning emerald eyes focused on her.

“Elorian?” she questioned lightly. The wolf’s silvery ears laid back for a moment, and she understood. In the past few weeks, she had expressed her concerns to Elorian more openly than anyone else. Despite all the time she spent with Sara and with the group she had come to the outpost with, there were days she felt lonelier than ever before. There was a distance between them that had sprung up the moment she realized the truth; if her goal was to return to her own time, all of these people…

They would be dead.

The day she left would be their final parting. She was alive in a land of ghosts, counting the days to their doom with the end of Alti. She spoke to them, and trained with them. She listened to their goals and dreams and wishes. It was excruciating. How could she not look at their faces and know that no matter how they suffered together, no matter whether they became the best of friends, she would leave these people one day, and never look back. She had to.

Silver looked away from the wolf, blinking past the burn in her eyes. She allowed her fingers to twine in the beast’s fur, just as she always did. Her eyes were all for the dragons, one ruby and one ebony, leaping again and again into the blinding rays of sunlight and somersaulting through the air, wings spread like parasails, until they hit the water below them.

No wonder, she thought as she watched them…no wonder the Zara became what they were. As the distance between her and her family grew and her memories became more intangible, as the hatred she had once felt for the Zara sat like a hot coal beside her heart, smoldering but no longer aflame, she thought she understood a little more of what the shadow beast had said to her.

Pieces of herself and her life seemed to be slipping away.

Seijelar belly-flopped in the pool then, and Silver called on her magic, saving both her and the wolf from being drenched. The dragon turned its gaze to her like some primitive ruby crocodile, and a stream of bubbles shot from its bony snout.

“You look ridiculous,” Silver called from the shore. Seijelar fluttered both papery wings, blowing more bubbles.

“And yet your kind are in a perpetual state of ridiculous, human. Stumbling about on two legs and brandishing your puny fangs at each other.”

“Teeth, Seijelar. Humans don’t have fangs.”

“When one day you learn to fly, I will listen to your criticisms,” the dragon grumbled, pulling itself from the water. A heat haze surrounded the hatchling for a moment, leaving its scales glimmering like stardust, and then it was dry. Silver scowled at how easily Seijelar and Skourett had picked up the magic to dry themselves.

“I found you the best teachers I could,” she muttered.

“Ah yes,” sparks danced from the dragon’s nostrils as the sparrow darted overhead, chitting emphatically, “I shall be your srinn one day, tiny beast. Have some respect!”

Silver laughed, but the dragon was leaving already, winding back up the boulder to leap into the sky once more. The dragon’s words had given her pause, however.

“What will we have to do, Elorian,” she asked sadly, “to save Alti? How can we save all of this?”

Elorian was silent for a while, stoic. When the beast spoke, Silver realized the wolf had been considering its answer. “What you wish to do, human, cannot be done. Change is endless. Day runs to night, and in the night, the moon wanes slowly. The seasons pass, pups are born, they grow, and in the cold heart of winter, they find their end. You would take a moment and preserve it. All of this, as you say, cannot be saved. But we will save the hatchlings. We will protect their lives.”

That was not what Silver had wanted to hear, even if it was what she had needed to hear. She shook her head.

“Even for that, what will it take?” she argued. “There will be people trying to kill them. Holtson is teaching us how to kill people. You and Zien have warned me against using magic for hatred or revenge, but how can I not if we go to war? I mean, for goodness’ sake, part of me hates the guy who always hits me in the knee in combat training, and part of me hates Holtson for running me to the bone. Maybe that’s why my magic hardly feels like my own. It’s like some rampant beast I can’t control.”

“Humans rely too heavily on words. Hatred of a man who hits you with a stick is not the same as that of a creature that takes the blood of your kin,” Elorian rumbled, eyeing her sagely.

“Fine, point taken. But in the middle of a war, if a man tries to kill me or you, I might hate him for real. What then?”

“Then,” the wolf growled before she could say another word, “you will learn that there is no evil in death or in killing. There is darkness in true hatred, and in the desire to kill, but so, too, is there light, for hatred spawns of love, and the desire to kill often comes of that to protect. You knew this when you saved the Zara.”

Silver curled sideways, wrapping her arms around the wolf’s neck as she sometimes did when the world felt too large and overwhelming. They both closed their eyes as Skourett slammed into the pool, sending a fine rain of warm water their way.

“What happens,” she asked, “when we get home. What happens if it becomes like it is here? What side do we take, Elorian? Men or beasts? Or something else?”

The wolf’s silence could only confirm the answer – there was no answer. So she remained as she was, the beast’s warm scent filling her lungs. It was as familiar and comforting as home. It was home.

Then Elorian stiffened. The wolf’s breathing grew shallow before the beast slowly relaxed, as if in recognition. Someone was approaching. After a few seconds, Silver relaxed as well. She knew from the bitter, mingled scents of herbs and the soft crunch of footsteps who had come.

“Forgive me, child. I overheard you. Mind if an old woman joins your session with the dragons?”

“It’s fine,” Silver said, sitting up a bit and watching Sara come and settle carefully a few feet away from the wolf, arranging her crimson skirts to avoid the mud. Most people gave Elorian a bit of space, though Silver sensed that it was more out of respect than fear.

“They are fantastic to watch,” Sara observed as Seijelar glided successfully to the other end of the pool and then landed with a flop. “We are a gifted people, to have been given such wondrous allies by the dragon srinn, though you say these two come from far away. I have some inkling of what you mean.” The old woman turned, smiling toothily at her. “You and Bek, it seems, are wanderers lost in time, hmmm.”

Silver began to protest, but Sara clucked her tongue, shaking her head slowly.

“Your secret is safe, my dear. I’ve no need to share it with anyone. Pretending to be from Atlantis was clever, doubtless one of Illian’s schemes. Few will doubt you. Knowing the future, though…that is a terrible burden to carry.”

“How did you find out?” Silver asked, peering at the witch.

“A lucky guess.” The woman cackled as Seijelar leapt again, this time plummeting into the pool. Silver saved them a soaking. Her dragon, for some reason, displaced a great deal more water than Bek’s. “Ah, a treat for old eyes,” Sara continued, “Dragons are the glory of our world. Now, hmmm, you’ve been a great help these last few weeks. I came looking for you for Cara’s sake. That girl is like a daughter to me. Raised her since she was a tiny thing, full of tears and vinegar. Hmmm, yes. She’s grown a lot since Illian enlisted us. For some reason, she has a particular fondness for you.”

“I’d say we’re friends,” Silver said when the old woman glanced at her. Sara seemed pleased.

“Good, good. Jin gets along with her, too. I’m sure you can guess she worries over you. So, tell an old woman what’s on your mind.” Silver stared at Sara in silence, at a loss as to what to say. Sara seemed prepared to fill it.

“It might be I can guess. You’re young, yet, hmmm, child, and unprepared for what is coming…not that anyone is ever prepared for war. Holston have you believe you are, but he’s,” she paused, chuckling to herself again, “well, he’s nearly as old as I am. He knows that the only way to prepare someone for the un-preparable is to make them think they’re prepared. When the world falls apart around them, as long as they keep moving forward, they might survive.”

“That’s terrible,” Silver observed.

“But true. And quite a few people here know it, just as they know that sometimes we are given only a very short time to spend with the people around us. We can learn to love them, and to cherish the time we received. The greatest of friendships have sprung up overnight, it seems, in the creeping hours of twilight that portend great and terrible happenings. Love has been born in a moment of passion at the end of one’s life. People might be most vulnerable to each other when they know their time is shortest. And we, all of us at the outpost, know our time is short. You might know it best of all.”

“I don’t want to lose anyone,” Silver admitted, “I’m sure that’s how everyone here feels.”

There was a sad twinkle in Sara’s eye now. The elder’s voice cracked as she said, “You will lose people, Silver. You will lose dear, dear people in your life. Don’t fear the end of your time with anyone. Those who take it all for granted, going on with their own worries without ever noticing the world passing them by, are the ones who should be afraid. They’ll never have a day worth living. Cara once told me she hates that every day has to end,” Sara nodded slowly, “even now I hear her cry herself to sleep at night, hmmm.”

“Why?” Silver asked, thinking of the vibrant girl who struck her as the most optimistic person in the world.

“Because she has lost people already,” Sara admitted softly, “Possibly because she wonders what use her crafts should be put to in a war. She would protect us, but working with weapons is a severe task.”

Silver fell silent, watching Sara as she waited for the old witch to continue. There was more. She could sense it.

“I haven’t worked with you long, Silver, but I’ve seen enough to have an idea what you’re thinking. Hmmm. Bek forced you to come to me. I know there’s been little change for you since that first meeting. It seems to me everyone has it in their heads that you’re a very trusting soul, but that isn’t what I’ve seen. There are always a few people who come out here with Illian, and no matter how much they need help, they’ll never ask. Anger, loneliness, frustration – all the poisons of the soul – they hold on to them.” She glanced at Silver, gaze knowing. “Why is it, child, that there are people in this world who refuse to be saved?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Silver stated, even though she thought she did. Sara saw through her better than she had realized.

“Ah, but I think you do. I knew someone like you once, when I was a younger woman.” Sara nodded, stroking her chin as if remembering something pleasant. “I can’t decide if you’re alike or not. How would I describe him…hmmm, yes. He saw people’s weaknesses too well. He would never burden anyone, fought with his life to protect everyone around him, but in the end…I would say he simply didn’t trust in the strength of anyone else. He took on the world thinking he was the only one who could. Mistakes of youth, child. Things we tend to do before we grow out of our own self-importance. It’s possible he was the strongest, but to never give anyone the chance to rise to his level meant he could only look down everyone. He stood alone, at the apex of a mountain he built for himself. No one could reach him, hmmm. He’s dead now, anyway. It’s been a long time.”

She must have seen Silver’s expression, because Sara frowned, jowls quivering as she said, “To be honest, my dear, you might be worse off. Truth is, I think your problem is that there’s…how to say it, well, eh? This is always the hardest part. You don’t trust anyone. I can only guess what made you that way. Doesn’t much matter, hmmm, the result is what you’re going through now. Everyone is just here,” the old woman held out her two hands, leaving a distinct gap between them, “always with this tiny, barely perceptible distance. Just enough space, if you were the wolf here, to react if they strike first. You know, there are plenty of people at the outpost like you. Rendorn does this, hmmm? You must have noticed. He certainly saw it in you.”

Sara nodded somberly as she spoke, since Silver was shaking her head.

“Oh yes he did, child. Right away. But hear me out, hmmm. You don’t trust anyone. You’re just waiting to be betrayed. You have this natural reticence, this reluctance to burden anyone, that puts you in the position I mentioned; looking down on everyone else. Cara sees great fragility in life, and so do you. On top of it all,” she caught Silver’s gaze again, “you don’t realize any of it.”

“I can’t stop you from believing what you want,” Silver observed.

“Hah!” Sara muttered to herself, “and even now, she doesn’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, honesty is an excellent excuse for lying, anyway,” the witch observed, “but someone like you who is always watching and listening and being caught up in the flow of things without every saying a word; isn’t it true that you don’t trust other people enough to let them help you? Do you not consider yourself unworthy of their kindness, suspicious of their motives?”

Silver was silent long enough that Sara must have decided she did not plan to respond. It occurred to Silver that she should say something, defend herself, maybe. But she had no defense against the witch’s brilliant eyes, which for a moment reminded her of the wolf’s. They saw through to her very soul.

“To fight a war is a lonely endeavor, but more so when you have only your own power on which to depend,” Sara said softly.

“I don’t know what exactly you want me to say to you,” Silver finally responded, “if anything, I look up to everyone, not down on them. Of course, I don’t want to sit here and complain every day about my problems, but that’s because they’re so petty in the face of what we all go through every day. So, I’m tired? So, I’m not at one hundred percent? I’m feeling better than I was weeks ago, and I’m doing everything I can to recover. Everyone else is sore and achy and overwhelmed, too.” The witch’s eyes left Silver, and a faint tingle of relief passed through her body. “Thank you for voicing your concerns, Sara, but—”

“Child, you can’t run from every conflict,” Sara said, standing abruptly, but with the caution of the elderly, “you can’t smooth over every disagreement simply by putting your opinions aside and thanking someone, or apologizing to them. That’s the distance I’m talking about.” The old witch clucked her tongue, heading back towards the outpost.

Silver watched her go, leaning more heavily into the wolf. This time, when Seijelar thunked into the water, Silver did nothing to block the splash. Elorian grumbled in her stead, and the dragon hissed sparks at them in passing.

That day, Silver did not return to Sara’s workshop. At nightfall, she stood side-by-side with many of the other trainees to see off a group of patrollers bound for the surrounding forest and the border of the Issurak, where it abutted both the port city and the sea. They would be gone only three days, tasked with gathering various bits of information for a longer patrol yet to come. Her smile faltered when they entered the trees.

Cevora’s vigil was rewarded when Illian strolled in later in the evening, having passed the patrollers on the way in and tailed them for a time to test that they were properly aware of their surroundings. He was bone-weary, but had no crushing news of Alti. In five and a half weeks, very little had changed. He said only that the Port City had reported two cases of the mysterious plague.

“It’s coming,” he barked at them all, and then he was gone to his quarters with Cevora behind him.