“It is a common misbelief. Allow me to instruct you. While shamans may acquire such knowledge and abilities, every transformation differs. Some gain sharper senses. Some awaken powers never meant for their blood. No two become alike, not even siblings taught by the same guides. Ambition, character, hunger; these aspects shape a shaman. Some change little, even after decades. Others, profoundly, within months of their first pathfinder walkabout.”
She spread her arms. Her cloak whispered outward, pulling the light with it. Most of it vanished inside the fabric. What remained scattered across the walls in thin patches, a few matte flares on the stone. They flickered and died as she moved. “One may be granted an exceptionally long life. Another sight for blind eyes. Another, wings to take flight.”
Poison and fire; her words were both. Yu’s feathers jolted upright. His voice erupted. “Oh yeah? I also have the wrong conception that all shamans have to be neutral, apparently! Don’t you swear not to fight?”
His anger thundered. Common sense struck after. Yu had been tired, yes, he had been afraid, yes, and still he had kept it in, he has still kept it together until now. But with her taunt about the wings, she had cracked him. Belittling disguised as patronising disguised as a distraction disguised as nice. Well, he had wanted to appear his normal self. There you have it, spelled and spilled.
But she did not take it.
“I see. You wish to unravel the events on the platform,” she said, as if he had never raised his voice. “You address the fight, because you wish to know how I halted the Worldbender’s magic.”
Yu’s breath jammed in his beak. She could have ripped it right off; his broken mask of pretence. But instead, she had made him lift it just enough to look beneath. And now, she pressed it back in place.
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