“Look!” Rage thundered in the air around him. He drew near, looming over her, smelling of blood and lightning. “Do you not believe me? Use your paltry Rivenlost magics, and see.”

Shrinking back in her chair, Cerelinde stared into his eyes and saw a barren landscape of cold stone, a dull grey vista stretching on endlessly. There were no trees, no grass, not even a trickle of water. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Nothing lived. Overhead there was only a void; perfect blackness, the space between the stars, aching with the pressure of emptiness. Cold, so cold! Her teeth chattered, her flesh like ice, her bones aching to the marrow.

“Please,” she got out through a clenched jaw. “Please!”

“Life quickens, little Ellyl.” Granting her mercy, he turned away. “Quickens unto death, quickens into generation. Living and dying, giving birth unto ourselves. Everything. Even Shapers,” he added in a low voice. “Even worlds.”

Cerelinde rubbed her arms, trying to restore warmth to her flesh. “Is this the famous wisdom of dragons, my Lord? They twist truth into lies and they are not to be trusted.”

“They are older than the Lord-of-Thought, you know.” His head averted, the Sunderer laughed softly. “Ah, Haomane! We are but parts, scattered and broken; heart and head, limbs and organs. None of us perceives the whole, not even you, my Elder Brother. They do. What they think, what they feel … I cannot say. But they know. And I, I spoke to them, and I am cursed with knowledge for it. Skeins of lies, woven with threads of truth; that is the world we have Shaped. You need me. Urulat needs me; Urulat, Uru-Alat that was, that will be again. I did not choose this role. I do what I must. All things, in the end, must be as they are. Is it not so?”

Uncertain whether he spoke to her or to the specter of Haomane First-Born, Cerelinde gazed at the Shaper’s back; the taut sinews, the wrath-blackened flesh. “Forgive me, but I do not understand.”

“No,” he said. “No, I suppose not. And yet it is in the striving that understanding begins, and that is the seed of generation that begets worlds.” Again, Satoris gave his soft, dark laugh. “You should strive, little Ellyl; as all of us should. He made you too well, my Elder Brother did. Mortality serves a purpose. Oronin’s Horn blows seldom for Haomane’s Children. No urgency quickens your flesh, no shadow of exigency spurs your thoughts. What would you have to strive for, were it not for me?”

“You pretend you do us a service,” Cerelinde murmured.

“No.” The Shaper’s shoulders hunched, rising like stormclouds. “I do the world a service. By my very existence, by this role not of my choosing.”

“The world,” Cerelinde echoed, feeling weariness settle upon her. She was tired; tired of fear, tired of lies. Lies, piled upon lies; half-truths and evasions. Some things were known. Some things were true. “My Lord, if you cared so much for the world, why did you Sunder it?”