She pulled me, as fast as she could, to the side. We weren’t going to make it. A rush of air as the sea serpent lashed out.

I’d done what I could. I had to make peace with that.

Its jaws closed just above me, its head throwing up dirt and paving stones as it crashed into the ground to my right. The ground beneath me trembled as the rest of its body tumbled to the ground. At last, the beast was still. Scales fell from its sides as flesh melted from bones. I ran a hand down the front of my torn and muddy jacket, surprised to find I was still in one piece. The beast was dead and I was not.

The rain had stopped at some point during my struggle with the sea serpent. The sounds of fighting had dimmed. I could see soldiers still standing past the archway, gray shapes in the morning mists.

We’d won. We’d… won?

It didn’t feel like winning. It felt like a long trek up an unforgiving mountain with no meal or hot fire waiting at the top. I closed my eyes and leaned into Thrana’s side, trying to blot out the sounds of the stumbling, dissolving serpent. The world went silent.

Then footsteps began shuffling into the courtyard. I cracked open an eye. Civilians who had been hiding in the palace, behind pillars, behind broken pieces of rubble. Soldiers and Shardless Few stumbled beneath the archway, eyeing the sagging remains of the serpent as though unsure it was actually dead. People crowded the courtyard, though they gave Thrana and me a wide berth.

Urame’s voice came from somewhere near the palace. “You and you, start looking for survivors. You, see if there’s a physician somewhere in the palace. I know more than one took refuge here. And you – get as many of the servants as you can find. Start setting up the entrance hall as an infirmary.”

So she’d survived. My relief only lasted a moment, because then I started to hear the murmurs.

“She made the water move with her hands too.” “Saw her fighting the monk.” “Emperor has one of those creatures too.”

“Alanga.”

The word traveled through the crowd, each iteration filled with more fear, more terror, more anger. I grasped the fur at Thrana’s shoulders, tried to haul myself onto her back. My fingers slipped, my hands aching, my arms too weak to support my weight. “I need to go,” I said, even as I knew it was too late. There was no easy exit from the courtyard, nowhere I could slip away unnoticed. The circle of people around me closed in a little.

My bones thrummed, letting me know: I still had a little magic left. I reached for it, then stopped.

I hadn’t saved these people just so I could kill them.