“At the Temple of the Winds I saw the future. Not merely one future, but many futures. I saw the future as it would be had I returned and lived. I saw the future without you. I saw the future in a thousand different ways, and then another thousand, and then another. I saw all the layers of possibilities and variation, all the choices, all branches and forks in prophecy.

“But I saw one future above all others that gave the world of life the best chance in the face of the approaching dark age. In that future I saw that if I let you go on to walk your own path, you would be what was needed.

“If I had lived, you would have been at my side. You would have had no reason to do more, to be more. The forks in prophecy would not have presented themselves in the same way. Doorways would have remained closed. Without you seeking out truth as you have done, our cause would have been lost because you would have never become a Confessor.

“There is so much more that I saw when I was there that brought me to my choice. Lothain lied. He did get into the Temple. He lied to hide his treason. Once in the Temple, he reinforced the damage done by his traitors on the Temple team, altered important things there, and damaged important elements flowing toward the world of life.

“Lothain choked off the gift from the world of life so that fewer and fewer will be born gifted, and since the Temple is in the world of the dead, he was especially successful at choking off Subtractive Magic. That was why the moon turned red. It turned red in warning because of the damage caused by Lothain.”

Magda was not merely astonished to hear this, she was horrified. “You mean Lothain managed to break the Grace and end magic in this world?”

“Not entirely,” Naja answered in the strange voice. “He tried, and while he did not succeed completely, he managed to do vast damage. He has doomed the world to begin down the path that Emperor Sulachan envisions, the path toward a world without magic. While he set the world on that path, I was at least able to keep it from being a certainty.

“That was my greatest purpose, what I could do that no other would have been able to do. But I was only able to do so much. I was able to get enough of the gift to flow along the lines of the Grace to ensure that, even as the gift in mankind dwindles, one day a pebble in the pond will be born with what is required to complete the restoration of the world of life, if he, too, makes the right choices at the right times.

“You remember the book I brought back and the mission I sent you on upon my return?”