The oracle was silent. I could feel her eyes studying me from behind her veil. “Only those who call themselves asha are granted passage within these sacred halls,” she finally replied.

“I am an asha.”

“Asha serve the Willows and abide by the laws dictated by its elders. You no longer believe in those precepts.”

Her assumptions angered me. “You’re wrong. I am an asha regardless of what laws of the Willows I disagree with. I am an asha even as I go against the elders’ will. Obedience to a decree I had no say in does not make me an asha. My service to the people, performed to the best of my ability and to the best of my belief, is what makes me an asha. Protecting my fellow sisters and brothers makes me an asha. And that includes searching for truth. If the Willows’ rule is all that matters here, then maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not an asha.”

I stood, but the oracle’s voice, stern and demanding, stopped me. “I gave you no permission to leave.”

I had never seen her like this before. The oracle had always maintained neutrality. And now this mysterious woman, this seeress who had prophesied that I would one day take control of the azi and kill a Faceless sounded almost afraid.

“Shadowglass,” she said simply, and I froze. “You seek it.”

“I do not want it for myself. I only wish to prevent Druj and any other surviving Faceless from possessing it. It was not fair for the asha elders to hide this secret from the rest of us. We had the right to know Blade that Soars’ true origins.”

“That magic is a deviancy and must be rid from the world?” The oracle’s voice had softened into velvet. “Do you understand the consequences of such knowledge?”

“It isn’t right for them to keep us in the dark.”

“And what would you do should you get your hands on shadowglass? What would you do, if you were able to keep the Faceless at bay, if you were able to convince the elders to impart this knowledge onto the lands? What will you do, my daughter?”

I had never wanted this power for myself. Shadowglass offered two options, it was said; immortality was one. And unlike Aenah, I had no plans of living forever.

The other was to rid the world of magic. But even I, who had relied on magic for so long, could smell my own hypocrisy. I balked at the idea.

How could we live without magic? I could not fathom the idea of a world without heartsglass, without the familiar glows of red and purple and silver to tell us the healthy from the sick, the deceiver from the truthful. Without magic, the asha would lose their luster, would no longer wield the influence and power we enjoyed. They would become nothing beyond glorified entertainers, diminished in stature in everyone’s eyes.