“If you take Curoch, the Guardian will be born in our lifetimes.” Even as Dorian said it, he knew it was true. “I’ve been living so long saying I had faith, but it isn’t really faith when you just do what you see, is it? I think the God wants us to take this crazy risk. I think he’ll bring good out of it.”

Feir threw up his hands. “Dorian, the God is always your out. You run into a wall rationally and you say the God is speaking to you. It’s ridiculous. If this one God of yours created everything like you say, he also gave us reason, right? Why the hell would he make us do something so irrational?”

“I’m right.”

“Dorian,” Solon said. “Can I really use it?”

“If you use it, everyone in fifty miles will know it. Maybe even the ungifted. You run all the normal risks of drawing too much power, but your upper limit is higher than its lowest threshold. Things are happening too fast for me to see much, but I’m going to tell you this, Solon. The invasion force was headed for Modai.” Until Kylar didn’t kill Durzo Blint. “So they were prepared for a different kind of war. The boats arrive tonight. They have sixty meisters.”

“Sixty! That’s more than some of our schools,” Feir said.

“There are at least three Vürdmeisters capable of calling forth pit wyrms.”

“If I see any little men with wings, I’ll run,” Solon said.

“You’re mad,” Feir said. “Dorian, we need to leave. This kingdom’s doomed. They’ll capture Curoch; they’ll capture you, and then what hope will the rest of the world have? We need to pick a battle we can win.”

“Unless the God is with us, we won’t win any battles, Feir.”

“Don’t give me that God bullshit! I won’t let Solon take Curoch, and I’m taking you back to Sho’cendi. Your madness is taking you.”

“Too late,” Solon said. He scooped up the sword from the bed.

“We both know I can take that away from you,” Feir said.

“In a swordfight, sure,” Solon agreed. “But if you try to take it, I’ll just draw power through it and stop you. Like Dorian said, every meister within fifty miles will know we have an artifact here, and they’ll all come looking for it.”

“You wouldn’t,” Feir said.