“I’m sorry, but did you just say jump?”

  Ylia stared incredulously at Danyil. He wore the garb of The Idiot Tarod, a jester who mocked kings, and she wondered whether he was therefore joking with her. But it seemed he was serious, for he had stepped back from the ledge and begun to mutter softly. Light glowed from his hands. Then, the radiance fell away, and he turned to them once more.

  “I have just enough strength, I think, to get us across. We shall all jump as one, and I shall summon a golden cloud to support us.”

  Ylia stared.

  “You only think you have enough strength? There is no way I am jumping. I’ll tell you that now.”

  “Have you no faith?” Danyil said.

  Ylia hesitated. She had always been god-fearing, and she had seen many miraculous things in her time. She turned to Qala.

  “Qala, is such a thing possible?”

  The princess of Qi’shath mulled it over.

  “I have heard stories of magicians who could command the wings of magic to such a degree they could fly. Such miracles are possible, I am sure. I am not myself capable of such a thing. But Danyil is many times more powerful than I.”

  Danyil seemed wrathful at her words.

  “Is faith in the gods so waning now that mortals must approve their plans?” he thundered. He turned to Telos. “Perhaps we were mistaken to trust your judgement, Telos!”

  But Telos held his ground.

  “These are the best people I know. We are not all like you, Danyil, peering into the web of magic. Hardly any of us, except Qala, even understand what magic is. You have explained it to me several times and I am none the wiser. Can you blame her for fearing to fall?”

  Danyil sighed.

  “Very well. I suppose I have taken my heritage for granted. But time is against us.”

  Ylia looked to the sky and saw it was darkening. Night was falling upon them already. Had they really been travelling that long? The devastation of what they had done to the blockade still hung upon them, collapsing time. Danyil was right. They needed to cross now, before darkness fell fully, and before more soldiers showed up to avenge those they had slain.

  Her guts still squirmed at the thought of the corpses, charred and dismembered.

  They had done this, not some evil god or Daimon.

  But for the greater good.

  How could she know that for sure, though? Might not Danyil, too, be lying?

  She had to remind herself she had looked a god in the eye. Beltanus was a flawed being, that much was certain, but she had detected no lies from him. Ylia had always been good at spotting liars, it was a kind of special trait she had inherited as a result of her mother’s love of telling half-truths. When she was in doubt, she knew she could trust her instincts.

  “Alright,” she said. “I’ll jump with you if everyone else is agreed.”

  “I will jump,” Qala said. “If you will teach me the forms afterwards.”

  Qala smiled—that ever-so-subtle smile that yet seemed bright as sunlight. Danyil let out a wild laugh.

  “You would barter your own faith for advancement? Ever do I stand in awe of human hubris. Very well, I shall teach you the forms afterward. Though be warned: the true test of the invocation is in the energy it requires. And I see that you have already suffered once drawing upon the reservoir too deeply.” He indicated her lock of white hair. Qala tensed, but then bowed her head in humility. Danyil moved on.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “What of you, Jubal? Xheng?”

  Urgal growled. Danyil laughed again.

  “Yes, and you too, curious felidae. Will you jump?”

  Urgal yowled again in what seemed strangely like an affirmative. He skulked over to Ylia and circled her legs. She felt his warmth, his buzzing energy, and touched his head and ears to soothe him. He always seemed to know exactly what was going on. She had known many intelligent animals in her time—dogs who could practically follow conversations—but never an animal quite so intuitive as Urgal. She would have found it unnerving if she did not love the felidae so much.

  “I will leap,” Jubal said. “If only because I have no other choice.”

  “Likewise,” Xheng said. “Sometimes, one must chance the sea. And if I die, then I will meet my crew beyond the Seventh Gate.”

  “Then line up and do exactly as I command,” Danyil said, though Ylia saw he was pleased.

  They stood in a line, along the cliff edge. The Divide yawned beneath them, a crimson mouth, all sparkling teeth, jewel-bright and terrifying. Her father, being an explorer in his youth, had filled her head with stories of what might lie at the bottom of the Divide. Horrific monsters. Secret civilisations. Every night was a new tale. The only tales she liked more were the stories of his travels through Memory, but those he rarely told, always hiding some black and secret shame.

  Danyil muttered words. She caught only fragments. Invocations to Beltanus and Lileth, it seemed. She thought it strange that the names of their enemies—for Lileth was allied to Nereth, apparently—could still be called upon to supply power to the sorcerer. She understood practically nothing of magic, but she was more curious than ever. What was it about the gods, and their names, that made it possible to siphon off their powers?

  The Divide was some six-hundred feet across, and that was at its narrowest point. Jump? Am I insane? There was no possible way anything without wings could get across that gap.

  But she had witnessed Qala’s magic, been saved from the tsunami by the protective bubble. Surely Danyil, being Sumyrian, gifted with divine blood, could do even more than Qala?

  The spell seemed to take forever. That only increased her dread. Flying on the back of a dragon was one thing, but this was quite another. Dragonflight, she understood. It was little different to the mechanics of a cart being pulled by a horse, once one got over the shock of being so high. But this was trusting to metaphysics, to the unseen.

  “When I command, jump!” Danyil said, then went back to his muttering spell-craft. She looked to her side and saw Jubal shifting from foot to foot uneasily. The muscles in his elongated jaw were working hard. He looked every bit the snorting bull about to charge. That is how he faces problems, she thought. He charges at them head-on. But earlier today he met something he could not knock down.

  He had fought bravely against the golem, but he had no been a match for it. Jubal had been more subdued since then.

  Beyond Jubal, she saw Xheng limbering up as though he were about to scurry up the ropes to the mainsail. She could have laughed were she not so afraid.

  Focus, Ylia. Focus. Jump. Jump when he says.

  “Now!” Danyil commanded. “With me, all!”

  The Sumyrian streaked forward toward the edge—and leapt.

  Telos was the first after him. Then Qala. Time had slowed down, and so it seemed for long seconds nothing happened, then Ylia saw the beginnings of something, a wisp, a shimmering… She realised with horror that if she did not jump she would miss it. Danyil had given specific instructions to jump with him.

  Jubal and Xheng had leapt. They were with the others. None of them were falling. They were… floating. Beneath them was a cushion formed from cauldroning light. Golden mist, coalesced.

  “Ylia!” Telos cried.

  I’m going to fly on the back of a bee up to the sunlight, daddy.

  Her fathers words—well, her words spoken back to her by her father—were close in her ear. Comforting. Strength-giving.

  And all at once, she understood how Sumyrian magic worked.

  It wasn’t about words. Words were just the symbols used to invoke the feelings. And the more one could assume the feeling, the more reality started to bend. The gods’ names were just shorthand, a way of cutting directly to a feeling or experience, because their identities were so charged with emotion.

  She ran, and there was actually laughter on her lips. She ran and leapt.

  The cloud caught her, and Danyil smiled wide and bright. The others let out sounds of relief. Telos whooped.

  She felt something warm beneath the soles of her feet, as ephemeral as memory, yet just as true as steel.

  We place such hope in steel, she thought. But we should place it in our hearts.

  It was corny, but she knew it to be true.