Page 166 of Silvercloak

Time slid, losing form.

Levan burst into the room, roaring his own grief, hurling himself at his father, and Saffron tossed the weaverwick wand back to his feet.

Auria was the last Silvercloak standing.

Face contorted, Levan stabbed his wand at Auria, eyes alight. “Sen amm—”

“Sen praegelos,” Saffron cried, raising her own wand, sweat pouring from her temples, every muscle in her body convulsing and twitching, and thought she might come undone from the pain, from the exertion, but there was nothing she would not do to save Auria.

To savesomeone.

Time paused unconvincingly.

Saffron clambered to her feet, stumbling and almost falling again, crossing to where Auria stood frozen.

Time lapsed and then froze again, enough that Levan finished incanting the curse, enough that he must have seen Saffron’s glitching progress. The dark magic leapt from his wand, halting in a fork of lightning halfway to Auria as time jerked to a stop once more.

Standing behind Auria, Saff hooked her wrists under her friend’s arms and dragged her back in the direction of the door.

Almost there.

Ten feet.

Saffron was going to faint.

Five feet.

Saffron could not faint.

Outside, the air was eerily still, not a twitch of forest sound to be heard, and Saffron understood then why Captain Aspar had so savagely opposedpraegelos,because it felt wrong, even to Saffron, even to a Timeweaver, to bring all of life, all of reality, to a stop.

The pain-brightened magic in her well was fading to nothing.

Time shimmered and faltered.

Please flee,she urged her friend, her found family.Please don’t be a hero. Please accept the defeat, go away, and regroup.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

She stumbled back inside, and time resumed with an inelegant lurch.

Levan’s killing spell buried itself in the frayed wood of the shack.

Saffron fell to her knees, and Levan looked straight at her, and heknewthat she had usedpraegelosto save her friend, yet his expression was so mired with grief that she couldn’t cipher how much he hated her for it.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, unsure who she was apologizing to.

“Find the fleeing cloak,” Levan snarled at Segal, before turning his attention back to his fallen father.

But Segal too was on the floor, staring at his hands as though they belonged to a stranger. Almost inaudibly, he whispered, in abject horror, “I can’t feel it. I can’t feelanyof it. Pleasure, pain. I feel nothing—I thought, but … this … I haven’t felt anything since, just old magic, and now …NO.”

A shudder clutched his whole body as he realized the enormity of it.

Without pleasure, without pain, his well would never refill.

The true cost of being Risen.

For most mages, it was a fate worse than death.

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