She came and went with stacks of clothing, sometimes an armful of plates, other times a basket full of fruit. Her gaze stayed fixed on every perfectly carved step, determined not to miss her footing. The staircases wound like veins through the city, and every day it felt as though she had to fight her way through them. The square she passed each time was familiar, the many stone arches, the ivy-covered pillars. Just like the old man who always sat on the bench in front of his house to eat, sometimes reading, other times lost in thought. Apart from his usual nod when she rushed past him again, they didn’t really know each other at all.

Until today.

High above her, blue, red, and green sparks burst apart like fireworks.

“No… they’re already gone,” she said, completely out of breath.

She recognized this magic immediately, it was the temple priests speaking their blessing over the departing airships, filled with adventurers and mages trying their luck on the newly discovered drifting stone.

The crackling sound that colored the entire upper sky at unexpected moments pulled her attention away.

“Ugh, why is everything going wrong today? This clothing was for them!”

But it wasn’t the pile of linen she would be delivering late that troubled her. It was the magic show unfolding above her.

“And I’m still down here… Everything for the gods, but do they ever help? I should have been at the top of that wretched staircase long ago.”

For the first time she dared to lift her head and pull her gaze away from the safe steps beneath her feet. Her usual pace and rhythm faltered immediately.

And that was exactly when it went wrong.

Her foot slipped and her balance gave way. The basket tilted. Fabric slid downward. Just before she would have hit the cold stone, she felt a warm hand on her shoulder.

She suspected it had to be the old man, though how he had managed it so quickly was a mystery. His movements were slow, even hesitant, yet they steadied her before she understood what was happening.

At her feet lay the fallen cloth, dusty and crumpled. He picked it up, brushed it clean, and held it out to her without a word.

His voice was rough.

“Easy now. Your things can wait.”

He pointed to a narrow passage between two pillars and said quietly:

“Trust me. From there, you have the best view.”

Her fingers were still clutching the fabric and her heart was beating uneasily. She had no time to wait or look, let alone to think.

“It doesn’t matter anymore anyway…” she said haltingly, as she took her first steps toward the passage.

From the indicated balcony she looked out over the city, which spread beneath her like a patchwork of floating islands. Large pieces of land beside smaller ones, connected by winding paths and staircases that held everything together like stitching.

These flying islands were called drifting stones, saturated with magic. Beneath her feet wound a carefully carved staircase of stone, like a ribbon spiraling upward to the highest point, the temple of the gods.

“Wow… you were right,” she whispered. “I should have found this spot much sooner.”

Her eyes gleamed hungrily as she watched the colorful trails the airships left behind.

The old man smiled faintly and ran a hand through his wild hair.

“Ah. Your whole life you spend trying to win back time.”

She raised an eyebrow and looked at him, uncomprehending.

“Right now I’m not winning anything. Whenever I get anywhere near an airship they ignore me. Or they drive me away as if I were some kind of vermin.”

She bit her lower lip, the words had been burning in her head for a long time.

“If I had even a spark of magic, I wouldn’t have to run so much. I’d be outrageously rich. I’d buy the biggest house, my own piece of drifting stone. No, wait, an airship! Bigger than that one there! I want to explore the world and blast aside everything in my way!”

She barely noticed the man carefully lifting her down from the railing she had climbed.

“The awareness of time comes with the years. But take my word for it, you spend your time not on things, but on gestures.”

She sighed and watched the airships drift away like tiny stars in the distance, moving further and further beyond her reach.

“You only say that because you already have everything,” she muttered.

The old man said nothing and looked toward the enormous drifting stone the airships were heading for.

After a silence, she heard his voice, softer than before.

“I have indeed had much,” he said. “But lost more.”

The girl looked up at the old man. She didn’t fully understand what he meant, but somewhere she felt it.

“With time,” he said, “come pain, loss… but also love. Not from within yourself, but from the people around you.”

She crossed her arms stubbornly.

“Pff, other people,” she grumbled. “They only ever forbid me things.”

His expression shifted for a moment, as if her words had touched something in him.

She quickly added to her sentence, her voice less certain.

“As an adventurer… at least I could start actually living.” Very softly, barely audibly, she murmured after it: “Doing what I want. No need for anyone else.”

The man slowly lowered himself to her level. His eyes seemed to search for something for the first time, as if even he didn’t quite know what to say.

“You’re already carrying more than you should,” he said quietly.

His hand rested on her shoulder as though that touch amounted to all the burdens he was speaking of. A moment later he let her go and held that same hand directly in front of her face, so close her eyes began to cross, and truly only she could see it.

No chanting. No ritual. No sacred incantation.

Suddenly a small flame flickered to life in his palm. Tiny, but warm, she felt the heat tickle her nose. Just as quickly as it had come, it faded back into the wind.

She stared at him with her mouth open.

“But… how did you do that? Without the help of a God!”

The color drained from her face as she realized what had happened.

“You… you’re not allowed to do that!”

He chuckled dryly.

“Oh, there’s quite a lot I’m not allowed to do.”

“But how do you use…” She swallowed the rest of her sentence when he placed a finger to his lips. His look made it clear she was to stay silent.

“Just like those strange gods of yours, I’m not always well understood either,” he said.

She frowned, but somewhere inside her something began to glow. Hope. The basket she had been gripping so tightly that her knuckles had gone white, she set down for good at her side. This was the moment to leave the past behind and turn toward the future.

“Teach me, please!”

The man sighed.

“And so it always begins, a good deed that completely gets out of hand.”

“Oh come on, just this once!” she tried, in her most innocent voice.

He shook his head and ruffled her hair with his hand. The disappointment was so clearly written on her face that the man visibly began to waver.

“All right, then let me ask you this: of all the people in the world, why should I teach you in particular?”

Her eyes flew wide open and her breath caught in her throat. She could hardly believe her ears. Was this man actually considering teaching her? She couldn’t let this chance slip away. This was her way out of this cursed island where she ran day and night and yet always seemed to stand still.

“So I can get on an airship!” she burst out.

But she felt immediately that the answer wasn’t good enough. Her gaze slid uncertainly to his robe and worn sandals.

She swallowed, and then asked, far more seriously:

“If so many gods watch over us, why does so much still go wrong? Surely they can’t just make everything and then let it run itself into ruin?”

The man smiled and seemed to appreciate her answer.

“Don’t they say that people like you will never understand the intentions of the gods?”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Well, sir, you would make a fine god. Just as vague with your answers. And your powers you keep quite to yourself as well.”

To her surprise he coughed and looked at her with indignation.

She lifted her chin defiantly.

“You’re the famous staircase builder, aren’t you? If I were in your position, I’d have used that power of yours for something good, not wasted it on something as useless as this staircase.”

“Good intentions alone won’t get you far,” said the man. “That takes something more. And this staircase… you use it, don’t you? Just like so many others. It is the vein that connects everything.”

He paused. Then his voice returned with a faint trace of pride:

“Not a grain of magic. Built with my own hands.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Well, for someone who talks so much about time, you certainly spent a fair amount of it. With a few spells you’d have been done long ago.”

But he didn’t seem to mind at all.

“It isn’t always the result that matters. Sometimes it’s the road that leads there.”

His hand moved along the stone railing, almost as if reminding himself of why he had done it.

“Selfish perhaps, but it kept me busy.”

She followed him like a stray dog that wasn’t ready to give up hope. He had promised nothing, but he hadn’t turned her away either.

He brought her to the main staircase, the one she thought she knew better than anyone. Though she used it multiple times a day to reach the temple, only now did she notice that some parts had been carved deep into the rock face while others were laid with elegant stone. And however winding the path became, the steps were never larger or smaller than the one before.

“Why didn’t you just fill it in with rubble?” she said, running her finger along a crack in the railing that had been filled with golden lacquer. Her stomach rumbled at the thought, what lovely things could she have bought with this much gold? How absurd to use it here…

The man walked a little ahead of her, his hands clasped behind his back. He turned briefly and she saw a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“What breaks has the chance to come back stronger.”

She didn’t understand it, but she noticed now for the first time that the other cracks and broken pieces had been repaired the same way. Together with the patches of moss and ivy here and there reclaiming the staircase, the whole thing had become something magical in its own right.

“Look at yourself,” he said. “Something broken is not necessarily something wrong.”

She shrugged. “Ha, I haven’t broken anything yet.” She grinned, but he had already turned away and shook his head.

Suddenly he greeted someone further along.

“Good afternoon, your reverence,” his voice rang out warmly.

She startled and quickly lowered her head. She didn’t know who it was, her gaze stayed down. But she recognized the fabric immediately: silk so fine, so sacred, that she wasn’t even permitted to touch it, let alone wash it.

Only when the footsteps behind her had gone did she dare to look up again. Her eyes settled on the old man. Something wasn’t right. His sandals, dusty and frayed a moment ago, now looked clean. And that simple linen tunic, where had it gone? In its place he now wore a deep blue robe with white trim and fine embroidery, every bit as refined as the reverend’s from just before.

Before she could open her mouth, he said: “Most people believe magic is the solution to everything, and that only then can you reach true, lasting heights.”

She sighed. This was indeed exactly what she believed. “What I mean to explain,” the man continued, “is that you don’t need magic at all in life.”

For the first time it was the girl who shook her head and stepped ahead of him.

“That may be so, but I need it,” she stammered nervously, afraid he might still turn her away at any moment.

With his finger he pressed gently on the place above her heart.

“Very well. Let’s see if I can turn that spark of yours into a true flame.”

He walked past her and gestured for her to follow.

“You probably think fire is simply… very hot.”

“Isn’t it?” she asked.

He smiled.

“It is so much more than that. It is life and death at once. If you want to understand what you call magic, you must be able to see the origin of creation before you, and follow the path all the way to the ultimate goal you have in mind. From beginning to end you must understand exactly what is happening and master the entire process in your thoughts. That is all it is.”

She stopped walking and stared with glazed eyes at the man’s curved back. Not a single word of her first lesson had she truly understood. She balled her fists and shook her frustration loose.

It was now or never.

She took a deep breath and stepped forward, straight into a deep puddle. But just before her foot touched the water, a gust of wind swept past. Ripples rolled across the surface and it began to bubble as if boiling. And then… it simply vanished. As if it had never been there.

“Was that…?” She had no idea what she had just witnessed.

“Heat,” he said, as if it were nothing.

“What you call magic, I once called logic. But names don’t matter.”

Her eyes burned into his back. Not a single spark of magic would slip past her again.

At the top, an impressive stone bridge stretched out before them, broad, with elegant arches that clung to the far side of the drifting stone where the temple stood. The bridge seemed to float in nothing. Beneath them lay clouds and scattered fragments of the city.

“Visualize, understand, and feel, that is what you need for the best result,” he said, looking over her toward the nearly empty bridge. Only a handful of remaining temple guards kept watch.

“Are you beginning to understand?”

She frowned. “Yes, I think so.”

“Oh, already?” He clapped his hands together. “Then show me.”

“What, here, now?”

For a moment nothing happened. Only the rush of the wind that made their clothing flutter.

She squeezed her eyes shut, reached out her hand, and spread her fingers. She drew in all the air she could hold and pushed it back out in a single breath.

Nothing.

“Think about what you want to create. Where it comes from and what it will do.”

She looked at him with a cold stare and wondered if she had perhaps simply dreamed his magic.

“Think about where it comes from… as if that makes any difference,” she grumbled.

Something stirred. A rage that had been stuck, locked inside, ready to break free at any moment. But she had to hold herself together. Not for her own sake, but for her new teacher.

Her thoughts drifted. Her palms grew damp, not from fire, but from how hard she was gripping.

And then, a flash.

A flame shot from her hand like a burst of fire, struck the edge of the bridge, and carved a glowing gash into it. The stone melted before her eyes until an entire section of the bridge had disappeared. Evaporated.

She leapt backward. Her heart pounded in her throat.

“What… did I do that?”

Voices rose behind them. The guards. They were coming.

The old man stayed calm, too calm. He crouched beside the gaping hole and rubbed his chin.

“May I ask what exactly you had in mind?”

She swallowed. “A… a volcano erupting?”

“Right.” His voice was almost amused. “Not exactly the little spark I was hoping for, but it works.”

She could have hit him. Or cried. Or both.

But there was no time for that. The guards were storming toward them from both sides.

“What was that?” one of them snapped. “We saw light!”

The old man shrugged. “I imagine a temple exercise. Or perhaps a stray wisp of magic from the ceremony.” He smiled slowly. “The magic of the gods sometimes works in inexplicable ways,” he said, almost sermonizing, while he reached for a golden, star-shaped chain around his neck.

She had no idea where the chain had come from. It was as if it had appeared from nowhere. Much like the section of bridge that had seemed to disappear, but now lay seamlessly fused back together. Even the railing was there again, unscathed. Only a few subtle glimmers in the surface betrayed that something extraordinary had occurred.

The guards didn’t notice. Their eyes clung to the chain, his robe, his bearing. They saw a man of status, not the girl with ambitions far too large for her station.

She did the only thing that could save her now: stay silent. She bowed her head solemnly and gave a deep bow.

“Follow us, your reverence,” said a guard, without sparing her a glance.

She had walked this bridge with baskets of herbs and buckets of suds. Today was different. She carried nothing. And that was noticed.

“What are you doing here?”

The gate had barely been pushed open when a young priest came toward them. Broad-shouldered and young, he could just as well have been an adventurer. The corner of his mouth curled into something that looked like disapproval.

“Where’s your basket?” he asked. “Or have you forgotten your things again?”

She swallowed.

He was one of the apprentices who never did anything but abuse whatever authority he had been given. Her feet wanted to retreat and her head was already turning away, bracing for the blow that always followed. No ear-pulling or a stinging cheek this time, but, it was the old man who placed his remarkably warm hand on her back and steadied her.

“She is not here to work today,” he said. His tone was dignified and polite.

She narrowed her eyes slightly and shot him a quick glance. Was this the same old man who had just let her play so casually with fire?

The young man knelt deeply, his gaze fixed on the old man’s sandals.

“Forgive me, your reverence,” he murmured. Only now did he seem to realize who stood before him, a high-ranking temple priest, accompanied by no fewer than four guards.

The tension in the air was almost palpable, but she couldn’t suppress her smile. All those scraps of leftover food, the underhanded blows, the snide remarks she had received from him and the others in abundance, it had been a lot. Too much. This one gesture didn’t make it right, but it did something. And it gave her hope. However beautiful the temple looked from the outside, inside it was rotten.

She took her first step across the threshold of the gold-engraved doors. They had always turned her away, and yet here she was, standing inside against every expectation. Beautiful butterfly gardens, fountains, and paths without a single stray blade of grass growing the wrong way. She stared open-mouthed at the central hall, the surrounding houses and walls. If there had been towers anywhere, it could have passed for a true castle. It was enormous, far larger than she had ever imagined.

“I say, what’s going on here?” came a voice, as an old but slender figure approached them, so thin it seemed as if his robes floated around him in empty air. The wine in his glass was sloshing over the rim and his spinning head appeared to be struggling to take it all in.

“We have a ceremony for our gods here,” he continued. He gestured carelessly toward the guards, who retreated. “Follow me. The wonderful food and drink will cheer you up,” he lisped.

“But dear holy one, this… this one is a servant!”

She didn’t even hear it. Her gaze was completely swallowed by the sight of slices of cheese, freshly baked breads, and pieces of fruit she had until now only been permitted to carry, never to taste. Between the stately houses lay a square filled with stalls. Not for buying things, but purely and only for eating. With every step she took, the aromas came toward her. Her eyes flew wide open. Until the holy man suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked down at her. Steadily. Appraisingly.

“Ah, plenty of glasses to fill,” he hiccuped, and made to take another sip. After some blinking and scratching of his chin, he saw quite clearly that the wine that had just been in his glass seemed to vanish like glittering dust into nothing. Just as he had done with the puddle on the steps of the staircase, her master had made the contents disappear before the holy man’s very eyes.

“This young lady is a new candidate,” he said, clearing his throat and quickly turning away to hide his amusement at the utterly bewildered look on the holy man’s face. “To become a temple priest, to be precise.”

The holy man hiccuped up a little wine, tugged at his mustache, and made a visible effort to take a proper look at her.

“She has no robe,” he observed.

The old man gave a slight bow. “The eye does not always see everything.”

A tingling moved across her arms, and a warm gust of air crept along her skin. Before her eyes, her trousers full of holes and her stinking shirt, still damp with sweat, slowly transformed into a cotton robe. The white stitching worked its way through the material so quickly that the holy man didn’t even notice. He blinked again and now seemed to wonder whether the alcohol had truly gone to his head.

“Poetry, truly quite beautiful,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “But that alone does not make a priest, good sir.”

“Insight does, however,” answered the man, his gaze briefly moving to her. She quickly straightened her shoulders.

“Sounds promising,” said the holy man. He made to drink from his glass again, realized it was empty, and pressed it quickly into the hands of an apprentice.

She took a deep breath and raised her hand, ready to show what she could do. But before her fingers could summon so much as a spark of light, the old man calmly but firmly pushed her arm back down.

“I think it would be wise to leave that for what it is,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument.

The holy man swayed on his feet. “Ah, ah, ah… she can begin at the beginning just like anyone else.” He waved his hand as if shooing a fly. “The process is long, agonizingly slow in fact. And if you’re lucky, after a decade or so you might take your first real step.”

His sly grin vanished abruptly when a gust of wind threw him off balance. Only a quick grab for a pillar kept him from falling.

“Our sacred gods are naturally not for just anyone who comes wandering in uninvited,” he muttered, confused.

She stared at the old man with disappointment. He always knew how to sell things well to her, but now for the first time she saw something different. No smile, only raw, unfiltered frustration. His jaw was set hard and it sounded as if he swallowed something that resembled “idiotic theater.”

What was going on inside him, she hadn’t known before, let alone now. But it was clear he was truly done with the holy man.

“If this is the house of the gods, I hope for your sake they are deaf to all this sanctimonious nonsense in here.”

The holy man raised his eyebrows and looked truly serious for the first time.

“You wear our clothing, but your faith is shaky. Know that this beautiful world was created by them, and that we are only permitted to be part of it because they simply allow it.”

“Fool, listen to who’s talking,” said the old man, now going red in the face. “You’re so fixated on invented gods that you can’t see reality for what it is.”

The words struck the holy man and his expression darkened further.

“Demon worshippers, that’s what you are!”

The holy man stepped back and clasped his hands together.

“Oh god of sun and wind, support me in fighting the evil before my eyes.”

The words came out somewhat haltingly, but they were powerful enough to warm the air around him. It felt like a wonderful summer breeze and was anything but threatening. For the first time she saw up close what holy magic truly was.

Glimmers danced around him, and though the old man had claimed it was all nonsense, she couldn’t deny it looked magical. Almost enchanting.

“Look at that, magic from a holy man, and so close!” someone gasped, rushing over immediately.

“Do you feel the air trembling?” called a woman, as more people crowded in.

“Wait, is this different from the magic at the ceremony?” one of the striking onlookers noticed.

The lights seemed to gather into a golden ring that rose slowly above his head.

She watched, blinked, and said:

“Very pretty… but does it always go so… slowly?”

The holy man caught his breath, lost his concentration for a moment, then resumed his incantation. The golden circle quickened and the air trembled now as if before an approaching storm.

“Come now, let him,” said the old man with a grin, entirely unimpressed.

Snap.

The pulling wind disappeared. With a simple click of his fingers the old man had made the golden circle vanish into nothing.

The holy man stood with empty hands. His mouth half open.

The old man yawned softly. “Ah, my friend,” he said, “losing your magic just like that? Don’t worry, it happens more often at our age.” He gave him a broad wink. “It’ll come back on its own. As long as you don’t think about it too hard.”

She looked back with some indignation as she left the temple behind her. She had finally been inside. Further than ever before. Behind those great doors she could have learned magic or become an adventurer. But now she stood outside. She rubbed her stomach. And worse, without having tasted so much as a single bite of all that wonderful food.

“Ow…” She walked into his back. He had stopped in the middle of the bridge, staring into the distance toward the place where the airships had departed earlier in the day.

The enormous drifting stone had drifted so close that its shadow fell across the entire city.

“You only see the light once you break through the darkness,” said her teacher.

Countless smaller fragments orbiting the great drifting stone like a ring were now being drawn toward it by the magic of their own island.

Below them, the first people were already screaming and running into their homes. But the old man? He didn’t seem worried about anything at all.

“Are we in danger?” she asked, somewhat cautiously, as the first chunks of debris tore through the rooftops of houses below.

He looked at her with the same mischievous glint he had shown the holy man in the temple earlier.

“Very much so. Especially if the debris hits us. But you don’t need to worry about that just yet.” He clapped his hands together. “What a magnificent moment to discover what you’re capable of.”

She wanted to ask what he meant, but the wind her teacher conjured from nowhere on top of the bridge struck her all at once. Not because it nearly blew her off the bridge, but because countless stones were now heading straight for them.

She swallowed. Her heart hammered. This was not a drill. This was real.

“Can you teach me the temple magic?” she asked. Her voice was steady, her eyes wide. Strangely, she felt almost no fear. As long as he was there, it seemed as though nothing could touch her. Perhaps that was precisely why she was deliberately backing him into a corner now.

He drew his hand across his face and looked sideways, mildly irritated.

“That… of all things, now?” he said, as the first stones passed within a hair’s breadth of them with a simple wave of his hand.

She nodded and smiled sweetly.

He sighed deeply.

“Imagine a ring sitting loosely on your finger,” he murmured. “Let it spin faster and faster in your mind like a wheel. It heats up, it gives off light, and just as it begins to scorch…” He made a short, flicking gesture with his finger. “You simply push it away from you.”

She frowned. By now she knew all too well, nothing was simple with this man.

She followed his instructions and pictured a golden ring being drawn by a blacksmith from the coals. No, not hot enough yet. Her thoughts plunged deeper, into the heart of a volcano. The burning lava was still spattering in her imagination as it began to spin around her finger, until it grew so hot she felt it might burn straight through at any moment. She raised her hand toward the flying stones, squinted one eye to aim, and flicked it away. Like a marble simply rolling off the edge of a table it dropped straight into the chasm.

“Well,” said her teacher, rubbing the back of his head. “It’s a start. Though if you’re going to fire it, I’d think of something more like a spear charging at its target, or an unstoppable arrow, not a limp little marble.”

She focused. And once again a glowing ring formed around her finger. This time she imagined that the small ring was an airship flying straight at the attackers.

A brilliant flash shot through the air and struck one of the fragments. The impact was still too small to make any real difference, and missing was hardly difficult given how many were coming at them. Even so, she had done it.

She stared at her hand. Breathless.

Had she… really done that?

“Ha!” she cried. “Did you see that? It worked!” She spun around triumphantly.

But his face wasn’t laughing. His eyes were fixed on her hand. There, on every finger of her right hand, a glowing ring was forming. Not one, five.

“Ah… perhaps stop for a moment,” he said, a fraction too quickly. “This is… not what I intended.”

But it was already too late.

Like uncontrolled projectiles the rings shot in every direction. Some missed entirely, others found their mark.

“Easy! You don’t need to set the entire city on fire!” he called out, busy containing the damage.

She laughed out loud. This was the magic and the power she had always dreamed of. She turned her hand once more and fired again. It was chaotic and wild, but at the same time absolutely brilliant.

“Oh my god, this is all going just a little too fast…” she heard him panting behind her. Something in his tone was different.

“Just call me Claire,” she said teasingly, with a smile she had never before dared to show.

“All right then, Claire. Imagine you possess all the power of those so-called gods. What would you do with it?”

“First, I’d do something about those so-called temple priests. Gods, priests… in the end they’re no use to anyone. As far as I’m concerned they might as well all disappear.”

“A few bad ones often spoil it for the rest. But what if you could make those wrongdoers vanish with a snap of your fingers?”

With a wide smile she snapped her fingers.

“Not that they would ever have listened to me.”

Her teacher sank to his knees and pulled her into a firm embrace.

“Only when the old gives way can the new grow.”

Claire closed her eyes and felt loved for the first time in what felt like forever. She didn’t even know his name, but that didn’t matter. He seemed to understand her, and better still, to be there for her.

But her eyes flew open when the embrace that had been so solid moments before seemed to weaken. The old man, her teacher, who had been kneeling before her just a breath ago, was gone. Only the warmth of his embrace remained.

“Teacher,” she gasped. A tear slid down her cheek, something she had held back for as long as she could remember.

The whole encounter with the mysterious man had come so suddenly and vanished just as abruptly, that she began to doubt whether it had been real at all.

Her heart ached and then lurched as a heavy thunderclap struck. The flash came immediately, the crack of lightning was deafening, yet there was no visible impact anywhere.

Claire felt the cold creep up her spine and began to shiver. The enormous drifting stone, drifting calmly toward them only moments ago, suddenly tore apart. Pieces broke loose and flew in every direction.

She swallowed, froze, and squeezed her eyes shut as holes were punched all around her, in the bridge, the staircase, the houses below. Nothing was spared. Her eyes opened immediately when the wind began to tear violently at her clothing.

The drifting stone split in two and scraped past within only a few meters of her. Her ears rang with the wind, the cracking, the destruction around her. Before she could blink, the temple was gone.

The blow landed hard, fast, and felt unreal. The last piece still standing swayed, the bridge, with its gate and doors still closed.

From her position on the high bridge, Claire looked down at the devastation below. Collapsed rooftops and streets full of wreckage from the many market stalls that had been knocked over.

“Where is he…” she murmured, leaning as far as she could over the railing. “He’s the only one who can still help the city.” Not on the bridge. Not on the staircases. Nowhere. As if he had never existed.

The rain of stones seemed to stop. And the half of the enormous drifting stone that remained seemed to hang peacefully above the city. Serene. As if nothing had happened.

Doors opened and the first people crept cautiously from their shelters.

With a deep sigh Claire breathed the tension away and descended the staircase carefully. “Teacher must have already gone down.”

CLANG! came the sound from behind her.

Claire flinched at the shock of it. The boom was so loud her bones trembled.

CLANG.

A second. This time from the other side of the island.

Then a third, a fourth, a fifth, each from a different corner. They were drums of cloth, weighted with magic. Once a warning against danger from outside, but now far, far too late.

So why now? The danger is already over, isn’t it? Or have I missed something? she asked herself.

Claire narrowed her eyes. There, between the clouds, something floated. Large and heavy, with a magical shimmer closer to a dying candle than anything else. Her heart beat faster. It was an airship.

Without another thought Claire ran downward. Leaping over gaps and weaving around rubble blocking her path down. She had to know if her teacher was there.

From the voices of the residents she could tell she wasn’t the only one exhaling with relief at the sight of the airship.

“They’re coming! Do you see? They’re coming to save us!”

“Finally… finally.”

“Isn’t it flying a bit low?”

“And crooked…”

“Wait, why… is it landing here?”

The cheering voices died when the battered airship came dangerously close. Heading straight for the inner square. Some people barely had time to leap aside as the thing struck the paving stones with a deafening shriek of metal and scraped grinding through the streets. It splintered parts of buildings away and carved out an entire section of road in a single pass before coming to rest in silence at the heart of the city.

“My brother was on board…!”

“Where are the others? Where are the other ships?”

“Is my husband dead? Tell me he’s on board!”

The churned-up dust stung her eyes when she finally reached the bottom. Everyone seemed to be fighting for the last bit of air. Then Claire saw it. In front of the wreck stood a woman atop a pile of rubble, a parchment in her hand.

“Damien, fallen.” The voice faltered. “Clément, missing. Lucienne… fallen.”

The murmuring through the crowd grew louder.

“Where are the other ships?”

The woman raised her head.

“There are no others.”

More flashes, more immediate thunderclaps. The first scream cut through the square. People began pushing each other and broke into a run.

Not a cloud or a drop of rain in sight. That the impacts seemed to come from nowhere once again drew no one’s notice. Everyone was too consumed with themselves to register it.

“Typical. Surely a joke from the gods, if this is the only answer they could give.”

“Senseless,” Claire breathed at the sight of the tens, perhaps hundreds of fragments raining down on the city from every direction. The most powerful adventurers, the strongest mages, all gone. Is this what’s left? Even the handful who came staggering from the wreck trembled and stared with wide eyes at the colossal impacts.

“So this is it,” said Claire as she looked around one last time for her teacher. “He’s really not here. I’m alone again,” she whispered. Her fists trembled and her gaze settled on the bridge where she had just stood with her teacher. “Coward… just like the gods. Gone. They’re never there when I need them.”

As the crowd fled and even the bravest gave way, Claire turned around. Every step she took was heavy. Fear bit at her lip and the stream of people screamed at her to run. But where? Nothing felt safe. At this moment she had nothing left to lose. This place didn’t feel like her home but like a prison in the sky. Nothing was worth saving. Only the idea of magic had been able to give her peace, a purpose in place of this rotten life. As long as she could use that magic, even just for a moment, it was enough.

People screamed and turned their eyes skyward. Even guards who had sworn their loyalty abandoned their posts.

The staircase Claire had run up and down countless times since childhood felt different now. Every step felt slowed, as if time were standing still for a moment. The many people running downward, the stones flying past her ears, none of it seemed to matter anymore. If she were to be crushed out of nowhere, then so be it. All she wanted now was to go back. To the bridge. The highest point of the staircase. The place where she had felt truly free for the first time.

“If this is a dream I would never want to wake,” said Claire, as a shape before her punched straight through the staircase and took a woman with it into the deep. So fast she would have missed it if she had blinked.

The air rushed through the gap and tried to drag Claire downward. But it was pointless. Like her teacher, it transformed into a wonderful breeze that only seemed to calm her further. She jumped across the missing steps. A simple slip would have sent her into the depths like the woman before her. But she pushed fear aside.

Claire felt the first rings burning around her fingers. Three, four… and then the fifth. At last, she was at the top. Arrived at the bridge, or at least what remained of it. Entire sections had been torn away, and if the bridge weren’t held together by magic, it would have collapsed long ago. Now the remaining fragments hovered dangerously in midair.

She flicked the first ring away with a casual tap.

“This isn’t going to work like this,” she muttered to herself.

Her gaze moved to her other hand. She shrugged, and as rings appeared there too, a wide grin spread across her face. Nearly everything missed its mark completely, and whatever she did hit was nothing more than luck. Only now did she notice that it wasn’t only chunks of rock and stone falling, trees, shrubs, and a cascade of sand and water were tumbling downward too. Her aim was to destroy the larger projectiles, or in her case, to graze them just enough to shift their course.

It was the cramping in her fingers that made her stop for a moment.

“Why do the rings keep disappearing?”

No matter how well or how quickly she struck a ring, with every tap the magic vanished immediately. “What if I just…”

Claire closed her eyes, pressed all her willpower into a single ring, and fired it. Like a falling star it shot forward, burned a hole through the first piece of rock it encountered, and kept going. A second. A third. Until the ring had vanished completely from sight.

“One small adjustment and it’ll be perfect.”

With the same focus she let another ring appear on her other hand, just one ring for each hand, no more than that. This time she swept them away with nothing more than a simple wave of her hands. Her grin only widened. The rings no longer disappeared, but stayed floating before her eyes, just like the broken stones of the bridge.

A section of tree came hurtling toward her. She stumbled backward and fell. The branches tried to drag her with them, to tear her open and pull her into the void. In a panic she threw her hands in every direction. But before it had even touched her clothing, nothing was left of it but a thin mist, as if it had been sliced into thin pieces like bread at a bakery.

Groaning, she got back to her feet and rubbed the back of her head. The impact still rang in her skull as she jumped up in alarm. This time it was the rings, one skimming like ice across the stone, the other seeming to catch in the corner of a step. None of it worked quite the way she wanted. And real control over the rings was still beyond her. But it didn’t matter.

“This is incredible!”

She gasped it out as she realized that every movement of her hands, her fingers, however subtle, guided the rings around her.

The mass of stone and everything with it was thinning. Slowly. Far too slowly. But the longer she went on, the more she enjoyed it.

“We live on borrowed time that you eventually give back to the world,” whispered a voice she recognized immediately, his vague wisdom, that low rumbling tone.

Afraid she had only imagined it, she didn’t dare turn around. But his familiar hand on her shoulder reassured her. With her gaze fixed ahead over the ruined city, she reached hesitantly for his. His thin fingers and the wrinkles, it was really him.

“You’ve been a bit enthusiastic,” he said lightly, stepping up beside her as his robe rippled in the wind. Claire grinned broadly and kicked a broken piece of stone from the staircase into the depths. “At least you’ve got something to keep you busy.”

He cleared his throat and sighed deeply.

“That is certainly true, but as for this staircase, I’ll leave it as it is. My time here has come to an end again.”

Claire now looked at him with alarm, straight into his eyes.

“Are you going to die?”

He laughed softly. “Now, Claire, you did say that, didn’t you? Why do I keep getting the feeling you misunderstand every single lesson I give you? What I mean to say is that it doesn’t end here. Just as this drifting stone, there are plenty of other threats out there.”

“I think I can handle those just fine.”

The man burst out laughing and ruffled her head.

“And I believe that too. It’s just…” He paused for a moment, searching for words. “Not every village or city out there has a guardian angel as heroic as you.” He pointed toward where the temple had stood and gestured with his head toward the city. “To make your path a little smoother, I’ve already cleared away some persistent filth.”

Claire turned fully around when she felt his grip on her shoulder disappear. A sharp sound on the ground pulled her attention. On the spot where her teacher had just been standing lay the golden chain that had appeared from nowhere and accompanied him throughout their journey through the temple. She bit her lip and picked up the gleaming chain. “If I sell this, at least I’ll finally have something nice to eat,” she said aloud. She still waited for a rebuke from him, a sign, something, but nothing came. He was already gone. The emptiness moved through her; whether it was her heart or her stomach she couldn’t say, but she felt immediately that she was entirely alone again.

Below her stretched the staircase he had built with his own hands, battered now, but the only thing still standing. Without his attention it would never be the same. Yet she found that his words stayed with her. What she did see were people. Countless people, guards, priests, craftsmen, and ordinary citizens of the city.

And at the exact moment her gaze met them, the crowd sank to its knees as one.

Claire swallowed; her heart hammered. Why were they doing this for her? She had done nothing more than take out her frustration on countless drifting stones, made choices purely for herself, and done what she pleased.

And yet the silent crowd knelt. They worshipped her with their heads bowed deep, as a hero.

No.

As a god.

The very thing she hated most was what she had become through her own actions.