Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(87)

I frown. “But that doesn’t make sense,” I say. “I have a friend who’s a Guardian and she’s close to my size. Surely bigger people than that have gone mine-mad.”

“It isn’t physical size she’s referring to,” Sandrin says.

“It’s something internal, some unknowable thing that determines it, unrelated to genetics or any other factor, as far as we could tell,” Mina adds.

“?‘We’?” I ask.

“Before the siege, I studied the caves with a group of people who were curious. I wanted to know what had happened to me,” she says.

“And what did?” I ask her.

Mina turns back to the pot. “Imagine a larger pot,” she says. “The magic is still there, but it doesn’t fill the person up as much. It doesn’t come to them so easily. For me, I could feel the magic, but bringing it to the surface was difficult, and it was rarely worth the effort when I did. People like me—we weren’t strong enough to serve as Guardians, so we went back to our normal lives. It was shameful, in a way—not to be chosen by a god, nor killed by one, but merely overlooked. No one liked to talk about it. I would imagine it’s the case for many in the mines now—why they haven’t gone mine-mad but why they also don’t present any gifts. The magic is in them, but it’s too small a concentration to allow them to do much—if anything at all.”

I struggle to make sense of it. “So to be blessed by the gods, you must be precisely the right size vessel?” I ask.

“Some believe the gods still choose those capable of carrying the volume of the magic,” Sandrin says. “That they are still the ones who bless certain individuals above others.”

“And some believe that it is all more unpredictable and random than that,” Mina adds with a shrug.

“You don’t think the gods have a hand in it at all?” I ask, surprised.

Mina doesn’t say anything for a moment. “I don’t know,” she admits finally. “But to consider that they choose those who are blessed means that they are also responsible for all of those who don’t survive it. I don’t believe the gods are capable of that kind of cruelty, and if they are, I certainly don’t wish to worship them for it.”

Sacrilegious as it may be, I have to agree with that sentiment.

“So what about someone who has a gift—a strong gift—but they can’t always control it, especially when they’re angry? And if they don’t sleep and their skin always runs hot, but they’ve been like this for over a year?”

Mina glances at Sandrin, who shakes his head. “She claims it’s hypothetical,” he explains, to which Mina gives a derisive snort before approaching the pot.

“So, when it comes to using magic, imagine this flame is the energy you’re exerting to use magic. What would that do to the water?”

“It boils,” I say, an understanding slowly taking shape.

“Yes. For me, the harder I strain to use my magic, the stronger it is. Just as boiling water bubbles to the top of the pot. For your average Guardian, using their power for big things, for long stretches of time, would bring them just to the rim. You say your hypothetical friend is more powerful than most, yes? So when they use their gift too strongly or for too long—”

“It boils over,” I guess.

She inclines her head. “There were old texts where I read of such people, but I never encountered one myself.”

Sandrin clears his throat. “From the stories I read, they often appeared in times of trouble. A drought in the West brought about an unusually strong Water Guardian who could produce enough water to satiate an entire village without growing weary. A famine one year was offset by an Earth Guardian who could turn barren soil fertile once more. Scholars remarked that it was as if the gods had answered their prayers.”

“What happened to those Guardians?” I ask.

Sandrin and Mina exchange looks.

“They used their power and saved thousands,” Sandrin says.

“Until they boiled over,” Mina finishes.

It’s too much to think about right now and there are still so many questions to ask, so I push Blaise from my mind and look at Sandrin.

“What we spoke of before, the Encatrio?” I ask. “Is that related to this? I know that it’s water from the Fire Mine and people have survived it before, but how?”

“We’re getting out of my field,” Mina says, shaking her head. “But as I understand it, Encatrio is a very concentrated dose of magic. More than the water that was in the pail—double that, maybe. Very few can handle it.”

“But when they do, they’re as gifted as if they’d gone into the mines,” Sandrin says.

“More gifted,” Mina corrects. “It’s difficult to know without performing tests, but I imagine it would be possible that this hypothetical friend and your other hypothetical friend may in fact be in similar situations.”

For a sharp second, I don’t think about how this means that Cress is vulnerable, or even more dangerous because of it. I don’t think about how much power she must have, how many people she could hurt. I only think of how she must be suffering, just as Blaise is. I wish I could help her, before I remember that I can’t.

“One more question,” I say, forcing my mind clear. “How is it possible that someone who had never set foot in the caves—the mines—or had a drop of Encatrio…how could they have a gift?”