#mirari

“On the Charah, Benat. Along his back,” Mathei answered. Everyone looked at Mirari, and she shook her head. “Those roles were forced on him, he isn’t—” “Did you not see what he did to Amara?” Cassian snapped. “You’ve delivered an obscenely powerful mage and spy into the heart of Tamar!” “He has been nothing but a friend to us, Cassian.” Danel finally joined them, to stand beside Amara. “Fought for us, sacrificed himself in an attempt to save us. He was in hiding from the Vexillae when we met him. He left them.” “You do not leave the Vex,” Cassian scoffed. “That man has been broken and remade into their animal." pg.424

Mirari sucked in a sharp, gasping breath that was half sob, and Danel put his arm around her shoulders, glaring murder at Mathei. “Benat is not a murderer. He is afraid,” Danel said. “So was Vural,” Mathei countered. “Fear and anger are two edges of the same blade. Use one side and you reveal the other.” “And both are the twisted mirror of kindness,” Djar said in his quiet, resonant voice. “Vural lost his brother and his love to the Sundering War, to destruction mages. The world no longer reflected his hope for it, and it broke him.” Amara loved that tone he used, gentle, but with unquestionable authority. He did not use it often. Only when something mattered. She smiled at him, and he returned it. pg.368-369

“We don’t know anything about magic. Not magic like yours.” Mirari glanced toward Amara, and down again. “But Benat…I think he was confused. Burdened. And when the magic came, he could not…” Her breath heaved, and she gripped her hands together. “…he could not bear another thing.” pg.367

"He was not, before. He was kind, and..." Her cheeks darkened and she lowered her face. Danel shifted, putting a hand on her shoulder. pg.367

The glaze vanished from Samira’s eyes, replaced with fierce heat, sparks drifting through the honey brown of her irises and flickering across her skin. Mirari whispered something, perhaps a prayer to her god, and stepped back, dragging Danel with her. Yes, the fury of a fire mage was something to fear indeed. pg.365

On the edges of her mind, she saw the glow of green. Mirari, trying to keep her heart beating. pg.351

Amara sang. She sang the lullaby her mother taught her. About safety in a mother's arms, about the quiet of night. The silence of the silver moon. The mist rose until it blinded, her song echoing inside it. Beneath her hands Benat’s body cooled and relaxed, until he released his grip on Bek and collapsed. Mirari crawled forward, cradling his head in her hands as he slumped to the ground. pg.349

Her thoughts filled with murderous, rolling magma. The Charah crawled out of the river, dragging Mirari onto the bank only a few paces downriver. He looked at her, with that black, boiling lava in his eyes. “Run,” Amara told Kiya and Bek. “Run now.” Benat clambered to his feet and stumbled toward Amara, and she knew, to the deepest, quietest corner of her soul, that if he laid hands on her, he was going to kill her. He was stone and fire, the heart of a volcano made man, torn asunder and in agony. She could feel the silent screams of his fear and pain as vibrations within her power. His very soul was at war. pg.347-348