Isa nods. "Yes. It would be very easy to come to rely on her; her talents are useful, and she's only a threat in the distant future, and the Deathlords and Yozis are moving now…"

She shakes her head, composing her next words.

"We talked some, on the way here. I explained what happened in the First Age, what we did and why - she knew enough about us already, and would learn the rest in Yu-Shan, and I thought it would be better if she didn't hear it only from Gold voices. She understood. Her recollections of the First Age are... unpleasant, I gather. There were nightmares. And I think she's used to the idea, that maybe she was already afraid of becoming a monster - she was raised Immaculate. She hasn't abandoned that, even if she knows the faith isn't literally true."

"I don't think she wants power for its own sake. I suspect she thinks of the Realm as home, even if she's never truly lived there, and of the Dragon-Blooded as its rightful rulers. But she sees problems with the world, and if she has to pursue power or build alliances with herself as lynchpin to fix them, I think she will."

"She thinks what we did is right. But she doesn't think it's working anymore. She believes the Cleansing will be whittled down in an endless war against the Solars, the Lunars, the deathknights, the raksha, these new Yozi-Exalts... The Realm is weakening. Heaven is divided against itself. She thinks we're fighting a losing battle."

Another grimace. "It is... hard to disagree with her, on that point."

She resumes. "That's one of the points she'll make, that we need to try something new. It needn't necessarily involve her - I think she would be happy enough to see the Realm made safe and the Mask of Winters destroyed - but she is not so saintly that she never thinks of her own future. The other point... I told her about the Vision of Gold, and I think she latched onto that chance: that if there was some way to save the Solars at the height of their madness and decadence, there must be a way to do it now, while they're still young and unformed."

"But I don't think she knows how."

"Still. That'll be the thrust of her argument to you, I think: that we can't just keep going as we have been, and that the Solars are dangerous but not certain doom."