In the Canyon, which was the World,

“You know,” she said, smiling bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, “this is the part where I'm supposed to tell you my motivations, isn't it?”

A butterfly flew out of the underbrush, coming to rest on a nearby flower. The sun, still visible above Kelei, sparkled on its wings.

“It's really very simple,” she went on. “This world is too small — not just for me, but for everyone, really. Kelei and Tanei have been killing us all, slowly choking us.”

I felt my face go white with shock, and in my mind's eye I saw her again, dancing on the rubble of the westernmost Gate. "You... you intend to bring down the Worldwalls?"

She laughed. It was a brilliant, musical laugh, with nothing in it that was not terrifying. “Bring them down? Oh, no, no, my dear Kahal. Nothing so vulgar as that.”

Briefly, there was movement: the butterfly fluttered up and away from the flower, and alighted on her headpiece. She turned, and strode lightly toward me; and I found I could not move, frozen in place by fear or enchantment or both.

She raised her arms up and out, almost as though about to embrace me; but instead she closed her hands into fists, each impossibly grasping one of the very horizons —

— and the butterfly and I both trembled —

— and she pulled.