He's shaking his head, but the nagging doubt is already clear in his eyes. "No, it - Evandrin sought me out to begin with because of what I could do. Avalir doesn't have many healers, and none of them are warriors."

That's the problem with a city of wizards. Some mages had access to healing - certain kinds of bards and sorcerers, mostly - but they were in the minority, and it wasn't a speciality for any of them. The vast majority of the city's defenders were eldritch knights; training to be fighters or barbarians gave them ways to prevent and withstand damage, but not to heal it.

"The oracles were clerics, in a way. They helped me understand my magic, how to hone it, how to extend it." He'd hit a bit of a wall, back home; so much of it was instinctive, but eventually he needed some kind of direction. "They knew about the nightmares, but they never - they would have said something - "

Wouldn't they? He hadn't trusted many people in Avalir, but the oracles had always seemed different. There wasn't the same smug superiority or naked hunger for power he saw in so many others; there wasn't even the constant clash of loyalties and expectations that even the best of them struggled with.