Chapter 13 #3
“It happened the first time I was sent on a recon mission by the headmaster. I don’t know what wisdom it was that he saw in sending me to surveil the Nomad, but the Nomad captured me on my first mission.
He was reasonable about it. I wasn’t held as a prisoner or mistreated at all.
He treated me well. And then he told me his side of the story.
Said I was free to go. That I could continue doing these recon missions on the headmaster and the Covenant’s behalf, because he wasn’t exactly hiding anything. ”
“He killed Crenshaw and made him blow up a pub, killing several people!” Lesya said exasperatedly.
“Crenshaw was not the man you thought he was. Nor were most people present in the pub. The Covenant and Crenshaw’s Vanguard were launching attacks on the Nomad and his people across Aladria in secret.
The Nomad merely retaliated to slow down the Covenant and the Vanguard.
If it was anything but that, tell me, why hasn’t the Nomad attacked anyone or any other city after that? ”
“He destroyed this town,” Lesya said, waving around her arm.
“No, Lesya. The headmaster and the Covenant razed this town the first time. They razed it again more recently to ensure that nothing could be recovered. It’s a game of lies and dogmatic propaganda the headmaster is playing.
He’s played it at such a level that the truth is entirely obscured and all that remains are lies seeped deep in the minds of everyone. Even you.”
“You’re the one who sounds brainwashed,” Lesya said, lowering her harness.
“If the Nomad wanted to kill us, he’d have done it by now. He’s expecting us, and we should go to him. Now.”
“And what if I refuse?” Lesya asked. “Are you going to control me like you’re doing Freya?”
“Yeah. I’d do that.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“Lesya, don’t!”
She threw a spell at him. He deflected it with ease.
“After all that Aeterna has told you, you still doubt me?!” Cassian said, holding his blade up in anticipation.
“For all I know, she could be lying as well!”
“Lesya, look into your heart. Deep within it, you know that’s not true.
You’re an intelligent girl. You’ve connected all the dots.
The Covenant destroyed temples by the hundreds.
All of them temples and shrines of Aeterna.
They burned books about Aeterna and Aeternumancy, hid literature in their own libraries lest it get into anyone’s hands.
Historically speaking, are the good guys the ones who destroy temples and burn books? !”
The scene came back to her in vivid contrast, when Lesya had tried to reach for the light while trying to resurrect Freya. Aeterna had warned her not to do that. That was the domain of Chaos, beguiling, wearing the guise of bright light.
“I am bound by yet another one of the headmaster’s oaths not to reveal the true nature of Sol,” Cassian said, his face straining red.
“So much of what Eldric does and proclaims is shrouded in secrecy. Including the reason he’s got a hold on me.
I am not permitted to say it. If I do, I die.
You think I willingly betrayed the one person I love? !”
Bright light. A round glow of white light that she’d tried to reach. Aeterna had warned her, saying, “You must never reach for Chaos!”
“Cassian,” Lesya said, her brows furrowed in concentration. “Is Sol actually Chaos?”
The strain on Cassian’s face disappeared.
“You cannot ask me that,” he said, breathing easier. “You can only state something you know.”
“When I resurrected Freya, there was a place of blinding light. I…reached for it. Aeterna warned me against it. She said Chaos had been beguiling mages since time immemorial. There’s no sun god. No Sol-Father. It’s a beguiler. It’s Chaos,” she said, trying to sound certain.
“Yes,” Cassian said, surprised when nothing happened upon his confirmation. “Yes. And that’s the lie behind Solignity, behind everything that Eldric’s trying to do. You see it?”
“Just how many oaths has the headmaster made you do?”
“He made me do an oath not to divulge the number of oaths I’ve taken,” Cassian said. “And that’s why we need to go to the Nomad. He’ll tell you things about me. He’s not under any oaths, nor has he ever tried to make me undertake an oath to him.”
Lesya was still grappling with the gravity of these revelations. She walked after Cassian, keeping her distance, staying closer to the enthralled Freya.
“For what it’s worth, Les,” Cassian said from ahead, then paused and turned around to look at her with sincerity. “I am sorry that I couldn’t tell you any of this before. I’d be lying if I said it was just for your own safety. It was for my safety too, and for protecting the mission at hand.”
“He called you brother,” Lesya said. “Kin. What is that?”
Cassian almost laughed, then thought better of it.
“It’s how the old ones talk. Deathless who took the same oath.
Same as calling a man from your year ‘brother’ after four winters in the undercroft.
There is no blood in it. Derleth is my father.
Viktor is… a man who refused to let that word stay holy only for Solaris. ”