Chapter 2 #2
“There still is. Crystal Hollow. It’s bigger now, actually.
And most people who live there do so to be freer from priest oversight, but not because they’re willing to take an actual stand against them.
They mostly just keep their heads down and wait for problems to go away, but if a priest came to their door and pressed them. ..”
“Oh,” I say softly.
Zan glances up at me as he stands. “There are people in Crystal Hollow who would have hidden me. But their neighbors might have sold them out, and then I’d have just gotten more people killed.”
I nod. “I understand. I’m extremely familiar with the concept of collateral damage.”
Zan also nods, more slowly. “Yes, I suppose you must be. But let me show you something that hasn’t taken collateral damage.”
He starts to extend a hand to me, then appears to think better of it, his jaw tightening as he tucks his hand away.
I feel a pang in my chest.
I would have taken his hand.
But I also don’t feel like I can demand it.
We’re both very practiced at pretending to be what we’re not, though, that everything is fine, that there’s nothing worth noticing going on beneath the surface, so we stride easily toward the temple doors.
“How dramatic was my entrance?” I ask him lightly.
Zan’s lips quirk. “Extremely well-executed.”
Well, execution has always been a strength of mine, I think wryly.
Zan belatedly realizes his word choice too, a flicker of chagrin through his eyes which I wave off before he says anything.
I have killed lots of people. Pretending otherwise won’t change that, and I have had five hundred years to accept the choices I made when my options were extremely limited.
The first time I had an opportunity that would mean saving more people than killing, that would actually change anything, even at the cost of my freedom, I took it.
I have to believe that counts for something.
This time, Zan and I reach the doors at the same time and exchange a weighted look.
Here it is.
My second chance.
Am I ready?
I swallow; nod.
And together we open the doors one more time.
This time, I’m not alone.
This time, there are no priests trying to kill me or make me kill anyone.
This time, there is a meadow in bloom, and a lush forest and warmth against my skin and the sun in the sky.
And... a cottage?
That definitely wasn’t here when I came to Celestial Sanctuary Temple half a millennium ago.
Still getting used to that.
It’s an odd cottage, too. Not that I’m exactly a connoisseur, but I’ve always taken note of the shapes of people’s homes I passed on assignments, never entering, speculating on what their exteriors might say about the experience of living inside.
This one is a little lopsided, with pieces that don’t appear to match.
But it also looks lived-in, well-loved. Welcoming.
I swallow and manage to choke out, “Is that your house?”
Zan has been watching me closely. “No,” he finally says. “It’s yours.”
I tear my eyes away from the cottage. “What?”
“Shortly after you created the Quiet, a magical null who happened to be living in Crystal Hollow at the time decided to build that here, with parts from buildings that had collapsed when magic was suppressed. I brought the first sage I took from the Order here, and the two of them made it into a sanctuary for any future sages who needed it. There’s a guest room I use, but the house is here for you. ”
I gape. “What—I mean, how—”
Zan’s eyes seem to soften, somehow. “Come on. I’ll show it to you.”
“That’s not what I was going to ask.”
“I know, but come look anyway.”
In something like a daze, I start moving again.
Grass beneath my bare feet.
The smell of flowers blooming.
Bees buzzing, making sound, and movement, and I’m glad there is no one here to see me because I’m honestly overwhelmed by all the sensory input.
Then Zan’s voice; an anchor.
“The null’s name was Tasa,” he says. “She was the only one who could come up the mountain to see what had happened. It’s also why she could handle the broken magic—she singlehandedly rebuilt Crystal Hollow, and even though everything has had to be rebuilt over time, her stamp is still everywhere.
But this was her first, and her refuge.”
She’s probably the one I have to thank for the spring cleaning.
“Is she the one who baked you bread?” I ask.
Zan’s eyes flash with amusement. “No. That was Kovan.”
I blink, then place the name. “Kovan? The Sage of Resolve?” Baking bread?!
I remembered the feel of his magic here, many moons ago, but I hadn’t realized what that meant.
In the early days of the Quiet—maybe years—it had taken all my focus to maintain the stasis. I hadn’t been aware of much, then.
Zan nods. “Kovan was the first sage I brought here. The Order had instructed him to take down the Quiet, but he wouldn’t do it.”
Kovan, rejecting his duty?
Obviously I know I did, but somehow his choice is the one that’s tilting my world on its axis.
Zan continues as if I’m not still reeling.
“Kovan was the first sage I stole from the Order. I didn’t have a plan, hadn’t expected to meet someone affiliated with them who wasn’t a waste of air.
I impulse-shifted to get him out of there, then had to hibernate.
Kovan stayed on the mountain for months to defend me, unasked.
It... changed my perspective on humans, and what could be possible for them. And for me.”
So at least once upon a time Zan had had the normal transformation sequence for a dragon.
I’m afraid of the answer to this next question, but it somehow feels very important to ask. “Has there been no one since to guard you?”
Zan shrugs.
He does that to minimize a subject he has strong feelings on that he doesn’t want to engage with, I’m noticing.
“It’s hard to test what someone will do when you can’t defend yourself,” he finally says.
“It’s why I have mostly relied on the Quiet to be my shield, but only when I felt confident the priests wouldn’t organize an expedition to search for me here.
That hasn’t been true in a while, so I’ve been unable to transform.
Which was, I suppose, their goal, ultimately. ”
To defeat him by making it so he could never rest.
Yes, I think the Order has not changed for the better.
But the people, they still—or perhaps again?—haven’t won over, not completely.
Not if sages still want to be saved.
“Kovan and I only met in passing when we were younger,” I offer to the memory of Zan’s loss.
“Once it became clear how strong we would be, the priests were always careful to keep us apart. At the time they told us it was so that if one of us were ever taken out, the other would still be safe to act.”
Zan nods. “But what they were actually doing was decreasing any chance of solidarity between the two biggest threats to them.”
I look at him sharply. I suppose someone who has worked on behalf of sages against the Order for generations would see so clearly what no one else in my life had ever seemed to. “Yes.”
How has he lived with the reality of that darkness in the world for so long and never given up trying?
My stomach clenches. Not until now, anyway.
We’ve finished crossing the meadow from the temple to the cottage, and at the door, I hesitate.
He’s watching me again, but not hungrily this time, and oddly that makes me more nervous, because I know he’s hiding that but don’t know what it means, what he expects.
And it doesn’t feel like I deserve to have this, after everything I did, and didn’t, do. After all of Zan’s time here, that he should still be a mere guest.
What if I don’t like it? What if Zan is studying me so carefully he realizes that all I can see here is another obligation—
Zan opens the door easily. “Let’s take a look. I’m not sure how long it’s been since someone was last up here, so it might be a little dusty.”
“How will I cope,” I murmur.
A flash of humor in his eyes as he looks back at me. “I make sure the plumbing stays maintained. You can wash off.”
And somehow he has both lowered the stakes and given me exactly the right incentive to get me through the door.