Chapter 11
“Stay here,” I tell Zan tightly.
“No,” he growls. “They’re after you.”
“They might be here for you,” I retort. “And you know they’ll try to kill you if they find you.”
“They won’t succeed.”
“Yes, sure, but they probably won’t try to kill me. Maybe I can convince them to leave.”
Zan’s gaze searches mine. “You don’t believe that.”
No, I don’t.
But the problem isn’t whether they can kill me, or I can kill them.
It’s only twenty priests—on my own, even tired, I can take them.
The problem is that if I don’t defuse this now, next time it might be a hundred priests.
Next time, they might turn Crystal Hollow against me.
Next time, they might find Teren.
Next time, there might be nowhere safe for any sage.
No pressure.
“It worked before,” I tell Zan with zero conviction. “And I think it’s worth trying to not murder everyone indiscriminately. That’s what they wanted from me, after all.”
“It’s not murder if it’s self-defense!”
“And it’s only self-defense if they’re actually here to hurt me,” I point out. Then, softer, “I don’t know how I want to handle them yet, but I need to know what they want from me. I need more information so I can decide how to move, remember?”
Maybe if I think about this as information-gathering, I won’t psych myself out.
Because while keeping priests from knowing what I’m capable of, keeping them from getting angry at me, is among my skill set...
Defusing combat situations rather than resolving them with violence is very much not.
But echoing his own logic only pisses Zan off.
“And if what they want is to take you with them?” he demands. “They’ll say they need your help to make things right, or that you can do so much good with them, or you can make changes from within, or you can help their sages—”
I take his hand, and the warmth of our connection stops the flow of words.
He’s not angry with me. I know what that looks like.
This is a first in my life, but I still recognize that he’s scared for me.
So am I.
“I’m not leaving you,” I tell him. “No matter what. The first thing I woke up to was them trying to kill you, Zan. I know perfectly well that I can’t trust them.”
Zan still looks worried. “You don’t know how manipulative the Order in its current form can be.”
I want to say that I grew up with their manipulation so I am well-suited to spotting it, but he’s right—this isn’t the same Order, not exactly.
And having been manipulated my whole life may also mean that there are still aspects of it I haven’t untangled yet and could be susceptible to.
But I am on my guard.
“You know I have to try,” I tell him. “You can feel what I can, can’t you?”
Because as they approach and my sense of them is stronger, I can feel something else. A power stronger than any priest.
And that means they have a sage with them.
“The sage will be able to sense me here anyway,” Zan points out with a growl. “If you’re going to insist on going out there, you’re not going without me.”
I take a deep breath. I don’t like it, but I don’t make his choices any more than he makes mine. “Fine. Together, then.”
Zan’s eyes flash, visibly darkening for a moment, before he nods.
I take one last bite of ice cream—it won’t be my last, but it’s a reminder going into this of what I have to fight for.
Not just my and Zan’s freedom, but our joy.
We leave it behind and go outside, closing the door behind us.
The priests are just coming up from the path, but my eyes are all for the two people whose uniforms don’t match the rest.
One is clearly still a priest, but a high-ranked one, judging by the red accents lining his robes. He’s older and grizzled and severe.
A danger. But his type, I know well.
He’s the kind of person who raised me—trapped me.
So I am already predisposed against him, but whether that makes me more able to deal with him or more susceptible to him remains an open question.
Still, it’s the other that draws my attention.
She wears a pristine white outer robe that is tailored to fit her lithe form. Rather than keeping her hair contained for battle, it flows loose and wavy—as though she is allowed to express herself.
Or, as though no true duress is expected to befall her; as though she is not trusted to be responsible for anything that matters.
As though the image of her matters more than the substance.
And as they approach, she rushes forward.
“Sister!” she cries in apparent delight. “The tales were true!”
The priest in charge rapidly signals to the cohort behind her back.
Being on my guard had not prepared me for someone who apparently planned a full frontal assault in hug form, but the movements of the priests behind her give me cover.
Instinct takes over, and I shift into a defensive form before the sage can arrive.
Revealing that I know katas, yes, but that ship already sailed when I defended Zan before.
The sage stops abruptly, her face flashing with hurt—like can’t I see she was just trying to be welcoming, and this is how I repay her?
Yikes, Zan was right. This is new for me.
Maybe it’s feigned, but even so, it puts me in the position of looking like I’m the one who’s unreasonable and belligerent.
Damn it. I wanted to play it safe and not commit, letting them reveal themselves. But now I have to say something or else cede control of the narrative, which is infinitely more dangerous to me than their actual combat abilities.
“I don’t know you,” I say to the sage, “and you’ll forgive me, but the last priests who visited Celestial Sanctuary were hostile toward me. Would you introduce yourselves, please?”
“Oh, but that was a misunderstanding!” she assures me. “They would never have hurt a sage.”
Her bright yellow eyes—sage eyes—are wide and apparently guileless.
She’s older than Teren and I, I think, but not quite Nomi’s age, somewhere in between. An adult, but not as young as she makes herself seem.
But she’s not looking at Zan, and I’m sure we both know full well they’d have hurt him.
“We have so much to catch up on, sister,” the sage continues before I can decide how to respond to such a wildly misleading argument. “May we come in? I’d love to talk without all the—” she waves her hand “—formalities, you know?”
Ah yes, the formalities of having an attack squad behind you.
An attack squad that is moving slowly through a form that I keep half an eye on.
“You still have not introduced yourself,” I remind her gently.
While inside, my anger is rising.
This is a blatant attempt at manipulation.
The real question is, how much of it is coming from her?
Does she want to go inside to separate her from the people who are keeping her captive?
The red-rimmed priest behind makes no moves to gainsay her, but that could mean she is playing her own game under his nose.
I did, after all.
“Oh, you really don’t know, then?” the sage asks.
Damn it again. I’ve given myself away after all, it seems, if she’s apparently well-known enough that anyone would recognize her.
That is very different from my time.
Zan finally speaks from beside me. “This is Eraya,” he says. “The Sage of Compassion. She often speaks on behalf of the Order.”
Oh, that’s clever. Letting someone of her charisma be the mouthpiece, to make the priests seem oh-so-reasonable.
That means she’s likely not as innocent as she pretends.
And I think I know, now, what the priests’ slow form is doing.
Taking the strength of her compassion, and magnifying it, in an attempt to make me more receptive.
Now that I’m looking for it, I feel it—and see it, like light glinting around us.
That’s why I didn’t notice before, of course; I thought it was just sunlight.
It’s a light touch that will no doubt increase, but now that I know what they’re doing, my own wrath rises.
It is more than enough to keep them from influencing me in that way.
Eraya’s gaze alights on Zan for the first time. “I don’t know what the dragon has told you, but I promise you that we mean you no harm. Quite the opposite.”
“He hasn’t told me anything of the kind,” I say mildly. “We’ve had many other things to discuss.”
Etiquette among normal people may be a mystery to me.
But dancing this dance—fielding probing questions from priests who mean me harm, and navigating a path through them—
That, I’ve practiced for a lifetime.
“Oh, really?” Eraya asks. “Like what?”
Do you know the names of the trees?
“Have you ever tried Evermore Blackberries?” I ask. “I never knew about them, but they grow wild here.”
See, look, I can be innocuous and innocent too!
“Blackberries?” she echoes. “Oh, but we can have delicacies made with any kind of berry at any time! Surely you haven’t had to worry about how to feed yourself, have you? You’ll never have to think about that once you come home, I promise,” she assures me.
Never have the freedom to make my own choices, she means.
Yes, deciding what to eat every single time is exhausting, but I remember too well having to hide my preferences lest they be used against me.
While Zan just noted them to help me be happier.
The pressure of the compassionate aura increases with Eraya’s words, attempting to guilt me, to make me feel like she is trying to help me, and why am I so reticent? Don’t I want nice things?
But my wrath is a flame at the center, burning it.
I know it’s a trap. I do.
But there’s one particular assertion she’s made that I cannot let stand uncontested.
“I am home,” I tell her.
Eraya looks politely skeptical. “Here?”
Doubt curls through my heart—it doesn’t feel like mine, does it?—but I know it’s what she wants and I ignore it.
It’s why I’m contesting this directly.
They don’t get to decide what is home for me. I choose it.
And that’s a really fundamental thing I need them to accept, to believe that I mean, if I have any hope of building the life I barely know how to want.
“Here,” I confirm.
Eraya’s eyes turn sad; a calculated display of concern.
Oh, she is very good.