Chapter 11 #2
“But that would be so lonely,” she says. “You could be with the rest of us. You’ve never been with other sages, have you? People who understand what it’s like, when your power is so strong?”
I blink, the only outward sign of my reaction.
Because I’ve suddenly realized that they’re not sure who I am.
I could be any sage that Zan has hidden away—a sage strong enough to destroy the barrier.
Do I tell them?
I want to know how their approach will change, but not yet enough to risk it—they’re already laying on the manipulation thick.
Because telling them that I’m the Sage of Wrath, the one who successfully defied them centuries ago, will probably make them more hostile toward me.
Which would be simpler to deal with in some ways, because magical combat I do know how to do.
But the whole point is I’m not sure I want that anymore, and until I am, I can’t set myself against the Order directly.
I’d much rather see if I can convince them to leave me and Zan alone.
He has been a rock at my side, letting me lead in this, despite all these current priests have done to him, too.
Giving me the space to make my own choices from the start, making that space, in a stark contrast to Eraya.
I wonder if that’s why.
If that’s the real reason he insisted on coming with me, his presence a physical reminder of what actually respecting me as a person, not just an asset, looks like.
“I would love to meet other sages,” I say easily. “I’ve heard there are many of us.”
Zan stills beside me. I don’t actually know how his telepathy works, but I will him to sense my assurance.
I meant what I said. I’m not leaving him.
Eraya smiles. “So many of us! And you never have to worry about accidentally hurting anyone, or being out of control. The priests take care of that for all of us. It looks like you’ve learned some katas, so you might be able to give back even more.
And that’s why we have this power, isn’t it? To help people.”
“It is,” I agree, not letting her see how nauseous her words are making me. “And I intend to.”
“So you’ll come! Then, let’s—”
“Oh, no,” I say. “I’m staying here. But if any sages want to visit—Celestial Sanctuary Temple used to exist for training sages to manage their own power, did you know? Perhaps—”
Eraya’s smile dims. “You can’t help people on your own. You’ll always be a bigger danger to them, even other sages. You know that, right? That’s why you’re all the way up here.”
Well that was a direct hit.
And makes it as plain as can be that she’s not trying to escape them.
I already know the answer, but it’s past time I directed this conversation for my benefit, not theirs. So very deliberately not looking at the priest in red, I ask her, “What would the priests have me do, do you think?”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Eraya assures me, as if this isn’t exactly the trap. “You’ll be comfortable, and safe, and cared for. You never have to worry again about managing on your own. The Quiet is no more—there’s nothing to hold you here.”
No, I suppose not.
Nothing but a basket of blackberries I picked myself, and an ice cream maker waiting for me.
Nothing but a young sage who needs my help.
Nothing but a dragon who sees me truly, the way no one else ever has.
Wrath is more powerful with clarity, and Eraya has duly provided it.
I understand very well what they want from me.
I understand better than her.
What I don’t know is what to do about it.
How do you convince someone who believes they’re trying to help that they’re in fact hurting not only you, but themselves?
Especially when it’s what they believe of you?
If you can’t convince them, how do you make them stop?
Eraya is waiting on my answer.
So is Zan.
And, I know, the red priest, who is watching this exchange like a predator.
Still.
Still, while my wrath does not control me, it empowers me.
It is my nature to take a stand.
The question is which stand will actually accomplish my goals, and that’s harder.
If we can maintain a dialogue—if I can pit myself not as an enemy, but as a person, and one worthy of respect—maybe someday I can reach her. But that requires them to not believe I can simply be overpowered—but also that I’m not dangerous to them.
It’s risky.
Frankly, I am dangerous to them.
I don’t even mean my martial prowess—I mean the fact of a sage existing outside of their framework is a challenge to the necessity of the framework itself.
That’s what I need them to both recognize and not recognize—to give me space to maneuver, without making them feel like they have to destroy me first.
I wonder, if in five hundred years of meditation, I have learned enough.
I take a breath, my heart pounding, and speak.
“I want to do something, though,” I tell Eraya. “And moreover, I want to be the one to decide what that is.”
Eraya tries to step toward me, to take my hands in hers.
I ward her off, not backing up.
This statement—so basic, and yet so anathema—must stand undiminished if this is going to work.
Her face tightens.
“I know it will be an adjustment,” Eraya tells me. “It’s hard to explain how free life can be to someone who’s never seen it. But knowing you’re part of something bigger than yourself—choosing to be part of that—makes all the difference.”
“And I don’t know how to explain to you that subsuming your will to another’s isn’t freedom, but its opposite,” I say as gently as I can manage, my whole body tight with tension. Please work. Please. “Thank you for offering me the choice. I decline.”
“You don’t even understand what you’re declining!” she protests. “I’m trying to help you. Help all of us! We can help the Order unite everyone, can you imagine? No more senseless fighting—”
Inside, my desperate hope is crumbling.
Five hundred years of meditation wasn’t enough after all, it seems.
You can’t be wise about the world without living in it.
She doesn’t respect that I’m worth listening to yet, that my choice is worth respecting.
There’s a way I can make that happen, but if it backfires...
I’m fucked.
But I’m not giving up yet.
“In my day,” I interrupt Eraya evenly, the illusion of calm, “sage power being used to take over the empire would have been considered heresy, you know.”
She stills. “What?”
My heart beats wildly.
Here goes nothing.
“Our power was never meant to be used for secular gain,” I tell her.
“That’s how it all goes wrong. The gods choose to incarnate in us to serve the people who aren’t being served already, not to bolster other authorities.
And attempting to influence people’s feelings without their consent?
” I look her dead in the eyes. “That would have been considered an act of war.”
“Eraya.” The red priest speaks for the first time, his voice the crack of a whip. “Retreat.”
She does so immediately, no hesitation, yanked on her leash—looking troubled for the first time.
Not, I fear, for the right reasons.
“You mean for us to believe that you are the Sage of Wrath, awoken?” the head priest asks.
“No one is introducing themselves,” I pretend-murmur to Zan. “What has happened to manners?”
“This is Learned Mujin,” Zan informs me, his voice, too, pretending as much calm as mine. “He is responsible for escalating the hunt for me.”
“A hunt long overdue that you have brought on yourself,” Mujin says grimly. “You have been allowed to act against the Order for too long.”
Oh yeah. I definitely know his type.
Nothing is ever his fault, and his authority cannot be questioned.
I suppose I am susceptible, but not in the way that makes his life easier.
“I get the feeling compassion isn’t his weapon of choice,” I note blandly to Zan, who huffs in grim amusement.
“I didn’t come to fight you,” Eraya says earnestly. “I came to fight for you.”
“You may believe that,” I say baldly, “but I do not. And since you have allowed the priests to neuter you, your power cannot touch me.”
The aura of compassion is palpable around us, strong enough that it ought to be smothering me. And I do feel it trying to constrain my movements.
But all I feel inside is wrath, and that means I can move.
They have made the Sage of Compassion insipid. She has no teeth compared to me.
She will claim that she doesn’t want to have teeth, and that’s half the problem.
Compassion could bite, if they hadn’t filed her down.
“If you are indeed the Sage of Wrath of yore,” Mujin tells me, “then the gods have seen fit to commute your sentence for a reason. You have a chance now to right your ancient wrong, and you may repent of breaking your oaths by rejoining us now.”
Damn it. I am playing into his hands, aren’t I?
I can’t have a meaningful dialogue with people who don’t believe I’m as much of a person as they are, with views equally worth considering.
If I stand up to them, I close that door.
But if I allow them to dehumanize me... I’ll end up right back where I started, centuries ago.
Clarity, at last: Whatever may come, I’m not going back.
“Ah, yes, breaking my oaths and rejoining the same Order that wanted me to commit mass murder. Do they not teach that?” I shift my gaze to Eraya. “Or do you just think letting these people use you will be different?”
“It is different,” she insists. “Sages aren’t worked like prisoners anymore. It’s a new era. You’ll see, if you can let go of your anger long enough to open your eyes—”
Anger is the reason for my clarity.
Letting it go would only make me easier for others to use.
“A gilded cage is a cage nonetheless,” I tell her, and look back at Mujin. “And I won’t enter into it willingly.”
The red priest looks back at me implacably. “Then you will rejoin us unwillingly, or you will die, so your successor in Wrath may serve where you failed.”
Ice pounds through my veins.
Gods, that escalated quickly.
This is exactly what I didn’t want!
I’m standing up for myself with my words for the first time, not letting them make me into nothing more than a tool, a weapon—
But somehow I’m still losing.
“You don’t want to do this,” Eraya says urgently. “You can’t stand against us. I know you don’t want to—you wouldn’t have let the priests before go, otherwise. And there’s no need to! We’re all on the same side. We all want people to be safe. Whatever differences we have pale in the face of that.”
Some differences, I think, matter more than others.
Like, if she wants to eat bread rather than ice cream, I think she’s wrong, but that’s her prerogative. That’s not a difference that hurts me or anyone else.
If she wants to eliminate my ability to make choices for myself, believes that I deserve to have fewer of them than other people, that is actually, meaningfully, super different.
That is violence, for all that it’s not physical.
“I am not the one making this into a fight, here,” I say. “I was minding my own business eating blackberries.”
Eraya shakes her head. “Sages are too dangerous to be on our own. You’re no exception.”
Certainly not, but not in the way she means.
Then her head whips around, and dread fills me as I realize why.
Her aura of compassion isn’t influencing me, but it was filling my senses enough that I didn’t detect sooner what I otherwise would have.
I feel Zan’s power approaching, which makes no sense since he’s right next to me—
Unless it’s his scales.
And I feel another power that after yesterday’s lessons I recognize well.
This is spinning out of control fast.
What are Teren and Nomi doing here?!
“Another sage,” Eraya breathes, then looks at me accusingly. “You were hiding him? You may know how to suppress your power, but you shouldn’t force someone else into that!”
“I don’t make anyone else’s choices for them,” I snap, “and neither should you.”
“Acolytes, form up,” Learned Mujin orders.
Oh no you don’t.
I tried, didn’t I?
I tried to reach their pet sage.
I tried not to start a fight. Tried not to give them any reason to target me.
I tried not to bring my wrath to bear against them; to allow them space.
But if they’re going to threaten Teren, who can’t defend himself...
What am I going to do, stay home and just eat blackberries? Obviously not.
And absolutely fuck this Mujin for thinking I’d allow him to take a slave.
He doesn’t, probably—I’m sure he’s just looking for an excuse to come at me directly, orchestrating events so that if I won’t join him, I act against him and thus justify his response.
He’ll have witnesses. Compassion’s wounded gaze as she tells the public that I am out of control, attacking unprovoked the hand that reached out to help me.
I move into an attack form anyway.
If I can’t win without making this into a battle, then a battle it will be.
Because this I learned long ago:
Some things are worth doing, even if it costs.
“Stand down,” I tell Mujin in a soft, deadly voice.