Chapter 18
Even with Teren’s warning, the town hall is smaller than I expected.
“How many people live here?” I ask Teren quietly.
“About twenty-five hundred, give or take.” He leads us toward the back with no explanation needed.
When it’s my time to speak, I’ll be able to see and read everyone in the room.
Zan looks at Teren with sharp interest. “You come to these meetings regularly?”
Teren nods. “It seemed... prudent, given my situation, to get a read on things myself. And I can help Nomi keep the peace from the audience.”
Surveying the crowd, I understand why Zan asked.
It’s not much of a crowd. A couple dozen people. That’s like... 1% of Crystal Hollow.
That’s how many people make time for their neighbors.
For people to have a chance to have a say in their lives and not take it...
“It’s not apathy,” Zan says softly next to me as we take our seats, evidently following my train of thought.
Telepathy, or empathy?
“Then what?”
“They’re comfortable,” Teren says simply, and I suppose he would know. “Here they have the luxury of not having to think about politics, because the empire’s interest is limited.”
The Quiet did that.
It insulated them—and in so doing isolated them from each other.
Zan adds quietly, “It’s better here than you realize. This is a higher percentage than comes to many town halls throughout the empire, because they all want to maintain the life they have here.”
Is that supposed to be reassuring or profoundly concerning?
I don’t know enough to decide, so I try to look at what is instead.
The building for official town business looks the same as any other house on the outside, except that it’s bigger.
Inside, there’s only one large room for people to gather in, full of chairs, and a table where people have brought snacks and a water pitcher.
The room is otherwise empty and bare of. .. anything.
It’s a striking counterpoint to the personality all the exteriors in Crystal Hollow have.
I wonder if Sunani would paint it.
In the back is a door that presumably leads to the bathroom as well as a staircase.
“What’s upstairs?” I ask.
“Office. It’s where any official paperwork for permits is stored, the town seal, our taxes.”
I frown. “Who gathers those? There are no tax collectors, are there?”
Teren shakes his head. “There are five representatives that gather them—you met a few of them today in line. They collect the taxes and listen to people’s concerns and bring them up here.
Not everyone has time to go to a meeting like this every month—they have small children, or their job requires long hours, or they’re old or sick and can’t spare the energy.
So people still feel like they’re represented here. ”
Huh, okay. “Do their reps actually bring up their concerns?”
Teren says dryly, “Generally yes, or people choose a different representative.”
They choose who is in charge, rather than the person being chosen for them, as they do—or did, anyway—in the Order and in the empire.
I feel like my brain is breaking open.
It wouldn’t have been allowed if Crystal Hollow weren’t considered unimportant, but the implications are still stunning.
“And,” Teren adds, “the busybodies who want to be reps don’t want to be cut out of all the gossip and appreciation for their labor.”
Zan snorts.
Then Nomi’s voice from the front calls, “All right, let’s get this started.”
I blink and look at Teren again. “Is she in charge?!”
He smiles faintly. “Of course she is. You’ve met her.”
I didn’t realize she was the mayor. Even though she’s not—
Oh. I suppose since no one powerful would have accepted the lifestyle limitations of living here, Crystal Hollow must have had to develop their own governing structures.
Does Nomi being the mayor mean we have a better shot, or—
“Gisa, would you mind running this today?” Nomi asks. “I have a personal stake in an issue that’s coming up.”
Or she’s not going to use her position to bias the town.
But, she’s making an active point of that, so everyone is aware and her trustworthiness isn’t called into question.
Clever.
Gisa, the old woman from this morning with the sharp insight, gets out of her chair in the front row.
“Gisa was mayor before she retired and Nomi took over,” Teren whispers to me. “She’s been a representative too, so people know her and trust her. She’s almost always the one who fills in if Nomi is sick or has a conflict of interest, so this won’t make anyone uncomfortable.”
Which means they won’t be on edge. Okay.
“Well, well,” Gisa says. “I admit I’m surprised you’re bringing some personal business in today when I’m sure we all have a big question on our minds, so let’s talk about the dragon in the kitchen, shall we?
I’m old, I don’t have time to beat around the bush.
What in the gods’ names is with all the priests we’ve seen in town the last couple days? ”
An uneasy murmur sweeps through the room.
Gisa’s eyes are only for Nomi, though, who doesn’t flinch.
I sit waiting for her to answer, say anything, my tension rising each moment.
“Shit,” Teren mutters. “I should have realized we wouldn’t get to ease into this. Gisa always gets straight to the point.”
Zan covers my clenched fist in his. “Nomi is waiting for us,” he says, his voice carefully neutral in a way I hate even though I know it’s armor. “Your home—”
“Our home,” I interject sharply. I will get him to accept this, gods damn it.
“—is on the mountain,” Zan finishes. “If people know the mountain is accessible...”
Then they might access it.
Cutting people off from the mountain was never my intention; it was collateral damage.
Will people want to hike up the mountain? At least some.
I take a breath. I can probably cope with that, I think.
But.
“You won’t have a private landing pad, if people can come up whenever,” I say softly.
“There’s no stopping that,” Zan says tonelessly, squeezing my hand. “People will realize eventually.”
Is this why he thinks he has to leave me?
Gods damn it, does he actually have multiple good reasons?
No. Rational reasons, not good ones.
He will have a safe space, if I have to establish a whole damn new dampening field to make it for him.
“You’re getting a lock for our door, I will make a lock for your landing pad,” I growl, standing up.
At the front, Gisa’s eyebrows lift, and she says, “Do you know something about this, Yora?”
All eyes turn to me.
Performance under the gaze of a suspicious audience is nothing new to me.
I’m still angry about being put in this position, and it gives me strength.
Zan wants me to have space to choose for myself, but I don’t have it.
I want him to have space to be himself, but he doesn’t have that either.
This sucks and I am evidently going to have to do something about it, starting now.
Starting today, before he leaves me.
“Priests are going to be able to come to town in greater numbers, because the Quiet has fallen,” I tell the room, and immediately sit back down.
Ironically, this statement causes the opposite of quiet.
Only because I’m a sage can I parse the rapid flows of emotion this news creates—shock and fear are predominant, but there is excitement too.
And anger. A stirring of resentment, that their peace has abruptly been stolen from them without their consent.
I sympathize.
But I don’t regret my actions.
Zan didn’t deserve to suffer so they could remain comfortable.
Gisa raps her bony knuckles sharply on the desk in front of her, and the commotion quiets. “Interesting that a newcomer knows this. Is your arrival a coincidence?”
Teren did warn me to expect a question about the timing of my arrival with an unknown source of ice, so I was prepared for a version of this.
“I came to Crystal Hollow for sanctuary for reasons of my own,” I start.
Teren also explained that it’s normal for people to not volunteer why they came here, and the expectation is that people won’t pry. So this opening should be innocuous enough and resonate.
But to what we talked about I now add, “I have an awareness for magic, and under other circumstances might have joined the Order.” Had they not been obscenely shitty. “There was no dampening field when I arrived, and the priests must have realized the same.”
A big man in the front row turns to me—it’s Haben, the cobbler. “That how you’re getting ice, then? The mountain?”
Not what I was planning to tell them, but I suppose the dragon has flown the eyrie.
Quick thinking under pressure is also among my skillset.
“Yes. After I arrived, I traveled up the mountain as far as I could. There was no sign of the Quiet remaining, but I got high enough to access ice. I am capable of dealing with treacherous terrain, but it’s not an easy trek.
So my supply of ice is consistent, but since I have to carry it down myself I can’t offer it at scale—but nor will it affect your existing ice supply lines. ”
“How treacherous?” Haben asks. “We have some fit folks in town—”
Nomi interrupts, “Who have no experience climbing mountains, let alone icy cliffs.”
“If it’s a skill, there’s no reason some of us can’t learn it,” Haben says.
“It’s not practical,” a woman who was in my line says. Romasa. “How many people would it take to supply the whole town with ice?”
“I’m not talking about supplying the whole town,” Haben says irritably. “I’m talking about having a source for emergencies without having to pay out the nose.”
“And if we don’t go to the continent, they’ll realize we aren’t being honest about our resources, and what then? What if they charge us more money? What if they start poking around in our businesses and find other things?”
Romasa had seemed perfectly pleasant in my line, and she seems perfectly pleasant now, as she advocates for people to remain dependent for the sake of personal convenience.