Chapter 23 #2
And I will be ready.
Only when I have packed my aura tightly back under my skin do I meet Zan’s gaze again.
“We’re going hunting.”
Zan squeezes my shoulder briefly; an acknowledgement. “You have my fire.”
The first thing we need to do is find where Teren has been taken.
If Zan or I leave the island to search for him, the priests will have laid traps for us.
I strongly suspect the modern Order doesn’t really appreciate what I’m capable of, but it is to my benefit to wait until it is time to free Teren to allow them to find out, not before; that way brings us the greatest chance of success in getting him back.
But with Nomi back on her feet, she gets to work rousing Crystal Hollow.
Zan emotionally withdraws from me again—it’s something of a relief that it’s at least so easy for me to reach him through his walls—to make himself physically able to leave me and circle the island—at speed—while I go to the edge where in low tide there is a land bridge connecting Sanctuary Isle to the mainland of Kameya.
There’s no path now.
But as I gaze out into the mist, I vow that when there is, I won’t hesitate to take it.
And in the meantime, with the island silent, I begin my preparations.
No magic will enter here again without my being aware of it.
They won’t be stopped; this is not a wall.
But it’s a door with a bell on it.
When I return to town, the meeting hall is packed. Nomi is with the town representatives at the front, their body language urgent while the rest of the room is in an uproar.
Apparently Nomi didn’t wait to reveal the news.
Catching snatches of conversation, it sounds like some of Mujin’s sabotage has already borne fruit, too, with appliances needed for things like cooking no longer functioning. That’s making people both desperate and afraid of acting, which is, of course, what he would have wanted.
Standing on my tiptoes, though, I can make out one person at the front that I don’t recognize, and I assume that must be Jiran.
He must have been on the island already last night.
Unlike most Kameyans, he wears a beard—a closely-groomed one that nevertheless gives his face the look of someone who isn’t to be messed with. He’s lean and muscular and moves with the grace of someone who knows how to handle himself in a fight.
Which might be good or bad, because this is now a fight.
Jiran’s gaze glances to the side as Zan steps away from the wall at my entrance. Observant, too.
I meet Zan’s eyes, his face an impassive mask, and he shakes his head minutely. No sign of Teren on the island then. Damn it.
Not a surprise—we didn’t think he would be, but we had to rule it out.
Zan relaxes minutely at my return to his side, then tenses again. Like it’s equally difficult to have me close and far right now.
Away from me, he can ignore our bond more easily, maybe.
But I don’t want him to.
But I don’t want my presence to pain him either.
I fucking hate this.
Nomi notices my arrival too and pulls away from her discussion with Romasa in disgust. “All right, let’s get started,” she yells to quiet the room. “By now you all know that Teren has been kidnapped by the Order—”
“Do we?” Waten interrupts.
Most people are standing, with the elderly or people with injuries seated. Waten has taken a chair for himself, too.
Doesn’t necessarily mean anything; Sunani has one too. Plenty of invisible reasons a person might need one that are none of my business.
But since I already know Waten is an entitled asshole, I have suspicions.
“You don’t know that the priests took him,” Waten says. “He might have just run off in order to pressure us, and he’ll show up safe and sound in a few days.”
“We do know, since I was there,” Nomi growls. “The Order accosted me in my own home.”
“Which we have only your word for,” Waten points out. “Just like we don’t know that you aren’t responsible for sabotaging our houses, since you’re the person who knows the most about them!”
I would be up in arms about an accusation like that, but Nomi just rolls her eyes. “Which I would have done when, exactly, without you knowing? And how? I can’t just trigger your stoves to stop working, Waten. That’s not how anything works.”
“And weren’t you the one who said they’d kill you? I see you’re here safe.” Waten huffs. “I’m sure it’s all very sad for you that the boy is gone, but you are blowing this way out of proportion.”
Haben steps forward with a dark glare. “Are you really sitting here saying that it's an overreaction to objecting to being attacked in your own home?”
“If it even happened, we all know why,” Waten says.
This time, Romasa yanks Nomi by the arm to restrain her before she’s even moved a step.
I’m beginning to think their argument at the beginning was over Nomi’s ability to run this meeting right now without punching anyone.
Waten sees this and hurries on, “What I’m saying is that you are jumping to conclusions that serve your own interests at the expense of the rest of us.
The kid is gone, we don’t have a conflict with the priests anymore and there’s no reason to start one.
And we need their help now. End of story.
I know the boy was useful for providing blankets—”
The voice that interrupts him sharply is not the one I expect.
Sunani cuts in, “His usefulness doesn’t matter. He is a person.”
Her voice is quiet but sure.
The whole room hears it.
Waten doesn’t appear to notice the effect Sunani speaking up at all has on the attention of the room because he continues, “So are the priests, and I see you didn’t invite any of them here today to speak for themselves, did you? Someone has to.”
This time it’s Gisa who counters him calmly. “You do not, in fact, have to speak up for kidnappers. The only reason to is if you think you owe them something.”
“Of course we owe them! We pay them our tithe every quarter, as Jiran here can attest. Are you accusing me of something?”
Jiran does not, as far as I can see, react to Waten’s attempt to garner backup from that quarter.
“I wasn’t,” Gisa says mildly, a neat trick with the past tense. “I’m sure you talked to priests yesterday the same as the rest of us did.”
“That’s right, we all talked to the priests.”
“I wasn’t with you for that conversation, though, was I?” Nomi says. “I think everyone in this room can attest that I was with them when the Sage of Compassion spoke to them. What did you talk about, Waten?”
Waten looks around the room and sees all the people nodding; realizes how Gisa has trapped him and flushes. “I didn’t do anything wrong. There’s nothing wrong with talking to a priest now, is there?”
“Did you tell them where I live?” Nomi demands.
“Since when is that secret knowledge?”
Nomi roars, “Since you knew they were looking to kidnap one of our own and you told them how to do it!”
Zan grips my hand to anchor me as I breathe, holding my aura in with an effort of will.
Waten obeyed in advance. Before the Order even had to try.
The room is on its feet now, and Waten jumps up too, all the way onto his chair.
“One of our own?” he yells. “We are people here! And you were going to risk all of us for a monster who’s been lying to us for years, putting all of us at risk?
I did what anyone would do! And the only reason any of you are mad about it is because I stepped up so you wouldn’t have to! ”
There is truth in his words, bitter to swallow as they may be, and even as the room erupts into shouting, I think many of the people here know it.
What would people have said to Eraya, had Nomi not been standing right there? Nomi was even more tactical than I realized.
But so was Eraya: leaving Nomi behind for now so as not to push too hard, too fast.
To see what Crystal Hollow will tolerate easily, encouraging them to bend and bend and bend rather than snap.
Then Jiran stands up.
It doesn’t quiet the room.
Not until he starts to simply walk away without saying anything, that is.
And what needs to be said, anyway?
This is not a town ready for a revolution against the Order. These are people who have been comfortable their entire lives and don’t want to believe that they have to risk it.
What irony, that they sacrificed the Sage of Comfort to keep it.
But when Jiran approaches the door, I hold out a hand.
I’ve been holding back so hard.
And still, all the things I feared have come to pass.
The Order did turn Crystal Hollow against me.
They did find Teren, and they took him.
They did make it unsafe for any sage, anywhere.
So what is the point of not acting as my full wrathful self, if I’m still going to lose everything?
At least I can live as myself.
And if anyone wants to stop me...
They’ll have to deal with all of me.
And so will everyone else.
Jiran glances at my raised hand; at me.
“A moment more, please,” I tell him quietly. “There is one more thing you should hear before you go.”
“I think I’ve heard more than enough,” he says.
That some of them are ready, but not enough of them.
No—that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? It’s us.
It has to be us.
“Yes,” I agree. “So have I. And I miscalculated. But I think you’ll find that so did Eraya.”
The room’s attention is turning toward us, listening again.
“You on first name terms with a sage?” Jiran asks me gruffly.
“Oh, much worse than that,” I murmur.
But I meet Zan’s eyes, my gaze clear even as I see the answering clarity in his.
He will not be trying to stop me this time.
And not just because it wouldn’t matter if he did.
“Before we can build,” I say to Zan, “we have to prove that we will fight.”
And this time, I let my magic go.
I let the magenta of my wrath spill out of me, an aura that quickly encases the whole room.
But inside, no one goes mad with rage.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
I am holding their wrath in my grip and squeezing it.
I hold everyone’s attention there for a moment that stretches, letting the knowledge of what I must be sink in.
The knowledge of what I am.