Chapter 24 #2
The Order was both more and less excited about me as a child, when I was all potential for molding in their hands.
Or so they thought.
“I genuinely can’t imagine that affecting Teren’s feelings, if that’s what you’re getting at,” I tell her.
“But does he know that it does matter, if he didn’t tell you?” Sunani asks. “Many people just act as though it doesn’t already affect my life—”
“Oh, no. I know I’ve only known Teren for days, but please trust an ancient sage’s intuition on this one. He knows that some things are not his to tell.” I scowl. “And he may have learned a little too recently what is his to tell.”
Sunani cocks her head to the side. Really thinking about that.
Then she nods, slowly.
“Me, too,” she says quietly.
And then she turns to the crowd of people watching us out of the corners of their eyes and unleashes a dazzling smile.
Anyone who catches sight of it startles.
I laugh quietly.
Sunani may be shy and not want to interact with people, but there is still rage in her, even if it’s quiet.
We’re going to get along just fine, I think in satisfaction as the first person finally approaches the table.
Zan returns just before I run out of ice cream—he once again manages to save me a cup without my noticing—and we start breaking down the booth.
He’s gone remote again. I’m glad I can bring him out of it, that I can reach him beneath this facade, but the fact that he has to raise so many walls just to be here with me makes me wonder if this really is worth it.
But lacking ice cream, no one is crowding the booth anymore, so Zan can update us on how proceedings have gone.
I didn’t have a view of Waten’s booth from here, but apparently he had a bad day.
The vast majority of people at the meeting apparently agreed to refuse to buy bread from Waten anymore.
People began organizing meetups to teach each other how to bake bread, banding together to make sure everyone will still have what they need.
And more are shifting to other foods—rice for savory meals, other desserts that aren’t baked.
Like ice cream.
“We’ll still sell him the flour he needs,” Jiran’s voice says from behind me, “but if Crystal Hollow holds the line, that will drain his finances faster. It’ll depend on how long they’re willing to hold out, and how it affects prices.”
The rogue priest is with Nomi.
I straighten up. “Does that mean you’re not leaving yet?”
“Depends,” Jiran says. “I think you and I need to have a conversation.”
We sure do. “Do you want some ice cream? There’s one last cup.”
It pains me, but I have more at home now.
I can practically feel Zan’s unhappiness at my offering what my mate did for me to another man, but he manages to keep his instinctual growl pretty quiet.
Jiran raises his eyebrows. “Are you trying to bribe me with ice cream?”
I blink. “No. But this is going to be a weird day for you no matter what you decide, and you could at least have some ice cream for your trouble. It’s good.”
Jiran stares at me.
Sizes up Zan.
“Another time,” he says finally. “Can you show me what we’re working with on the mountain?”
“Sunani and I will get all this home,” Nomi says, and then when Zan and I both turn to her she holds up a hand to forestall our questions and objections.
“We’ll be in public all the way there, Haben’s taking care of bringing me what I need to fix the door, Romasa is coordinating a rotation so I’ll never be with fewer than five people at a time—with at least one who’s a fast runner—and people are going to start bringing me reports there of what’s falling apart in town.
I’m as safe as I can be without being attached to your sides. ”
Zan and I exchange a look. Nomi is wearing the only other dragon scale talisman, but that doesn’t fill me with as much confidence after what happened to the first. “Maybe you should be—”
“No,” Nomi cuts me off. “You two can’t be everywhere, and Crystal Hollow needs to do this to prove that we can.”
I start to ask, is this really the time?
But the answer is yes.
The best time to start standing up was before; the next best time is now.
“Learned Mujin miscalculated,” Nomi says. “He may have gotten one person to panic, but he’s just pissed the rest of us off.”
“We’ll see,” Jiran says cynically, like he doubts Nomi’s read on the situation.
She is biased, obviously.
But she does also know Crystal Hollow, I think.
“Yes,” I agree. “We will.”
A priest, a dragon, and a sage begin climbing the mountain together.
Before silence can settle in, Jiran asks Zan to tell him about the ice line—where it ran, how long it was, its current state.
Wise of him to engage Zan rather than me, I think. I’m not sure how Zan will handle seeing another lone male with me right now.
I eat the ice cream while they talk, because what am I going to do, let it go to waste? And I feel Zan’s tension easing as I do.
He needs to feel like he’s taking care of me, I think.
When we finally reach the base of what was once the end of the ice line—there used to be a trail to rendezvous with the main path, back when it was wider, to bring the ice the rest of the way—Jiran breaks away from us to look around.
I have no idea what he sees, other than a lot of work.
And I can’t help being aware that Jiran said he wanted to talk to me, but he has not, in fact, talked to me yet.
When he finally comes back, he looks me in the eye.
I respect that immensely, from someone who knows better than most what magic is capable of.
“This is a big job,” Jiran says, “but you know that.”
I nod.
It wasn’t a question.
“Anyone who comes here, and anyone who lives here,” Jiran continues, “you’re asking a lot of them. You’re forcing them to give up their security, and their freedom.”
“No,” I disagree. “I want them to have real security and freedom. There’s a difference.”
I glance at Zan, then; see his gaze intent on mine, but shuttered. He’s trying very hard to keep himself out of this, and I finally reach my breaking point, even if he hasn’t.
I can’t have that anymore.
Security is about physical safety, but it’s also about feeling at home, and welcome, and safe. That’s what enables people to be their whole and best selves.
It’s about making space, and holding space.
That’s what Zan has done for me, or I wouldn’t even know what this looks like, let alone what it means.
“Oh, I get that,” Jiran says gruffly. “But it’s not how a lot of them are going to see it, and this is a big shift you need to happen really fast. Transforming a community for resistance.”
“I know.”
And I do.
But:
I meet the rogue priest’s eyes and say, “This is what sages are for.”
Jiran is watching me closely. “Right now, I won’t risk the people you need me to bring. It isn’t safe for them.”
That pisses me off, and I let my aura pulse with it because smothering rage is never useful, but I don’t otherwise act.
Because part of why I’m pissed is because he’s right.
Someone has to take the first step to make this place safe for anyone to come to, knowing it will be counter to what the Order wants.
And because I’m a sage, it has to be me.
That’s why we’re having this conversation, I realize belatedly. He needed to make sure I understood.
“It isn’t safe for them yet,” I say slowly, and turn to Zan. “I’m thinking punching thoughts.”
His lips curve up, but his gaze is keen. “You want to move.”
Yes.
“If we keep letting the Order set the pace, determine the rules of engagement, we will lose,” I say. “We can’t keep waiting to see what they will do, just reacting rather than acting.”
“You don’t need to justify yourself to me,” Zan says. “You do not need my permission to act.”
“Okay, but I would like your input.”
Zan shrugs. “You have my fire, Yora. No matter what.”
A rush of warmth floods through me—the bond.
Zan must feel it too, because his eyes widen, latching on mine.
We’re not even touching!!
But we could be.
“We have time, Yora,” Zan says in a hoarse voice.
Do we? With the Order pressing us—
No.
No, he’s right.
We have forever.
Or we could.
And I’m not going to let them determine my schedule for that, either.
“We have time,” I repeat, and Zan’s eyes narrow because somehow he intuits that I mean something very different by it.
Jiran asks, “What will you do with it?”
“I’m going to get Teren back.”
For starters.
I’m a sage, though, so I’m dreaming even bigger than that.
That’s what I’m for, after all: dreaming big.
That’s what all of us are for, when it comes down to it.
Whether with ice cream or wrath, I will make freedom.
Jiran narrows his eyes. “How?”
I smile wide. “I’m not going to react to whatever they’ve planned. Instead, they are going to bring him to me.”
The rogue priest’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Since the Order is evidently already watching you, may I ask a favor?”
Jiran crosses his arms. “I’m listening.”
“Oh, I don’t mean to start talking to people about the ice line yet,” I clarify. “But you have contacts among the Order, right? What I want you to do is to tell the priests that if Teren isn’t present when I go to meet them tomorrow, that they’re going to regret it. That’s all.”
And they’ll do it, because I’m not under their control yet. Any atrocities I commit might make me look bad, but it will make them look worse.
They’re still pretending to be on the side of people, and all I’m asking them to risk is a sage.
That’s all; and that’s everything.
“And then?” Jiran asks.
Great question.
I have a whole day to decide, though, and with a day... I can do a lot in only seconds; with hours—since they will not actually allow me a whole day, I’m not stupid—I can do even more.
The prep work for the Quiet took longer than actually creating it, after all.
And this time, I have five hundred years of meditation to make any preparations a lot faster.
“And then,” I tell Jiran, “I will show them and anyone else that I will not accept being controlled by the Order ever again. And if they don’t like it, which they will not, I will make it their problem.”
Jiran studies me. “You haven’t decided yet?”
“I know the important parts.”
Which is: what lines I will not cross.
And what lines I will hold at any cost.
That probably won’t be reassuring to him—
But as I watch, he takes a breath and asks, “Will you undo my binding now?”
Okay, that’s not what I expected.
Jiran reads the surprise in my face and smiles faintly. “The Order is already going to try to make my life harder just for being peripherally associated with you. If you fail, I’ll need all the tools I can lay my hands on.”
Ah.
“And,” Zan adds sharply, “because you don’t think she will succeed, and this will be a symbol that might sway others.”
Jiran inclines his head. “Just so.”
I glare at the rogue priest. He couldn’t have just said that?
Jiran smirks back at me.
Argh, quid pro quo for me not revealing all of my thoughts to him.
And also a challenge, I think, to see if my word is stronger than my wrath.
False dichotomy: my wrath is my bond.
I spin into a kata, using my irritation with him to power the damn thing.
Let him be the creator of his own freedom.
I can feel the shape of the binding, and in five hundred years it hasn’t changed.
In five hundred years, they have learned more ways to oppress, not to free.
With so many people, so much power, they could have made so many choices, and this is what they went with, over and over.
It stops now.
It starts here.
With a final move, I thrust my magenta-coated palm toward Jiran. A pulse of light shoots at him.
A web of gleaming black lines around him become visible for just a moment.
Then magenta fire flares up their paths, and they disintegrate.
Jiran stumbles, swearing under his breath.
Looks at his hands like he’s never seen them before.
They haven’t been his own for a long time.
“Why did you leave the Order?” I ask him.
He looks up at me with slightly wild eyes. “You’re asking that now?”
After removing the binding, he means.
“The answer doesn’t change what I was going to do,” I say. “There’s no reason your power should not be your own.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I don’t have to. I know what it feels like, magically, when a person is so dysregulated they cannot be trusted with themselves. Anyone else should be able to choose what they bend their power toward, even if I disagree.”
“Even if you’ll fight them.”
“Yes,” I say simply.
Perhaps the Order’s method is cleaner. But we are human; we’re messy because our emotions are messy. And we have a right to that.
“Am I going to have to fight you?” I ask him.
Jiran considers me. “If we get through tomorrow,” he says, “I’ll tell you.”