Chapter 26
We do not actually have sex all night, to my eternal disappointment.
Zan actually laughs out loud at me and promises with a smirk that has me jumping on him again that he will make it up to me afterward.
I am holding him to that, literally and spiritually.
We will have time.
Zan can’t actually bring himself to leave me entirely, though—the mating instincts are too strong now. It’s all he can do to not touch me.
So I feel his gaze hot on me as I dance for him.
Wrath can be an expression of pure fury, but that’s not its only form.
It can be deliberate.
It can be painstaking.
It can be inexorable.
When Jiran arrives—or rather, gets close enough that Zan spontaneously transforms into his dragon form at the provocation of another male in the vicinity of his mate and then Jiran wisely decides to keep his distance—to tell us that the Order will meet us on the mainland-side of the strip connecting Sanctuary Island to the rest of the empire. ..
I open my eyes.
There is grass beneath my feet, where it belongs.
My ice cream waits for me safe in its house.
I know the names of the trees around me.
My vision is tinged magenta when I say, “I’m ready.”
Order cohorts wait on the mainland. This is clearly on purpose, because the land bridge connecting the island to the empire makes for a bottleneck.
Crystal Hollow can’t come in force if they have to come one at a time, or they risk being sunk into the water when the tide comes in. The priesthood has chosen their ground to their advantage.
But Crystal Hollow came anyway, and I glow fiercer because of it.
They crowd the strip of land.
I don’t really conceptually understand how many people live on the island, and this definitely isn’t all of them, but it’s a lot.
They’re not saying anything, but they’re there. Visible, present.
Like a multicolored spear tip of all the many kinds of people who live here ready to smash against a wall of oppressively uniform black.
It’s a stark contrast to the ranks of priests arrayed ahead of them in clear combat formation.
Who either weren’t expecting this show of presence or are planning something horrible—they are holding Teren hostage, after all—because there are more people from Crystal Hollow here than there are priests.
But:
The people of Crystal Hollow make space when Zan and I, flying in from above, land at their head.
They make space for us as we are.
And I have never been more glad—more proud—that I discarded my sage robe for color than I am now.
The golden light of the Sage of Compassion’s aura disperses with my mere presence, before I’ve even begun to counteract it on purpose, and that tells me a lot.
Wrath is on my side.
Compassion is not, truly, on hers.
At our arrival on the field, at the abrupt shift in the flow of magic, the priests reflexively move into forms, and Learned Mujin shouts at them to hold, preventing movement of any kind.
He is here, of course.
Before the priests; their head. The peak of who the Order of this day is.
At his feet sits Teren, looking worse for wear, as if he hasn’t slept or eaten in days. They haven’t had him for days, but being kidnapped and expecting to become a slave is draining in more ways than one.
Not to mention he’s also bound in lines of iridescent magic. Order magic. Even without being able to see all the lines, I can guess that it’s draining his power.
To show that the priests control the sages, not the other way.
It’s a show for all of us, but especially, I think, Eraya.
Because the Sage of Compassion stands before them as their golden sacrificial shield.
That’s her place with them.
When Zan lands, I flip off of him to land in front, facing the Sage of Compassion.
We are both, Eraya and I, at the front. We are both backed up by people, expected to lead the way and bear the brunt of any consequences.
Are we really so different, then?
Not in many of the important ways, I think.
Except.
Except, the people behind her are not here out of compassion.
But behind me...
Oh, I feel it, the simmering wrath.
The tide rises in me, even as I feel Eraya dig in and reach for her own reserves.
“I welcomed you,” the Sage of Compassion says to me. “I gave you a chance to become part of something bigger than yourself. And instead, you have done your best to ruin a town of innocent people. This is why sages must never be allowed to operate on their own.”
I look past her, not responding.
She doesn’t get to set the tone anymore.
“Hey Teren, how’s it going?”
“I don’t love being chained with magic for no reason,” Teren replies dryly, “but you’ll be unsurprised to hear that I have not in fact destabilized and gone mad turning everyone around me into a knitter as you all rightfully should be.”
They haven’t broken him yet. Probably haven’t had enough time—binding a sage’s power isn’t an ordinary sort of working.
Some sounds suspiciously like chuckles behind me.
Eraya hears it, and snaps. “This is not a joke. Sages must be controlled—”
“I get that they’ve told you that your whole life,” I interrupt her. “But sages were perfectly capable of controlling their own power five hundred years ago, and that isn’t any different now. We could be the same, Eraya. Teren hasn’t destabilized yet, has he?”
“He will. This is for his own good—”
Teren says, “Kidnapping me and taking away my choices and freedom is definitely not good for me, Eraya.”
Learned Mujin flexes his power, and Teren seizes in a rictus of pain.
That might also account for how Teren looks now.
“You will address her,” Mujin says, “as the Sage of Compassion. You are no true sage yet.”
My vision goes bright with wrath.
For a moment I see the world in shades of magenta, but it isn’t hazy; it’s clarifying.
“That’s how you justify it, isn’t it?” I stalk toward him, and he watches me narrowly. “That no one can reach their true potential as a sage without the guiding hand of the Order.
“But it’s a lie. A sage is a sage from birth. No priests ever throttled my power, and I am so much more powerful than Eraya that you can’t even comprehend the distance between us, Mujin.”
“Learned.”
I smile viciously. “No, you’re clearly not.”
?Focus, Yora.?
Damn it. I really want to lay into him. Learned Mujin is a problem.
But Zan is right.
Mujin isn’t actually today’s problem.
He’s not a victim; he’s a perpetrator. And I’m not here to save him.
Priorities.
Bullies are not worth my time, except to stop.
“And not being throttled caused you to limit an entire island of people for generations,” Eraya says, stepping toward me in turn, as though that will halt my advance.
Gold brightens, though not enough in the face of the growing magenta aura around me.
“By joining with the Order we make everyone freer.”
“Do we? And did I?” I glance over my shoulder. “Hey Nomi. How free do you feel, having had priests break into your home?”
“That was for you—”
“No,” Nomi interrupts her calmly. “I listened to you without interruption. Now it is your turn to listen. That’s the first step in compassion, in my book. Is it not in yours?”
Eraya stills.
A direct hit from Nomi.
Zan agrees in my head, ?She understood the assignment.?
In this form, he can communicate mind-to-mind with humans as he chooses. Apparently, despite Eraya’s role in this, Nomi is on board with this part of the plan.
Guardian of sages indeed.
I feel like I ought to be able to communicate with him mind-to-mind back, given our bond, but maybe I just don’t know how yet. Or maybe that’s only for dragons.
So instead I look at Zan, glance at Teren, and look back.
?He’s on it. Check his hands.?
I have no idea what Teren’s hands are doing. That doesn’t look like any kata I’ve seen, but it’s familiar somehow—
Oh.
It looks like knitting.
A form of movement he’s comfortable with, to flow his power through...
Except for Mujin’s hold on him.
All the while Nomi is saying, “We have lived without assistance from the Order for five hundred years. What do you think we actually need? Do you know? Because forcing us to be involved in your war isn’t compassion.”
“It doesn’t need to be a war,” Eraya tells her, eyeing the shortening distance between us tensely. “If enough of us join together—”
“That only works if it isn’t forced joining, sweetheart. And you’re not going to convince other people to give up their power without a fight. Is that really what you want to use your power for? Making normal people give up their power, instead of the ones keeping them down?”
Mujin steps forward—still behind Eraya, of course—and the magical ties binding Teren drag him forward too, which makes me grind my teeth.
“If you believe that the Order’s ability to care for more people is oppression, then you are part of the problem we are here to solve.”
Oh, of course, he wants justification for killing Nomi too. This absolute fucker.
“What, don’t trust your sage spokesperson to do the talking after all?” I ask. “What is she for, then?”
“The Sage of Compassion requested the opportunity to try to resolve this without force,” Learned Mujin says calmly. “She has had her chance.”
Eraya’s hands twitch—like she would have clenched them into fists, at being cut off before she could even truly start, but knows not to.
I recognize myself so well in that aborted movement.
Sages are not for holding still.
“You are obsolete, Wrath,” Mujin says. “We have other sages. You do not belong in this time. If you have learned nothing since your profound error centuries past... you will not be allowed to make it again.”
A few days ago, that would have been a score for Mujin. I wondered, before I woke up, if I was irrelevant now.
But I have moved in the world, since.
And I’m going to teach the people of this time what wrath is.
It’s more than just violence.
“Sage of Compassion,” Learned Mujin says in a tone that has Eraya tensing. “It is time for you to serve.”