3 There Is No War #3
That last glass of wine seemed to have finally numbed him.
Words sprouted from his lips as he read Cassandane’s carefully prepared speech, omitting the more ingratiating points to her thunderous scowl.
He passed nervous students their scrolls with his congratulations while a drunk Harion nearly toppled into the wine fountain.
Once it ended, he surveyed the cheering with cool equanimity. It was time.
When Cassandane motioned him down from the dais, he spoke.
“Tonight, we gather from near and far to celebrate the five hundred who leave the Academiae’s halls.”
Riotous applause greeted his pronouncement. From a corner of the courtyard, Sarai gave him a quizzical look. Cassandane’s brows knitted. “What are you doing?” she mouthed.
“We salute that they shed their old haunts for new. We praise that they have been acknowledged by our most renowned school and found worthy to proceed toward what will largely be lives of prestige. In short,” his voice hardened, “you came here to celebrate change.”
The cheering faltered. Panic made bruises of Cassandane’s dark eyes. She began shouldering through the crowd to reach him. He was sorry it had come to this. Yet, she didn’t see what he did.
“Strange.” He let his gaze sweep the crowd and watched it quiver.
“For I have heard that many among you do not like change. You wish to teach your progeny the same bigotry that you were taught. You seek to maintain the same conflicts you grew up with in a balanced state of imbalance. You cultivate a new generation of enemies and scapegoats, so that when they fight back and war blooms you can blame history and roar that you have never been at fault. And your coffers bloat all the while.”
Cassandane’s frenzied steps halted. She stared as though he had stabbed her.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing,” Clay Guildmaster Septimus snapped from the agitated crowd. “How dare you commandeer tonight for your personal—”
“A land that refuses to change is a land doomed to rot.” His voice engulfed the courtyard.
“Yet, these students have been taught that to be radical is to ask for death, that progress is a few orders signed into force by a Tetrarch right before they die so they can’t be repealed, and that keeping the peace at the cost of justice is democracy.
The upper classes and Guilds,” he cast a sardonic glance at Septimus, “have made self-fulfilling prophecies of these lessons to the extent that they killed me.”
A hush fell over the audience. They parted when he swept down the dais.
“And I, too, learned a lesson. No longer will I leave progress to my last breath. I won’t ask our oppressed to wait.
So, on this night that celebrates stepping into the future, understand that the land is going to change.
” His lips curved as frenzied muttering built around him.
“And it will start with this, here, at the scene of my crime.” His throat thickened when he found Sarai’s gaze.
She had gone perfectly still, golden eyes blown wide in the moonlight.
Beside her, Anek pressed a hand to their lips.
“From this day, the Academiae will cease charging for entrance exams and will welcome students of all backgrounds. Prospective entrants will receive three tries to pass and a full scholarship if they succeed. The coin will come from my coffers, and this school will be richer for their presence. As for our graduates,” he cast a glance at the wordless group, “who undoubtedly wish to return me to the afterlife for running roughshod over their night, accept my heartiest felicitations and a gift of five hundred aurei each to smooth your journey forward.” He spread his hands with a glacial smile. “Goodnight.”
The courtyard erupted, setting the cobblestone thrumming.
Eyes darted from him to Sarai. Uproarious applause and wild whistles from the graduates, racing to his vigiles with open hands for their gold, yelling to him that this was the best night of their lives.
Cassandane tottered, white as a sheet. Guildsmasters and nobles swarmed him to screech about him destroying the Academiae’s prestige.
But he only had eyes for the woman watching him with a love of which he would never be worthy.
I love you. He had put her through so much, and this had been an announcement of war. Yet, Cassandane was wrong, because Sarai saw the battlelines too. She fought because the world had abandoned her, he had abandoned her, and she would leave no one.
He wouldn’t betray her ideals. No matter how badly he hungered to keep her safe.
Tilting his head toward Gaius, he smiled when she caught his meaning and raced over to the vigile who passed her the note he’d written hours earlier.
Grains Guildmaster Ioratius has a secret horreum. A nighttime stroll, my Petitor?
She scanned it and broke into a wide grin, cheeks pinkening, eyes bright.
And in that moment, he had never felt closer to peace, so there, under the veil of night and surrounded by detractors, he tried to imagine that there was no war in Ur Dinyé, that there was nothing he’d hidden from Sarai, and that the facade of his life would never crumble.
If only that were true.