Chapter 18: The Quiet Light 18

"Something sweet," I say, "always. But I did just come out of a 500-year stasis and would probably benefit from more nutrition first." I frown down at the slate.

"...But?" Zan asks carefully.

"But," I say, "how much of that decision is really about taking care of myself, and how much is about following rules that were set out for me by people who didn't care if I was happy, only useful to them?"

Zan sits back. "Aha. Yes, I... understand the problem."

Yeah, I bet he does.

"How about this," he says. "You can have both, and I'll help you start. I want to take you somewhere that will have a dessert—very sweet, and made with dairy—that I think you'll like. So choose just one thing with nutrition, and that will be it for now."

You can have both, and I'll help you start.

He has given the matter of freeing sages more thought than he's allowing himself credit for, I think.

"You noticed how I went for the cheese and jam, I see," I say wryly.

His eyes crinkle with humor. "Hard to miss how high you piled that. The bread would have given out under the weight if you had shoved the whole thing in your mouth any slower."

I stick my tongue out at him.

His humor visibly increases—

But his gaze also snags on my tongue, and then away.

I glance back down at the slate before a full-on blush develops.

Still didn't get a laugh from him.

I'm not sure why I want it so badly.

I barely know him—but no, that's not true, is it? It's that I've only just met him.

It's becoming clear that even though we've never had a conversation before yesterday, we do actually understand each other on a deep level—whether that's a matter of comparable age and perspective, or our similar histories and challenges, or that what we want from life appears to align. Probably it's the combination.

But right now, I have an easier—well, no, smaller—matter to consider.

I turn my attention to the menu with deep concentration.

After a moment, Zan tells me he is getting an egg dish with tomatoes in it that I can try, so that's one item eliminated from the list.

And maybe that's the way to do it—gather more information as quickly as possible so I'll have more basis to make decisions later.

So I choose a sandwich of several other vegetables I don't recognize, and once the waiter has whisked our slates away I ask something that's been bothering me.

"You said Tasa had to rebuild Crystal Hollow," I say. "I assume that's because the Quiet suppressed any spells that were worked into the infrastructure that the priests tax people to renew. What I don't understand is how a null could rebuild those."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Zan leans forward and beckons me closer over the table.

I follow without question—

Okay fine maybe one question.

"Isn't the sound magically dampened?" I whisper.

I feel him smile against my ear and shiver. "No, it's acoustics. No magic needed. Just like with the plumbing at the cottage."

Wow.

Before I can think about that, though, Zan continues, "Kovan asked to use my scales."

I'm distracted enough by his presence, not to mention the revelations, that it takes me a moment to remember he's talking about how a null rebuilt an entire village.

"They had to be subtle so the priesthood wouldn't catch on," he whispers, "but my scales are baked into the foundation of many of the buildings here."

My eyes widen in shock.

Zan has definitely been underselling how much he's put into making an option for sages to be free.

"In aggregate," he explains quietly as I hold very, very still, "my scales form a kind of net that enabled small magics—the kind that are small enough that people used to be able to manage them without the priests—to work stably even in the Quiet, when bigger ones wouldn't. The priests merely believe that only minor magics, the kind they themselves don't value, can work here, and that they're unreliable. Which is true, since my scales are no longer in every appliance in every house."

But they were.

A waiter deposits plates next to us.

I look at the sandwich in front of me like it's a worm.

Can't I just have interesting magical discussions? Do I really have to maintain my body?

I sigh. It's probably delicious.

"So does that mean Crystal Hollow is free from taxation?" I wonder before gingerly picking up the sandwich, taking a breath, and chomping.

Whoa. That's... a lot of flavors all at once.

Zan snorts and leans back. "Definitely not. Priests may not enter Crystal Hollow, but they have a contact to handle tax collection for them. Ostensibly it's for martial protection—keeping Sanctuary Isle safe from foreign conquest. But in practice—"

"They've isolated it," I murmur, digging something out of the sandwich. "And kept Crystal Hollow dependent on the mainland for goods they can't produce in sufficient quantity themselves. What is this?"

"Bell pepper. And yes. Over the years the priesthood has taken pains to keep a strong hold in the province across the water."

Even when they couldn't get the result they'd wanted.

Just so that people didn't have an option of rejecting them.

"So Crystal Hollow still wasn't free," I murmur.

Zan regards me. "Is that what you tried to do?"

I blink. "No one knew?"

He shakes his head. "There were so many rumors. Enough for me to form a picture of what they had likely asked of you, but too many to be sure."

I wonder how close his picture came.

I swallow my next bite—it's a lot of flavors, but it's growing on me—hard. Suddenly, I want someone to know.

"I am Wrath incarnate," I say quietly. "I can walk through a battlefield and cause an opposing army to be so overcome with fury that they start murdering each other indiscriminately. It isn't even hard; that kind of thing, it's as easy as breathing.

"So when the priesthood learned—or fabricated—threats of rebellion, they wanted me to turn that against civilians. To walk through a town instead of a battlefield, and harness their wrath, and turn neighbors on each other. To use me as a threat to keep the empire in fear: Obey, or Wrath will make you kill everyone you love."

Zan's expression has gone hard. "That tracks with what I learned. But you didn't do that."

I close my eyes.

No, I hadn't done that.

I had destroyed Crystal Hollow and isolated them for generations.

But I hadn't made them murder each other.

The next bite goes down a little easier.

"I told the priests that I thought I could do it on a larger scale," I say. "That I could unleash Wrath on the populace everywhere, so they would only have to do this once to quash rebellion—no waiting for people to learn what had happened, to question whether it was real. Let everyone experience it at once, and the whole empire would know the threat was real. Rebellion would be crushed swiftly in a single, devastating blow. I told them I wanted to meditate at Celestial Sanctuary to focus my Wrath. The temple was a common place sages trained back then."

"But that isn't what you wanted to do."

He's very sure.

It's a relief, that he believes well enough of me to take that as read.

Or maybe he feels like he knows me, too.

Even if it's misplaced.

"Sanctuary Mountain is a volcano," I say.

"I know."

I suppose a dragon who can fly to the top of it would.

"I was going to use my Wrath to unleash it and destroy them all."