I’ve never known how not to overwhelm people with who I am. I can only hide it.
That, of course, is why I’m reacting so strongly to Nariel.
He doesn’t feel my presence as a burn.
“How did you do it?” I ask. “How did you kill your way to the top of the tower and then turn around and persuade bright young spirits to fight against injustice with you?”
Nariel huffs a disbelieving laugh. Dryly he answers, “Gradually.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Grand gestures have their place, but it takes time and many,manysmaller actions of a piece before people will trust you—particularly when they begin from a position of having reason tonottrust you. You have several legs up on me there, having not killed any other powerful wizard who challenged you.”
“Thank you for that image,” I drawl, and Nariel’s expression abruptly blanks. Oh lord, has he seen piles of dismembered legs? Quickly I ask, “Did being an exile from Bright Earth not help your case?”
“You mean, were spirits inclined to trust me because I was clearly working against Bright Earth’s interests? No. Angels have been exiled for pettier reasons, for one thing, and anyone who can be exiled is thought weak, and thus a target to... work out frustrations with angels on.”
I startle. “Are you weak for an angel?” Given how powerful he seems to me, that would be, uh, bad news, to put it mildly. Even given how little magic he has access to in Dark Earth—
Nariel smiles slightly, and his voice is velvet when he says, “Not anymore.”
I resolutely donotshiver, but I am going todreamof the image of that quiet self-assurance.
He continues, “I wasn’t magically weak when they cast me out, either—the exile itself caused that. But politically, my views were, as you might imagine, unpopular with more powerful angels. There were enough of them to matter.”
“Were they unpopular with weaker angels, too?” I asked quietly.
Nariel’s smile is wryer this time. “Hard to say, as given how I was treated, they weren’t willing to make themselves sacrifices on my behalf.”
But he’d still spoken. Probably if I asked he would tell me it was arrogance, unwillingness to believe that they really would exile him, or that it would be as bad as it was.
Still. After all this time, and after everything he’s been through, the angels are going to find that they haven’t taught Nariel to be silent.
It’s enough to make me ashamed that in the last ten years I didn’t figure out how to make myself a constant thorn in Evram’s side, but Nariel went through a period he isn’t proud of, too. We’re both going to make up for biding our time with action now.
Not that our situations are perfectly comparable, of course, as I also didn’t go on a wizard killing spree to get named their leader.
“I made it clear to the wizards here that I didn’t consider myself one of them,” I say. “That I thought I wasbetterthan them. Not because I knew more magic—frankly, most wizards I talked to didn’t really understand how good I am at magic—but because they’d all given up. I’m afraid demonstrating that theyshouldn’thave given up is actually going to make melesspopular. Like rubbing their faces in a mud pile of ‘I told you so’ with a side of ‘and now High Earth is going to devote all their attention to upending your life because of my actions’.”
“Ahh. You doubt whether you’re truly doing the best thing and wonder if they should in fact trust you, then?”
I let out a breath. “Yeah.”
“Then congratulations,” Nariel drawls, “you’re a sentient being with a conscience.”
That surprises a laugh out of me.
“Do you really doubt that the current situation is unjust?” he asks.
“No.” My answer is immediate.
“Then accept that you’ll have doubts and make mistakes, and stay the course. Revolution is messy, and revolutionaries are rarely as popular as history makes them out to be in retrospect. Plenty of people will dislike you, because while the current system may not be just, they have managed to be comfortable in it. One way or another, changing the existing system will introduce uncertainty, and people will be affected who wouldn’t have chosen to be. That’s inevitable. You realize that?”
I nod slowly. “I suppose part of the point is that I want people to be affected anyway who wouldn’t have chosen to be. I want them to have the opportunity to choose magic even if they don’t think they need it. I’m just... not tremendously comfortablemaking decisions for other people, I guess. I don’t really know what to do with people, you know? Maybe you don’t know.”
His eyes narrow. “Which means what, exactly?”
“Oh, just, you have a very easy charm about you, right? I’m not—I don’t know how to make myself accessible, or likable, or relatable. At least not with other wizards. Or anyone else on Low Earth.”
