Teren just looks at me.
“You mademea blanket,” I point out, “and we’re just friends. Does she have any? Friends, I mean. I assume she probably has a blanket.”
Teren blinks at me.
It takes me a second to realize he’s not wondering about her wealth in blankets.
“Oh,” I say awkwardly. Maybe I have a secondary sage power after all. “Are we... not friends?”
What a great time to shove a bite of salad in my mouth.
“No, we are,” Teren says hastily. “I just wasn’t sure you’d realized. Since I assume you haven’t had any before either. But no, she doesn’t. Women tend to be jealous of her; it... colors their interactions.”
“Sunani already sees you as more than a friend,” Zan tells him. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“I don’t,” Teren says immediately. His fingers unconsciously go to the talisman around his neck. “And Iwanther to see me as a friend. That’s all it’s fair for me to be for her—especially if I can’t be honest about who I am.”
A chill passes through me, and I lower my fork.
I didn’t think it through.
Being with a person who might one day be kidnapped, as sages in this era are always at risk of... I can’t imagine how I’d cope if Zan was taken from me.
Well, no, I’d fucking burn everything in my path to get him.
And if he died?
I’d... probably also burn everything, but less discriminately.
Even ice cream, tied in my memories to him, wouldn’t fill that void.
I haven’treallyknown Zan that long. It’s not reasonable to feel this emotionally attached.
But sages are who we are because of our capacity for big, powerful emotions, and following the intuition they guide us on.
So I’m still sure that without him, there would be a void inside me; an emptiness that I’m not sure I could ever fill.
That’s what Teren meant when he talked about what he had to offer her.
Mechanically, I take another bite of my salad. It tastes good, but that’s incongruous with the direction of my thoughts.
For Teren to tell Sunani that he’s a sage is a risk. Even if she can keep a secret, it puts her in more danger from the Order, and how they might pressure her, or criminalize her for not turning him in.
And even ice cream is complicated for a sage.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say. “You’re right. It would not be kind to her, for her to be the only one who knows who you are. Or at least, the only one besides those of us who are already in our own trouble.” I glance at Zan. “And given that Zan’s use of scales in town wasn’t known even in Tasa and Kovan’s time—”
“That’s different,” Zan interjects. “The public perception of the danger of dragons—”
“Sages are just as dangerous,” I interrupt him with narrowed eyes.
“Yes, but the level of bigotry is different. You’re still human.”
Hmm. He has a point, but— “Am I?” I wonder. “I’m over five hundred years old, Zan.”
Something flashes through his gaze, but I don’t know what it is.
I assume I’m going to resume regular aging now that I’m awake, but I don’t really know that, do I? No one has ever done what I have.
