Oh, good. A person invested in not rocking the boat while portraying other people as dangerous is just what we need.
Deep breaths, Yora—
“And who’s going to volunteer?” another man asks. Waten.
This one had not been pleasant in my line. He’d been so entitled Zan had had to restrain me from straight-up punching him in the nose for the satisfaction of hearing it crunch.
“You won’t see me volunteering to risk my life for a bucket of ice,” Waten says. “Maybe some teenagers have time—”
Romasa interrupts, “You think ourchildrenshould risk their lives?”
I tune out the squabbling as I look at Zan.
Because Haben’s instincts are right, even if he didn’t go quite far enough.
There’s an obvious solution to only one person being able to access ice: make the ice equally accessible.
If Crystal Hollow isn’t worried about my source of ice, I get to keep making ice cream.
If I get to keep making ice cream, well, first of all I get to keep eating ice cream whenever I want.
But also Zan and I have a place.
Even if it’s one I’m evidently going to have to fight for.
But maybe I’m not done fighting after all.
In Romasa’s defense, she’s not wrong that there will be consequences to Crystal Hollow having its own ice supply, and people being able to access Sanctuary Mountain.
But the consequences, ultimately, mean more autonomy from the Order.
“Do you know where the ice line ran?” I ask Zan quietly.
His eyebrows shoot up, then down.
Not completely telepathic, then. I feel a little smug that I can still surprise him.
Which fades when he responds, hatefully neutrally, “If you rebuild the ice line, you’re inviting people into your world. You won’t be able to stay separate from them, Yora.”
It’s not that he didn’t think of this, then; it’s that he didn’t think I would want it.
Because it won’t just be the people of Crystal Hollow on the mountain.
It will be a direct action to separate from dependence from the Order, which they will not take lying down.
But it’s timesomeonestarted acting against them.
They’re going to keep coming for me. That’s inevitable, after the disaster of our last meeting.
You don’t win a siege against overwhelming force by playing defense.
I can’t just keep reacting.
And neither, I think, can the people of Kameya.
Because after five hundred years, the Order is, if anything, worse.
Appeasing bullies never makes them quit.
