“Blackberries?” she echoes. “Oh, but we can have delicacies made with any kind of berry at any time! Surely you haven’t had to worry about how to feed yourself, have you? You’ll never have to think about that once you come home, I promise,” she assures me.
Never have thefreedomto make my own choices, she means.
Yes, deciding what to eat every single time is exhausting, but I remember too well having to hide my preferences lest they be used against me.
While Zan just noted them to help me be happier.
The pressure of the compassionate aura increases with Eraya’s words, attempting to guilt me, to make me feel like she is trying to help me, and why am I so reticent? Don’t I want nice things?
But my wrath is a flame at the center, burning it.
I know it’s a trap. I do.
But there’s one particular assertion she’s made that I cannot let stand uncontested.
“I am home,” I tell her.
Eraya looks politely skeptical. “Here?”
Doubt curls through my heart—it doesn’t feel like mine, does it?—but I know it’s what she wants and I ignore it.
It’swhyI’m contesting this directly.
They don’t get to decide what is home for me.Ichoose it.
And that’s a really fundamental thing I need them to accept, to believe that I mean, if I have any hope of building the life I barely know how to want.
“Here,” I confirm.
Eraya’s eyes turn sad; a calculated display of concern.
Oh, she isverygood.
“But that would be so lonely,” she says. “You could be with the rest of us. You’ve never been with other sages, have you? People who understand what it’s like, when your power is so strong?”
I blink, the only outward sign of my reaction.
Because I’ve suddenly realized that they’re not sure whoIam.
I could be any sage that Zan has hidden away—a sage strong enough to destroy the barrier.
Do I tell them?
I want to know how their approach will change, but not yet enough to risk it—they’re already laying on the manipulation thick.
Because telling them that I’m the Sage of Wrath, the one who successfully defied them centuries ago, will probably make them more hostile toward me.
Which would be simpler to deal with in some ways, because magical combat I do know how to do.
But the whole point is I’m not sure I want that anymore, and until I am, I can’t set myself against the Order directly.
I’d much rather see if I can convince them to leave me and Zan alone.
He has been a rock at my side, letting me lead in this, despite all these current priests have done to him, too.
Giving me the space to make my own choices from the start,makingthat space, in a stark contrast to Eraya.
I wonder if that’s why.
