Page 35 of Angel in Absentia (Light Locked #2)
“The people are solemn and deprived, with no concept of life or humor at all,” Idan said with the subtlest slur in his speech.
“You should hear their speeches about honor and sacrifice, trying to justify armies that recruit men and women as young as fourteen. It’s like being cast back to the post-war survivalism where everyone survived off of carcasses.
The Lodain people, even the royalty, still refuse to discard any piece of the animals they kill.
Down to its bones, they have a use for every part.
I barely eat when I’m there. I’m hardly sure what I’m being served. ”
Clea leaned slowly away from the balcony, lowering her hands by her sides as she listened, too surprised to alert Idan that she was there.
“All this talk about honor and sacrifice, but it’s just a balm so the people can tolerate the sacrifices they have to make just to live another year long.
It was painful to tell the king we’d be withdrawing support.
It’s clear that Loda is now in the crossfire and we can’t do anything else about their situation.
We’re safe here, and we can’t risk sinking the whole ship like they did with Virday.
It never pays to be a saint, and if people can afford not to, they never choose that life anyway.
The campaign for Virday was such a waste.
The city fell anyway. What does it matter that they saved more mouths to feed in a time when everyone is worried about the future? ”
She eyed the empty glass in her hand if only to look away from the vastness of the city’s wealth as she digested his words.
“I’m not obliged to marry, but her father did everything but beg me.
They’re so desperate to secure an alliance because they know we don’t need them.
That city is bound to go under, and it just took in refugees from Virday.
Barbarians from that backward city. How do they expect us to want to stick our necks out for them when they make decisions like that? ”
“Their princess, though, she’s not half bad, is she? Seems pleasant enough, easy to look at, and it doesn’t seem like she expects much from the marriage,” Merune said and seemed to pause to either take a draw of a cigarette or drink something. “I’m sure you could just do what you want.”
“No, she’s not half bad,” Idan replied, and his voice softened.
“And I can at least feel like I’m saving her from that wretched place.
She’s smart, but she’s not natured for politics.
Her father was saving her getting her off the throne.
She’d be better served with me anyway, especially since her city is on the course that it’s on.
She wants to learn, just doesn’t know how to live.
I just wish her father would stop requesting aid.
We took his daughter. What else does he expect?
They just have nothing to offer. You learn, you gain resources, or you don’t survive.
That’s the world. Principle is a luxury or an opiate. It’s not something to build a city on.”
Clea looked back out at the beauty of the city, understanding her father’s plight at last. She felt the dismay, stirred with inklings of betrayal, but having enjoyed the night she had, she was surprised at the lack of her own reaction.
Her father had been requesting aid. Ruedom had been refusing it. She looked at all of the wealth and prosperity and wondered even to herself, if she had all of this, would she risk it for someone else?
She acknowledged that there was a very real chance she might not. In that moment, listening to Idan, she didn’t feel anger, but understanding, and a sudden calm covered her as she looked out at the brightly lit city and took in the smoke of the air.
In making the decisions she had to push to protect Virday, she had strengthened her city’s spirit, but had she weakened its chances of survival? Made them seem reckless and untrustworthy in the eyes of their Ruedain neighbors?
Survival or truth. That had once been the choice Ryson had offered her.
Ruedom, the city of the mind, had chosen survival.
Listening to Idan and his criticism of her people, of their lifestyle, even by extension, of her, she was calm and realized in the quietness of the night what her choice would be, maybe not every time, but this time.
In the strangeness of the night, she wanted to laugh, and almost did, out loud.
There was humor in it, thinking back on how she’d been zealous to offer her life on a sacrificial mission to the Insednians.
What a mad idea, and now it was humorous because she realized it wasn’t Ruedain at all for her to have done that.
Just as Idan had said, martyrdom was certainly a Lodain quality, one she had disliked in everyone she knew, her mother especially. She had once resented them all for it, not understanding why everyone was so eager for death when she had been so eager to live. Now, she was, in a way, just like them.
She could only imagine Idan raising his eyebrows in that High Council room at her proposal. Everyone had been shocked, but hearing a Lodain person offering their life for the greater good of the city was boring for him, just another example of her people being foolish all over again.
Maybe there was wisdom to be found in both perspectives, and she’d been right to come to Ruedom to perhaps discover that offering her life so casually was not the best choice after all. Maybe there was a third option she wasn’t seeing yet.
She turned back into the room, resting her glass on the counter. She leaned down, kissing Iris on the forehead before returning to her room to change into a light-blue Lodain tunic.
She packed up her bag, looked into the mirror, and allowed her hand to settle on the golden hairpin from King Kartheen’s castle that rested in the chain around her neck.
She pulled it free and rested it on the counter, stepping back from her reflection and perhaps another version of herself she was at last ready to leave behind.
Like letting go of another shell, she felt lighter, and yet somehow more solid. She turned back into the main room, her bag and Ryson’s scythe hoisted over her back. She approached the door, opened it and looked back at the interior of the villa.
A few hours of quick riding and she’d be at her city before dawn.
She looked over at Iris sleeping and at the city beyond the porch, thinking perhaps this could be the last time she saw Ruedom, but also perhaps not.
She was no longer aching to survive and no longer eager to martyr herself.
Life was mysterious, and she would be open to the days ahead, determined to find a way to live, and determined to see death in earnest, only when it truly came for her.
???
She returned through the streets, still lively with music and bystanders until she made her way to the tunnels beneath the city. She presented herself to the tunnel guards and was provided with a strong horse before embarking on her own into the darkness.
The ride was long, and she was tired but thoughtful as the horses’ hooves drummed on to the first outpost. She exchanged the animal for another and bid farewell to the guards again, one Lodain and one Ruedain, before traveling on, eager to get to the city before sunrise.
She wanted to at least get some sleep before approaching the High Council in the morning to confirm her return.
Several more gates later, she was surprised to find a portion of the tunnel completely collapsed. She guessed she was close, likely not far from Dawn Field, and dismounted, climbing up to a small opening and having to peel back several small boulders to make room to crawl through.
She squeezed out into the opening, vague sounds calling her up a nearby ridge where she caught a view of her city from a mile or so off. She could see the dark gap of Dawn Field, illuminated by a vast, elaborate wall of white lines.
Her city shone with the tracings of starlight, pulsing and flickering as walls of blessings wrapped the city in a beautiful, haunting web of ansra.
The wind tore at Clea’s clothes and carried with it the ring of the warning bell.
Clea’s mouth went dry as she beheld her city in the night, hit with waves of darkness on all sides.
A corner of the city grew dark, signaling that part of the blessed barrier had collapsed, worn out from the night’s onslaught, or the caster killed by a curse.
Another warning bell signaled the breach of the walls, and a sea of black, an ocean of soldiers, spilled through the breach like an infection.
“No,” she whispered in horror before running back down the ridge. A hole had already been dug on the other side of the collapse, a passageway more enemies had likely used to target the underbelly of the city.
It had to be the Ashanas.
Not yet , she urged as she slipped into the tunnel, charging in the direction of her city. It wasn’t supposed to be now. Not this soon, not yet .
And she couldn’t help hearing a version of Idan’s words, echoing in her ears:
It’s only a matter of time. Their city is a sinking ship.