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“Venholt… as in the Venhold Mountain Range?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then that makes sense!” Sciona exclaimed. “You know how the Leonid is

the basis of all Tiranish magic and morality?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Thomil said, clearly not seeing the connection. “I’ve had its contents preached at me.”

“Right! So, you remember the story of Leon receiving his visions from God?”

“Um…” The furrow in Thomil’s brow clearly said ‘no.’ Not his fault. The wording of the Leonid ambiguously referred to ‘the Mount’ or ‘the Peak,’ but scholars who had read texts from Leon’s contemporaries knew that these words referred to a specific mountain west of the Tiran Basin.

“Founding Mage Leon was in the Venhold Mountains when God showed him his visions of Tiran and gifted him the magical revelations to make it a reality. Now, Leon mostly cites direct instructions from God, but he also describes instances in which God led him to inspiration in the surrounding wilderness. There are later scholars, including Highmage Norwith”—she gestured to the open tome before Thomil—“who think Leon based the foundational principles of magic on texts he discovered somewhere in or around the Venhold Range.”

“Discovered?” Thomil raised his eyebrows.

“Yes. In the year ten Pre-Tiran. There’s um…

” Sciona flipped to a bookmarked page as fast as she could without damaging the antique volume.

“Here. Norwith collectively calls the borrowed texts the Vendresid , although you’ll find them called a few different names, depending on the source.

Some claim they were sheaves that God spun from pure light and bound into a book for Leon.

Some claim they were a series of stone tablets.

See?” She read aloud because she knew Thomil was slow to read on his own:

“So, Leon brought the Vendresid and its many mysteries to his stronghold in the basin and, from them, rose, at God’s command, the City of Tiran.”

Thomil was frowning down at the passage. “You know, there were Endrastae and several other tribes living in the Venhold Range back then?”

“Yes,” Sciona said, not understanding the way his expression had darkened. “Leon saved precious knowledge from the mountain natives before it could be lost to time.”

“Lost to time?” Thomil repeated with an incredulous edge in his voice that Sciona had never heard there before. “If the knowledge was so precious, why are we assuming they would lose it?”

“Well,” Sciona almost laughed at the absurdity of the question, “we are talking about Kwen.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning…” Sciona realized belatedly how the implications might have hurt her assistant and felt a pang of guilt.

“Not Kwen like you, obviously. You’re different, educated.

But on the other side of the barrier, it’s just a fact that Kwen tribes don’t have the best track record of preserving their own cultures and artifacts. ”

Thomil’s voice had gone cold. “There are some extenuating circumstances.”

“Yes, but currently , these runes survive and thrive in Tiran while Blight plagues the Kwen. Surely, the texts of the Venhold Mountains were ultimately safer in Leon’s hands—and more productive! I mean, look at what he created with that knowledge!”

Thomil didn’t seem convinced. “You said that your Leon received his inspiration in the year ten Pre-Tiran, ma’am?”

“Yes.”

“Blight didn’t start until the year five Pre-Tiran,” Thomil said. “After Leon saw fit to take magical knowledge from its rightful home. We Kwen have a word for that—taking ancestral items from people who aren’t dead. It’s called stealing.”

For a moment, Sciona was too scandalized to speak. When she did, her hands were in fists.

“Founding Mage Leon was not a thief! He was a great man. He wouldn’t take something unless he had a good reason—the greatest of all reasons in history, in fact.

His inspiration laid the groundwork for all of this.

” Sciona gestured around her to indicate the city itself.

“He’s the reason a place like this exists, safe from Blight.

He’s the reason you and I are alive to have this discussion.

That’s a pretty good reason, don’t you think? ”

Thomil didn’t respond—because he knew she was right, she decided, drawing her shoulders back. She was obviously right. Where on Earth had he gotten the idea that it was his place to question the Founder of Tiran—this city that had given him refuge from his own savage homeland?

Then again, Sciona liked that this Kwen was willing to argue with her—and about such strange and taboo subjects. This was something she never could have gotten from a well-bred, well-studied Tiranish assistant.

“I don’t know that I believe the purity of your Leon’s motives,” Thomil said, still, amazingly, unwilling to back down. “He couldn’t have taken the texts for safe keeping before he knew the Kwen was in danger of Blight.”

“But he did know,” Sciona explained, impatient with Thomil’s ignorance of very basic religious doctrine. “Ten Pre-Tiran was the year he received his visions from God portending Blight and the need for a stronghold to guard against it.”

“Right,” Thomil said in a tone she didn’t like.

“What?”

“Nothing, ma’am… It doesn’t matter.” He broke eye contact, finally seeming ready to back down. “Whether Leon foresaw the coming of Blight or not, you’re right. He built this city, which has kept many safe. His influence was positive. I shouldn’t criticize.”

Sciona should have taken Thomil’s retreat as a victory and left it at that, but Thomil’s tone wasn’t right, and she found herself pressing back into the fray. “He did foresee the coming of Blight. I just told you that. God sent him visions before it happened.”

“Yes, ma’am. But I don’t…”

“Don’t what?” Sciona prompted when the Kwen trailed off.

“I don’t worship your God,” he answered after a pause, “so I can’t believe that visions from him constitute truth the same way you do.”

Sciona opened her mouth in shock—though she shouldn’t really be shocked, should she?

Thomil always referred to Feryn as ‘your god’ and swore the heathen way—using ‘gods’ instead of ‘God.’ “But—your hair is cut,” she said finally, clumsily.

The mark of an unconverted Kwen was usually that he wore his copper hair long and unruly in the way of the tribes beyond the barrier.

“Yes, ma’am,” Thomil said. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a job in this city with the wrong hair?”

“Some.” Sciona ran a hand back through her own short hair.

Though she hadn’t cut it to conceal her religious affiliations as much to draw marginally fewer stares in a laboratory full of male mages.

It wasn’t quite the same. “I’m just surprised at you, Thomil.

How can you not believe in God? I mean, you’re a reasonable person.

You know truth isn’t subjective, and I’ve shared Feryn’s power with you.

You’ve witnessed it— felt it—at your fingertips! ”

“I never said I didn’t believe your god existed, Highmage. I just don’t believe he’s the greatest or only deity at work in the world.”

“How does that work?” Sciona asked. Feryn was the God of Truth. To worship any other deity was to live in the darkness of ignorance.

“Where I come from, each clan has its own god—or, more often, many gods—reflecting the things that give their lives value, the things that make them strong. You worship the god of your community, and I worship mine.”

“Well, you’re part of this community now,” Sciona protested. “You’re Tiranish.”

“Am I?” Thomil said. “Or do I just serve Tiran?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Thomil sighed. “It wasn’t my intention to offend you, ma’am. My beliefs just aren’t yours.”

“Well, what are they then?” What was so special about these Kwen religious convictions that they superseded the God who had created Tiran?

“I don’t know why it interests you, Highmage.”

“Is there something wrong with the Tiranish God?” she demanded.

“For you, ma’am, no. It’s always good for a woman to worship the gods of her foremothers. Your god suits you as he suits this city.”

“He just wouldn’t suit you?”

“No, ma’am,” Thomil said. “He would not.”

“Why?”

“If you must know, your god weighs souls differently from mine. Or, in mundane mortal terms, your people and mine have different senses of right and wrong.”

“What do you mean you have a different sense of right and wrong?” Sciona said, vaguely alarmed at the notion. “What does that even look like?”

“It’s…” Thomil sighed. “It would be hard to explain to you.”

“What?” Sciona scoffed, bristling. “You think I don’t have the capacity to understand Kwen moral structures?” Sure, the humanities were not Sciona’s strong suit, but it insulted her that he wasn’t even trying to explain himself.

“It’s not a matter of capacity, ma’am. It’s just that… Kwen morality tends to be beneath Tiranish notice, so I don’t think the underlying principles would be familiar to you.”

“Well, I’m taking notice,” Sciona said stubbornly. “You’ve piqued my interest. Explain.”

“Very well, ma’am.” Thomil looked down for a moment in thought. “Let’s say... there are two men who live in a city like this one. And, to make the story relevant to you, let’s make them highmages.”

“Alright?”

“The first man lives his whole life with good intentions, every decision made because he believes it to align with his values. Yet, let’s say that he pressures his wife into bearing children believing this to be the right thing, but it only makes her miserable.

Maybe he fast-tracks a building project because he is eager to see it completed.

The building collapses, and several of his workers die, leaving their families behind in poverty.

He gives generously to a beggar, only for the beggar to buy weapons so he can move on from begging to robbing.

This pattern holds throughout the man’s life.

The majority of his well-intentioned decisions end in disaster for others. ”

“And the second man?” Sciona asked.