In only a few years, she’d seen the Abidan control fall apart, and what kind of destruction that had wrought on innocent worlds. If they interfered and caused the inhabitants to deviate from Fate, it would only be worse in the long run.
“If only there were someone who could interfere without warping the very fabric of reality around them,” Ozriel mused. “People who could change the future without violating the Eledari Pact or ruining Fate completely. Some kind of Exec—”
Suriel whirled on him, and she shoved her blazing Razor under his chin. “Stop! Don’t talk like this is a joke. It’s not a joke, it’s not a game, and the solution is not so simple. These are people’s lives. You know that, so don’t make light of them.”
She returned her weapon to the task but continued talking. “More than anyone, I understand why you left. You saw them as people, as individuals instead of numbers. I respected you for that. Don’t lose it now.”
Once again, Ozriel didn’t react as she’d expected. She expected him to take off his jovial mask and reveal the ancient weariness beneath, but his smile didn’t retreat. It only softened.
“You know,” Ozriel said, “when I first descended to Cradle, I took myself seriously. I worked according to my predictions and my best calculations, though of course I had to leave most of myself behind to fit in a mortal body. I acted like I was there on a sacred mission, and I failed as spectacularly as I ever have.”
The Reaper looked out over the world of Verge and spoke of his failure almost proudly. “By my actions and my blindness, I led many of my descendants into death. I considered revealing myself then and there to change Cradle by force. The biggest temptation was to give up on my goals and get you to restore my family to life.”
Suriel almost said she couldn’t have done that, but he forestalled her.
“I know! They were killed by their enemy in Cradle, and I was playing by the rules when I set the events in motion. It would have been more of a deviation to resurrect them than to leave them dead. Even so, I wanted to ask. But I didn’t. I stayed the course.
“Having failed once, though, gave me something of a…fatalistic humor about the whole situation. If I was going to try anyway, why not have some fun with it? And over the years, a crazy thing happened: I did have fun.”
He gave her a smile that invited her to join him. “Just because the job is grim doesn’t mean you have to be, does it?”
Ozriel had said that to her already, centuries ago. He had joked around more than any of the other Judges she had ever known, but always with an…edge. A palpable sense of sadness that hung behind every smile.
Now, it felt like he had pushed some of his burden aside.
She envied him for that.
“Did you succeed?” Suriel asked him. It was a foolish question. She was better able to answer that question than he was, since she could look into Fate, but she wanted to know what he thought.
“In part, that’s up to you,” he said. “In part, it’s up to my students.”
Suriel thought of Wei Shi Lindon and felt a heavy regret. She knew Ozriel had deceived the entire Court, but she still took it as a personal failure that she had been staring at him all this time and still missed him. Since his return, she hadn’t looked for Lindon even once.
Somehow, she felt like she’d failed him too.
Ozriel saw her expression but continued happily. “I guess everything comes down to you and me, doesn’t it? Isn’t that comforting!”
Suriel looked back over the world that was destined to destroy itself out of greed and ambition. She couldn’t fix them. She couldn’t even save them. The best she could do was speed their path so she could save others.
“I hope it works,” Suriel said.
“So do I.” He watched a moment longer and then conjured a pair of cups from another world. “Tea?” he offered.
Silently, she accepted.
10
The Sage of Red Faith crouched in midair in his laboratory, suspended in a cocoon of cloud madra and surrounded by shadow so he would not be distracted by physical sensations.
Instead, he immersed himself in Yerin’s memories.
Her most personal recollections were vague, which he found frustrating. What was the point of privacy when it inhibited accuracy? It wasn’t as though he cared about her relationship with the young Void Sage or with anyone else.
Though he did consider requesting more memories of Eithan Arelius. He had only restrained himself so far because he didn’t want to reveal his intentions openly to Yerin; his impression of her from the beginning had been one of unnecessary defiance, and her memories had only reinforced that conclusion. If she knew he wanted her knowledge of Eithan, she would begin withholding it out of sheer spite.