Orynhel’s tone remained warm, fatherly in its serenity, even as the mages on either side of him seethed. At his age, he must have given this speech so many times to so many younger mages. Either he had started to believe the words himself, or Sciona was standing opposite Tiran’s master deceiver.
“I’m sorry, Archmage Supreme,” she said. “I was taught that the quest for knowledge is at the core of all magic”—a direct quote from Faene the First—“and self-delusion is the death of God, Goodness, and Truth.”
Archmage Duris rolled his eyes. “You see this, Bringham? Do all of you see now? This is precisely why we don’t allow women into our order. God made them to be mothers. They biologically don’t have it in them to do what is necessary.”
“The girl has a good heart,” Archmage Gamwen protested. “That’s no bad thing in a mage whose duty is to serve God and Tiran. Miss Freynan, I understand your confusion. All of us, I’m sure, remember when we learned the truth of magic and how difficult that was. This is the burden we all bear as stewards of God’s Haven. No one is telling you that this responsibility is easy, but it is a necessary one to maintain our city and to punish those who would defy God’s teachings.”
All the same rationales over and over, as though, by repetition, they would become true.
“You all seem so sure of yourselves…” Sciona murmured, then, realizing her voice had gone too quiet in pain, she spoke louder so the Archmages could hear. “But I’ve looked back on the historical facts available to all of you. I’ve run the numbers available to all of you, and you are wrong.”
It set a tremor through her whole body to speak such heresy to the heads of her discipline and religion. But if Sciona didn’t stand up to this, who would?
No one else can do what you do, Alba had said. There was no one else to stand up for Thomil’s people, for Carra’s future, for the sanctity of Truth in the face of this insidious lattice of lies.
“If what we do to the Kwen is not murder, if it’s all the will of God, then why hide it?”
“As you have just demonstrated, my child,” Archmage Orynhel said, “not everyone is ready to know the truth. Many minds are too weak, many hearts too soft. It would cause the common people too much distress.”
“Is that it?” Sciona asked. “Or is it that, if the common people knew, they might not see the Magistry as Tiran’s highest good—magnanimous, untouchable, above criticism?”
“Sciona!” Bringham said, more imploring than angry. “Stop! You’re unwell.”
“I know that,” Sciona snapped. “I know. But whatever illness has taken me, you’re all in the advanced stages. You’re all so far gone that you can’t tell a human soul from food for your ambitions.”
“Please!” Archmage Renthorn wasn’t the only one who scoffed at the statement.
“The Kwen are not people like you and me,” said Gamwen, who seemed to be the only archmage earnestly invested in out-arguing Sciona. “They are heathens who worship false gods.”
“We worship a false god if we persist in this lie!”
“Miss Freynan,” Gamwen said. “Please, calm yourself. They’re only Kwen.”
“Yes…” Sciona tamped down on the deep hurt in her chest. “That’s what I thought you’d say. That’s why I took this into my own hands.”
Only Bringham looked immediately concerned. “What?” he said. “Sciona, took what into your hands?”
“The future of Tiran. Truth before comfort. That’s what Faene the First said, right? So, I’ve decided to live those words, and I’ll have the rest of you live them, too, whether you like it or not. This city is going to know where its energy comes from.”
“Sciona!” Bringham was on his feet. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, it’s not worth it. Stop it immediately!”
“There’s nothing for me to stop, Archmage,” she said. “It’s already done.”
“What is already done?” Archmage Duris demanded.
“Wait for it, Archmage.” Sciona held up a finger and experienced a thrill of gratification as all twelve members of the Council stiffened at the movement.
“What are you—”
“Shh! Wait.”
Tiran’s clocks struck noon in a resonant chime of bells, the master spellographs shifted, and Leon’s Hall went dark.
The assembled mages looked around in confusion when the lights didn’t come back on immediately, but Sciona had anticipated this. After all, the master spellographs had to process Sciona’s extra sheaves of spellwork before reaching their usual siphoning spellwebs. But industrial spellographs worked fast, and it was a short wait.
The electricity came back up a moment later—to light and carnage.
Freynan Mirrors, each the size of the presentation mapping coil, had opened over the clock and lighting conduits above the Council seating, showing wheat stalks disintegrating in white spirals.
It had been simple enough to write a spellweb that generated a Freynan Mirror for each site the Reserve siphoned. The spellwork expanding the visuals to presentation size without the physical anchor of a coil had been more difficult to compose. But looking at the pools of crisp light and color now, Sciona thought she had done a decent job.
When the light above the archmages spun from the wheat to claim a hare, viscera lit the space in jarring red. Unraveling animal intestines spun in oversized detail across the wall, drawing shouts of horror from the assembled mages. Across the rest of the chamber, Freynan Mirrors blazed to life at every conduit—every light fixture and temperature control unit, showing where the appliance’s energy was really coming from. Grass and flowers burned up before the mages’ eyes, animal blood lit white robes red. The mirrors themselves made no sound, but it was only seconds before the screams started—not just inside Leon’s Hall but from the corridors and campus beyond.
Cleon Renthorn looked to the high windows in near-orgasmic awe as a thousand spirals of blood turned Tiran’s barrier red. Beside him, Mordra the Tenth was pale with shock. Tanrel covered his face with his hands. In the row behind them, a highmage crashed from his seat in a dead faint. Others buckled and began retching.
“Sciona, what have you done!” Bringham cried, as deathly pale as any of the highmages.
But by then, what Sciona had done should have been quite obvious: she had activated her Freynan Mirrors all over Tiran. Everywhere a public utility spell tapped the Reserve, people would see in full color where the energy was coming from.
And the city howled at the truth of it.
“I will not fear evil, for where I go, God’s Light goes also,” Archmage Thelanra was gibbering Feryn’s prayer, dull green eyes wide in horror. “In the presence of God—”
“I will not turn my gaze,” Sciona snarled the end of the prayer for him, “though Light burn me. For Light will show the Truth of the world, and all Truth in the world is of Feryn the Father. Behold!” She held her arms wide before the archmages. “God’s work!”
“Sciona Freynan!” Archmage Orynhel bellowed over the pandemonium, his voice chillingly powerful for such an old man. “You are under arrest!”