“Have you given any consideration to the eventuality of rebellion?”

“That seems more like a problem you would encounter in your ‘Mount Gloria’. Or have you reconsidered my suggestion of organizing your servants into a worshipful mass?”

“Oh, my people will worship me. Me and not some silly overgrown plant. But rituals? Holy days? Structured observances? Mandatory public appearances? Ugh. No. Far too much work, far too little reward.”

“But the grace we can collect…!”

“I assure you, there are other, far less bothersome methods of extracting grace from a population.”

“Perhaps, but without their love you will always be in danger of the rebellion you are asking me about.”

“Love does not last, but fear? Fear can live on forever.”

“And you think fear will prevent them from turning against you?”

“Not in the slightest. They will all be against me. I will simply assure that they are set against each other even more strongly. That is a stratagem which will be closed to you should you desire their love however.”

“And should that fear fail and they find the courage to turn against you?”

“Visiting destruction on the occasional overly brave fool is a delight I look forward to with some glee.”

“Whereas I will not even need to lift a finger to destroy those who lose their faith in me. My people will strike them down for me and sing my praises as they do.”

– High Accessors Vaingloth and Sisarai discussing minor population maintenance issues prior to the Sunfall

The Garden isn’t a small place. In a sense it was the size of the whole world, given that the rest of the world was a sterile wasteland of death and despair.

Or at least that was what I’d been taught.

The things beyond the Thicket Wall were supposed to be the shattered pieces of the spirits of the Old World, remnants of the failure of the dead gods. By doctrine, they were near mindless machines of malice and destruction. If we could see over the Thicket Walls, we were told that all we would bear witness to was endless despair.

I’d never questioned that.

I’d also never questioned the idea that the Garden was beset by enemies from all sides, including below. Certainly, the enemies had to be real because they killed the defenders who were drafted with agonizing regularity.

So, who were they?

Not just broken spirits randomly lashing out at anyone who came close.

The veterans had plenty of stories of facing enemy troops, and the sorts of daring maneuvers each side pulled against the other (well, ‘daring’ for our forces, ‘underhanded’ for the enemies, because of course they were the hateful aggressors and we were the valiant defenders of the Holy Tree).

In not one of the stories though, and definitely in none of the doctrines, had our enemies ever been depicted as capable of speech.

They weren’t people.

They were monsters.

Which raised a question that filled my mind as I stalked back towards my home.

You just noticed that ‘your Intruder’ talked to you, didn’t you?

I’m not stupid.

What do you think the odds are that you’ll remember that?

Demons are never helpful.

I waited a moment on that thought, but of course no demonic help was forthcoming. She couldn’t find my Intruder for me.

Be very grateful of that.

My capacity for gratitude was as severely diminished as my capacity for rational thought.

Which might have been why I changed course.

I’d been heading home because that was the last place I’d seen my quarry, but she clearly wasn’t there.

Searching the entire Garden wasn’t an option since, as I’d noted, the Garden is impossibly large.

Also, people were already searching for her. 

Lots of people. 

Maybe the Tenders had focused the search in Blueshine. Maybe someone in the borough had caught sight of my Intruder, briefly, and the Tenders had narrowed their search so they wouldn’t alarm the entire Garden.

But that wasn’t how things worked.

Alarming everyone was absolutely their first course of action in most situations.

The True Sight spell they’d tried to teach us was proof of that. It was obviously a dangerous tool that they’d rushed to put in our hands at a time that could not have been coincidental with my Intruder showing up.

That the Tenders were keeping things far quieter than usual screamed that they were afraid of something.

But what could they be afraid of?

Holy Mazana hadn’t abandoned them.

Wait, had it?

I stopped and glanced up at the divine tree that was our sole sky.

I’d blasphemed against my deity, and I could feel the terror and the regret that was waiting for when I had a single instant to consider my actions, but my heart hadn’t abandoned the Holy Tree.

Only it’s minions.

Was god responsible for those?

Or were we supposed to listen to what the First Tender had taught us and work out for ourselves when people were falling short of the grace we’d been taught to cultivate?

I was pretty certain that was not how it was intended to work.

Wisdom and proper judgment were a gift given to us by those who were closer to Holy Mazana. If we thought we knew better than they did, then we were guilty of the sin of Hubris.

The same sin which destroyed the Old World.

I knew I was damned. I knew I wasn’t a good Sylvan. Even thinking the thoughts I was proved that.

Inside though a little spark of the fires of damnation still burned.

And the memory of saving Pulia lingered.

Who I had been was desperately trying to hold me back.

Desperately trying to bring me back to my senses.

Desperately trying to save my life, the life I’d spent so long defending.

I loved her. That girl I’d been.

She’d worked so hard. 

She’d endured so much.

I couldn’t throw away what I had. Not after all she’d invested in it.

“Sister, are you well?” The Tender had been walking past and should have continued, but something had given me away.

“I am blessed to stand in the light of Holy Mazana,” I said, injecting the kind of quiet cheer into my voice that was expected from a devout and faithful aspiring minister.

“What brings you to this place?” the Tender asked, his voice all concern, and his motives clouded.

“My class was released early after a mishap during our instruction. I was going to return home, but I did not wish to place a burden on my household. I thought to find a secluded place for prayer so that I could commune with Holy Mazana and understand how I might serve better when we are called on again tomorrow.”

It was a good lie, and I delivered it without a break or a pause.

Since it was what I was supposed to say, and since the Tender would be able to verify it later if he chose, he didn’t question it further.

“The Red Bark chapel is approved for silent prayer until nightfall,” he said and gestured in the direction of the chapel which I’d clearly already been walking towards.

“Yes Tender. Thank you Tender. If I may ask, is there a chapel approved for song? Our instruction today required an invocation.” I didn’t need to say any more than that. In fact I didn’t dare to. I didn’t need to explain that trying to think of a place where I could sing was why I’d stopped along the road. I also didn’t need to explain to him why I would be looking to practice a skill my class had clearly failed at. A lifetime of subterfuge had taught me that the best lies were the briefest and fewest ones.

“The Grey Deeps chapel will be empty for the next few hours, but you should go to the Red Bark chapel.” It didn’t have to be phrased as an order to be an order.

He was going to check in at the Red Bark chapel later. If he remembered. Either I would be there, or there would be word of me having been there, or he would know I’d been lying.

The smart move would have been to go to the Red Bark chapel, wait a couple of hours, and then leave to continue my search.

I couldn’t be sure I had a couple of hours though.

It felt like I didn’t even have a couple of minutes, but I knew that couldn’t be true I had to will that not to be true. 

I had time.

Not a lot of time. 

But some.

I put my thoughts together as well as I could as I walked to the Red Bark chapel.

And then kept assembling them into something adjacent to a plan as I walked right on by the Red Bark chapel and continued on to the Grey Deeps.

I’d been to the Grey Deeps chapel before. It was where the Blueshine borough celebrated its Renewal Day remembrances, and I’d sung in all of them since I was old enough to join the choir.

Seeing it again, empty and quiet, brought back memories of comfort and safety. The Renewal Day celebrations had been wonderful as a child, mostly for the treats admittedly. Later on though I’d understood the emphasis on remembering those who’d come before us, and had appreciated how the crowd of people kept attention away from me.

Alone in the chapel, those memories swirled around me and seeped in to give the “old me” added weight. The temptation to turn away from all the madness and crawl back into the life I’d worked so hard to build seemed so reasonable, and so right. 

My mother had made me a new tunic for each of the choirs I’d sung in. Could I walk away from that? My family had been so proud of my singing. Could I leave behind the love of everyone I knew? I’d felt like a part of something so much bigger than myself as part of the choir. Could I turn away from everyone who’d sung with me. Everyone who’d supported me?

And wasn’t that what demons did? Led you astray. Made you ungrateful for all the blessings you’d been given. Turned you away from the trust and love that had been freely shared with you.

Except that it hadn’t been free.

The tunics had been a coin paid in service to my mother’s prestige among her friends. My family’s pride hadn’t been in me but rather in the glory they could claim for being a part of a ‘prosperous house’. 

And feeling a part of something bigger?

The choir was a perfect reflection of my life. If I was a part of something bigger it was because I performed as I’d been instructed to. The words we sang weren’t my words, and I wasn’t the one who chose the notes or the tempo. The only role I was allowed to play, the only role that held a place for me in the choir, or in life, was The One Who Surrenders. 

The One Who Is What Someone Else Desires That She Be.

I sat down on one of benches at the back of the chapel. I could sing, or I could scream, cry or break out in hysterical laughter. I was free to rage or go mad and no one would hear or know. It was the perfect spot to put myself together and choose my future with a clear head.

If I’d been alone.

“You are a puzzle.” The speaker was behind me, hidden in the shadows at the back of the chapel, but I didn’t need to turn around to see that.

Or to know who was talking to me.

No one else sounded like my Intruder did.

“They told me you would be the first to let the hunters know where I’d been. But you didn’t.” She walked towards me as she spoke.

“They told me that you might hunt me yourself. Which it seems you did.” She stalked down the aisle beside me and I caught sight of that strange, fluid grace she moved with.

“They told me that you would make yourself bait for a trap, and that all you would do, no, all you could do, was to lure me to my destruction.” She walked down the row of the benches in front of me and stopped so she could sit opposite from me, facing me with her golden eyes.

“But that’s not what you’ve done, is it?” she asked, her eyes searching from something in mine.

“No. It isn’t,” I said.

It wasn’t hard. I’d made my choice.