Blood Over Bright Haven

by M.L. Wang

“Women are always told to be kind, be forgiving, be nurturing.” Sciona glared down the walk ahead. “As far as I know, it’s never gotten them anywhere.

“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.”

It’s not enough to have meant to do good; if you don’t do good, most gods—those of the rivers, the sky, and the fields—don’t care for your motivations. Why should they?”

This is why I can’t worship your god or agree with the way he measures virtue. He allows this gray space for delusion. You take a void and name it ‘goodness,’ and it is so? If you can lie to yourself that you’re a good person, despite all evidence, then suddenly it is so? Then, within this system, anyone with enough self-delusion can admit himself to Heaven. This is nonsense.”

It’s much easier to tell yourself you’re a good person than it is to actually be one.”

‘A true scholar thrives on contradiction

“I can be civil, ma’am, or I can be honest. You can’t have both in their entirety.”

“The great magic practitioners of the Pre-Tiran Kwen were all women.”

Because a God great enough to spin such a world would never allow His mages to take human life. Bushes, maybe. Animals, maybe. Not humans. Never—

Even if she held to her conviction that God weighed a soul’s intentions, how could any volume of guilt or sorrow possibly cancel all the evil she had done?

“Daughter of Arras, do you think your father was a great hunter because he charged at his mark shouting his head off? No. He knew when to listen, when to wait.”

“Freynan, be realistic. We need a great deal of energy to keep Tiran in its glory, to keep its citizens safe and free and provided for. We could never find that much energy while wringing our hands about where it came from.”

“It’s literally not. We seek out energy sources, map them, siphon them—willingly, knowingly. How can you abdicate responsibility for that?” “By remembering that God gave His chosen mages access to the Otherrealm for a reason. He meant for us to use it.”

It was such a pleasing story, imagining that the Tiranish were simply chosen for survival by an all-knowing power beyond their control.

They did what a man was supposed to: they revered and obeyed the men above them, pursued greatness in the model of their predecessors, and, in the end, they were rewarded with power, acclaim, and dominion over lesser beings—a small godhood of their own.

Thomil said, “Whatever comes next, however history remembers Highmage Sciona Freynan, I want to remember her this way.”

She wants to die sticking it to those men.” “How do you know?” “Trust me, Uncle. It’s a girl thing.”

Sciona’s only distinction among these mages was that she was a more honest monster than any of them. And she would die an honest mage of Tiran: finely dressed and filthy-souled, taking with arrogance what was not hers to take.

With her soul in the spiral on its way to Hell, Sciona’s last thought was not of vengeance or legacy. It was of love.

But as Carra stood over Renthorn, Arras was in the set of her shoulders, Maeva’s unending love in her eyes. All Thomil’s shards took beautiful form, all his rage realized like a long overdue scream in red hair and red blood. She was Caldonn. She was the girl Thomil had raised, and there was nothing wrong with her.

To hope. Sciona lifted her glass, and Thomil raised a fist in return. To hope, Highmage Freynan.