Tristan hesitated for a moment, a pang of guilt playing across his features. “I just said that there were a lot of people who came through the tower, and—”
“Don’t play semantics. You deliberately deceived me.”
He nodded. “I did. I wasn’t ready to tell you. There were too many other things that needed to fall into place.”
“And you manipulated me into helping with that.”
Tristan furrowed his brow. “It wasn’t my first choice. But as I’m sure you recall, the first person who found the prison didn’t end well, and I had a limited time window to work with.”
“I…” I let my hands unclench. “You don’t know what it’s been like back at home without you.”
Tristan just shrugged at that. “I heard Mother and Father split up a few years ago.”
“That was just a small part. Father pulled me out of school. He was obsessed with ‘training’ me to be better than you, just so that I wouldn’t die in the spire like you had. It…wasn’t good for me, Tristan.”
Tristan actually laughed. “You think a little training is bad? You haven’t seen half the things I have, Corin. I’m sure that Father just wanted to help you be safe.”
“Safe?” I lifted up shirt of metallic leaves, and my own cloth shirt underneath.
Even with all the healing I’d gone through, and all the regeneration items, the scars from the blade of a dueling cane were clearly visible. “Does this look like he was trying to make me safe?”
“That’s…” Tristan shook his head. “I’m sorry, Corin. I didn’t know. But I’m sure Father was just trying to discipline you properly. You never were good at following instructions.”
Tristan smiled like it was an inside joke. Something that I should have been laughing at along with him.
I let my shirt sink back down, and I felt something in my heart sink along with it.
Tristan didn’t understand.
But how could he? He hadn’t been there.
He hadn’t seen it.
He hadn’t heard the shouting or felt the blows.
There might have been some “training” involved at first, but in the end, there had only been anger.
I turned my head away. “I can’t talk about this anymore.”
“That’s fine. It wasn’t what I thought you were going to ask about, anyway. I’m sure you have other questions.”
I nodded slowly, taking deep breaths to try to calm myself. “How are you alive?”
“Ah. Now that’s more like it.” Tristan smiled again, seeming pleased that things were going back to the script he’d prepared for. “When we grew up, they told us there were two outcomes to a Judgment. Succeed, and you earn an attunement. Fail, and you die. We always had legends about survivors, of course, but they were few. You latched onto them even before I disappeared. You didn’t want to believe the goddess would kill people just for failing some stupid test.
“The irony is that you were right in a way, but terribly wrong in another. It’s not that the goddess spares the failures, as you’d hoped. It’s that she does considerably worse.”
“Worse?” I felt my heart sink further.
Tristan’s smile faded. “You see, Corin, when I finished my Judgment, I met someone. A man appeared to me, and he told me something that sounded wonderful. That many of those who disappeared in the tower were still alive, serving the will of the goddess.
“He told me that he was one such servant — a Whisper. An envoy of Tenjin himself. And that I had been chosen as one of only a dozen candidates to remain within the spire to train and join his order.
“I knew even then that it sounded too good to be true…but I wanted to believe. And he told me that if I changed my mind, I would only need to stay in the spire for five years. I would be given an attunement — a powerful one, that no ordinary person would be given — and a new identity to use if I chose to leave.
“I asked questions. He told me about the basics of what we would be doing, and it’s much like a hundred scholars have speculated. People prepare rooms in the spire, change the connections. Prepare treasure and traps. It seemed reasonable, and I thought I could make a positive change if I stayed. Make the spires more efficient, less lethal. He assured me that others were already working to do the same. That the goddess wished to test us, not to kill us.”
Tristan shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter what the goddess wanted. She’s not paying any attention. Or, if she is, she doesn’t care.” He sighed. “The visages have been in charge for ages. And their interest isn’t in building humanity into something greater. It certainly isn’t in getting us to the top of the spires. The visages are just like any other petty despots. They have power now, and they’ll do whatever they can to keep it or expand it further.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that our society is built around a series of lies.”
His lips twisted into a sneer. “The ‘Tyrant in Gold’ rules the entire outside world. A lie.”
He turned his face upward. “The goddess watches over us and guides us on our path. A lie.”
He gestured to the whole room around us. “The visages do her will in the world, and help us to achieve greatness. A lie.”
“It’s all lies. The foundation of our culture is rotten.”
“We’re taught to avoid the world outside of Kaldwyn, but it’s not because it’s dangerous. It’s not because the Tyrant is in complete control. It’s because if we saw the other continents, we’d see other perspectives. Places that still oppose the Tyrant openly. And other lands where no one has ever heard of the Tyrant in Gold.”
“We’re taught that the goddess watches over us, but when has she ever intervened, for or against anyone? Selys may have existed once, but in effect, she’s as dead as the other gods. More so, perhaps. And if she does live? Look at her teachings. Look at how much is hidden from us. We are forced to worship her, and her alone.
“We are taught the outside world is dangerous, and few are even allowed to leave. People who know too much of the truth are kept imprisoned, as your friend Keras was, or branded to prevent them from speaking. What does that sound like to you, Corin? Because, to me, that sounds like the work of a tyrant.”
His words came faster and faster, almost hysterical. “But that isn’t even the worst of it. The visages are always seeking greater control. Perhaps some of them still believe in bits and pieces of the message that they espouse, that they will raise humanity to a higher standard.
“But look at their actions. When a kingdom — like Lavia, for example — grows too powerful? They smash it apart. When a culture clings too hard to old traditions that predate the coming of the goddess to these lands? They stamp them out. I’m sure you’ve heard that Edria had a visage marching with them during the invasion of Kelridge. Why do you think the other visages allowed that? Because human society has never been free.
“Their goal has never been anything less than the complete subjugation of our species. We are nothing but tools to them, game pieces to be played against the other visages in their struggles for dominance.”
I didn’t know what to say to all that. I pondered while he took a breath, and finally settled for a question. “How do you know all this?”
“Because I was a part of it, Corin. I was a Whisper. I worked for Tenjin directly. I learned the functions of the spire — and I watched hundreds, even thousands of people climb the spires. And I saw that as they rose higher, the challenges grew less and less fair.”