Crownless Tyrant Nov Chapter 84: The Word He Almost Said

Chapter 84: The Word He Almost Said

Silas was at the territory’s edge again.

Alistair noticed him from the kitchen window after dinner, standing just past the southern boundary stone, his coat catching the wind.

He had been doing this most evenings now, and not the way he had in the early weeks, when standing at the edge had been part of keeping the Characteristic running at full strength.

This was different. He stood there now, the way a man stands at a window in a house he had finally decided was his.

Following that, Alistair set down his cup of water and walked out without telling the others.

Due barely glanced up from his maps. Elara kept writing in her notebook, on the sa page she had been staring at since the afternoon.

The cold outside was sharper than expected.

The first edge of the season was turning, and Alistair was not going to acknowledge it. Acknowledging the season ant accepting it would keep happening whether he noticed or not.

He reached Silas and stood beside him.

Silas didn’t turn; however, he shifted slightly to one side to make room.

Neither of them spoke for a while.

Eventually, Silas said, "Does it get lighter?"

Alistair raised a brow.

"Does what get lighter?" he asked.

"The na you put away every day."

Alistair was quiet for a long mont.

Silas had not asked about this before, and Alistair was not sure how he had known. The answer was probably Due, or Elara, or simply the intuition of a man who had been at the base long enough to read silences.

Regardless, it did not matter now.

"Sotis," said Alistair. "For a while, then sothing reminds you."

Silas nodded.

He nodded the way soone does when the question they asked isn’t only about the other person.

’He’s asking about himself, too. He just isn’t going to say it,’ Alistair thought.

"How long did it take you to stop reaching for it?" asked Alistair.

Silas thought about it, and he didn’t rush the thinking.

"I don’t know that I have," he said eventually. "But the reaching is less constant. Sothing to do with there being people to reach for instead."

The wind ca across the territory in a thin line from the west. It was bitterly cold.

Alistair clicked his tongue and watched the flat grey beyond the boundary, the place Silas had walked out of three weeks ago, the place he had spent sothing permanent to leave.

"Silas."

"Mm."

"The wielder. When you told him what it would cost you to find him." Alistair paused. "Would you have told him if he had asked you not to say it?"

Silas was quiet for a long mont.

"He asked

to say it," he said finally. "That was the first thing he asked. He wanted to know the cost."

"And you paid it."

"I paid it."

"Was it worth it?"

Silas turned slightly, not toward Alistair, just a quarter turn so he faced a different angle of the territory.

He looked at his hands for a mont.

"The weight is mine now," he said. "Instead of owed. That was worth what it cost. Whether it was worth what I gave up to make it worth it, I don’t know yet. I’ll know in six months."

"That’s honest."

"I don’t know how to be anything else right now. The Dark Interval is smaller, and I don’t have the margin to hide behind it." He exhaled. "It’s a relief, honestly. I’ve been hiding behind it for a long ti."

Alistair frowned, his jaw tightening.

"Is that going to be a problem?"

"Sotis. Other tis, it’s going to be the best thing that’s happened to

in six years."

They stood at the edge a while longer.

Eventually, Silas said, "You answered my question one sentence more than you planned to. Earlier, when I asked whether it gets lighter."

"Yes."

"Thank you."

Alistair didn’t respond imdiately, however, after a mont, he said, "Co inside when you’re ready."

"I will."

Alistair walked back to the base alone.

When he stepped inside, Elara was still at the table writing. Due was mapping settlent distances. Neither looked up.

He sat down at his usual place, and the room continued doing what it was doing.

For the first ti since Caldren had stood at the territory’s edge, Alistair was honestly at rest.

Then Silas ca in.

He sat down across from Elara without speaking, watched her write for a mont, then picked up a piece of bread from the table and ate it.

Elara kept writing. Due kept mapping. Alistair kept sitting.

After a few monts, Elara stopped writing and looked at Silas.

"The wielder," she said. "The thing you and he built during the search. Due said he doesn’t have a word for it."

Silas looked up.

"Do you?" she asked.

He was quiet for a long mont.

"I think so," he said eventually. "But I’m not going to say it yet. I want to sit with it a little longer before I na it."

Elara nodded, going back to writing.

Due spoke from the other side of the table, without looking up. "That’s fair."

Alistair picked up a dispatch he had been aning to read since morning. The day had been full of other things.

Just as he was about to open it, Silas spoke again.

"Alistair."

"Mm."

"The thing Elara said. About the wielder. I want to answer it properly before the morning." Silas was looking at the table, not at any of them. "I told her I wanted to sit with it. I’ve sat with it long enough now."

Alistair set the dispatch down.

"Alright."

Silas was quiet for a mont. "The word I would use is trust, however, I don’t an it the way most people an it. Most people use trust to describe a belief that another person will behave a certain way in the future. I don’t believe anything about the wielder’s future. I don’t know him well enough to."

"So what do you an?"

"I an that on the day I went to find him, I was willing to pay what the finding cost, and he was willing to tell

what he had decided, and neither of us needed the other to agree to anything afterward."

Silas adjusted his position slightly.

"The trust was in the willingness, not the outco. I trusted he would say what was true about himself that day. He trusted I would say what was true about myself. We both did, and then we both went back to living the rest of our lives."

Alistair was quietly impressed.

"That’s a version of trust I hadn’t encountered before."

Due had set his pen down at the word trust. He was watching Silas the way he watched people when he was reading obligation structures without announcing it.

"That is not debt," said Due quietly.

"No."

"It is also not favor."

"No."

"It is closer to the thing a craftsman has with another craftsman at a different workshop. Two people who have never worked together and never will, however, who respect the work enough that if they ever needed sothing from the other, the asking and the answering would not need any preamble."

Silas looked at him. "Yes. That’s closer."

Elara had stopped writing.

She looked at Silas the way soone does when they have just heard a na put on sothing they had been feeling but couldn’t articulate.

"The thing you said to

yesterday," she said slowly. "The weight being yours instead of owed. That is the sa thing."

"Yes."

"That’s what I have been trying to build in the settlents. I didn’t know I was trying to build it. I thought I was just having argunts about grain storage."

Silas’s mouth twitched.

"Argunts about grain storage is how it starts."

Alistair watched the three of them without saying anything. He was honestly at peace for a mont.

It was a small one.

At that mont, three sharp knocks struck the front door, the kind a runner makes when he has co too fast.

Due’s head snapped up. Elara’s pen stopped mid-line.

Alistair was already on his feet.

He opened the door, and a Frunt courier stood there, breathing hard, his coat stained with the dust of the road and sothing darker at the hem.

"Sun Harvest," said the courier between breaths. "Tavin sent . The grain caravan from the Oasis didn’t co in tonight."

Alistair’s eyes narrowed. "And the wagons?"

The courier swallowed.

"The watch found one, half a mile off the road. Empty. No bodies. No tracks leading anywhere."