Before She Ignites (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)(92)
I didn’t want to waste my time defending the treaty to Altan, but he wanted to talk about it. Needed to, maybe. I just couldn’t decide whether allowing him to rant would put him at ease or make him more volatile. With Altan, it could go either way.
I forced my shaking hands into the folds of my dress. “What do you think they’re hiding with it?”
He stared down at me, eyes hooded. “The Mira Treaty sold the islands to the Algotti Empire.”
“That’s preposterous.” I bit my cheek. Like always, the wrong thing just fell out of my mouth, without guidance from my brain.
“Of course you think so. You were conditioned from birth to believe in the treaty.”
If only I could make that preposterous comment disappear. Now that I’d brought up a dissenting viewpoint, I had to continue this argument. I had to let myself be convinced of his rightness.
“All right,” I said. “Tell me why you believe the empire owns us.”
He shook his head and paced the length of the room; my brain uselessly counted his steps (three, four, five . . .). “I have a lot of reasons. I doubt you’d believe any of them.”
“I am literally your captive audience. Tell me why you think my entire life was a lie.” Too glib. That was far too glib. I clenched my fists in my skirts.
Anger laced Altan’s tone. “We aren’t in negotiations. You don’t get to make demands.” He pivoted and paced the other way. (Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen . . .) The anger ebbed, but didn’t fade.
I had to be careful. He had my friends trapped in a small space with a scared dragon.
Altan kept pacing, and the echo of my question feathered into nothing. He had said we weren’t negotiating, and I’d kept quiet, so he’d decided he’d won.
I waited. People loved to announce their opinions, whether they were asked for or not. He wouldn’t be able to resist.
Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight. His steps were even, precise, and clipped just so. “First of all, there’s the language of the Mira Treaty.”
I schooled the triumph from my face; this was only a minor victory. “I’ve read the Mira Treaty a hundred times.” A hundred and seventeen times, but who was counting? Still, I kept my tone even, maintaining the same invitation to prove me wrong. “Nowhere does it say that the document cedes ownership of the Fallen Isles to the Algotti Empire.”
“No, but the preamble says the islands bow to the one true authority.”
“The Fallen Gods.”
“The empire,” Altan explained. “The one true authority, according to the Mira Treaty, is the Algotti Empire.”
“How do you know?” I stayed defensive, but added a carefully measured note of uncertainty. Just enough for him to pick up on. Mother would be proud.
He shook his head. “Only one place has the audacity to call themselves the ‘light of Noore,’ and it isn’t us.”
That struck a chord. I remembered asking about “the light of Noore” as a child, and being reassured the light was the seven gods, come down from the stars to bring us hope and peace. Why wasn’t it lights, plural, then? Because the Mira Treaty united everything, even the gods and their light.
“No one used the phrase before the Mira Treaty,” Altan said. “No one on the Fallen Isles, at any rate.”
“Why would the Algotti Empire insist on Hartan independence, though? Or unite the islands? Or protect dragons? That seems like it would make it more difficult for them to conquer us.”
“We’ve already been conquered. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” He growled with frustration, but the anger had dimmed for now. “All are equal in the Algotti Empire. Territories cannot own other territories; it all belongs to the empire and to the empress. As part of the Algotti Empire, the same must apply to the Fallen Isles.” He pivoted again, still pacing. (Sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven . . .) “We are a single body belonging to them. They see no difference between Khulani and Idrisi, or Anaheran and Hartan. For now, we’re allowed to keep our individual cultures, but as time goes on, we’ll become more and more acclimated to the new way of life that comes from belonging to the empire.”
“What about the dragons?” I asked. “Why would they care about preserving dragons?”
“The Great Abandonment,” he said, like it was obvious.
“To placate us?” Surely the Algotti Empress didn’t believe the Great Abandonment was real.
He nodded. “The empress isn’t stupid, Mira. She knows that territories she conquers value their cultures and traditions and myths. So she makes a show of respecting them, and over time, her new territories begin to meld with the old. It’s not overnight, or fast, but she is patient. Eventually, she expects us to turn from our Fallen Gods and worship her.”
People in the empire worshiped their empress? But she was . . . mortal. How could anyone worship anything mortal? I’d always believed they worshiped the Upper Gods—those who’d stayed in the stars when our gods fell to Noore.
“The other proof,” Altan said, “is that we are shipping our dragons to the empire. Proof you’ve seen.” He stopped at the table and glared down at me. “Why else would we send the children of the gods to our enemies?”
I sank deeper into my chair. I believed in the goodness of the Mira Treaty. I did. But I hated how compelling that particular argument was.