How fascinating.
“You’d be surprised at how much the Convocation keeps hidden in plain sight,” Kieran said. “Knowledge is power, as is the artful omission of it. Allowing the masses to know most of the truth while withholding some key details is an unfortunate element of public safety.”
A certain darkness passed through his expression as he said that.
“Why is that unfortunate?” I asked, curious about the tinge of bitterness behind those words.
Kieran sighed, leaning over the parapet and gazing off into the distance.
“Call me idealistic, but I don’t like the willful deception.”
“Is it really deception, though? It’s certainly not malicious,” I replied, interested in his perspective.
“A lie by omission is still a lie,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know, I’m certainly not one to talk here, but…”
I tilted my head, listening intently.
“There are a lot of things that I know about Sophrosyne that most of the general public doesn’t know, Arken. Things thatmost of this city will never know, and it can get burdensome at times.”
I had a feeling that we weren’t just talking about the wardpoints, now. I had always suspected Kieran’s job was… intense. It was written in his scars, the way he carried himself, the way that he held almost anyone at an arm’s length. I couldn’t pretend to understand, but I wanted to.
“I guess I just don’t like the assumption that the rest of the city—thiscity, of all places—can’t be trusted with a clearer picture. It’s not that I think everyone should know everything, but…”
Kieran took pause, glancing at me before returning his gaze to the skyline. As if he were second-guessing his next words, unaccustomed to saying things like this out loud.
“Do you remember what you asked me that day? When you learned about the details of the Cataclysm?”
I nodded. I only remembered because I had been embarrassed about that emotional outburst later, the one that had come up as I feverishly discussed my thoughts on the lecture that day.
“Why do they keep it a secret?”I had asked. I had been angry, in the heat of the moment, thinking about all the times I had heard mortals speak ill of the Aetherborne, pissing and moaning about how the gods were useless these days.“Don’t you think that mortals might behave a little differently if they knew the full truth of things? Don’t you think things might change if they knew what the survival of our species had cost the Elders?”
The way Kieran had looked at me then was similar to the way he was looking at me now. Like he saw me in full. Like he understood. I had never met anyone else who looked at me like that when I spoke.
“I remember,” I said softly.
“Sometimes, I just have to wonder whether or not it’s always for the best. We keep so much hidden for the sake of safety, and I often wonder if the ends always justify the means by which we do so.”
I didn’t need much of an imagination to gather what those means might be.
“Sometimes, I wonder if given the chance, the people of Sophrosyne—of Atlas, in general, really—if we could justdo better.”
I tore my gaze from the glimmering wardpoint, walking over to join him at the parapet and taking in the gorgeous view at his side as I reflected on his uncommon philosophical musings.
From this high up, I could see almost the entirety of the Wyldwoods, the tips of those towering trees bending gently in the breeze. Just past the forestry, I saw where the Pyrhhan Strait cut through the region, threading out into an estuary by the rocky coastline to the west. The sun was just beginning to make its late afternoon descent, casting the sky in hues of pink and orange, the wispy clouds above looking like handspun sugar floss.
“I’d like to think that we could,” I finally said after a couple minutes of silence. “Do better, I mean. Given the chance.”
“Maybe I’m just a hopeless idealist, but I’d like to think so too, Ark,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the skyline.
If Kieran was an idealist, then so was I. No matter how many well-documented centuries of greed and warfare existed in the histories of mankind, I did believe that we were inherently good, or at least that the goodness outweighed the wicked in us all. I also believed that much of those conflicts were born from disparities that could have been mended peacefully if more people had access to the resources they needed.
I could see now why even some willful omissions of truth might bother Kieran, considering he so clearly believed in thecore message of Sophrosyne, that knowledge is power. To omit access to that power was to leave gaps in our defenses in favor of artificial walls, operating under the assumption that we couldn’t handle or behave ourselves.
I was sure that, in his mind, keeping certain secrets felt like failing to protect his people, because he was failing to prepare them… And I truly couldn’t imagine what that weight felt like.
“I’d like to think so, too,” he repeated, this time glancing back at me.
Something in his gaze felt distant, unreadable in a haunting sort of way. Like his body was here in Sophrosyne, acting as an anchor to his mind as it floated off in the distance, to some place that was very, very far away.