Chương 52: Chapter 51: Disease and the State

Her train of thought was abruptly broken. It was Corren again, adding something from the threshold before he disappeared. —I almost forgot, Selena. He smiled, a smile that, on his haggard face, seemed like a flash of light in the darkness. —I will answer two questions in exchange for the two you have given me. Let this be outside of our deal. Selena's eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened, genuine surprise reflecting in them. One more question. Two, actually.

She meditated for a few seconds, weighing possibilities, until her voice emerged curious, driven by something that had been circling her mind. —What is your pendant? Selena looked at him, scrutinizing him closely, her green eyes fixed on that moon symbol peeking out from under the collar of his brown shirt. The image from the day before —that visceral cold that had run down her spine upon seeing it— returned with force. Corren, however, smiled. There was no discomfort in his gesture, nor evasion in his gaze.

With an affable voice, like someone sharing a cherished but painful memory, he replied: —A memento of a man who once dedicated himself to the wrong path. A moon that marks the way to darkness. He paused, his fingers caressing the cold metal. —I wear it, so I do not lose my way. A little pain is always necessary to remind you that you are alive. He fell silent, waiting for the next question. In his dark eyes, Selena saw something that seemed to be regret or a painful memory. She swallowed hard.

Urgency burned in her throat. The shadow of Bjorn —the blond giant who had destroyed the Black Lock with terrifying ease— loomed over her like a vulture over its prey. She needed certainty; she needed to know that at least here, in this refuge of heretics and thinkers, she would be safe. —Is it safe here? Corren looked her directly in the eyes. For an instant, his expression changed. Affability gave way to something deeper, more grave.

As if he could see beyond the superficial question, straight into the fear motivating it. —I know your friend fears the pyre— he said slowly. —I have seen it in many people over the years. He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice held absolute conviction, a certainty that seemed carved into the very stone of the cave. —But you, Selena, what could you possibly fear? The question hung in the air, laden with implications. Then, without waiting for an answer, he continued: —This cave is safe. It is.

As long as I am here, no one can harm you. As long as I am here, there is no guard or soldier who can end the Path. There was a promise in his words, a tacit oath. And Selena, despite all the doubts she still harbored about him, about this place, about everything, felt that she could believe him. She only nodded. She couldn't say anything, because she was interrupted again by the Master.

—Now, Selena— he said, his tone more relaxed, contemplative —I shall retire to meditate on this new philosophy of thought you have gifted me. He looked at her one last time before moving away, and added: —Do not forget House Solendra. We are standing in their Great Duchy. And then he vanished, his figure swallowed by the stone passage, leaving Selena alone with her thoughts and her questions. Selena thought about it no further. The answer was clear: she was safe.

Corren had said it with conviction that admitted no doubt, and for now, that was enough. She headed straight for the bookshelves. Her fingers passed over the spines one by one, caressing leather, parchment, and cloth, feeling the textures like one stroking the backs of sleeping animals. Titles were varied and colorful, authors whose names were a mystery. Until she reached the brown ones.

They were all crowded in the center of one of the shelves, pressed against each other as if sharing a secret, they did not want to reveal separately. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Reading little by little, she scanned the titles. One, massive in size, promised"Annals of the Flow: A History of the Kingdom of Erabergh" by one Orin of Kaelburg. Its thickness was such that it exceeded the volume of her two arms pressed together.

It looked like a brick, a fortress of paper and ink that would require days, weeks, perhaps months of reading. Another, more modest, announced"Prominent Historical Events I: The War of the Three Counts" by Olmer of Ervin. A third, with a title suggesting a more pragmatic gaze, read"Iron and Silk: A Material History" by Valerio, Royal Chronicler. None spoke specifically of noble houses, of lineages, of those names she desperately needed.

Resigned, Selena was about to give up and look for another section when a title caught her eye with the force of a premonition.

"Plague and Power: The Blights that Forged a Kingdom" by Sibyl Liliana. The spine was worn, the lettering faint, as if the book had been read many times, as if many hands had held it before her own. Selena took it in her arms, feeling its weight, its texture, the promise it contained. She carried it straight to the desk and set it down upon the coralwood. Once there, she prepared to open it. The smell of dust made her sneeze for a second, a tiny cloud that danced in the lamplight before dissipating.

But she continued. She flipped through the first pages, reached the introduction, and began to read. The premise was powerful, almost disturbing: plagues, more than diseases, were mirrors that stripped society bare to its true face. The weak and the poor suffered and died, as always, in a litany of pain that surprised no one. But it was the effect on the power that the author highlighted.

Epidemics, she claimed, tore the nobility and the wealthy from their fortresses of comfort and pitted them against an invisible enemy that did not distinguish lineages, did not respect titles, and did not halt at castle gates. The volume focused heavily on how historical periods of plague had been exploited by the kingdom. It was a study of how the fear of death had been the hammer the Crown and the Church of the Sap used to forge and centralize their power.

In moments of great chaos, when people clung to any certainty like a shipwrecked soul to a plank, royal authority and faith in Aelthra presented themselves as the only bulwark against disaster. They imposed their will not by the force of arms, but by submission born of pure terror. Plague was not just a divine punishment, as the priests preached. It was a political tool, and fear was its most effective fuel.

The book was divided into two major historical events, each step in the construction of a power based on fear. Selena read the first with a detached awareness, like one watching a play from a distance, but slowly she began to realize everything. The First Great Plague (Year 1540 E. R.) This unknown plague, which decimated the population without mercy, had no effective medical response. Healers did not know what to do, traditional remedies failed, and people died by the thousands with nothing to stop it.

But it did have a brilliant political response. The Church of the Eternal Sap declared the disease an "imbalance of the Flow," a rupture in the sacred connection between men and the Goddess that only they could heal. They pushed for the first large-scale quarantines as an act of territorial control. Purification of rituals with silicariel sap became mandatory under penalty of excommunication. Obedience to the clergy was equated with survival itself.

He who did not obey, who questioned, who doubted, was marked as a heretic, as a carrier of the imbalance, as the one guilty for the plague. This event was the catalyst that transformed the church into a consolidated branch of the government, using fear to gain an influence over life and death that it had never held before. What the sword could not conquer, terror did. The clergy taking advantage of the people, Selena thought, without a single wrinkle of surprise altering her face. The same thing Kaela said.

The idea had surged from deep within her, from that well of accumulated knowledge she didn't know she possessed. And with it, a feeling that it was a repeated pattern, a predictable script of human nature. She turned the page with a gesture of disdain, almost of weariness, like someone attending a performance they have already seen too many times. The Second Great Plague (Year 3610 E. R.) Less lethal but more insidious than the first, this plague marked the medicalization of power.

The clergy, learning from previous experience, offered not only rituals and prayers, but "treatments." They used zintel tree wax and fungal milk in ointments which, while having some palliative effect on certain symptoms, served primarily as a vehicle for control.

It was during this crisis that the power of the Dust Sibyls was consolidated, those enigmatic figures whose "predictions" about outbreaks justified the closing of entire cities, the seizure of assets from those suspected of heresy, and the isolation of regions that opposed the Crown. Their visions, conveniently vague and conveniently precise all at once, became law. The plague proved that power could not only dictate how people lived, but also how they fell ill and how they died.

By medicalizing obedience, turning health into a privilege conditioned upon submission, the Church and the Crown wove a web of control subtler yet stronger than any army. The bitter aftertaste in her mouth felt familiar. A familiarity she knew she had felt before, in another life, in another world, when studying histories of similar manipulations, of powers using fear to subjugate.

Now she knew the Crown was not just ineffective at understanding disease scientifically —she had already suspected that— but that they used it directly for mass manipulation. It wasn't negligence; it was strategy. It wasn't ignorance; it was power. A tired sigh escaped her, carrying the weight of this new knowledge. And then, a thought struck her with the force of a hammer blow. Pira. The silent woman, the dust gatherer from the hostel. The one who barely spoke, who always looked on with those sad, distant eyes.

Her trade... dust gatherer. The same name as the Dust Sibyls, those figures of power who predicted outbreaks and controlled populations. Could she be a Sibyl student who has fallen from grace? Selena closed the book, letting her fingers caress the worn cover. The world grew more complex with each revelation, more intricate, more dangerous. But also, it is more fascinating. The pieces were beginning to fit. And she was determined to keep fitting them together, even if the path was filled with blood and fear.