Thern, Fir of Marla: 28 Xiven

For the next half hour, Kayin wandered the hallways of the cold, stone fortress, searching for markings above the doors that matched those on his paper. When he finally did, he stepped into the doorway awkwardly, and first found a stout bald man staring at him. A dozen children his age were crowded in chairs with chunks of charcoal and parchment in their laps.

“Prince Kayin, you are late.” Seeing no other way to respond, Kayin nodded in agreement. The man stared, then shifted his weight from one leg to another when Kayin made no other movement. “All right…. Will you have a seat, please, Your Grace?” Kayin glanced to the others in the classroom, who stared at him with strange expressions. He looked to the teacher, then to an empty chair in the back of the classroom, and started to it. Tensely, the teacher continued, “Uh, a-anyway, class, we’ll be moving into the dating system.”

Kayin slowly took his seat with pursed lips. A loud squeeeeaaaak echoed throughout the room once he had finally settled in the wooden chair. To his horror, almost every head in the room turned to stare at him. Now he saw why all the others avoided this particular chair.

“Teacher Dopi, why do we have a dating system based off of the number four?” asked one of the few students that didn’t turn around. The class returned to facing the front, and Kayin finally let himself exhale.

“Excellent question, Hannu! Let me write down all the days, weeks and months for you so we can better understand this fundamental idea.” Kayin gulped when the teacher went ahead and drew marks for the days on a large piece of parchment tacked to the wall: “Morn, Turn, Wern, Thern, Frirn, Satern, Sunern and Xern. That’s eight.” So far so good; Kayin could count correctly. Committing those squiggles to memory for when he had to read next was not going to be easy. “Weeks: Fir, Sir, Thir and Firn…and months, Janla, Febla, Marla, Apla, Mayla, Jula, Julyla, Augla.” The teacher spun around after writing the symbols and shapes on the board, and Kayin squinted to try and see where certain words stopped and began. “You will notice that four appears in all of these.” He circled sets of four words in each section and turned to the class. “Can anyone tell me why? Prince Kayin, why don’t you give it a try?” Kayin’s heart rate spiked immediately as the class turned to him, yet again. He felt the color drain from his face.

“I—uh, I don’t know…um…because…it’s an easy number?” For some reason, the class began to roar with laughter. Kayin ducked his head to try and hide the heat that rose to his cheeks. Sepik’s comment from earlier rang in his ears: Oh, no. You are as stupid as they said you were.

“Yes, yes. You are quite funny, Your Grace. Thank you for your humor,” Teacher Dopi said with a sigh. “There are thirty-two days in each month, right class?” The class let out a collective “yes.” Kayin remained silent. “Now, Prince Kayin, does that help you?” The boy stared, and a few girls giggled to his left. Teacher Dopi cleared his throat and watched him expectantly, then turned to the board. “We have eight months in a year, right class?” he started a bit louder. “Eight divided by thirty-two is…is what, Prince Kayin?” He spoke slowly, as if he was emphasizing a on a core concept.

“F-four?” Kayin guessed weakly.

“Yes,” Teacher Dopi said slowly. “Now can you explain why that is important, Your Majesty?”

“Because…it’s…divided…by…thirty-two?” The teacher stared at him, then turned to the board and drew a large circle with a few others around it.

“The solar system,” he pointed out with his ink on the large parchment behind him. “According to the four higher deities—we know them, right?” The teacher raised his brows at everyone, then lifted a hand as if to orchestrate everyone to speak at the same time. Everyone except for Kayin seemed to know what he was asking: “Ichaemi the air, Nycaid the ground, Ekyl the night, and Harash the day.” Teacher Dopi seemed pleased at the recitation.

“See?” he continued. “Four. According to our four higher dieties, our year has two-hundred and fifty-six days in it….” Teacher Dopi trailed off, and Kayin ducked his head with an acidic sinking feeling in his stomach. So far, his second day was going about as well as his first day here. At least he was out of loved ones for them to kill.

Confusion hovered over Kayin like a dark cloud throughout the entire lecture. Teacher Dopi seemed to learn that yes, indeed, Kayin was one of the stupid ones, and refrained from asking him any more questions. At least that made it easier to disappear into the sea of questions that delighted the teacher, rather than made him sigh.

“That’s all for today. You are all dismissed,” Teacher Dopi said finally. Kayin stood from his chair first, but had to wait for everyone to leave when the teacher asked him to stay behind.

“I want to speak with you about your performance, Young Prince,” he said. Kayin frowned, but approached when prompted. “You seemed a little discouraged as he class went on,” he said. “Is math not your strongest subject?” He shook his head. Math wasn’t even discussed like this in the village, and here he was expected to know everything that happened in the class. Sure, they counted and measured, but they never stood there and talked about dividing things or asked why they divided by certain numbers— “That’s all right, Your Grace. You’ll get the hang of it, you’ll see.” Kayin stood there quietly, then looked to the door as the last student walked out.

“I—I have somewhere else to go,” he said. Teacher Dopi straightened in front of him and nodded.

“Do you feel better now?” To appease him, Kayin nodded. The teacher grinned. “That’s good. See you tomorrow, Prince Kayin.”

It took less time to wander into the room that was meant for herbalism than he anticipated. And, based on how few people were in the room waiting, he was early. He settled into a chair by the window, far away from the older kids that read quietly to themselves. Four-person tables were speckled around the room, but the table he sat at was meant only for two. Slowly, the room began to fill with students of all ages looking for specific seats, and all of them were holding a branch or leaf of some sort, most of which Kayin recognized from his days in the forest when he would accompany Aunt Aayin to set traps.

“You’re in my seat.” Kayin jumped a little at the sudden voice, then finally looked over to see a small, mousy girl with her gaze on the floor.

“What?”

“You’re in my seat,” she repeated. Her hair was straight and oily, and slid past her shoulders in chunks.

“Oh…sorry.” He slid out of the chair and let her replace him. “How do I get my own seat?” After taking several moments of adjusting herself until she was perfectly centered in the chair, the girl looked up at him. Her eyes were the biggest he’d ever seen, a bright and unforgettable green. “Pick one.”

Kayin stared at her while other kids settled in, whispering amongst themselves. He heard his name too many times. The girl in front of him didn’t seem to notice, or care. She began to lay out the bright purple flowers she had on the table and spaced them evenly amongst each other. She smoothed out the petals over and over again, even though naturally the flower was supposed to be curly, since it was a genrob flower. For now, he neglected to tell her that. When he turned around, Kayin saw that almost all the seats were filled, and he finally looked at the girl.

“Is that seat free?” he asked, pointing to the empty one beside her.

“Yes.” Well that would have been nice to know a few minutes ago. He pursed his lips, then slid into the chair next to her. He watched her fiddle with the petals of her flowers.

“It’s not going to flatten,” he told her finally. “It’s a genrob. They’re meant to have petals like that to attract bugs to eat it so that it can be planted again.” The girl gave him a glance of acknowledgment, then tried one last time to smooth out the last flower. When it only snapped back to its usual curl, she tapped it and left it alone.

“I’m Enna,” she said suddenly. “My mother’s the General of the High Knights of the King, and my father is a soldier for the army. I haven’t seen you here before. Who are your parents?” Kayin finally met her gaze and nodded. She must have known what it was like to be alone, with both of her parents gone during the war.

“I’m Kayin,” he told her instead. She let out a small “Oh” and let the sentence fall over them. He supposed that was explanation enough. She didn’t look at him with nervousness like the adults did, at least.

“So who did you live with before you came here?”

He swallowed a familiar lump in his throat and breathed the burning sensation in his face away, glancing to the door. Maybe if he ignored her, she would stop asking questions.

“Hello, hello!” called a friendly voice. A lanky woman stepped in front of the sea of pupils and gestured enthusiastically. “So, last time we talked about how the forest around us is special, right?” A few bored students nodded and waved their collection of nature in front of them. “Today we’re going to talk about what you found! Our goal this week is to find as many new things as possible. Let’s start with you, Enna. What did you find? Oh! Hello there. You must be Prince Kayin.” She was about as peppy as her bouncy red hair; it almost made it easier to listen to what she was saying, unlike Teacher Dopi.

“Yes,” Kayin answered quietly.

“This is fantastic!” Her tone almost made him think so, too. “Wonderful to meet you, Your Grace. My name is Teacher Tisa, and I am the herbalism instructor. Well, let’s get back to business, shall we? Enna, do you know what you brought?” The girl next to him shifted in her seat, then picked up her flower to show the class.

“I think it’s genrob,” she said. Teacher Tisa clapped, and a few students in the class straightened up.

“That’s right, Enna! That’s impressive that you know that.” Immediately, the teacher rushed to the front of the classroom and held up the flower she took from Enna’s desk. “Genrob is considered particularly rare around this part of our continent. As you can see, these petals curl—oh, did you try to flatten these, Enna? This looks a little distorted.” Enna nodded shyly. “Here’s something important to remember, class: Do not distort what you find in nature. Does anyone know why?” Kayin looked to the other students, who were all carelessly staring.

“Because,” Kayin started, “if you do, like if you crush the petals, then the juices in the petals will go to the stem-part, and then what you need in the stem isn’t the same, so you can’t use it.” Teacher Tisa stared at him with her jaw dropped, and when Kayin looked to everyone else, everyone watched him carefully, even Enna. “Uh…you need the juices in the stem to be the same, or you will get different effects when you…mix it…with…things.” Kayin furrowed his brow as he trailed off. This class didn’t seem to be used to the idea of students answering questions like the last one. Were they meant to be rhetorical?

“That’s very good, Prince Kayin!” Teacher Tisa exclaimed. He almost smiled. “Yes, that’s exactly correct! Do you know what genrob stem does when you mix wit with ‘things’?” she pressed.

“If you put it on moss, the edia stay away from it,” he said lightly. It was meant to be a joke, but it didn’t seem like anyone here knew what he was talking about except for the teacher, who rewarded him with a tiny laugh. “Or…if you mix it with hoodsmonk, it burns, so you can use it to burn away branches if they’re in your way, or start a fire, or…something.” The class shifted forward to watch him speak, and although his heart pounded hard against his ribs, no one laughed at him. “Because both hoodsmonk and genrob are kind of…uh, burn-y, so…combined they’re stronger….” When his peers nodded thoughtfully, relief washed over him.

“Your knowledge is so extensive, Your Highness!” Teacher Tisa interjected. “Class, did you hear that?” A few students nodded while most of them merely watched with curiosity. “Fascinating, just fascinating.” As Teacher Tisa made her way across the room, for a new sample, Kayin sat back in his chair, smiling to himself.