Thern, Fir of Marla: 28 Xiven

After Kayin spent a couple of hours in herbalism, a kind servant directed him to Life Skills. This class had no desks or chairs, and was set outside in some sort of yard encased in the stone wall of the castle. Straw dummies and sacks of fertilizer dotted the yard, some of which bore gashes puncture marks from arrows that spilled their contents. Not too far away could he see stone stairs that led to the ramparts, where servants with rakes and baskets walked up and down in and out of sight. A dozen or so children around Kayin’s age stood in three lines under a wooden awning, waiting, silent, and oddly still for children. No one seemed distracted by all the servants walking about like he was.

Kayin stepped to the back of the lines of students, and noticed too late that the boy from lunch, dressed like a soldier, was who he chose to stand by. The little blond boy gave him an awkward smile he couldn’t return.

“Ah, Prince Kayin. You have come to join us.” Kayin nearly jumped out of his skin when he was addressed. He didn’t see the older woman sat with her legs crossed against the far wall, smiling passively. “Call me Liree. Now, class, that you are all here, we will focus our energies today on the extensions of our body.”

A student in the front stirred, wobbling slightly on their feet as they asked, “What does that mean?”

“You tell me!” Liree replied with glee as she jumped from the floor. Kayin didn’t quite see why this was such a great response, and for once, the rest of the kids in the class mirrored his expression.

“Don’t worry,” said the blond boy beside Kayin, “she’s always like this.” The small soldier looked nervous, but kind enough. Maybe he was just as shy as Kayin felt.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Weird.” The whispered response caught him by surprise; he ended up laughing with him. “I’m Tae.”

“Kayin.”

“Right! Um, great to meet you, uh, Prince—”

“Just Kayin.” When he interrupted the small soldier, Tae smiled. Maybe he was too young to be trained to kill people’s family. Tae seemed fine so far. And, throughout Life Skills, while Liree directed everyone to pose different ways with giant, wooden sticks, Tae was sure to help him adjust bit by bit until he got the pose right. Liree only commented once about it: “The only thing more important than your enemy on the battlefield is your friend.” The boys decided she meant that Tae was supposed to keep helping. And maybe Kayin was kind of fine with that. He was easier to talk to than Sepik, at least.

Dinner consisted of, to Sepik’s request, something else Kayin hadn’t tried before: gerrie soup. Gerries were the flying and chirping rodents in the area, abundant to a near nuisance, so it was a little strange to eat them in a soup. But, Kayin figured, it was actually quite comforting. Warm, with some spice, and different. It put him in a relatively fine mood until nighttime studies.

He sat at a small table, legs crossed on a small rug, with a giant book in front of him, and a piece of parchment on the table.

“Copy every symbol you see on that page,” said Tidesa. She handed Kayin a hunk of charcoal, and then moved to settle Sepik in with her plush chair and special desk with some intelligent-looking lady that had several books in hand. Kayin frowned, and began to thumb through the pages in front of him.

It was the first time he got to physically touch a book; and from all the times Aunt Aayin lamented about not having any in the hut, this experience was a little lackluster. Images and feelings came from all these squiggles contained in leather? And how did you know what sounds to make from these? This would be impossible to memorize.

Kayin abandoned the charcoal to explore the rest of the book. The pages were stitched together, planned precariously. The first page and the last page were of the same parchment, sewn down the middle fold with all the other pages. When Kayin set it on its spine, it opened naturally to the very middle page, where he could touch the threads that bound everything together.

Other books around, although different in thickness and general size and color, behaved the same way…except for one. This big, blue book felt uneven and wrong, and it took quite a bit of flopping from page to page to figure out why. When Kayin lay the book on its spine to watch the pages flip, the back cover flopped by itself, weak. There seemed to be a strange space on the spine near the back, making it look uneven. Beside the back cover was some sort of resin to help reinforce the spine and smooth out some sort of uneven texture, but it certainly looked like there should be something else there. Everything about this book felt skewed, to the point where when he found the center of the binding, the beginning was a little thicker than the end. That didn’t seem to make much sense to him, based on how the other books around him were made.

“Is this normal?” Kayin asked to whoever would listen. A few nobles lounged on plush couches and chairs, some with their feet up as they sipped a hot drink, others with their noses buried in books. Even Tidesa sat in a corner, curled into a near ball, with her hand busily scribbling in a book of her own. No one paid him any attention. He nearly abandoned the attempt to get any answers until he found another book, this time brown and worn, with the same problem. Finally, he tried again, louder, this time: “Is this normal? Are these books broken?”

Finally, the tutor for Sepik turned around, her giant hair swirling over her shoulder. “What was that, Prince Kayin?”

Eager to show what he found, Kayin rushed up to the skinny woman to show her. “This. This gap, here. Is that normal? I noticed only some books have this.” He matched the edges of the covers together so it was easy to see the gap in the back of the book. “It almost looks like there’s supposed to be more, or something.”

The tutor stared at the book he held, then shrugged.

“I’m not sure what you mean, Young Prince.” She ignored his attempt to shove it into her hands. “If you would like more reading on this subject, I can suggest a few books.” Sepik snorted, interrupting the conversation.

“He can’t read. Don’t bother.”

“You can’t read, either.”

“Yeah, but at least I know when I don’t know something. You think you know better and you don’t know anything.”

“I know things!”

“No, you’re too stupid.”

“You’re too—”

Tidesa interrupted them with an exaggerated sigh. “Children, is this going to be a reoccurring nightmare of mine? Focus on your studies, please.” She gestured for the tutor to return to Sepik, and Kayin to his own table. Kayin grimaced, but obeyed, at least until he was seated. Tidesa still looked at him, watching, ensuring he did as he was told.

“When can I see Dania? Or Tailor and Sithie?” he decided to ask her now that he had her attention.

Tidesa let her book close with her pen inside it, and rose from her spot in the corner. She glanced to the other nobles, to the tutor, as she made her way to him, but no one looked up. This seemed to satisfy her, and the stiffness in her neck softened by the time she knelt beside his table.

“Which classes did you see them in? I can arrange a play date.” She said this sort of loudly. But before Kayin could correct her, she pointed to his paper. “I’ll do that for you once you finish this page.”

“They’re not—” She cleared her throat at him, silencing him with another harsh tap of her finger against the page.

“Kayin,” she whispered, “they only knew about your aunt. Do not bring your friends into this.” Kayin stared at the page in front of him, now holding the charcoal, but hesitated. It almost felt like that time Dania dared him to eat a chunk of ice off the ground, the way everything in his body tensed up around the sudden chill.

“Do you mean…. Do you mean they would kill them, too?” It was hard to even whisper the words.

“You are not who you used to be,” came Tidesa’s answer. “You are Prince Kayin of Yatora. Your staying here will give you the best chance at your future.” She left him with this strange warning, and he kept his silence throughout the whole night.

The chill in his throat remained, even when he cuddled with the blankets in his giant crimson bed with a roaring fire across the room. His tears were cold tonight as he sobbed into his pillow, more than just for how much he missed Aunt Aayin. Now, he finally seemed to understand that he lost more than her…he lost everyone. And Tidesa wouldn’t even really tell him why.