Sunern, Fir of Julyla: 33 Xiven

Fero was the first to be able to articulate her confusion after Dania mentioned Tidesa’s plan. Carefully, she said, “So—so you’re a friend of Tidesa’s, too, then.” This question brought forth a grimace on Dania’s face.

“I…. I don’t think that’s the word I’d use, but she was leading a small group to come here, then go to…. I forgot the name of where they were going after that. East, though.” Kingsland, across the ocean. She shrugged. “Is anyone still here? I haven’t seen anyone, but I got here a couple months ago.”

Kayin’s heart settled somewhere in his throat, beating faster than necessary as he shook his head to answer her.

“She didn’t, um, tell you to come here?” he asked quietly. The grimace she wore only deepened. She drooped at the news, eventually settled on staring at the table again.

“No, she didn’t tell me anything.” The bitterness in her voice broke free. “And even if she did, I wouldn’t listen to it. I’m not looking for her, but she left with the only people I could consider friends. I was just trying to get out of Kunnu and try to find somewhere safe to….” She cut herself off to dig out the dirt under her fingernails, as if that was the most important thing to do right now. It was difficult to discern if the frustration was with Tidesa or the lack of information. He’d never heard anyone speak ill of Tidesa—the closest came from Karsarath or Aunt Aayin, who just approached everything she said with skepticism. Karsarath didn’t know her, though. And Aunt Aayin always said to question all leadership, regardless of power. When they were children, Dania had a hard time ever saying no to adults in general—to the point that she took it out on Kayin.

Kayin tried to keep his voice calm and even. “What’s your, uh, problem with Tidesa?” Despite his efforts, Dania scoffed.

“My problem? Are you joking?” She looked up, now, flabbergasted at his question. “I’d think you of all people would hate her the most, with what she’s done to you.” Hate. What he hated was how much sense that made, but he deflected the twinge in his stomach to focus on her words. “Tidesa is the whole reason for Yatora being gone. The war with Wakino. For my dad—” Even mentioning him, her lips pursed on their own accord; still, she took a breath and continued, “And then she had to choose new successors for Yatora, and even though she already picked one, she still took you—a-and after you—you—the—the—” Her hand flailed awkwardly, “The—murder—thing—”

“Patrolman Ruyer,” Kayin recalled when she couldn’t settle on a term. Even saying the name made his tongue feel heavier. The air in the room suddenly grew thicker, muggy. He hadn’t thought of that day in a while, he was so focused on Tidesa’s note. Ruyer was a good person, part of the reason Kayin even leaned into this whole quest. He wasn’t supposed to die, he was just in the way of Empress Xiven’s attempt at assassinating Kayin when he was a child.

Dania continued, “And I’m sure you were d-defending yourself, or had a good reason, or something, like I kept telling everyone—but—but after that, no one would even look at me!” A candle above them sizzled, stealing Kayin’s attention for just a moment, enough for him to notice that whatever tears Dania fought back were brought forth in the house in the form of humidity so thick that the light flickered.

While Dania took a few moments to take some deep breaths to calm herself, to let some of the air back into the room, Kayin quietly thought back to all those arguments they had as children. Did it always rain when she cried? Did the wind only feel intense when she got frustrated? The memories were too distant now. Unimportant.

Kayin forced himself to the present; Karsarath and Fero stared at one another, stuck in one of their secret and silent conversations while Dania sank her face into her hands.

“I, um,” Kayin started quietly, “I didn’t kill anyone. I was framed.” Not that it mattered now. Dania only acknowledged this with a sigh. “The village…they blamed you for what I—for what happened?” She nodded wordlessly. One of their final arguments before he was taken into the Castle of Yatora was how people kept telling her that unless she could figure out how to control him, he’d end up like Prince Sahtin: evil, ornery, and ultimately lead Yatora to its ruin. She never succeeded, he got in trouble, and Yatora fell. In a way, they were all right….

Dania pulled her face out of her hands enough to speak, but kept her eyes and lips closed tightly.

Kayin continued, “So because you couldn’t control me when we were betrothed, I murdered a guard, and everyone just thought it was because of you…. But your mom?” Danuli leaned into Yatora’s culture in a nearly desperate way, with how much she focused on tradition—so much that very few people even remembered she was a “foreigner.” But Dania was a child; surely her mother could have done something. “She couldn’t help…?”

“She died,” Dania barely choked out. Kayin and Karsarath flinched in unison. She opened her eyes to the candles above, and while they struggled with the moisture in the air, they flickered shadows on Dania’s dry face. “I’ve been alone. And no one would talk to me until the village was attacked, when we were running for our lives.” While Karsarath ducked his face to stare at the floor, his niece finally returned exchanging sad expressions with Kayin. “And when we got to Kunnu, it was—it was supposed to be different. But it wasn’t. A-and so, I—ran to the first person that was nice to me, b-but—he turned out to run the Silent Shadows.” Despite keeping herself mostly composed up until this point, her lip quivered. “And when I beg—asked Tidesa for help, to tell me what to do, she just—she just said she couldn’t tell me anything and left. With everyone.” Leaving someone while they begged for help…yeah, that, unfortunately, sounded exactly like Tidesa. It wasn’t until a sharp pain ran up to his temple that Kayin realized he was clenching his teeth that hard.

Fero echoed under her breath, “Run the Silent Shadows….” Dania nodded to her.

“And his mother runs this division, in Tornah. So when I came here, they recognized me, and he….” She took her time finding the words. “He gave Kunnu’s division to his brother and transferred here.” Now she leaned back in the chair, lips pursed, fingers wringing together. “S-so—so right now, they—they have been, um, ‘providing’ for me. But, I guess, probably not for long.”

The candles were the loudest crackling in the house for a few moments as Dania’s words sunk in bit by bit. Some powerful criminal followed Dania to Tornah, gave up his position, returned his mother’s realm of influence. This sounded a little more complicated than someone being just nice to her for a while. And yet, this was all Dania offered.

He tried not to let it, but Kayin felt a crease form in his brow as he stared at his hands. It shouldn’t have been so surprising to think of someone with Dania in a romantic way. He hadn’t really thought about it—not that he had time, or even the desire to—but if Tidesa never picked him from the crowd, and Yatora still stood, he and Dania would be married and starting a family right now. Tidesa told him he would fix houses and raise two kids…. But instead of worrying about roof leaks and baby drool, he went to sleep dreaming of combat techniques to overthrow an anonymous empress. It left a sour taste on his tongue, but he couldn’t place much else of the awful swimming of terrible feelings that drummed up in his throat. Of the two futures forced onto him, the peaceful one sounded much nicer.

Fero was the first to break the silence: “So you’re, um, involved with the heir to the Silent Shadows,” she confirmed. Dania didn’t answer. “And you’ve stolen from and extorted at least four of the most profitable shops in Tornah, with the help of the Treasurer.” She didn’t respond to this either. As Kayin watched Dania pick at the skin around her fingernails, Fero and Karsarath exchanged looks. The air, a little less muggy, grew tense and tight.

“We’ll get you out of there,” said Kayin. He leaned forward to try and get her attention, but Dania only shrugged. If she had a chance to chase a peaceful story for herself, he’d help her get it—even if that wasn’t an option for himself. “We need to take them down, and—and we’ll get you out, okay? It’ll be okay.” He could imagine that perhaps the Council of Tornah would be a little sympathetic if she openly identified all of the members of the guild, at least. And he could take her to Kingsland, get her a whole ocean away from them. And maybe, if Tidesa learned how Dania helped them get Tornah on their side, she could be more helpful with nudging them in a direction to get her a better future.

Maybe.

Fero and Karsarath took a collective breath, breaking Kayin from his thoughts.

Karsarath started, “Look, we think it’s best you stay here either way.” We. “And if we have to…to get you back to them, we can figure that out then. But you want to be rid of them, and we do, too.” As the look of uncertainty folded into Dania’s brows, he continued, “But just for today, let’s take a beat and figure something out.” As he finished speaking, Fero stood and gestured to the purple hue tinting the room from the window.

“I have to snuff the street lamps before Rinesa breaks, but I’ll be back in a couple hours.” Her words hung over the table, hesitant. “Uh, Karsarath—didn’t you need to speak to your boss?” And based on Karsarath’s initial look of confusion, Fero really said, Karsarath, walk with me so we can talk about this without Kayin and Dania present.

“Yeah,” said Karsarath anyway. He scraped the legs of his chair against the floor as he scooted back. “There’s, um, leftover vach stew in the cupboards, if you want. A-and Fero’s got that extra bed in her room.” The bed that used to be Dhekk’s. “You should take it, rest.” To this, Dania mostly stared, unmoving.

They froze like that, standing as if they didn’t know what to do with themselves, until Kayin mumbled that he’d get some stew for him and Dania. And after nearly another full minute of awkwardly standing around, Fero and Karsarath shuffled their way to the door, and disappeared behind it.

Kayin and Dania remained silent the entire time Kayin took to divide the remaining stew into two thin, metal bowls. When he returned to the table with them, Dania sighed.

“They should have just admitted they were going to talk about me,” she mumbled as she picked up her spoon.

“Well,” Kayin started with a shrug, “he does have to talk to his boss. She’s suspecting he doesn’t have any Cigam, so we’ve got to….” How to even word this? “We need to get the Council of Tornah on our side and leave sooner rather than later.” Dania watched him as she took a bite, scrutinizing.

“So you’re in trouble, too, then,” she said after she finished chewing. “Are you meeting up with Tidesa? Are you working for her?” And while she hid the sneer by swallowing another bite of stew, Kayin could almost hear it. Kayin let out a hum and stabbed his spoon in a hunk of root vegetable. The broth splashed onto the table a little, but he ignored it.

Did he tell her everything, or just some details? Or nothing at all? The thought of holding back, after everything she just explained, made the few bites of stew take longer to go down his throat. Maybe she wasn’t fully forthcoming with all the details, but she was honest.

“Well,” Kayin said through a breath, “I’m…here, with Karsarath and Fero, for the same reason I was taken into the castle.” Maybe some insight into what happened would give her peace, if he couldn’t do anything else. Dania paused mid-bite. “And, I guess, the same reason I went to jail for what happened to Patrolman Ruyer.” She returned her spoon to the bowl, waiting for his explanation, but Kayin stared at the splashed broth on the table, picking the right words. “Tidesa saw my future all those years ago—she saw me essentially start this, uh, revolution of sorts, and everything that happened leading to a point in time a few months ago.”

Dania squinted at him. “Revolution?” she echoed.

“Yeah….”

“Of…what?”

“You hear of Xiven?”

“A little.” She shrugged. “People seem scared of him and he doesn’t like anyone normal—I mean without Cigam. I heard someone got arrested for sounding insincere when praising him—but I didn’t—that isn’t real, right? You’re revolting against Emperor Xiven?”

“Empress,” Kayin corrected absentmindedly, “and yes. That’s pretty much it. So we’re gathering allies. Like the Council of Tornah.” And people that previously rejected their proposal, like Urbana and Dorr. But this time was different. This time, they had something to offer first. And, strategically, it made sense to have a place like Tornah on their side: a large city, and a sister city that had control over one of two official docks of the continent.

Dania chewed slowly, brows furrowed in concentration as she made more connections to what she already knew.

“So everything—everything was because of this revolution?” she asked eventually.

Kayin gave a hesitant nod.

“Xiven is the one that ordered Wakino to attack Yatora. Yatora was built to be, like, a shelter for people without Cigam to hide from Xiven’s laws against them.” The village was less than a few generations old, with most of the outside world kept secret. A secret the elder generation kept so tight that they refused to even acknowledge before Yatora, even so far as completely cutting whole chapters out of books. Kayin continued, “She didn’t like being ignored. We wouldn’t worship her, so she tried to get rid of us.”

“How do you know she’s a she and not a he, like everyone’s saying?” asked Dania. Her spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl, a reminder that Kayin had stopped eating all together. Gone were the days of picking worms out of the mud just to get his stomach to stop hurting; now he could eat slowly, comforted that more would come. He wondered how long it would be until Dania could feel that security.

“Tidesa’s vision was of me meeting her. And I did.” Likely, anyway. Tidesa didn’t seem to know that Xiven was a woman, but whoever Kayin met knew that he had to meet them. “Just like she predicted. And Xiven—she seemed almost scared that I met her. She’s supposed to stay completely anonymous and one vision just ruined her advantage.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “People will know she’s mortal, not some faceless god to be feared.”

Dania’s expression drifted to something a little more insecure. Maybe he should have felt the same, putting so much weight into one meeting. A revolution based off of a conversation didn’t sound all that secure, but it was better than nothing.

“And now?” she prompted.

“Now we encourage people that they don’t have to listen to someone that lives on a tiny island a world away.” Though his friend looked skeptical, he continued, “I—I know it’s a lot. But I have a lot of the research if you want to look at it for yourself. What she’s done, who she’s killed.” Coded, of course, but he could teach her the code. “She has to be stopped, somehow.”

Dania continued staring at him with shriveled shoulders across the table, soaking in his explanation.

“It just—” Her words failed, and she shook her head. “It sounds—I don’t know, impossible.”

Kayin raised a brow. “You can control air pressure with your mind,” he reminded. Dania laughed, relaxing for just a moment before she composed herself.

“So you…don’t have Cigam at all? Did Aunt Aayin?”

Now Kayin shrunk, staring at the splashed stew on the table. How was it possible to know so much more about the future than the past?

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I can just assume that she took me to Yatora to protect me from whatever Xiven was doing at the time to people that didn’t have Cigam.” It depended on the part of the world, really. A decade and a half or so ago, the furthest continent away from them, Electran, decreed people without Cigam as abominations to be outlawed and shunned. The next continent over, Orken, just passed a law claiming any child found without Cigam was legal property of the city in which they were born. Perhaps whoever sent him away with Aunt Aayin just gave him a chance, however slim, at freedom. Or maybe another person foresaw this revolution happening, and they just followed the visions with no hope for an alternative other than this very one.

Dania let out a long, drawn out sigh. Kayin had to imagine that his kind, those without Cigam, were just a small opening for Xiven to expand whatever influence she wanted. People hungry for power never felt satiated. It was only a matter of time before not showing enough Cigam doomed people to being determined lesser, and for things to grow from there.

Kayin found himself staring out the window, watching the purples mix with pinks of the emerging day. Dania remained slumped in her chair, hands resting on her stomach as she stared past Kayin, just as exhausted and confused as he.

“We should probably get some rest,” Kayin started quietly from across the table. Half of his stew still remained in the bowl, and Dania gestured to it.

“You’re not done eating?”

Without thinking, he pushed it toward her.

“Go ahead. I ate a lot earlier,” he lied. She didn’t even hesitate. Each scrape of her spoon against the bowl just reminded him of those days as children when she couldn’t get rid of her bad mood, unable to smile because she hadn’t seen an edia in days. That time they got so desperate they ate the moss on the trees together, only to feel sick right after.

A whole village of people opting to die of starvation rather than submit to Xiven. The way Dania practically inhaled the rest of the stew left a pang of guilt in Kayin’s stomach. Was another Yatora at risk because of how he waited four months to continue Tidesa’s plan?

He held onto this stomachache this time. Dania was a reminder as much as she was a key to Tornah’s alliance. No more waiting. No more suffering.

It was time to move on.