Sunern, Thir of Marla: 29 Xiven

Everything had gone wrong. Tidesa found herself fighting back tears as she sprinted down the basement hallway to the dungeon entrance. She hadn’t even changed out of her traveling cloak, changed out of her muddy shoes. She hadn’t stopped running since she returned to the Castle of Yatora.

“Let me in,” she commanded breathlessly. As usual, no one questioned her, just opened the doors to the hallway of cells. She tried to compose herself, to smooth her breathing as she walked into the dark stone.

The dungeon was mostly a long hallway with a few large rooms made of iron bars. At the very least, there were skinny windows at the very top with a view of the grass grounds outside the back of the castle, granting just a little bit more light than the candles along the wall. Tidesa made her way to the last of the cells, the biggest one, with a simple cot made of hay and a couple buckets.

“Kayin,” she called sadly. The boy still wore his dress clothes from last night, was still stained in dried blood. He sat in the very center of the stone floor, staring, in his own world. “Kayin.” He looked up, finally. Seeing the dark circles under his eyes, the puffiness and sadness, the fear, made any previous attempts to compose herself futile.

Tidesa knelt onto the floor, leaning toward the bars to reach forward.

“Kayin,” she repeated. He stared at her, unmoving.

“Where were you?” he croaked. Tidesa drew her hand back, as if stung. Her chest ached.

“I…ran into….” Unforeseen circumstances didn’t quite cover what she ran into. The plans she made years ago did not unfold like she thought they might. Everything got blurry, muddy, messy. Everything, ever since Liriata was taken, was just one failure after another.

“You don’t think I did it, do you?” Kayin’s trembling voice brought her out of her own misery. Her biggest failure of all, was how the biggest hope for the best future sat in a prison cell of his home. Tidesa shook her head.

“I know you didn’t, Kayin. I know you’re innocent,” she said. His gasp of surprise almost hurt just as much.

“You—you have to tell them! They’ll believe you!” He exploded in a burst of desperate energy, crawling forward just a bit toward the bars. It almost made her sick to her stomach. “What?”

“I—I can’t do that, Kayin,” she admitted. Somehow, she held back her bile.

“What?”

“I can’t let you out of here.” She couldn’t look at him, at his heartbroken expression. The clearest vision she had in over a year was of this moment she didn’t understand before, this moment of her staring at her own hands. Just as she said in her vision before, she said, “I know—I know you’ll never forgive me. But this is the best place for you right now.” Worst still, her vision had ended right there, and refused to let her see further. So much fog….

“You do think I’m evil,” came Kayin’s quiet realization. Tidesa couldn’t hide her gasp.

“No!” she whispered sharply, searching for his eyes. “Of course I don’t, Kayin! You are not evil!”

“Why won’t you let me out?” His voice cracked; a tear fell down Tidesa’s cheek despite her best effort. “I promise—I promise I didn’t k-k-kill him!” Kayin scooted forward just a little more. “There—there was this lady, and I told you I saw her! In the pantry a couple weeks ago, but she disappeared! She was there, hiding in my room, a-a-and Ruyer—” The puzzle pieces clicked. She didn’t hear what else Kayin said, his pleas. The dread that rushed through her was louder than buzzing Bestas.

“Pseudomultistimul,” Tidesa realized through a sigh. Her head fell into her hands.

“What—what does that—?” Kayin now sat on his knees, right in front of her, scrutinizing. “I know that word,” he continued. “That was in the book I was reading last night. It’s—it’s when a person with Cigam can change what people see. Pseudo means fake, then multi for a lot, and stimul for vision.”

“Yes,” was all Tidesa was able to say. How did everything go so wrong? And how did she miss it? If someone with Cigam had made it all the way over here, to Kayin, it only confirmed her worst fears.

“S-stories aren’t real,” was Kayin’s quiet reply. Tidesa couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Her face grew hot from theorizing, from shame. “Please,” came his quiet plea. “Please…tell me anything. Why can’t I come out?”

Her Cigam failed her. No visions, nothing comforting or fearful, came to mind. She was stuck in the present, staring at boy she almost got killed. Telling too much to Liriata only got her killed, only put Kayin in danger half a dozen years after that very deadly conversation. But this poor child on the cusp of adolescence, this child deserved something.

Tidesa couldn’t look at him any longer.

“Kayin,” she started quietly, “I can’t let you out because it’s not safe for you anywhere else.” She cut him off before he could even fully scoff. “There is no way for…anyone to come in or out without going through a lot of people.” And until Dhekk could return, this was the second best option.

“I didn’t kill—”

In a burst of frustration, Tidesa hissed, “Kayin, that dagger was not meant for Ruyer! Don’t you understand that?” His soft confusion, the way the dry block cracked on his forehead when he furrowed his brow, only broke her heart more.

“What?”

Tidesa used the iron bars to help her rise to her feet, then wiped her tears away and drew a breath.

“Kayin, please understand this is—this is the best out of a bad situation. Alright? I’ll—” Her eyes fell on the rusted buckets in the corner of his prison cell. “I’ll ensure this is…upgraded. A-and that your lessons continue, that you still get proper meals and exercise.” As far as backup plans went, it was at least the most secure.

“What? Lessons? What do I care for lessons? They think I killed someone!”

Tidesa bit her lips together, folder her hands in on each other. One last effort to call forth her Cigam for any sort of guidance went ignored.

“I—I have so much to do.” This was more to herself than to him. If anything the last couple disastrous weeks taught her, it was that no matter how much she tried to comfort herself in the future she could see, there was much she could not. And now, with Kayin’s life actively in danger, it was all too clear that there were more people involved than ever, people she couldn’t place or predict in the fog of what was to come.

“You’re leaving again?” Kayin now stood in his cell, rushing to the bars as she took a step back. She couldn’t bear to look at him.

“I’m sorry, Kayin. I need to leave.” She took several steps back, until the heat from the candelabra tickled the top of her head.

“When will you be back?”

Instead of answering, she turned away, toward the double doors that would protect him in the meantime. The doors she knew he would stare at, willing for her to come back and let him out. But the next clear vision she had of him, the vision of his release, was not for a few years yet to come.