Chapter Nine
“Your Divinity.”
Ethyr groaned, squinting his eyes open. He’d passed out immediately after he was brought back to his bed that morning, though not before making sure that his own clothes were still inside the chest where he’d left them.
Exhaustion pulled his eyelids shut and weighed down his limbs. When he didn’t get up, the blankets were thrown off and Gionan forced him to sit up.
“You must wake, Your Divinity. The High Priest has arranged instruction for you at the temple.”
Ethyr groaned again, rubbing his eyes. By the hue of light filling his room, it was earlier than he’d woken in days. Getting out of bed was the last thing he wanted to do. Gionan left his side to open a chest and dig through it, so Ethyr sank back onto the pillows, hugging one and closing his eyes.
He was pulled upright and out of blissful unconsciousness again.
He whined, but Gionan mercilessly dragged him from the bed to hold up different articles of clothing in front of him.
He decided on a pale yellow tunic with short, wide sleeves and a blue silk belt.
Ethyr was not adorned with any jewelry, and fortunately was given sandals for shoes.
After a quick breakfast, he was brought to the front hall where, instead of Yorith, Poyut stood waiting for him.
Ethyr might have been happy, except he still felt bad for his behavior.
Her refusal to meet his eyes didn’t help.
“Poyut,” he said quietly as they walked to the carriage.
“Yes, Your Divinity?”
“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“Think nothing of it,” she said lightly, but she still didn’t look at him, even as she helped him into the carriage. He didn’t know what else to do to smooth things over. The fact that he’d ruined the one relationship he liked in this horrid place weighed him down more than his fatigue.
The trip to the top of the mountain was almost starting to become boring, though he stared out the window at the gleaming rooftops of the city just the same. Poyut followed on horseback like usual and accompanied him into the temple. A robed priest was waiting for them inside the front room.
“Your Divinity,” he greeted with a slanted bow. “My name is Dessin. It is an honor to teach you.”
“Do you teach like Yorith?” Ethyr asked suspiciously.
The priest paused. “In what way do you mean, Your Divinity?”
“He slaps me with things and gets angry at everything I do wrong.”
Dessin’s second pause was longer. “Mm… no, Your Divinity, I do not teach that way.”
Ethyr pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes. Dessin guided him towards one of the corridors and Ethyr reluctantly let himself be herded.
The room they entered was small, with a little square table in the middle prepared with blank paper next to pen and ink.
A window let in light and air, but it faced the mountain and there wasn’t much to see out of it.
Ethyr sat cross-legged at the table and couldn’t have been more relieved when he wasn’t reprimanded and told to kneel.
Dessin hadn’t lied; he did not smack him or act impatient at every mistake.
But his gentle, condescending manner was almost worse.
He treated Ethyr like a dumb child who could not understand something unless it was explained in the slowest and simplest way possible.
He was forced to write the alphabet, over and over until his hand cramped.
Then he was taught something called ‘music script,’ which was more letters that were tied to different sounds.
When read and followed, they made specific music.
Ethyr didn’t understand the purpose of it.
It wasn’t hard to remember a melody; his village sang all kinds of songs without any such guide.
His only reprieve was dinner at noon, eaten in the same room, and then his lessons continued.
After music was poetry recitation, followed by ‘etiquette,’ which was mostly about how to talk.
The fact that anyone needed to be taught how to have a conversation was the dumbest thing Ethyr had ever heard, and yet he had to listen to Dessin lecture about ‘appropriate’ topics, how to smooth over lulls or pauses, how to enunciate and pronounce words ‘properly’.
Ethyr was ready to chuck himself off the mountain by the end of it.
His deep exhaustion did not help. Every time he began drifting off, chin on his palm, Dessin knocked on the desk and startled him awake.
Poyut stood outside the doorway the entire time. Ethyr wondered how she could bear it: standing still for so long with absolutely nothing to do. That would make him throw himself into the river for certain.
When the light in the room was dusky blue, Dessin walked them back to the front door, telling him everything they would work on the following day.
“I have to come back tomorrow?” Ethyr asked despondently.
“Of course, Your Divinity,” Dessin replied, gentle and slow as always. “You must learn how to be the best you that you can be.”
Ethyr scrunched his face, annoyed and disgusted. He would rather be with the gods, even if it was nerve-wracking and gave him the sleeping habits of an owl.
But the gods did not request him again. The rest of the week was filled with sitting in that boring room listening to a boring man talk about boring subjects.
Occasionally acolytes would wander by, talking quietly or sweeping or reading, though sometimes it seemed they were just making excuses to come stare at him as they passed.
If there were more than one they might even giggle together.
Every day was waking, getting dressed in ridiculous fashion, eating decadent food, studying ridiculous and tedious subjects, being condescended to and stared at, then washing and going to bed.
He’d never been so miserable in his life, even after he readjusted to a normal sleep schedule.
One morning he woke up early and tried to leave the palace to wander the gardens that surrounded it, but the guards wouldn’t let him leave without Poyut and he denied their offer to get her.
The thought of spending time with her—or rather, forcing her to spend time with him—was only draining.
He stood on his balcony after another long day of studying, which never failed to leave him fatigued despite the fact that all he did was sit for hours.
The new moon and hazy cloud cover offered no light, and he could hardly see the garden below.
Humidity hung in the air like rain, undisturbed by the usually cooling properties of darkness.
It was the kind of night in which his village would build a large fire out in the field and they would eat together, talking and laughing and drinking.
Hartus might bring his old lute and everyone would sing along with it, clapping their hands and stomping their feet, or dance around the fire, wavering firelight dancing along with them.
No one missed the moon and stars then. Ethyr's heart ached, throbbing in his chest like a fresh wound.
He straightened off the railing and glanced inside his room. Everything was still, with only the constant roar of the waterfall filling the quiet.
A sudden strike of determination hit him.
He strode inside and dug through the chests, pulling out his village clothes and any of the jewelry that had been left in his room.
He put on the former and wrapped the latter in a silk shawl, tying the ends together to form a makeshift bag that he could sling over his shoulder.
Then he ripped all the sheets off the bed.
He tied two together, then tied one end to the stone railing of the balcony.
He knew, outside of the posted guards, that there were two always walking the perimeter of the palace opposite each other, but they were slow and the palace was wide enough that there were minutes at a time when no one passed below his room.
He tried to see or hear if either were nearby, but with the darkness and waterfall, it was difficult to discern. There was no use in waiting.
He tossed the makeshift rope over the side of the balcony and climbed over, taking one last look at the luxurious room, looking a little less luxurious in its ransacked state.
He tried his weight and the sheet held, so with a deep breath, he gripped it and lowered himself down hand-over-hand.
He had never been very strong, and spending the past two weeks doing nothing but sitting around certainly hadn’t helped matters.
Fortunately it wasn’t too far to the ground.
When his feet were on solid earth, he ducked into the shadow of the balcony and glanced around for a guard. None so far.
He wrapped up the end of the sheet-rope into a big wadded knot and, after a few tries, got it thrown back onto the balcony. That would buy him a few hours, at least. Then he crouched low and slunk around the side of the palace, sticking close to the wall.
He was at the corner when he heard footsteps at the other end.
He whipped quickly to the other side and peered around to see the dark form of a guard strutting toward him.
But he wasn’t chasing, and there was no cry of alarm.
If that guard was there, the other one would be at the other wall.
He sucked in another breath and continued a ways down the wall, then with a glance around, scurried into the garden.
Its manicured hedges were short, but when he crouched they hid him well.
The labyrinthian pathway through the garden was paved with flat, round stones, not as perfectly interlocked as the street, but close enough that he could walk over the tops and avoid the noisy sea of pebbles that surrounded them.
There were always two guards at the front of the palace, watching the road, so he couldn’t go down that way. He wound his way to the back of the garden, a little sad that he finally got to be in one and he couldn’t take the time to enjoy it.