Chapter Sixteen

My main job changed over the next few days. Instead of keeping an eye on Kassia, I was told to watch Castin. Even though we liked to argue with each other, I was the only person other than Baisan he'd listen to. Even Stria couldn't get him to stay still; he seemed to get his way whenever we left her in charge.

I was sitting beside him, bored, listening to him complain about not being allowed to leave. He had been up and walking around that morning, even though moving hurt him and aggravated the wound.

"Finn, that's not..." he trailed off with an annoyed sigh. I was poking at the brick floor with my knife, running the tip of the blade along the mortar lines. "You're going to ruin that knife."

"I've done it before," I pointed out. "It's a good knife."

"Right," he crossed his arms and winced a little, though he tried to hide it. "It is. Doesn't mean you should go dragging it through... Stop it."

I grinned mischievously, having just pressed the tip of the blade a little further into the crumbling mortar just to bother him. "Stop what?"

"By the love of Zianesa, Finn..."

"I doubt she'd care," I said. "Tros is the god of war, after all, not her. He'd probably be furious at me."

"He probably decided to ignore you years ago when you proved you're incapable of holding a knife properly."

"Probably, but I still managed to chase Arow off, didn't I? And you managed to... Do what again? Oh yes, get stabbed."

Castin nodded. "Right." He put on a high-pitched voice. "Oh, Finn's so brave, he's a hero! I bet you enjoy that."

"What was that?"

Castin smirked. "You must have noticed that when the girls are around, they like to clump around me as if I'll die when they turn their backs. Sometimes I like the attention, I'll admit it, but sometimes the conversation turns to you and how much of a hero you are."

"I'm not a..." I trailed off uncomfortably. "Who were you mimicking?"

"Oh, they all say that. Mostly Ninavi, though." He grinned at my obvious discomfort. "Are you going to stop torturing me by ruining that knife, or should I tell you about the rest of what they say?"

"I'm done," I said, slipping the knife back into its little sheath.

"Play nicely, boys." Kassia's voice shocked both of us, and we looked towards the door to see her walk in with Baisan.

"They don't have to," Baisan said. "Cast could probably take Finn out, even given his condition. How are you feeling?" he asked, cutting off my protest before it started.

"Better," Castin replied. "When can I start helping out again?

"When you can move without wincing," Baisan replied simply. "Finn, a word."

"All right, speak," I said, without bothering to move. Castin punched my shoulder, not hard enough to hurt, but harder than I'd expected.

"Thank you, Cast." Baisan was smiling.

"The least I can do is help keep his majesty under control." Castin grinned at me.

I didn't rise to the bait, just got to my feet and followed Baisan from the room. I could hear Kassia start asking Castin her usual questions about how his wound felt and if anything had changed. Their voices faded when Baisan and I stepped outside. "Yes?" I asked.

"When were you planning to visit your friend?"

His question surprised me. In the panic surrounding Castin's injury, I had completely forgotten my promise to Tannix. "Soon. I don't know." I glanced at the sky to see that the sun was just starting to disappear behind the Cliffs of Loth. "Now?"

"I know I agreed to come with you, but we can't both leave when Castin's in this condition," Baisan said.

I nodded. "But you don't mind if I go now?"

"No," Baisan replied after a brief pause. "Have you eaten?"

"No."

"Are you hungry?"

"Of course, but I'll be fine."

"Then you might as well go," Baisan said. "Be back by midnight." It sounded more like a question than an order.

"Of course."

I knocked on the window gently. It was a little windier out than I liked, and the windowsill was thin. I didn't want to make any sudden movements. After a moment with no response, I reached out to knock on it again just as it opened. Taken slightly by surprise, I flinched and just for a moment felt my balance wavering. I grabbed the inside of the window frame to steady myself.

"A couple of days means a week now, does it?" Tannix stepped out of the way so I could climb into the room. "I thought something had happened to you."

"Between you and Baisan..." I muttered to myself, but I let the thought trail off. "I was busy. One of us got hurt. Castin."

"Oh." Tannix closed the window and did up the latch. "Do you need anything for him?"

"No." I settled into the comfortable armchair. "I did want to come, you know."

"Did you?"

I nodded. "Actually, this whole letter thing..." I paused, wondering if I really should tell him. "I did hope it would be worth something. The thief in me always hopes things are worth something." I shifted slightly in the chair. "But I also, partially, used it as an excuse."

"Did you?" Tannix repeated. He was leaning against the window, somehow managing to look both relaxed and alert at the same time.

"Yes. I know four years is a long time, but I did want to visit you. I was just afraid of what you might do. With the letter, I thought, at least there was a reason for me to show up. I didn't really become friends with people back then. You were one of the first."

"You were one of my first too."

"I don't believe you," I said. "I'm sure the son of Lord West Draulin has lesser lords constantly falling over themselves to be his friend."

"That's true," Tannix agreed. "But just because they try doesn't mean they succeed. You weren't looking to benefit from my wealth or my status, and that's why I liked you. Still do."

"Well, now that we have that settled." I adjusted to sit more comfortably, hooking my legs over the armrest. "Has anything happened with the letter? Does the king want to give me a reward?"

"Unfortunately not," Tannix replied. "On both accounts. Although I had some free time yesterday when I was supposed to be studying military tactics, and I made a list of things I thought were important about the letter."

"What are they?"

He walked over to his desk and picked up a piece of parchment. "I wrote down the last line, 'a king leads a country. Without a king, they fight an aimless war, and a country falls.' The wax was stamped with the Navire seal. We know that the recipient is supposed to meet someone called M. We know that they're a foreigner."

"No, we don't."

Tannix looked up from the parchment. "Yes, we do. They need a map and they are unfamiliar with the Lothian Dusk."

"They write in Teltish," I pointed out.

He hesitated and glanced down at his notes as if they would give him an answer. "Navire and Deorun both speak Teltish," he said slowly, still confused.

"Politically," I agreed, "but the Telts only took over what was old Zianna. We used to have our own language, just as Deorun and Navire still do. Old Ziannan is lost; it was beaten and forced out of us until we entirely forgot how to speak it. But they didn't, because the Telts never took them over. They don't use Teltish as an everyday, common language. Why would they write letters to each other in it?"

"How do you know that?"

"Is it really that shocking that I know something?" I asked. "You have your fancy education, but I listen to people on the streets. I learn things."

"I didn't mean..." Tannix looked back down at his parchment. "I'll add that they write in Teltish. That doesn't necessarily mean anything, though." He settled down at his desk and picked up a fancy quill. I went to join him, and pulled the quill from his hand. He almost started to protest, but then seemed to decide it would be useless. I backed away from the desk a bit so that he couldn't take it from me.

The feather itself was blue and attached to a silver piece that served as both the place to hold the quill and the tip. There was an intricate miniature feather carved into the silver where it met with the real feather. "Why is it," I asked after inspecting the quill thoroughly, "that even your quill is more expensive than anything I've ever owned in my life?" I looked up to see that Tannix had turned around in his chair and was watching me.

He shrugged. "I've never noticed."

"You've never noticed how expensive your quill is?"

"I'm used to it," he said. "I've never really thought about it. Are you trying to make me feel guilty?"

"No." I shook my head. "No, it's just, sometimes I see things like this and I wonder why people are born who they are. Why do you get this," I shook the quill a little, "when I get nothing? Why couldn't I have been born the rich one? Don't you ever look at a poor person and wonder why you're so lucky?"

Tannix seemed a little reluctant to answer, but finally said, "No."

"Of course you don't. Why would you want to imagine having nothing? I guess only the poor would imagine living a different life. It makes sense."

"Do you want to be rich?" Tannix asked.

I shrugged, dejected. "I don't know. Sometimes. Not for the power that would come with it, but just so I could own something, so I could buy my own food—and enough food."

"I'm sorry, Finn."

"It isn't your fault." I sighed and handed the quill back to him.

"But it's true that I've never thought about it before," Tannix said. "For what it's worth, I'll do what I can to help you. Are you hungry?"

"Of course I'm hungry."

"I'll be right back." He got to his feet and left quickly, leaving me still standing by the desk. While I waited, I distracted myself by looking over his piece of parchment. Written across it were the little shapes and symbols that I knew meant something, but looked like complete nonsense to me. I traced my finger along one of the lines, wondering what it said. Tannix returned sooner than I expected. He handed me what looked like a tiny loaf of bread and sat down at his desk again.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Some sort of pastry," Tannix replied. I started eating it and watched over his shoulder as he opened his little bottle of ink and dipped the tip of the quill into it. He neatly wrote another row of letters underneath the others.

"Is it hard to read?" I asked.

"Not once you know how," Tannix replied. "Writing can be a little harder just because the ink is messy. Do you want to see your name?"

The offer caught me off guard, and I even stopped eating for a moment. "You can write my name?"

"I don't know how you'd spell it, but I can try phonetically."

"I don't know what that means," I admitted. Often I could figure out strange words by their context, but for once, I was at a complete loss.

"It just means that I can write it out the way it sounds."

I nodded. Even though I had never cared about what my name looked like, I was suddenly curious. "Do it."

Tannix ripped off a piece of the parchment. He dipped the quill into the ink again and then wrote out two groups of letters. The first was four letters, the second was eight. He pointed at the smaller one. "This says Finn. The longer one is how I think you would spell Finagale. Do you want to try writing it?"

I eyed both of the names. "I'll try writing Finn," I decided.

Tannix smiled. "All right." He dipped the quill into the ink again for me. "Here, most people would hold it in their right hand, but you can use your left. Just try to redraw the shapes."

Tentatively, I took the quill from him and tried to copy the way he had arranged his fingers. He nodded when I got it right, and I slowly drew the first letter. My hand was a little shaky, so it turned out wobbly. When I was finished, I put down the quill and admired my writing. It wasn't neat as Tannix's had been, but it was recognizably the same thing.

"There, you wrote your name."

"Show me yours," I said.

Tannix picked up the quill again. Underneath my name, he wrote out a six-letter word. Then beside it, he wrote four letters, and then seven. He pointed to them in turn as he said, "This says Tannix, and these two say Lord Tandrix."

"I'll write Tannix," I decided. "Some of the letters are the same." I took the quill and went through the same process of slowly drawing each letter. When I was done with his name, I tried mine again. "I can write," I declared proudly. "My name, at least."

"You can write," he agreed. "Now you just need to learn how to read."

I shook my head. "No. I'll just remember my name and your name."

"And that will get you through life?"

"Yes. Why would I need to know anything else?"

"I guess you don't. I might teach you anyway," he said.

"Good luck." I glanced towards the window. It was getting dark enough that I knew real dusk was starting to set. "Are you allowed to leave? We could go for a walk in the upper city."

Tannix followed my gaze. "I don't have time, but we can still talk. Come on."