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You are Cassandrea, and for the crime of loving your son, they have moved you into the sacrificial chamber. You have not prayed to your son again, though you could have, you suppose. It could hardly do more than hasten your execution.
But you do not, because your husband is stalling for time, hoping that news of your impending death will lure your boys home. You hope for the same, for different reasons. Torva hopes to bring his sons back under his control, and you just hope to see them. Why would you seek to disobey your husband in this when your goals are aligned? When you are still paying the price for disobeying the first time? He may do as he likes with the boys once you are gone, as he has always done in your life. Your absence will not make a difference.
The days fall off of you, alone in this room. You are fed but not entertained. It would be a dreadfully boring torment, if you had less skill in letting time pass by you unwitnessed.
I retreat into my own airless Void, the one inside of me, where I am safe.
You are safe, but alone.
A moment, or days, or eons later, the stillness is shattered by a commotion in the hall. You begin deciding whether it is worth the effort of dragging your mind out of its comfortable prison, whether you can bear to allow yourself to feel the pain of hoping that someone has come for you.
Your door bursts open. Your son, Orestes, is there. And for the first time in the ages since your imprisonment, your mind is clear. You cry out, lurch upwards to run to him. He does the same, slamming the door closed on the Torvaic soldiers trying to follow him in. The broken, bloody bodies of your personal guards are briefly visible through the door.
I don’t need to see it, and so I don’t.
Once he is assured of your privacy, Orestes throws himself into your arms. Cassandrea. What would you like to do?
"Oh, my Sun!" I hug him back. "I knew you would come home to me, my darling."
"Where else would I be?" He says, and you can tell he's trying to sound confident, but his voice has that manic edge he puts on when he's shaken.
I pull back to look at his face.
There's a smear of something red across his cheekbone.
I just smile at him, and then I lick my finger and wipe it away.
He leans into your hand, and he says "Mom, what happened? Last I heard everything was fine with you, and now Daddy Dearest wants you dead?"
"Well, I would imagine that your dad always wants me dead."
"You know who I mean, Mother."
I huff. "It was just a misunderstanding, darling."
"I think it stops counting as a misunderstanding when your own husband starts calling for your blood."
"Well, my darling, you call for your brother's blood all the time! Isn't that just what family does?"
"That doesn't…"
"It doesn't count? Because you don't mean it? I swear, convincing you boys that you love each other is like herding cats."
"Stop changing the SUBJECT, Mother!" He just explodes, and shoves himself away from you.
My face goes blank.
"This isn't a JOKE!" He keeps yelling, pacing the room. "This isn't a GAME!" He goes over to the door, which is still banging in its frame from the guards trying to open it, and kicks it hard- WHAM, WHAM, WHAM- until the banging stops. "This is about your DEATH, and unless you DO SOMETHING, I'm going to LOSE YOU!"
I don’t respond.
“Say something, Mother!”
I whisper. “It is his will.”
The air goes out of Orestes all at once. He deflates in front of you. “Say… something that isn’t that,” he says.
I don’t say anything.
He folds into himself even more, and he looks small in a way that you barely remember, from before he was Named. He sits on the edge of your bed and looks at his hands. He has calluses from the hilts of his weapons, and he starts pressing a fingernail into the freshest blister.
I join him, and take his hands. Gently.
He lets you, and he’s quiet for a second, and then he says “Why?”
I frown. “Because it is-”
“His will. Yeah. I know. But why is it his will to kill you?”
“Didn’t you ask him yourself, when you communed?”
He looks down. Doesn’t say anything.
I gasp. “Have you not communed with him yet, my darling? You came home to Torva’s greatest temple, and walked right past his altar to sneak down here to me?”
He sighs. “Yes, obviously,” he says, and gestures to where he dropped his weapon on the way in. It’s dripping blood in a small puddle that’s drying onto your floor.
I click my tongue. “Silly child. Go pray to him, and get your answers. You can chat with me when you’re finished.” I kiss his hair. “I’ll be right here when you get back.”
He looks in your eyes, and you can tell that he doesn’t know if he can believe you.
I cup his face in my hand, and I’m smiling. “I promise you, my Sun.”
He grabs your hand on his face and squeezes it, too hard. And then he turns away from you and gets up without saying anything.
“I love you too, darling,” I say.
He doesn’t respond, but he does pause for just a moment before he collects his weapon and reopens the door. You can see that someone has started to drag the corpses away, and that for the moment your door is unguarded.
I don’t notice.
Orestes stops in the doorway, looks back at you. He looks haunted, and lost, but not crazed. Not yet.
Then he drags in a breath, grabs harshly at the hilt of his weapon, stands up straight before slumping back down into a casual slouch. He pulls the veil of mania back over his eyes.
“Seeya later, Mom,” he says. “You’re right, I’ve got another parental figure I need to have a chat with.” He does a showy twirl with his weapon that leaves it in a fighting-ready position, and slams your door so hard that it bounces back open as he saunters off.
Cassandrea, what would you like to do?
“Ah, children.” I put my hand over my heart.
Your door is open, and you’re unguarded.
I know.
You don’t want to do anything about that?
Hm? No. I draw the curtains around my bed, lean back against the pillows, and start humming a Torvaic hymn.
Alright. More time passes, and you have a slightly lighter heart this time. But you still have no news of Falen, your youngest.
You don’t count how long it takes, so you don’t know if Orestes comes back moments, hours, or days after praying to Torva, but he does come back to you.
He comes in with his weapons holstered, this time. Apparently your new guards have learned from their comrade’s mistakes, and have chosen not to stop him. He does still kick your door open, though, and it hits the opposite wall and bounces. Orestes grins savagely at the guards when it makes them flinch, and slams the door on their pale faces.
“So I had a chat with dear old dad, or at least with a bowl of water with his golden face in it,” he says.
I hold out my arms for a hug.
He’s a little more reluctant now that neither of you is in immediate danger. But he does come over and hug you.
I pull him down to sit with me on the bed and start fussing with his hair.
There’s definitely a little bit of dry blood matted in it.
I’ll give it the good ol’ mom spit shine.
He goes “Mom, stop,” and leans away a little, but not far enough to actually stop you, and then he says “Anyway. I had a chat with a bowl of water that looked like dad.”
“Mmhmm?” I grab a hairbrush.
“Mooooommm. You’re gonna mess up my curl pattern.”
“You mess up your own curl pattern by refusing to wash it, my darling. I know what I’m doing.”
“You can’t get out of this conversation by trying to parent me,” he says.
…I don’t respond to that.
He sort of mutters under his breath “You only hear what you want to hear.”
“What was that, my sun?”
He just groans. He does let you get away with stalling for a little while, and lets you brush his hair. It is the most normal, domestic moment the two of you have had since your boys left your temple to live in Torvah’s Jaw.
Eventually Orestes speaks up. “He has a plan. For Falen.”
“Hm.”
“I’m gonna bring him back. For you, okay? Dad wants my dear darling baby brother back for his own reasons, but I know you don’t care, so I’m not gonna bore you with saying them. You’re gonna see him one last time. That’s all you care about, so that’s all that matters.”
“That’s wonderful, my Sun. I trust you to bring my Moon back to me.”
He sits there with you in silence, but it’s a tense one now, like he’s chewing on whether to tell you something else.
I don’t notice. I start humming a lullaby.
This only makes him more tense, and all of a sudden the bubble of his silence pops.
“Dad’s gonna use you to catch him. I’m supposed to lure him in by telling him to come save you, and then we’re gonna trap him. Here. So Dad can bring him back under control.”
“I am sure you will execute his will flawlessly, as always.” I don’t say that Falen will not. It is Falen’s nature to rebel against control, and I love him for who he is, even who he was Named to be. He will try to escape, but whether he does or not, my fate will not change. I will follow my orders.
Orestes seems unsettled by that, and you watch in real time as that unsettlement transmutes itself into rage. He throws himself up off of the bed, away from you.
He says “Well, I need to go hit something. Something that will fight back when I hurt it. This was a nice chat, Mom. Let’s have one again sometime, before you let your husband brutally murder you for his own ends.”
He snatches up his weapon and bangs open your door. The guards let him by without comment, even though he shoulder-checks one of them hard into the wall on his way past. He leaves the door open. The guards glance at each other, and neither move to close it.
I close the curtains around my bed. I don’t start humming. I let this silence sit.
Cassandrea. There is a chance that if Torva brings Falen back, he will attempt to sacrifice him instead of you, as he has tried before. Do you allow this thought to occur to you?
I do. I will accept the risk.
There is a chance that Orestes wishes to bring Falen back specifically so that he may convince Torvah to sacrifice him instead of you. Do you allow this thought to occur to you?
No. I could not bear it.
That thought is gone, as if it had never entered your mind.
There is a chance that your son is lying to you, and that he does intend to allow Falen to take you from here and escape. Do you allow this thought to occur to you?
No. Such a thing is impossible, and the price for an attempt would be much too high. I would not leave my home.
That thought is gone, as if it had never entered your mind.