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She sleeps soundly next to him, small body barely visible underneath the plushness of the bedclothes and pillows. Siri always falls asleep so easily, and her breathing is unfailingly steady--comforting, even. Susebron has been trying to match his own to it since Siri first relaxed into sleep against his shoulder hours ago.
His own breaths come too quickly, more out than in, lungs coiling like springs underneath his ribcage. The God King should be used to this by now--it’s always there, that tight feeling in his chest. Something about being surrounded by crowds of attendants, always being seen, has always made him feel...squeezed, somehow, but this is...different. Odd.
“Yet they took your tongue so that you couldn’t ever use it, and they never taught you to read, lest you learn too much or manage to communicate with others. All so that they could control you.”
Siri’s voice, still clear in its upset and horror months after she had first put the pieces together, played over and over in his head as he lay still next to her.
The priests--his priests--have always been good to him. If he has wanted for anything, it has not been long before he gets it. Treledees is especially understanding, patient while his God King spells out his wishes in the slow artisans’ script. And yet, Susebron had woken up one day to find his mother gone, and himself unable to react in any way other than to cry and attempt to force noise through lips not equipped to make it.
His breathing comes faster as he thinks, wheezing through his nose on the exhale, and beside him Siri turns in her sleep. She faces him now, maybe--the blackness of the room makes it hard to tell. The pacing of her inhales and exhales keeps its constant, peaceful rhythm. Susebron shifts, moving as quickly as he can without waking Siri.
She does not need to see this. Siri already sees him confused, the gaps in his education laid bare before her; she does not need to see him pathetic. He knocks softly on the door, clad only in his undergown, and a servant opens it. The man’s face is carefully stoic, but behind him Susebron can see the usual group of priests, always ready to take down any action of his and interpret it. The emptiness in his mouth almost aches at the sight of them, Treledees at the front, coming closer until he kneels in front of his God King. He and the others look worried. Treledees says something, asks after Susebron’s well-being, and Susebron’s fingers twitch for the tablet that he left in the bedchamber. As it is, he can only nod--yes, i’m alright,--but when another priest lays a hand on his shoulder, Susebron cannot stop himself from shaking it off. Something about the touch, even through the sleeve of his undergown, makes his skin crawl. He will have to tell Treledees later that the poor man is not to be executed, write out that he simply hadn’t wanted to be touched, but he knows that his hands will shake too badly to say what he needs to.
“Yet they took your tongue so that you couldn’t ever use it, and they never taught you to read, lest you learn too much or manage to communicate with others. All so that they could control you.”
Siri again, speaking in his memories. Treledees would never hurt him, not even unintenionally. But the empty place in his mouth still aches.