Desert Siren

Fourteen

Jayza was worried. And beginning to feel scared. It was now late morning, almost time for Second Meal, and Tavan still hadn't come back. Nobody had come since he left her the afternoon before, and her stomach rumbled loudly even as she fought to ignore it. Huddled against the back of the bed, she began to entertain the possibility that something had gone seriously wrong.

Immediately after Tavan's footsteps had faded away, Jayza stood up, stretching her leg as far as she could to reach the stool by the tub. Carefully hooking a toe around one leg, she patiently moved it a fraction at a time towards her, eventually using her entire foot and then grabbing it with her hand. She first tried dribbling the shampoo on her wrist, hoping to make it slick enough to slip through the cuff. When that didn't work, she tried the paste, cursing and crying in frustration when the cuff kept getting hung up on the joint where her thumb met her hand. She tried forcing the bones closer together, squeezing hard, but the cuff just wouldn't move any further and the only result was an ache in the joint and red marks where the cuff chafed her skin. Throwing the pot across the room, she sat back and concentrated, sure there had to be another way.

After a few minutes of self-pity, she inspected the tether itself. Made of braided leather, she tried to gnaw it and when that only succeeded in making her teeth and jaw hurt, she tried pulling it taught, hoping it would snap. Eventually giving up, she moved to the bedpost, scrutinizing the entire length. Standing on the mattress, she found she could barely touch the place where it connected with the canopy. Jumping off the bed, she pushed the pillows away and placed the stool against the headboard. Gingerly climbing on it, she used her cuffed hand to steady herself whenever the stool wobbled. Reaching up, she initially felt a glimmer of hope when she found her wrist would clear the top. Unfortunately, when she pushed on the canopy, she found a dowel had been used inside to secure the two pieces together. Unable to push the canopy high enough to clear the dowel, she had dropped back onto the bed with a curse, shoving the stool off with her foot. Concluding she wasn't going to escape that way, she sat on the edge, chin in hand, and spent some time trying to discover another possible means of escape. Lifting her head, she glanced around the room, trying to judge how far the rest of the objects in it were. Catching a glimpse of Tavan's chest, she brightened slightly. Hoping there might be something useful inside, she lay on her stomach, sliding herself to the bottom of the bed until her arm stretched above her head. Carefully feeling with her feet, she hooked her foot along one side and pushed. When it didn't budge, she shifted position and used two feet. Painfully, she slowly pushed the chest sideways, stopping several times to work out the cramps in her feet and calves. When it had cleared the bottom of the bed by more than half, she again changed position and worked her toes under and through the handle, slowly pivoting the chest then drawing it forward until she was able to grasp it with her hand. Pulling it forward, she knelt on the floor and opened it, hoping she might find something she could destroy the tether with.

The chest proved just as useless as her prior endeavors. Other than clothing, it only held the Pinchka set, a small bag of scrip, and a packet of letters tied with a faded ribbon. Jayza considered the scrip, then tossed it back inside. There was no way she was going to be able to move the chest back and Tavan was going to be extremely angry when he saw what she had done. Stealing his scrip would make it even worse and if she couldn't escape, it was of no use to her. Besides, she had no real place to hide it. Instead, she sat with the packet of letters in her lap, turning them over and over as she fought with herself.

"Scorched Sands," she muttered, debating with herself. "Why do you care?"

After a few more minutes, she uttered another curse and placed the letters back in the chest. She then gathered up the clothes and piled them inside before slamming the lid shut. Crawling back into bed, she pulled the coverlet up and tried to go to sleep. But the letters ate away at her, and she finally threw back the coverlet, uttering a grunt of frustration.