The Rogue Guardian

Chapter 75: For Going Home

this is too short to be a real chapter but fight me, i'm uploading it

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Hours after Morane left, Caer stayed lying on the cold floor of the cell, thinking. That was currently his favorite hobby, seeing as there wasn't much else to do. 

Within the first few hours of being locked up he had thoroughly investigated all parts of the cell that he could reach, as well as the chain and cuffs that held him. Everything was sealed tight or too strong to break. Roman was too good at his job to give him any chance to escape. So Caer's only occupations were sleeping and thinking and taunting and occasionally eating.

He hoped the next meal would come soon, but he wasn't too optimistic. Roman was either trying to starve answers out of him, keep him too weak to escape, or disorient his sense of time by keeping meal times irregular. Probably all three. The man wasn't king of assassins for nothing.

Caer had used that last method on prisoners before, and sure, he had kept prisoners weaker with less nutritious food, but — he thought indignantly to himself — he'd never tried to outright starve anyone. So if Morane thought he was just as bad as her rebels she should reconsider. If she came again, he'd point that out.

He grimaced. Who knew when or if she'd come again? He should have tried to talk her into breaking him out before she left. He was sure she could do it, probably as simple as swiping a key. Perhaps even lock picks would do. Thief skills had to be good for something, right? And she wasn't heartless. If he'd just mentioned barely being fed, she might have helped him.

But instead, he'd... what had he done? Taunted her, felt bad about it, laughed with her, missed her, perhaps tried to flatter her a little if he was being honest, and he may as well be. But he was too proud to outright ask for help.

Anyway, getting her to break him out would be a short-term goal. What he wanted was for her to go back to the capital and be on Magali's side. That was what the conversation's goal had been, he decided. He wasn't losing his touch, he was just thinking beyond his cell.

She'd probably come back, anyway. That was a bright light in the darkness of the dungeons. He was still angry with her, but he couldn't help that she made him relax and laugh. He didn't have that many friends, after all. There wasn't time, between keeping up with his history hobby, tutoring Magali, and running the royal spies almost single-handedly. While Morane had seemed like just another burden when Tobias first asked (commanded) him to tutor her, he'd come to appreciate her humor and new way of looking at things. Even if she drove him out of his mind. Even if they had fought sometimes. She had been his friend, still was his friend.

But for now, he just felt gloomier than before she'd came, having had a moment to tease and be teased and forget the darkness for a moment.

He tilted his head, cheek against the stone ground, to look at the door. His memory of Morane leaned against the bars in that lazy way she let anything but her own feet support her weight, bitterly familiar. Unflinchingly meeting his angry gaze at one point, eyes closed and face tilted away at another. He was used to being alone, but feeling lonely was something new. Dammit, was this what came of having friends? He should have been content with Magali, his princess. The girl he'd see queen if it killed him. He'd never been lonely as long as focused on how he was part of something bigger.

Was that how Morane felt about the revolution? Well, she ought to forget that and come back to Magali. That was a better something bigger. As much as he'd come to understand Morane's feelings about being a Guardian, he knew he would never stop feeling a little bitter about it. How could she hate her powers, her Mark, when he would have given anything to be what she was? It was his deepest, darkest... not secret really, not desire exactly, but his deepest darkest something. To be a Guardian. A jealousy, he supposed. That it was something you had to be born into, when it seemed you should become it through wanting. He wanted it more than she or Nemia ever had... not that either of them seemed to want it at all.

His thoughts were trailing off and fogging. He had to stay clear-headed, or Roman would win.

He pulled himself back to Morane's visit, let himself sift through their interaction with as much detail as he could remember, trying to ignore how achingly hungry he was. Analyzing was what he did best, after all: finding the facts from the opinions in historical documents, the lies from the truths in interrogations. This would make him feel sharper.

He called up what he'd said and the way she's reacted, the shifting of her feet, where her gaze fell, where she'd put her hands. At first, in her pockets — a stance that was defensive, maybe self-conscious. Then when they were visible, in fists — angry, argumentative, as usual. Then later she'd wrapped them around the bars, squeezing tight — wanting something steady, or feeling frustrated. Had she been frustrated? That didn't seem to fit with her tone of voice at the time.

Maybe he was losing his touch. Maybe he should just try to sleep some more, and hope there was food when he woke up.

He let his eyes slide halfway closed as he kept staring at the bars. His memory of Morane let her hand fall, loose after the pressure she'd been exerting, turned, and left.

There was something on the metal where her hand had been.

He sat up so quickly that his chains clashed and clattered, and scrambled to his feet, almost crashing back to the ground as the chain pulled taut. Swaying from the sudden exertion, he leaned forward as far as he could. If he stretched one arm as far as possible, if his fingers could just reach...

His fingertips dug into something thick but malleable.

His heart clanged too loudly in his chest. Carefully, slowly, he pulled on the almost-squishy substance until he had the blob of it in his palm. He could feel other textures in it, something hard, something scratchy.

Retreating to the farthest corner of his cell, he curled up on the ground to examine it. It was mage's seal, or some other similar kind of putty that would stick to the metal bars. And stuck inside it was a tiny scroll of paper. When he'd extricated it from the gray sludge and rolled it out, several lock picks came unstuck.

On the paper were just a few lines in cramped handwriting:

Go home. Tell Magali she doesn't need to be queen. Tell her to leave Solangia.

He rubbed his thumb over the grain of the paper, the slight outline of the words where she'd pressed too hard. The ink was thick, blocked out in sharp letters, as though she was trying to be extra convincing.

It didn't work, of course. Caer knew, deep in the cavern of his heart, that Magali was meant to be a queen. And now that she had set her eyes on the throne, she wouldn't run if the dragons themselves rose from their ashy graves to chase her out.

Sorry, Morane, he thought. You gave her just a little too much of yourself.

It almost made him smile — not that Morane was so desperate, because he wasn't that bitter, but that she had been so conflicted about whether to help him that she hadn't made a decision at all. He could almost picture the internal argument, the final compromise to just leave the lock picks there and let his own intelligence decide if he deserved to find them.

Don't worry, Morane. It was close, but I'm still smart enough to match you.

It was a very rash, procrastinating, Morane-like thing to do, he thought as he got to work on his manacles.

And she was right. It was time to go home.