“There's trees down there,” Tethys says. “I think my mom might have gone down there. See the ladders?”
The “ladders” she’s referring to are pegs knocked into the walls of the ravine here and there. They might be functional for skilled climbers, but they are death traps to all others.
“I’ve never had the nerve to climb down,” she says. “But you’re an adult. You’ll keep me safe.”
“I will,” I agree, grabbing the back of her dress. “By not allowing you to go anywhere near that hole. That’s dangerous, Tethys.”
“But it’s the only way out!”
“It's no way out at all,” I tell her. “Do you know what happens if you fall that far?”
“No.”
“You burst. Like a balloon. You go pop, and everything that’s inside you ends up outside you. If you want your innards decorating a tree, you go ahead and climb down there.”
I am not particularly good at talking to children. That's something I need to work on before I have my own.
Tethys starts to cry. Not at the mental image of being generally strewn about an abyss, but because I am mean, and just like her father, apparently.
“You’re going back inside," I tell her. I might very well be able to use this path as an escape method, but there’s no way in hell I’m taking her with me.
“No! I am escaping!” She starts to stamp her foot in temper, and that makes bits of rock crumble and tumble into the endless hole. She’s reckless, and spoiled, which surprises me. Surely Sithren doesn’t allow this?
“You’re going back inside,” I tell her. “Now.”
“You’re EXACTLY like HIM!” She twists up her face and screams into mine.
You either die an idiot teenager or live long enough to see yourself become the villain of their dramas. I am starting to wonder if getting myself potentially knocked up was a good idea. Babies are cute, but this is not.
Fortunately for me, the shrieking has alerted the guard and Sithren. I can hear the general kerfuffle and hubbub inside the walls, but apparently none of them know where we are.
“We’re out here!” I call to Sithren. “On this big fuck-off cliff face!”
A light shines down from the high wall above, up on the ramparts. I hear him curse and swear, and then he disappears.
“I hate you,” Tethys tells me. “I’m never going to help you again. You’re a bitch.”
I look down at her, half wondering why I am holding onto her. I could just let go and the little shit would take care of herself as a problem. But of course, I keep holding her back from her own demise because that is what good adults do.
There’s a bashing and a crashing and eventually soldiers and Sithren burst through the hole they should have fixed long ago and grab the pair of us as if this was their idea.
I am held by two soldiers while Sithren is reunited with his daughter.
“Tethys!” He wraps her in his arms. I can see and hear his relief. He loves that girl. She is rebelling against him because she is a teenager missing her mom, but I do think he cares for her, and there is no sign he uses the same barbaric discipline on her as he does on me. She seems cosseted and treasured.
The mystery of Sithren continues to deepen.
All I know is that my freedom has just been sacrificed for the girl. I won’t be able to use that method of escape again. He’ll know. I also know that he is going to whip me to within an inch of my life for the second escape attempt.
“I will deal with her later,” he growls in my direction. “Take her back to her room.”
I go, resigned to my fate. This place is far stranger than I ever imagined. I expected a run of the mill patriarchal dystopian nightmare with a hyper political harem of women all vying for power within a structure that is inherently repressive. I didn't expect one lonely girl and a lot of empty real estate. The Authority would kill for this information.
After an hour or so, the door to my room opens. Sithren steps in. He, yet again, is not in a good mood. I have the feeling that dealing with Tethys takes him to the very limits of his patience and I am at risk of becoming a whipping girl for a sulky, rebellious teenager.
“What to do with you?”
He is carrying a whip in his hand, so I have some idea of what he intends to do to me.
“You can get those clothes off for a start. You have no right to wear the robes of my wives.”
He seems offended. But I’m offended too.
“You know, I could have let her do what she wanted to do, which was climb into that hole, right? She came and let me out again to escort her into the afterlife, apparently.”