Instead of agreeing with her, Marek seemed more interested in correcting her, which ticked at Navia’s aggravation further. She stared at him drolly while he reminded her that Kazim was her king as well, which she was fully aware of and was just jabbing at him for it because she was frustrated. At least Marek was in agreement that Théadan needed to be spoken to and seemed prepared to do that. She was tempted to object to the statement he made on guaranteeing his release, but the advisor was continuing to admonish her with the way she was behaving toward Kazim. Navia didn’t want to hear it, not when her cousin was being so unreasonable when it came to Théadan, that she simply glared at Marek for trying to correct her behavior. It wasn’t until the man stepped forward to kiss the back of her hand and welcomed her home, that Navia spoke again and it was only a stiff, “Thank you.”<br/><br/>The instant he was gone, Navia spun back to confront her family. “Why would he use my title, but not yours?” She asked, partially in annoyance and also in curiosity, “He is an advisor now, in the same position as Devam, where such titles are not needed when working with us, but he continues to do so.”<br/><br/>“He respects the hierarchy,” Kazim answered her, proud his advisor had stepped up for him and had put Navia back in her place, “And you should do well to remember your own spot in it,<i>Duchess.</i>”<br/><br/>“Does he call Sai,<i>varpati</i>?” Navia asked, wanting to make a point, only to remember she had not seen her brother yet and excitement burst across her features, “Where is Sai?”<br/><br/>“He probably has his nose in this book he found. It seems to be all he’s done lately is read the same book in the library,” Yousef glanced Kazim’s way briefly, thinking of how he had agreed to speak with Navia, before sweeping a hand toward the door, “We can go see if he’s there, but first would you like to meet your nephew?”<br/><br/>The reminder that Yousef had a son, that she was an aunt, hit her hard enough for Navia to place a hand to her chest while she thought of how much she had missed while gone. Yousef held out his arm for her to take and Navia allowed him to lead her to the door, only to turn back to Kazim at the last moment and ask, “Can I see Théadan first? I want to make sure he’s all right.”<br/><br/>“No,” Kazim answered vehemently, frustrated that Navia had been almost out of his hair, but kept going back to the damn Mes’Mo’Tanian, “Women have no business in dungeons, especially you. You need to go and get reacquainted with your role here and understand that if you didn’t have royal blood in your veins, you would be in there with the<i>Avezana</i>.”<br/><br/>“Put me in there, then!” Navia demanded angrily, the need to defend and fight to release Théadan causing her voice to raise, “If you would throw a man who has done nothing to you into the dungeons for the color of his skin, then I do not want to share blood with you.”<br/><br/>“All right, we’re off to see the baby!” Yousef said quickly, seeing the explosive way Kazim was about to react to Navia’s idiotic words and he hastily dragged Navia out the door before she could be disowned.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>The dungeon cells had been flooded with a thin layer of water since Sainan’s father had first brought him down to see a place nobles rarely entered. He had always been curious though, and his father had always welcomed it from him. Sai had no doubt in his mind that the dungeons had been leaking sea water long before his childhood, and he had not thought of it again until a minor scuffle with a man in a market had brought him back toe the place of punishment years later. The man had not known him to be royalty or Sai was confident he would not have put his hands on him, but the guard who had been quietly following Sai through the markets that day had, and had thusly arrested him. The man had been barely incarcerated an hour before Sainan had made a case for him and he’d been released, but it had brought Sai back down to the dark and damp dungeons and had reminded him of the derelict.<br/><br/>He liked problems. He liked trying to work out how to fix them and then doing just that. In his mind, they all had solutions and the harder ones to work out were the better ones. So Sainan had set about trying to figure out why and where the dungeons were leaking so he could go about repairing them. He was quite handy, an attribute that was not likely to be applied to a royal, but he had been tinkering with anything he could get his hands on since he was a toddler. His father had encouraged it, and then his sister had after his father’s death. Then Navia had been ripped away from them and for a couple weeks after that, Sainan had had no interest in any of his ongoing projects. Navia, the sister who was more like a mother, who shared his humor and their mother’s expressive, large eyes. They had often joked it was why they saw eye-to-eye and Yousef often did not, for his eyes belonged to their father. It wasn’t until he received a letter from her stating she was all right that Sai had begun to perk back up. While the rest of the family had mourned her and moved on, Sai had remained adamant his sister would return. If anyone them could, it was she. She was often the most determined of them all.<br/><br/>And she had. While he was kneeling in the stagnant water of one of the cells, running his fingers along the mortar between the heavy rocks making the wall, Sai had heard the news shouted down into the dungeon so its guards would know. Joy had blossomed through his heart upon hearing, but since she had been sighted at the northern gate, he had figured he had time to keep working before he needed to welcome his sister home. At least, that had been his plan, but Sai had never been one for punctuality. Once his mind was set on a newest endeavor, little else broke that focus. So he had continued on to try to find a weak spot in the cell wall that might be allowing water into the building and the time flew by until the door to the dungeon burst open and the sound of men bringing someone down could be heard. Curious, Sai marked the spot he was working at with a piece of chalk on one of the dry stones and crossed over the door to the cell he was working in. It had been left open so he did not accidentally get trapped, giving him a view of a light-skinned, dark-haired man being clapped in chains and thrown into the room next door. Sai ran a hand across his cheek while he watched, rubbing against the scruffy beard that had formed while the days passed and he’d become fixated on curing the dungeons of their leaks.<br/><br/>One of the guards laughed as the door shut, saying in Khluri that he would be dead within days. The other stated the<i>sitvati </i>might fight it enough to end up down there too, and they laughed about having her beauty to look upon while they ended her lover. He probably would have protested the cruelty aimed toward his sister, but Sai was lamenting missing her arrival until he heard the man call out to the guards about the leak. He was also surprised to hear Navia had brought a man home with her, and a Mes’Mo’Tanian at that. It made Sai smirk that humor would be the man’s response to incarceration, but that combined with his accent and use of the common tongue made him wonder. Navia could wait, he was certain Yousef would want to speak to her alone anyway. Even though he had reached adulthood, even though he had begun training with the army and his nineteenth birthday was a mere week away, Yousef continued to insist Sai not be apart of certain conversations. So with time to spare in his mind, Sainan abandoned his work on the wall and grabbed the chair he had requested for when he wanted to take a break from being down in the water on his hands and knees. There was someone new to learn about, and one who had apparently captured his sister’s interest enough to try to bring home.<br/><br/>A narrow horizontal window between the two cells allowed for better air flow, but was still very separating, existing above most men’s heads and closed with bars. It was easy enough for Sainan to place the chair beneath the window and stand upon it to look through the bars however. The instant he did, he could feel the breeze from the window in the other cell, it teasing the locks of his black hair. It held a slight curl at the tips, falling around his ears. The rest of his features were very similar to Yousef’s, save for the difference in their eyes. “You’ll go insane trying to rid the floor of water with a mop,” Sai answered the man’s question with a chuckle and a voice sounding much like his older brother’s, only younger. He laced his arms through the bars to fold and rest them on the sill while he studied the man curiously, “We’ve already tried it. The water simply returns as if by some curse.” He and the guards, much to their irritation he had asked, had spent hours doing just that, only for the water to seep right back in over night. Sai fell silent then, his eyes inquisitively on the captive man, for he had never laid eyes upon a Mes’Mo’Tanian before. He stood perhaps a couple inches taller than Sai, his build larger and clearly defined from a life of battle. He also had the strangest colored eyes and more scars on a face Sai had ever seen. The man did not seem all that worried about being thrown into a dungeon either, causing Sainan to look down at him with an expression that showed he couldn’t figure out why.<br/><br/>“So I take it the king did not take kindly to you arriving in his home,” Sai said, studying how the guards had added chains on top of throwing him into a room with no furniture and one exit, “And they must not trust you at all if you’re shackled too. So what’d you do, hmm? Did you insult him? Or is this purely because you are Mes’Mo’Tanian, a sworn enemy of Khlurios, and you dared step foot in the king’s palace? And why do you seem so calm? Do you spend much time in dungeons?” He had so many questions that he could not help but pelt the man with them, such was his fascination.