Chapter Text
Alhaitham sits up in bed, knees bent at a precise forty-five-degree angle, and yawns almost silently. He stretches and looks around. A clean, sober environment, sterile. He admires the perfect lines formed by the building blocks. He smiles, almost without noticing.
He slips his feet into the pair of sandals he sets out beside the bed every night and walks seven exact steps to the bedroom door.
He crosses the silent, empty hallway toward the kitchen. There, everything is in its place. One wide plate, one deep plate, one cup, one glass, one set of cutlery. Nothing more. Everything clean and gleaming, as if bought yesterday.
Alhaitham pours three cups of water into the single pewter teapot he owns. While he waits, he picks up the book he's aligned ten centimeters from the edge of the table and begins to read. Exactly ten pages.
The kettle whistles, so Alhaitham gets up, goes to the cupboard, counts out seven leaves of Nilgiri tea, and drops them into the pot. He doesn't sweeten it and doesn't wait long. He pours it once, twice, three times into the single cup he owns and enjoys his breakfast in complete silence.
Alhaitham smiles again, almost without noticing.
When he leaves the house, Alhaitham puts on his noise-canceling headphones. He hears nothing from outside, and that's exactly why they're perfect: he walks with exact, measured steps. A hundred steps before turning the corner, two hundred seventy-three to the left, then two hundred twelve to the left again. To the right, then one thousand nine hundred twenty-two steps, then a noisy tavern that measures exactly twenty-one steps across. Steps, steps, steps.
At a quarter to ten, Alhaitham reaches the gates of the Akademiya. No one greets him, as people are expected not to. They've learned better than to bother the Grand Sage on his way to his office.
At ten o'clock, Alhaitham arrives at his office: the first floor of a secluded tower, lined floor to ceiling with books, where only seven people work — no more. No one speaks; they barely exchange glances. The only two sounds that can be heard in Alhaitham Kasemendra's office are the rustle of a page turning and the soft, rhythmic scratch of pens on paper.
At one o'clock, Alhaitham looks up from his work. He glances around, curious. His assistants have already left for lunch, of course, without telling him. The last time someone did that, they earned themselves a proper reprimand.
"Alhaitham, my friend!"
Cyno strides into the office making as much noise as he possibly can. His heels strike the floor with every step, his movements — brisk to the point of bluntness in Alhaitham's eyes — his gaze heavy and confident as it sweeps the room, as if he owned the place.
"Oh, they left this book here," he says, on his way to the scribe's desk.
Alhaitham is annoyed, though not with Cyno. His assistants know they're supposed to put everything back in its place before going to eat. It's clear now that tomorrow they won't be allowed to leave the office all day.
"Before we head to the cafeteria, I've got to escort you to the Inner Palace, my friend. The Santala requests your presence."
"Let's go, then," Alhaitham speaks for the first time. He doesn't do it often, so his voice comes out rough and low.
Once outside the office, Cyno becomes an entirely different person, leading a procession made up of exactly two people: himself and the Grand Sage. People step aside, almost as if afraid to catch Cyno's attention. They lower their eyes and try to make themselves small.
The two men walk through the halls of the Akademiya as if they owned them, though they don't. The place is full of lavish walls, hanging gardens, and kiosks tucked among thick clusters of lush flowers.
Everyone wears the uniform assigned to cadets or scholars — a linen robe that must trail at least thirty centimeters past the feet, along with a hat bearing the insignia of their House or their standing within the Akademiya.
That's not the case for Cyno or Alhaitham. While Cyno goes around showing off his broad chest and sculpted legs, with nothing around his neck but the badge that marks him as the highest judge in all of Sumeru (though he hardly needs it), Alhaitham is practical, dressed in trousers, tall boots, a breathable shirt, and his noise-canceling headphones. Both of them despise the Akademiya uniform, and as soon as they graduated, they burned those horrible clothes. Or rather, Alhaitham let Cyno handle building an enormous bonfire that very nearly got them thrown in jail.
After walking a while, they reach the highest point of the Akademiya, accessible only to the highest-ranking scholars or the closest family of the Mahadevi Santala: Queen Kusanali. Before entering the Inner Palace, a rotating detail of soldiers keeps watch day and night over both ends of the suspended walkway that connects the Palace to the Akademiya.
"Grand Judge," one of the soldiers addresses Cyno by his title. Everyone does; almost no one knows his name is Cyno Nyayadeva. "Is there a reason for your return?"
"The Mahadevi Santala sent me to fetch her nephew" — he stresses the last word, gesturing toward Alhaitham. "I imagine she wants to see him, seeing as it's been a month since his last visit."
"Allow me to announce your arrival." The soldier straightens and withdraws without turning his back on Alhaitham or Cyno, eyes lowered. Once he's halfway across the walkway, he turns to march briskly toward the Palace's main door.
Cyno never drops his air of official business, and Alhaitham doesn't shift out of character either, being naturally quiet and at ease.
A moment later, a different soldier returns along the walkway.
"Grand Judge, High Scribe: follow me, please."
The two men cross the walkway in silence. It's been neglected lately, dirt stains scattered everywhere, but no one says a word — they just keep walking.
Alhaitham can never help admiring the Inner Palace whenever he visits. It's an enormous structure held up by a single pillar, built to look like a flower bud opening. Inside, the space is circular and well lit by skylights that catch the afternoon sun. Right in the center stands a raised platform holding a desk, a bookshelf, a sofa, an armchair, and a floor lamp. This modest furniture is enclosed by a canopy of silk and satin hanging from the ceiling, forming a kind of wall between the platform and the rest of the Palace.
There waits the Mahadevi Santala, who smiles the moment she sees them. She's small, with flawless skin. Her eyes are tired and touched with sadness, and her long hair must be braided by two handmaidens for at least an hour every morning.
"It's good to see you, Alhaitham," the Santala says as the men approach. "I want to give you a gift."
Alhaitham has just turned twenty-five, something he didn't even notice, too busy going over the scientific amendments from the last colloquium.
"What is it, Auntie?" Alhaitham asks, trying to hurry her along — in vain.
The Santala has always moved at her own pace.
She pours tea into three lovely little cups and offers her guests a seat. Cyno sits down gladly, because the Santala's tea is the finest in all of Sumeru, but Alhaitham hesitates a moment. This unforeseen disruption is completely dismantling his precisely timed routine, something that's starting to unsettle him.
"Come, Alhaitham, sit," the queen asks.
"Come on, man, the Santala doesn't have all your time to spare."
That should be my line, Alhaitham thinks, but he sits down next to Cyno.
"Well," the Santala begins, after a small, elegant, silent sip from her cup. Alhaitham likes watching her eat; she's always careful and graceful with food. "I've always thought it's wonderful that you earned the title of High Scribe of the Akademiya on your own merit. Only a few people know that your late mother and I are sisters."
"Those few tend to insist on the fact that you were twins, and that my mother was a failure for giving birth to a useless man, on account of my 'condition.'"
"What condition?" Cyno frowns, confused. "Are you sterile or something?"
The Santala laughs gracefully.
"If you were sterile, now that would be serious — it would completely ruin your gift." She takes another sip from her cup, still smiling. Alhaitham hates that she always turns everything into a spectacle. "Darling: did you know you're the sole Archduke of Sumeru?"
Alhaitham tenses. Plenty of people have tried to attach themselves to him because of that title. It's what he hates most about himself. He's only Archduke by splatter, not by merit. He's content with his position as High Scribe and the house he was able to buy in the heart of the capital. He lives with Cyno, which is saying quite a lot, and eats the things he likes. He doesn't limit himself in any way, so he sees no point in going around announcing that he's the Archduke of Sumeru, or worse: the nephew-practically-son of the Mahadevi Santala.
"I don't see how my birthday gift relates to the fact that I'm Archduke of the nation."
"Oh, but of course they're related!" the Santala exclaims — something she almost never does. "Starting at tomorrow's Day Assembly, you will be recognized as Crown Prince of Sumeru! You will be the next Mahāmātra Santala!"
Alhaitham chokes on his tea and coughs hard. He shoots his aunt a look of pure annoyance, leaves the room with such clumsiness and disillusionment that the soldiers are left stunned, unsure how to react, and leaves Cyno frozen in his seat, eyes so wide they're about to pop out of his head.
"Mahadevi Santala!" Cyno exclaims, alarmed. "Forgive him, I beg you!"
The Santala bursts out laughing — something extraordinary for her.
"You'll have to convince him, Cyno," the Santala asks, still smiling. "Alhaitham can't hide behind his autism forever."
"Behind his auto— what?" Cyno asks.
The Mahadevi Santala is the wisest person in Sumeru, perhaps in the entire world. She knows everything. Inventions, science, medicine, architecture, even things as mundane as rolling cigarettes or selling potatoes. She also knows a great many words.
Cyno, on the other hand, is content knowing the penal codes of every civilized nation by heart. That's more than enough to do his job well. Even so, he still has to check the index of his books and read them now and then to refresh his memory — something the Mahadevi Santala has no need for, thanks to the divine grace granted by her title.
"You just go convince him to become Crown Prince."
"As you command, Your Majesty."