The Son of Thunder

Chapter Twenty-Five

We get to meet a new character, Yadrow. He's always got a slight grin on his face, but he never shows his teeth. Like many others, they're yellow and rotten and he would rather keep that to himself.

Rhysya was released from her room after a phase. Lightening's hands were healing well. He was wrong. No broken bones. Shawna was certain he would use them again. At the sight of him, Rhysya fell into his arms, but he didn't embrace her. She came away from him, a bitter look on her face.

"Are we no longer married?" Rhysya said.

"We will always be married," Lightening replied.

Shawna and Eternity stood guard on either side of him. Rhysya hated both of them.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm recovering."

She hesitated before posing the next question, fortified herself for the answer. "Do you love me?"

"I have no power over my love for you. It is the decision made by Our Creator and He has left me with it."

"Can we walk? Alone?"

"We can. We're allowed."

Rhysya took Lightening's arm and drew him away from Shawna and Eternity. She looked over her shoulder as they left. Eternity threatened them with her eyes. Shawna was deflated and defeated.

When they were several feet from Thundonia, Rhysya said, "They won't let us have each other?"

"No."

"But they keep us together like this?"

Lightening chuckled humorlessly. "Shawna has a droll sense of humor. She can't punish me any other way."

"They can't stop us from being together."

"Don't let them fool you. You will be exiled if you lie with me again and I won't succeed Shawna in Thundonia."

Rhysya tightened her arms around herself. "Our peoples should live as one. We should end the hatred. We could say that we married for political reasons."

Lightening stopped her dreams in the sand. "You know better than that. This war is tearing our people apart from the inside out."

Rhysya pressed her hand to her stomach. "What about our child?"

"If she looks like you, blonde hair and blue eyes, she is yours. If the child is male or has dark features, as Eternity supposes I look like Shawna, then the child will be mine."

"But—"

"I will not see my child. I have accepted that."

Rhysya's lip quivered, expressed the anguish that Lightening did not. "They told you this, but not me?"

Lightening composed himself, put his hands on Rhysya's forearms. Shawna had had them wrapped with gauze. "They are doing it because they love us. They're protecting us. We are weak like this."

Rhysya yelled at him, but Lightening drew away. He couldn't bend his fingers to draw his sword. He counted twelve Acidonians around them. He put himself in front of Rhysya.

One stepped forward, a male. He was taller than average, a vibrant olive green. The teeth that remained in his mouth were rotted. "Please, Lightening—may I call you that?"

"Don't call me anything."

"I will refrain from calling you anything; however, I would like to call you Lightening." His fellow Acidonians chuckled. "My name is Yadrow."