The Son of Thunder

Chapter Twenty-Six

 Shawna sat on her bed and hugged her legs to her chest. Warrior massaged her shoulders, cooed in her ear. Her kinsash rested on her knees.

"Shawna, please. Be logical. He wouldn't run away with her. They must have been taken."

Shawna squeezed her eyes shut.

Warrior ran his hands over her back. "Shawna, Lightening loves you too much. Odds are better that they're both dead."

Shawna put her hand to the side of her head. "I can't think of that. I can't think of him stiff and lifeless. I would rather think of him away from me, hating me, than like that."

Warrior pulled Shawna to his chest and rocked her in his lap. Warrior prayed that they would both show up.

* * * * *

"Rhysya, where are we?" Lightening sat up on the bed and scanned the room, one hand pressed to the side of his head. A rusty spring from the mattress was poking him in the back. The dresser in the corner was antique. Even in the Old World, this furniture was ancient. Drapes were tied at the posts of the bed. The only familiarity was Rhysya.

"It's a room. Yadrow brought me some food. It was good."

Lightening glared at her.

"I shouldn't have eaten it, I know, but I was hungry. Yadrow told me about your visit when you were little."

"He was probably looking for a good place to scratch you," Lightening muttered.

"He did, actually."

Lightening snatched her arm and examined the wound. "We have to get a fire lit and—"

"Lightening, stop." 

He met her eyes. Her face was thin and peaked. Her eyes were dull, but she was very alive. "I'm a little sick to my stomach, but Yadrow said that will go away."

"Yadrow said?"

"Lightening, they're making me immune to their touch. It's an act of goodwill. Yadrow explained it all to me."

"I don't like you talking to him."

"He's a nice man. This is a nice room." 

Rhysya went to the dresser and held different objects up. All the necessities, soaps, powders, combs, metal contraptions for hair removal. 

"They worship books. Some of these people are writers. Yadrow brought me some of their stories. You'll be in heaven here. And we have brushes and clothes. We have a basin and a pitcher of water that is filled regularly. We have meals brought to us. It's a nice place."

They had a window smaller than his hand-span. It was too early for snow. No conical trees were visible. Just a skeletal black tree with crooked branches. It was too soon for the leaves to fall away. It must have been dead.

"It's still a prison."

* * * * *

One phase without Lightening at the announcements was odd. That no one mentioned of his absence was odder. Magpie thought little of Rhysya's absence. 

He was gone a second phase. Bizarre. Magpie considered visiting the ruling wing, posing a query, but she didn't know who to pose it to. Whispers circulated the arena. A man groped her. She twisted his arm and felled him to the ground.

* * * * *

 A full moon had gone around. Lightening flexed his hands each day, tried to hold an imaginary sword steady enough to threaten. He had been left with only a whittling knife, but the Acidonians were fragile. He could kill with it.

Yadrow slipped in. He had a cassata on a tray. He set it on the bureau.

Lightening spun around. "Don't touch her. She's not going anywhere with you."

Rhysya cried, "Lightening, do we have to do this again? I'm hardly ever sick anymore. You are always robust and awake when they come."

"We don't know what it's doing to our child," Lightening spit.

"At most, turning her green," Yadrow said cheerfully. He backed away from Lightening's venomous glare. He held up his hands. "I jest. It's making her immune too. Besides, you act like being green is bad. I rather like it." He admired his olive skin in the mottled mirror.

Lightening drew Rhysya closer to him, more determined to keep Yadrow from her. Rhysya hissed, "You're so dramatic." What a hypocrite she was to call him that. But thankfully, Lightening had become immune to Rhysya and her pleas.

"I trust them less now than ever."

"You refuse to cooperate," Yadrow said. "It's much more dangerous instituting doses that make you unconscious. You could accidentally be killed."

"My death won't be accidental."

"Please, Lightening, friend, have a cassata." Yadrow indicated the cake.

Lightening had loved the combination of candied peel, ricotta cheese and liquor-soaked sponge as a child. Yadrow was earnest when he told tales of that short visit.

"You're being narrow-minded about this, Lightening," Rhysya whispered.

Lightening said, "The immunization process doesn't matter. They could still kill either of us if they slashed a major vein or artery."

Lightening could have killed Yadrow if he struck hard enough. He didn't need his weapons. King Abel hadn't wanted to leave him the whittling knife, but Yadrow insisted.

"Lightening, I respect your caution, but it's not necessary." He was making a slow approach. "How can I make you trust me?"

"You can't."

Yadrow appeared as cheerful as usual, but his heart deflated like a popped balloon. "Again, you leave me no choice." Yadrow scratched his arm. Lightening stared at the cut. The swirling was like when he accidentally cut himself on parchment. Yadrow struck him again, the chest this time, over the heart. A much more dangerous wound by placement and depth. Lightening was a little woozy, but remained erect.

Yadrow paled to a sage green. He jabbed Lightening in the chest with his elbow, grabbed Rhysya by the arm and fled with her, slamming the door and bolting it behind him.

Yadrow put his hand to his heart and rested against the gray stone walls. His fingers were long and thin and his nails were daggers, yellow and cracked. His hands looked like the thin branches of the tree. His ribs could be seen rising through the thin layer of skin. He didn't rest against the door for fear that Lightening would smash through it.

If he delayed, it would raise alarm. Yadrow pulled himself together and drew Rhysya with him. "Come, Priestess. We don't have much longer."

"For what?"

"To convince him. Your dear husband may kill us before then."

Rhysya couldn't help but laugh.