KINGDOM OF THE STONE -- a Wattpad featured novel

Chapter Forty Four

Theris slumped over a small table near the window of his darkened little room.  He had left the shutter cracked open so he could peer at his house across the street as he drank himself into a stupor.  Outside, Madra and Kini, the mother and child, two of E'yomhar's four moons had risen to bath the village in soft light.  Inside, Theris drank sour beer straight from a ceramic jug.  It was cheap but powerful stuff some called bronze cleaner and it would either clean away his memories of the day or his consciousness.

That morning, he had again awakened on his knees outside his own door, scrubbing the doorpost with sand and muttering about the blood of the innocent.  That afternoon having spent the day at harvest with a borrowed sickle he had watched the women and children follow behind the mowers, gathering the wheat and tying it up into sheaves as soon as it hit the ground.  They had not dared to let their men out of their sight.  Haunted by the trauma of the attack, they did the only thing they knew; having buried their dead, they lost themselves in earnest silent labor. 

He had watched them during the breaks, the silent exchanges, the faltering smiles, the gentle touches of love and gratitude.  Those who had survived were lucky and they knew it.  It had been nearly a month since he'd looked into his wife's eyes or felt the touch of her hand.  Overwhelmed by a sudden need to see her, Theris had gone back to his house.

Theris took a big long gulp trying to drown the memory of what came next.

He had heard Asophra talking in a happy sing-song voice, then interrupting herself to scold Garick for some imagined mischief.  Theris' heart had sunk.  Why doesn't Iyanni do something, he thought.  Why didn't she explain to Asophra the children were dead?  Why didn't she talk some sense into her?  He had just drawn up the courage to go in and reason with her himself when Iyanni suddenly stepped out of the doorway and bumped into him.

"Adra!" she had cried in surprise then flung herself into his arms, burying her head beneath his bearded chin.

"How is your madra?" he asked after a long silent moment.

"She is calm, but her mind..."

Theris listened to Asophra talking inside.  "She talks to the children?"

Iyanni nodded.  "Little Dorea's first birthday is nearing.  She is planning a party."

"I must talk with her."

"Adra, no!  You know what happened last time."

"I must.  I can't let this continue."

"Iyanni?" Asophra called out in a worried voice.  "Who are you talking to?"

"No one, Mahd."

"No one?" Theris bristled.  "Is that how you think of your adra?  Am I so easily displaced?"

"Adra!" Iyanni cried plaintively.

"I'm coming dear," Asophra called out.

"No.  Don't.  Please," Iyanni begged.

Asophra appeared in the doorway.  She wore her best dress, rumpled and dirty, and her tangled hair held faded wildflowers.  She clutched Thysia's doll in one hand and a frozen smile which failed to touch her flat and lifeless eyes hung crookedly on her face.  When she saw Theris, however, those eyes had widened and her jaw had dropped....

Theris' jar thunked down on the table.

The screams had lasted for hours.

Concerned villagers had stopped by at intervals to see him, but were too polite to enter his borrowed room when he failed to answer.  He was glad his little room did not open directly into his neighbor's house.