Wings of Grace

Chapter 39

     "You stood back and let your parents die!" the scolding voice screeched, tearing down another piece of the wall protecting Lyon's hidden memories.

     "No.... No," he shook his head. "I... I couldn't save them." The ten-year-old child inside Lyon struggled to answer the relentless Deathbrone's accusation, just like with so many of their previous allegations.

     He was hanging in mid-air, with nothing supporting him, like a stringless marionette; eye level with the six iron chairs' occupants. Lyon had lost the feel of his arms and legs ages ago and his head felt like it was on fire. Every part of his scalp was burning. With each of their words he felt a searing pain, his weary mind glimpsing a red-hot poker iron stabbing ruthlessly at his disorientated thoughts until he responded. They had not let up for hours. He was tired, exhausted.

     Yet, their vicious assault continued.

     The series of brutal events that had been flooding into Lyon's mind, since this whole nightmare had begun, he gathered, were intentionally designed to create mental fatigue. To tear strips from his heart, maliciously biting into his very soul. He tried with all his might to reject their irritating, annoying, debilitating attacks. How long he could hold out for, he was uncertain. The Deathbrones picked up on any sign of vulnerability, using it against him at every turn.

     The visions, themselves, were so startling clear, he felt like he was reliving each moment, as if he was there in the midst of it all. His drugged body's resistance was weakening fast. Even in this hallucinogenic state, Lyon knew it was only a matter of time. They were just so real. So terrifyingly, terrifyingly real. His amplified senses were being sent into shock, as the woven tapestry of his past's buried truths became the foundations of this madness of a trial.

     Even the act of swallowing, Lyon found difficult as he felt the living sweat and bloodshed of the battle suddenly raging in front of him; his father's soldiers completely outnumbered. Closing his eyes couldn't even save him from facing those moments that had crippled his youthful innocence. It was all there, exactly as he remembered it. The horrors of seeing all the dark streaked blood on the discarded bodies carpeting the marble floor. Lyon knew what was coming. He couldn't escape. His breath quickened; temperature increased. He could feel his stomach churn as every one of his muscles tightened.

     That torturing glimpse of his father standing in their castle's main hall entrance, his worried face swiftly alight with a reassuring smile, belying the panic in his eyes, as he'd turned quickly once more to where Lyon and his mother, and his twin three-year-old sisters, Kathleen and Sharlee, held tightly between them both, were mostly hidden between the false wooden paneling.

     Lyon felt his young body stiffen, fearful eyes widen, his right arm rising into the air, his finger already pointing, he knew he was about to call out to warn his father of the soldier coming up behind him, when a voice yelling commands, ran by. Instead he had to watch, in silent horror, as a blade pierced his father's body. He couldn't turn away from the crease of pain shooting across his father's wide, surprised eyes, lingering forlornly on Lyon's face, before he unceremoniously fell to the ground.

     Then the torturing stream of images replayed itself over and over, making him relive each moment, before homing in on the stain of blood seeping through his father's royal clothing, emphasizing the sword's point as it slowly tore through the fibers of the silken cloth while exiting his chest.

     "Stop it!" He clawed at his head. "Just stop it!"

     The youthful frantic cries echoed throughout the chasmic earthen walls, and still it continued. He saw his father's frozen smile slowly wane as trickles of blood overflowed from his mouth and trickled down his chin. "No more. Make it... stop...." Lyon watched him buckle, falling repeatedly onto the floor. It was only when Lyon's head dropped down onto his chest, his hoarse pleas finally silenced, did his mind quieten.