06. Broken Morning by Thayne

thayne

Thayne awoke suddenly from the nightmare that had gripped his mind. He bolted upright, emerald eyes wide with shock. He was on the floor of his island home’s den, perfectly safe. He took a deep breath as relief washed over him. Of course, those deep breaths usually bring with them a high does of reality.

He smelled blood.

That scent was unmistakable; it permeated skin, clothes, and the air. There was a time in which he lived with the scent of it surrounding him every day, for years on end. Despite this, the sticky, bitter, coppery stench was something he never got used to.

Brushing a hand through his short hair, he discovered the source of the odor. His hands were dark with partially dried blood; his clothes were saturated with it.

It wasn’t his blood, but his own turned to ice when realization dawned.

Khalszar.

It had *not* been a nightmare.

“Sweet Goddess, what has she done?” He whispered.

A quick survey of the house revealed his fears as fact. Thankfully, both children were still sleeping soundly. But his wife, Pashen, was gone.

Leaning against the doorframe, he stared at the undisturbed bed. Violet streams of morning light drifted through the open window, casting hazy rays of color over the off-white sheets. A breeze caressed the gauzy lace curtains, causing them to float sleepily about in the cool humid air. The tranquility a sharp contrast to the turmoil in his heart.

Flashes of the horror of last night returned, unwanted:
Khalszar, a drow he loathed more than any other, shackled on the dark wall in some dungeon deep under Pashen’s Celestial Palace. He was bloody and broken, tortured but alive. The worst part was the trail of blood that ran down between his legs, a testament to the type of agony the drow had to have endured. Thayne had no idea how long his foe had been kept here, for Pashen could alter time between her world and his. The slave could have been enduring cruel punishment for decades, and to Thayne it would have been a blink of an eye.

Vague memories drifted through the fog of his mind. He remembered getting Khalszar down from the wall, he remembered slitting the slave’s dark throat and watching the pool of blood that flowed freely from the new wound. This was the second time he had killed the chattal of Olath Xal’s matron. The first time was out of anger, the second out of pity. Somewhere during all of it, Pashen had said, “I am what I am.” Her voice seemed so cold, without remorse.

His mind had to have withdrawn from the event. It was his one major character flaw, and he had thought he was past it. Decades during his own torture had instilled within his system the uncontrollable ability to just shut down. When something happened that was just too great for his mind to grasp or his body to endure, he went into a trance. And by the haziness of his memories of last night, that is exactly what must have happened. It was how he ended up at home without any idea of how he got there. Typical. He needed to speak with his soul mate, and what did he do? He withdrew so far into himself that he ended up as blank as wall.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there just looking at the bedroom, but the sleepy violet light eventually surrendered to the brighter shades of blue and eventually the hazy yellow of dawn. The first sounds of his children stirring could be heard, and soon they would be awake and full of energy.

He could almost hear them telling him about the weekend that they had. About the caves they had discovered and the new waterfall that Cory had gone sliding down and the strange creatures Jexi had been tracking. And of course, what would be most important were the questions about their mother.

Jexi will ask when she will be home, and Thayne will say one word, “Tomorrow.”
Giving his lonely bedroom one more sorrow filled glance, he prayed that would not be a lie.

Wed, May 8th – 9:05AM