The Thinara King by Rebecca Lochlann

Author:Rebecca Lochlann [Lochlann, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Erinyes Press
Published: 2012-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

No outside sound penetrated the dim, airless chamber in which Aridela was kept. From time to time she feared the entire island of Kaphtor had been sucked into her nightmares and no longer existed except in her memory.

At first, with both ankles and wrists bound, she could do nothing but lie upon the moldy, insect-ridden bedding thrown upon the stone floor. But after a few days, the nameless eunuch who attended her cut the binding around her ankles and left it off. There was no danger of her escaping, as the leather strap around her wrists was secured to the bottom of a pillar, making it impossible to take more than one step away from the bedding, and that could only be managed doubled over. Testing the leather tightened it and strangled the flow of blood to her hands. This annoyed the eunuch, who, as he rearranged the bonds, muttered mainland curses and cuffed her on the head, where her hair would hide the bruises. Beyond that miserly kindness, he did nothing but toss down a bowl of thin broth twice a day, letting her struggle on her own to reach, lift, and drink, and, not nearly often enough, he carried the chamber pot away to be emptied.

At first she worried about the passing of time. There was nothing to do as she languished except fret, grieve, and rage. She tried to mark the days but couldn’t keep up. For a miserable blurry interlude she lay on the filthy bed, scratching those fleabites she could reach, and wondering if Harpalycus had forgotten her, for he never came and the eunuch shared no information.

The nightmares worsened to the point where she dreaded falling asleep. She was so hungry she dreamed of eating the straw beneath her. She dreamed repeatedly of Harpalycus’s rape, of his heaviness, his hot, suffocating breath, his painful invasion. She dreamed of swelling, bloating with child, not knowing if it was Chrysaleon’s or his. The larger she grew the louder and more echoing grew Harpalycus’s laughter.

Her dreams of Chrysaleon’s death were perhaps the most agonizing. She saw herself struggling free of her captors and approaching her fallen husband. Walking across the bedchamber seemed to take all night. Sometimes she never reached him. When she did and turned him over, maggots swarmed from his eyes.

Sometimes, weaving beneath horror and anguish, she dreamed the promise of the god: For longer than you can imagine, I will be with you, in you, of you. Together we bring forth a new world. Nothing can ever part us.

Kaphtor would have slipped out of the Moon of Corn Poppies and into the Moon of Winemaking by now. No sound of the traditional grape festival seeped through the walls, nor any hint of the rich call of conch shells to the four winds. Aridela felt in her tendons, belly and bones the cry of abandoned grapes as they rotted on the vines. She experienced through every layer of her soul the sundering of the ancient bond between her people and the sanctified crops.

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