Damaris still stands. Orrian mutters her name under his breath but she doesn’t move.
The floorboards creak as Thoren rises to his feet, he presses his knuckles into the wooden table. With his shoulders leaning forwards and his head lowered by the ceiling like this, he mimics the form of a great ape. He is a silverback ready to face his challenger.
“Don’t you dare draw your sword in here,” Thoren roars causing Damaris to retreat in her seat. The warrior keeps his eyes on Orrian as he settles back down, “Keep your people under control.”
“There’s one thing about your story that I don’t understand,” says Thoren. “You say that this boy, Damion, helped you get out of your cells. Why?”
“He knows them, Thoren,” one of the grey men answers for us. “I saw him run up to one of their people in the tavern, they’re probably still there weeping.”
“How?” asks Thoren, keeping his focus on us.
“Thoren, we should talk,” Arthur daringly places a hand on the larger man’s shoulder.
“What? Spit it out, man,” Thoren snaps. Arthur pointedly looks around the table but gives up on the effort when Thoren refuses to acknowledge his hints.
“Damion’s from Avlym. He was taken from us when he was younger. Like all the others,” says Arthur.
“Taken? What do you mean taken?” Thoren faces Arthur now, the rage still hasn’t been fully retracted from his voice. He cranes his neck to look down at the widow.
“The children that go missing in the forest. It’s all the colony. I’m so sorry, I’ve only just found out. Dale-” rushes Arthur. Why is he so apologetic? What don’t we know?
As soon as my name leaves Arthur’s mouth I am back to being the centre of the room.
“Is this true?” Thoren whispers, I wouldn’t have thought his voice capable of such softness.
“It’s all part of the deal, they get to take whoever they want,” I say nodding.
Thoren sits back in his chair, he breathes a single word but it’s too faint to here from the other side of the table.
“You all knew,” Thoren says bluntly, he directs the statements at the much older men and women around him.
“Yes Thoren, we did. But we had to, it was so unfortunate that it happened to her, but they would have killed us otherwise and we thought-” the lady next to Thoren blurts.
“YOU KNEW!” Thoren smashes his fists into the wood before him, a crack shudders beneath my hands as the wood at his end of the table splits. One of the table legs has caved in and a large piece hangs loosely at Thoren’s seat. Not that he still sits in it. Alice jumps in her seat next to me and releases a small sob.
A vein pulses angrily against Thoren’s deep reddish-purple forehead which pressed into the ceiling. Here is a man that could make an entire army think twice. The elders all cower beneath his fire, mixing their words as they spit out their excuses.
Thoren drives his fist once more into the table and the crack etching its way through it extends. His leg lashes out against his chair and I flinch as it is reduced to splinters against the wall. His wrath sweeps the room one last time before he’s ducking out of the doorway.
“Take me to see this boy!” he demands behind him. Arthur is already on his feet and following Tarrin’s leader, Orrian is also up and moving.
I take a moment to whisper in Alice’s ear to calm her down. I follow behind Damaris, we are the last ones in the room on our feet. The council all still look down in shame at the slab of wood before them, the damage they have done is irreparable.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Nahia? I- Yeah, yes, I know Nahia,” Damion stammers before Thoren. It had taken a brief search of the village before we had found him and his father sitting together at the edge of the lake. The hulking man had rudely interrupted the pair of them in his haste and had immediately posed the question to the former slave. Bennie had been about to complain but thought better of it upon seeing the enormity of the intruder.
Damion’s red eyes blink furiously as he wipes at his flushed cheeks, behind Thoren’s back Bennie mirrors him. I have a feeling I know exactly what the topic of their conversation had been, and I pity them for having this shared moment interrupted.
“She’s still in the colony? How is she? Is she ok? Did they hurt her?” Thoren asks each question without waiting for an answer, yet after the last he holds Damion by the shoulders and waits for him expectedly.
“Yeah, yes sir. She’s there, there were a lot of us with her as well. She was as good as the rest of us, last I saw her,” says Damion. “They hurt us sometimes, if we did something wrong, but most of the time they just left us to clean up after them.”
At Damion’s admission that they were hurt occasionally, Thoren’s grip on his shoulders has visible tightened. The boy’s cheeks raise slightly as he tries to hide his pain.
“Uh-” Bennie begins, rushing to his son’s aid. I’m impressed by his nerve, particularly when it results in Thoren realising his intensity and releasing his grip.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if the deep gruffness of his voice sent out ripples into the otherwise calm lake.
Now that he is free again, Damion tenderly and quietly massages his shoulders. As Thoren turns to look out over the water, Bennie drapes an arm over him and leads him away. They head off around the water’s edge, hopefully this time they’ll be left alone until they can say what needs to be said.
“Arthur,” says Thoren without turning around.
Arthur steps forwards so that he stands next to Thoren. Their two startlingly different silhouettes are outlined in
