The Dreaming: Dark Star (Book 5)

22.1. Free at last

Liran looked at his father, lying on the ground. It was hard to recognise the man as the person he'd spent his entire life hating. He had become thin and old. The lines around his face were deep and his red hair had faded - it was peppered with grey, and only his beard was still bright red.

Looking at his father, crumpled on the ground, Liran felt an extreme exhaustion take over his body, and he had the impression he was floating away from the scene. He watched the young woman crying over his father. When she turned to face him, Liran realised that she was talking to him, except he couldn't hear what she was saying. He shook himself and tried to bring himself back down. "What?" he managed to croak out in Standard.

"Why did you do this? Why did you do this?" She repeated. Her words faded in and out and Liran caught only snippets. "...kill your own father..."

He had no answer. Why had he killed his own father? The words seemed preposterous and he looked at his father, and waited for him to roll over and get up. But no, that would not happen. The man was truly dead. His arms were folded under him in an award angle, and there was blood coming from his moth.

The girl was still talking, ranting endlessly. "Why did you kill your father? What kind of monsters are you people? Is this what you do in this land? People kill their fathers when they are angry here...." On and on. Her voice high pitch with tension.

The longer it went on, the more Liran hated her. Hated her voice. He wanted her to shut up.

Then he realised she was staring at him. She wanted him to say something.

She obviously wasn't from around here - but there was no sense explaining things to her. She would never understand. But she was still looking at him, waiting for an answer. He shrugged his shoulders.

This seemed to make her even angrier - she stood up and her voice took on the shrill, wavering tone of someone about to go over the edge. "You're going to answer me. You think you can come here and just... kill your own -."

"Shut up!" Liran yelled, interrupting her. He couldn't hear her say those words again.

Her mouth closed and her eyes grew wide with fear.

Liran continued, angry again now, the anger filling his entire body, squeezing out everything else. "He wasn't my father - he was never a father! He was a selfish bastard who destroyed every beautiful thing he touched. He was a liar and a manipulator that needed to own everyone around him. He was a murderer! He killed my mother!"

The girl looked away, down at Tashin.

"He killed my mother! Don't you understand? He killed my mother! My beautiful precious mother. And my sister... my Zahra... she's gone now and it's all his fault...." He felt the anger leaving, turning changing into grief. He wanted it to turn back into anger. He tried to turn it back into anger - he twisted his hands, and began to beat a stone outcropping, his knuckles broke open and became bloody. He screamed out loud, but his anger was gone; it was replaced by the deepest, emptiest sadness that he had ever experienced. It was replaced by a waterfall of tears and there was nothing he could do to stop that waterfall, once the dam had broken. He fell to pieces on the ground, forgetting this strange young woman.

* * *

She watched this man-the son of Tashin - crying like a baby on the ground. She could sense his pain, but it didn't touch her. What he had done was... it was unforgiveable. Yes, Tashin had murdered his wife, but he hadn't done it on purpose. He'd... choked her. She'd seen it in his nightmares. He'd choked her by accident. Well, not entirely by accident, but he hadn't meant to kill her.

She looked around her at the scene of carnage. The reality of the situation was dawning on her. Hadn't she been praying for some way to get away from Tashin? Hadn't she been praying every day for The Guardian to help her find a way out? But she hadn't meant this. She hadn't meant this.