3: Kenet

I have nightmares sometimes.

Some of them recur, some of them are unique. Just a few nights ago this was what I dreamed. I had been for a ride with my father, just the two of us, through the woods to the north, several hours riding along the ridges, gone all day... and when I returned to my room I found Jorin.

He had been tied by thick leather cords around his wrists to one post of the bed, stripped naked, and whipped three times across his back. When I rush into the room in the dream, he is unconscious, hanging by his arms, the weight of his body making his hands purple and swollen, the welts also purple and raised. I run my fingers down them as if I could read somehow there who had done this and why. It’s clear to me Jorin struggled to get free, leaving useless tooth marks in the leather, and after falling unconscious… pissed himself.

And yet he is not dead. Not yet. I hurry to cut him down, and he falls into my arms, his weight bearing me down with him to the floor. His eyes flutter open as I brush his hair back from his forehead.

“Who did this to you?” I demand.

And he answers, “You did.”

(Continued in Chapter 4!)