†
The Dungeon: Three a.m.
D’ata stopped his narration, leaning heavily against Ravan. It was as though a great weight had been unburdened, to speak out loud of such a terrible thing. This he’d never done before.
The prisoner sat as still as stone, afraid to disturb the tragedy that had just presented itself to him. Now he knew. As he felt D’ata’s shoulders sag against him, he suddenly and intimately knew the grief that was still so raw in his brother’s heart. Secretly, he tried to count the years since Julianne died—four? Five? Ravan mourned the loss, mourned it as though he’d been there on that terrible day.
A rat reached up to chew the old, cracked leather boot on his right foot, and the mercenary kicked at the vermin, sending it scurrying away under the straw. “I don’t know what to say.” There was a long silence, and Ravan thought D’ata must have fallen to sleep.
But then his brother replied, “You don’t have to say anything. It’s past now—it’s all right. I’m all right. I am a priest again,” D’ata lied wearily.
The night paused for a long and sad span of time. Ravan swallowed heavily, wiping the wet from his eyes so that they would not betray him. It was so much easier when pain was his own, he thought to himself. “I’m so sorry, D’ata,” was all that he said.
It was the second time D’ata heard Ravan say his name, and the sound was somehow comforting to him, sad but oddly familiar, like the sound an autumn breeze makes as it blows leaves from the trees—a melancholy sweetness—a voice of things to come.
“Thank you, Ravan,” he replied and turned toward his brother.
After a few quiet moments, Ravan probed, “D’ata, I was wondering?”
“Yes?”
“Do you see in colors now?” Ravan turned his head just slightly, to hear his brother's whispered reply.
“No…except red.”