Pine stood in the woods, watching the sun rise into the sky through the gaps in the tree leaves above him. The sunlight streamed into the forest in a lit crimson glow as the new day came. It was the morning after Clare’s rape. Things will never be the same after this, Pine thought. Our world will never be as it was, no matter what we do. “Thomas,” he spoke to the open air. “What have you done?”
He had come here to clear his thoughts, to take in all that had happened in recent months. There was no response. Even the birds were quiet this morning.
Pine stood, his feet planted firmly on the earth beneath him. And Juniper and Cypress have gone as well. He took in a deep breath, smelling honeysuckle in the breeze. He opened and closed his clenched hands, trying to soothe his nerves.
A stick cracked behind him, something thumped heavily against his back, and then his eyesight faded to pure darkness. The man they called Pine was no more.
҉
Thomas let go of his axe’s handle, looking at where the weapon’s blade lodged in Pine’s thick back, he wondered at how the man’s body didn’t move after the attack. He couldn’t explain it, but Thomas knew that he had struck Pine’s heart, killing him instantly.
With a kick to his guard’s knees, Pine crashed to the ground, leaves beneath him jumping into the air.
“You shouldn’t have betrayed me.” Thomas’s bloodshot eyes burned with hatred as he watched blood bubbling from the man’s back. “You were the first, but they will all pay.”
He reached down, grabbing the axe’s handle and pulling it until its blade leapt up into the air. Red globules speckled his royal garb. Thomas walked with the bloody axe clutched hard in his hand. He walked until he reached the river, where Dora awaited to row him back to Castle Ah.
As the sun burned in the sky, wolves found Pine’s dead body, blood seeping from his wound. They tore at his flesh and devoured his corpse, leaving behind his carcass and a puddle of blood.