Page 2 of Wrath of the Fae

I see it. His truth through his eyes.

I am this little boy. Each blink is mine. His fear and panic thump in my chest as his blood runs cold in terror.

I see the soldiers storm his home. I have to look up to see their faces as I’m so small. They pull me from his mother’s arms as she screams and reaches for me. A blade is held to my throat, and my cries… the boy’s cries… fill my ears and tear at my throat.

The soldiers laugh as the boy’s father tries to fight them off.

So much yelling. So much fear.

But the soldiers laugh.

They ask the boy’s mother…Will you come quietly?

Yes!She cries, falling to her knees and blinded by tears.YES!

‘We will take the boy too.’I don’t see the face of the man who speaks as he lingers by the door. He wears a hood. His robes are white and splattered with blood. There’s a large sword at his hip, and he sounds almost bored as he talks.

But I recognise the voice. I would recognise it anywhere.

The woman screams. The boy’s father fights. It turns to chaos, and before I know it, it’s become a bloodbath. The father is stabbed in the gut and sliced open. The terror I feel from this little boy as I watch his father die slowly, his entrails at his feet, breaks me into a thousand pieces. I remember this pain. There’s no other like it than watching a parent die. The soldier who delivered the killing blow grabs the dying father’s hand. Sparks fly between them before he’s thrown to the floor to cradle his gaping belly.

An elderly couple are pulled closer.

‘My son… my son…’

The elderly woman weeps, struggling to move as her frail body protests the rough movements.

They're pushed to their knees beside their dying son.

And their throats are slit from ear to ear.

The soldiers laugh, and they laugh, mocking and jeering them in their final moments.

As they lie dying, the soldier takes their hands. More sparks fly between them.

The sobbing woman still tries to get to her young son. To me. I watch it all as I live it through his eyes. Through his memories.

I feel the soldier's grip on me ease as they pull her from the room, telling her that her new husband awaits.

I take my chance to save my mother.

I steal the soldier’s sword and drive it through his back with all the strength this little body has.

The soldier falls.

He dies.

The other soldiers face me. They face the small boy who murdered their friend.

Steel glints in my eyes, and I take a sharp breath as a sword comes straight at me.

Everything spins.

I land on the floor with a thud. And I watch the boy's headless body fall to the floor beside me.

Then there’s a scream. Such a scream. One to shatter the worlds and make Gods tremble.

The scream of a mother who just saw her child killed before her eyes. My vision fades, and the edges of my sight close in until blackness consumes me. There’s nothing left. No light. No sounds. No breath.

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