He waited longer, sinking into numbness as flashes of her laughter, her voice, her touch, her warmth rippled through his mind.His heart sank deeper with each one, and all he wanted was to follow her immediately, without hesitation.
But before he could, there was something he had to do.
He pushed himself off the wet ground, staggering to his feet like a man too drunk to stand—but the only thing he was drunk on was grief.
He turned to the cave, swallowing hard, jaw tight. Then he walked.
The rain came harder, drumming on his shoulders as he moved farther and farther from the shimmering light of the cave.
The twins were still where he had left them. As he passed, he said nothing, only reached out with his mind, pulling the knife from the male’s grip. The blade trailed after him through the air as he strode towards the bodies lying across the ritual ground—the ones who had done this to her.
He walked, rage simmering behind his eyes, every step fuelled by it as his hands curled into fists.
When he reached them and saw they were still alive—alive and breathing while she was gone—a molten fury tore through him. With a flick of his will, he lifted Winifred’s body from the ground and hurled it against a tree.
Before it could even drop, he caught it again, slamming it into another. When Winifred’s body finally hit the ground, he coughed wetly, blood spilling from his mouth and mixing with the rain.
Thrax didn’t give him a second. He lifted him once more and flung him towards a burning lantern. Winifred fell with it, the fire bursting and spreading across his chest.
He screamed, slapping at the flames as they scorched through his robes before the rain hissed them out.
But Thrax wasn’t done.
He raised him again, suspending the body mid-air as Winifred spat out broken curses. And harder this time, he threw him, his body slamming into another tree before he pounced on him.
Winifred’s face was a ruin of blood and rain, crimson rivulets snaking down his features. Thrax seized the collar of his robe, his fists trembling with the sheer effort it took not to tear him apart instantly.
He stared into Winifred’s eyes, fighting to contain the storm inside him, to stop himself from snapping his neck and ending it too soon. No, he didn’t want mercy.
Thrax wanted him to feel it. To feel every ounce of the torment burning through his chest. He wanted him to know how pain could take root and bloom inside the body, curling through the veins like barbed vines, choking until breath itself became agony.
Letting go of his robe, he seized his leg—the one he’d broken weeks ago. Regret stabbed through him. He should have killed Winifred then. He should have hunted him down and finished it. If he had, maybe she’d still be alive. Maybe she’d be in his arms, alive and laughing, instead of lying cold and lifeless in that cave.
With one motion, Thrax snapped the bone in two. Winifred’s scream echoed around, ugly and nearly deafening. He broke the other leg next, the sound lost beneath the thunder’s crash.
“I warned you to stay away from her,” he said hoarsely, twisting his ankle until the bones splintered beneath his grip. “Fromus. She’s dead now. Are you happy?”
It took a while, but Winifred’s voice came out as a broken rasp. “We…failed…you…you won.”
A smile flickered across Thrax’s lips, dry and lifeless. “You think I won?”
Not needing a response because the way he felt didn’t quite feel like victory, he grabbed Winifred’s wrist, twisting until the old bones dislocated with a pop. Winifred screamed again and again, until hisvoice gave out, until he couldn’t scream anymore, only wheezed and gurgled.
That was when Thrax summoned the hovering knife, bringing it down hard. The blade sank into Winifred’s chest, right where the heart beat.
Blood erupted, dark and steaming in the rain.
Thrax didn’t stop there. He dragged the knife down, slicing through flesh and cartilage. The blade split skin and muscle until the chest cavity opened wide, exposing ribs and glistening organs beneath the rain.
His eyes were void of light, stripped of all humanity as he cut deeper, hand pressing into the cavity, fingers sliding through warmth until they found the organ that had no right to still be beating.
With a single motion, he tore it out.
The heart pulsed faintly in his hand, blood seeping through his fingers as the storm drenched them both. The world had gone quiet...except for the thud of rain hitting the earth and the sound of someone throwing up behind him.
He remained there, soaked and empty, the heart dying in his grip.
Standing to his feet, Thrax tossed the useless thing aside. It hit the mud with a dull, wet sound before the rain quickly swallowed it. He turned towards the other men lying unconscious on the ground and began driving the blade through them—once, twice, again and again and again.
