No!
The wind’s cry distracted the boy. He was searching for whatever had scared it. He looked away from the battle-hardened brother.
He looked at the wind.
The battle-hardened brother conjured a blade of fire and slid it under the boy’s fifth rib. He angled it upward and pierced the boy’s heart.
The boy gasped. His gaze flew wide.
The wind screamed.
The battle-hardened brother shoved the boy, jerking his blade free. The boy collapsed, his legs giving out beneath him.
He was dead.
Was he dead?
He was dead.
No.
No!
No, he wasn’t dead.
The battle-hardened brother stepped over the boy, ignoring his shallow gasps. The Smith cousins stepped over him too, some of them kicking him as they passed. They moved silently, not even looking, as the boy shuddered and coughed beneath them.
No.
No, no, no, no.
No.
This was not how the boy died.
It was not.
The boy was brave. The boy was courageous. The boy laughed at all the wrong things and smiled at all the right ones. He comforted the wind and loved the wind, and if the boy was gone, who would love the wind? Who would the wind love?
He couldn’t die like this. A fool’s death. A worthless death. The sort of death a coward had in a back alley, alone and trembling.
No.
“Wind,” the boy whispered.
But no. He hadn’t whispered it. There wasn’t enough wind left in his lungs to whisper. The wind had only heard it because he could hear the boy’s heart.
It was quivering and shuddering. It struggled to beat while the arteries bled and the veins severed.
His hand trembled.
“Wind.”
No.
No!
It lay over him. It shoved air into his deflating lungs. It swirled over his cheeks and pressed warmth to his cooling lips. No! Boy!
