Dearest Ismenia

Chapter 4

Winter of 1614

There, sitting at the head of the dining table, was the King. He sat and laughed and feasted with his trade partners as he stood on the lives of all those below him, those who he has ordered to be captured, tortured, murdered...

I quickly walked to his side and masked my expression to my usual one of stoicism. When the King saw me, his laughter faded and he stood quickly. I usually never addressed the King while he was with guests unless it was important...

But this time, the King didn't know just how important it was.

I reached his side quickly and leaned down to his ear. Speaking in a low voice, I said, "Your highness, there is something I must discuss with you in private."

He nodded shortly and turned back to his visitors. "Men, I shall return shortly. There is something I must address."

Before he had finished speaking I was already walking from the dining hall and moving towards the entrance to the castle. I could hear the King with his short legs walking quickly behind me, attempting to keep pace with my long strides.

"Hey!" He called, still many paces behind me. "Slow to my pace this instant!"

We had just reached the front entrance to the castle and I walked through the threshold, ignoring the King. I didn't listen to his order as I usually would.

I would never have to listen to his orders again.

As I continued my quick pace, the King kept shouting orders at me from behind, but I ignored them. Soon, we would reach my desired destination, and I would speak to the King very privately...

On the outskirts of the wall of the Castle, there was a lovely river with a bridge crossing into the forest. I dismissed the nearby guards, who all followed my command as I was the lead Guard and Assassin of the King.

Shortly after the guards cleared, the King reached my side, breathing heavily. He opened his mouth to scold my actions and dub me with another bout of lashes, but before he could speak I point at the water bank near his feet, directed the water at him, and used it to drag his body into the river.

My vision was burning red again and I could feel my wolf poking at my skin. My destination from the King's offices was to kill him. Killing him would save innocents as I had always wanted. It would avenge innocents...

And it would save the innocent girl sentenced to death by my hand.

I held the King underwater, and all I could hear for moments was a muffled scream for my ears only. As I used my element to drag the King back to the surface and plunge him to the river floor again and again, I ensured Water was a constant entity in his mouth, drowning out the sounds of his cry for help and ensuring that the King's final moments would be only with me and his excruciating death.

After a long time of repeatedly drowning the King, I threw him onto the river bank where he capped and coughed and tried to shout for help, but his throat was damaged already from his screams so no sound would come out.

He slowly rolled to all fours and looked up at me. In an anguished voice, he simply asked, "Why?"

"I know. I read all of it."

He bowed his head and shook it back and forth. "So be it. This shall be a painful death at the hand of the man too weak to protect his daughter."

Then, changing fully into my wolf, I tortured the King until his heart stopped beating.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

They hunted for the King. They searched for an entire day and did not find him. It was only when they saw me kneeling next to the riverbank, covered in blood, and the King's lifeless body floating miles down the river, that they realized I was his murderer.

I was sentenced to death. I was to be beheaded, my head staked in front of the Castle as a remind of the punishment for traitors.

I was a traitor. Previously the most loyal man to the King's side, I was his murderer.

And I was to be punished.

I felt nothing. My body was empty, my mind blank, the lashes on my back a distant memory. The only place I felt anything was my heart. A warm heat radiated in my chest, and for the first time in a decade I felt free of the burden of my daughter's death. I had fulfilled my promises to her, and I would soon be reunited with her once more.

I was taken to the guillotine, up on a wooden pedestal for the rowdy villagers to see. Some were crying, some were yelling their sorrow for their evil king, and some were cheering for my death.

But I felt none of it. I did not feel their hateful words, or feel the hard punches laid on my body by guards as I passed by them. I did not see the guillotine or the villagers or the stake placed near the contraption that would hold my head after my death. I only felt my daughter in my heart, and thought of her eyes and her hair and her beautiful smile...

They placed me in the guillotine, the guards holding my strong and steady, thinking I would wish to run away and save my life.

Instead of fighting them or back away from the guillotine, I laid my head on the proper position and closed my eyes. I welcomed the uncomfortable feeling of carved wood on my neck and thought only of what I would gain from my death, not of what I would lose.

I was not afraid.

I heard chants, cheers as a guard approached me in the large contraption. He picked up his axe and the cheers went wild, though I stayed silent. I played quietly, hands behind my back, and tuned out all sound until I could hear the final thud of an axe meeting wood, a blade dropping, and feeling nothing but darkness...

Darkness...

Darkness...

Darkness...

Light...

And it was there, in the flowing grass and spring flowers of a meadow, that my daughter and I ran into each other's awaiting arms...

THE END

Word count: 1,068 Words