“She must have been protecting him,” Raven observed.
Landyn began to shake. While the woman on the floor was not Viola, his wife was all he could see. His failure to protect her clawed at him.
“Landyn,” Raven whispered and brushed by him.
He jumped as she bumped him, swiveling to her.
She moved around the woman to another body huddled behind her. The corpse was lost in oversized clothing. Raven bent beside it, peeling aside the fabric. The face of a boy came into view.
Landyn’s gaze swung back to the woman. Her child. Her boy.
Overwhelming grief pierced his chest. His breathing deepened, and his eyes burned. The room closed in on him, and he suddenly couldn’t breathe. He whirled and fled the room.
The sun washed over him as he emerged from the house, but there was no warmth in its rays. He was cold. Shaking. He inhaled a trembling breath and ran his hands over his face, trying to regain his senses. It was too much. Too real. Too devastating. He’d thought he had buried those emotions. He knew they would never go away, but he hadn’t known they were still that close to the surface, that raw.
As his breathing slowed, his jaw clenched. If he had stopped Boucher before, these people would still be alive. The realization hit him hard, and he stumbled back. He should not have sought Boucher for personal reasons, for vengeance. Landyn should have killed him for the other atrocities he would commit. The other lives he would take.
Landyn’s jaw clenched.
“Are you well?” Raven asked.
Landyn whirled. She stood in the doorway, holding his sword.
She extended it to him. “You dropped your sword.”
Glancing at the scabbard, he was shocked to find it empty. He hadn’t even realized he had dropped it. He took another breath, retrieved it from her hand, and shoved it into its sheath but couldn’t meet her eyes and instead skimmed the brown earth below their feet.
“Landyn,” she said with concern and tenderness. “Are you well?”
“They need to be buried,” he said. “I’ll dig a grave.” He turned away from her.
“Landyn,” she called again.
He halted. His back was rigid, his muscles tense.
“It was Boucher, wasn’t it?” she asked softly. “That killed your wife.”
His shoulders drooped, and he hung his head. “Yes.”
A long moment passed. Silence surrounded them. Finally, Raven said, “I’ll prepare the farmers for burial.”
Landyn knew it was time to rectify the mistake he had made. It was time to make it right and heal his soul. Boucher could not be allowed to kill defenseless farmers any longer. He had to be stopped.
Raven had taken blankets from the beds and rolled the farmer and his wife in separate ones. She lay the child flat on the final blanket—he couldn’t have been more than five summers. She brushed his dirty brown hair from his closed eyes. His mother had fought to save him. She had found defensive wounds on the woman’s hands and arms.
Raven folded a corner of the blanket over the boy’s face and pulled the edges over his body. Landyn had repeatedly warned her that Boucher had no morals, but killing a child went beyond that. Boucher was a monster.
She stared down at the three blankets. These farmers shouldn’t have died. They were defenseless against Boucher’s sword.
Landyn’s reaction had concerned her. She had known his wife was murdered. But had it been like this? And by Boucher. Her jaw clenched. They both had a reason for wanting the monster dead.
She glanced at the door. Landyn was taking a long time to dig the graves. Suspicion prickled the nape of her neck, and she went outside to check on him.
A cool breeze brushed her cheeks as she stepped out of the cottage. A shallow grave had been dug at the side of the house. She scanned the area for Landyn. She didn’t see him. “Landyn?” she called.
Then, she noticed the horses were gone. Both Thunder and Landyn’s steed. Her jaw clenched. Her fists balled.
He had taken Thunder and left her!
