Yarn
Elias removed his shoes in the winter air and pried the windows open with his blade.
The floors were stone and did not creak.
Elias stood for a moment and breathed, hearing the sound of sleep. It was not close to morning but deep into the night. Too early for feeding animals and too late for reading.
He killed the boy first. Placed the tip of the blade against the side of his neck. Elias covered his face from the eyes of God with one hand as he worked.
He could not save this for last. Knew if he saved this child for last he might lose heart and run from this place. Leaving him to wake in a grave. He could do many things, but he could not . . . he could not . . . He would not bear that.
The blond girl slept curled up in a ball. Her throat guarded by her position. Elias bit his lip and changed blades. This one slender. Fit well at the base of her skull. His father slaughtered cows this way because he loved them so much he did not want them to feel pain.
He stood before Alphonse’s marriage bed and looked upon him, weighing his loss to the region. He cost more than was reasonable, the nurses had said. Be prepared to pay.
He looked like Victor; his wife did, too.
They lay tangled, spooned, like newlyweds.
Elias plunged his wet knife through their ears one at a time.
A quick brain death so they wouldn’t risk waking the other with screams through a ruined throat.
He did not know if he could slice them both at once. He hadn’t trained for that.
Elias walked like a ghost through the empty house and out back to where their manservant lived. The light was on in his single room house. Oh, how Elias’s heart howled at the misfortune of finding someone awake. That he could not do this with grace. He wished he were dead; he wished he were dead.
Elias took an exhausted breath, then yanked the door open. The man looked up at him, startled, opened his mouth to speak.
Elias was quicker. Sent his dagger flying directly into the man’s stomach, then rushed him as he shouted in distracted agony. “Why?”
“I’m sorry.” Elias drew his sharpest blade and slit his throat as clean as the boy’s.