Lenko never thought he'd live long enough to wonder how to escape death itself. He only had a beat to realize it, his sister had already released her arrow. Cold. Precise. Unflinching.
The shaft pierced straight through his chest. Right through his heart. Breaking it, literally and otherwise.
Images rushed through his mind in a dizzy blur... his parents' faces, his siblings' laughter, his friends. The palace. The punishments. The escape. The nights spent working in barns, the horse, the cows, the goats, the chickens, the villagers. Hinnom. Sheol. The old people and the kids. The thief princess. The prince. Muzio.
But no memory could keep pace with the reality of the arrow buried deep in his chest.
Even now, even as the pain flared and his vision began to spin, his mind dragged one last thought to the surface, the memory of that elf and their infuriating smile. 'Fucking bitch,' he thought.
