Consumed
Lee Diogeneia
Weeks. It had been weeks. William traced the narrow path that staggered down the hillside like an ancient, eroding staircase to the overgrown lakeshore. Trees marched from the forest to the water’s edge for twenty feet on either side of him, leaning their weeping boughs forward as if to wash them in the lake. In the corner of the clearing, only a square of scorched stone and the fragile, blackened ribs of two walls betrayed that anyone had once dwelled there.
A root grasped at the toe of his leather boot, reminding him he had no right to cross the threshold of that sacred place. The sun bled through the sky at the horizon, casting twilight over his thoughts. Why was he here? Laurell was dead. It was his fault the others had come for her.
William looked down at hi
