As a younger child I often wondered how she inspired such dedication and obedience. Now, surrounded by the reminder of where our troops would be if they had not pledged their lives to the service, the choice they’ve made is a clear one. Service or starvation. I’m relieved that our military at least has enough food to feed its own.
Dropping my pack by the side of the road, I erect my small canvas tent before running off in search of Leanna. It’s my first trip with the company and out of all of them, I have by far the simplest task. Watch, listen, and learn.
I find her in a small house that looks like one good windstorm might knock it over. She’s standing next to Bront and two other commanders, leaning over a rickety table with a map splayed out on top. As always, everything south of La’tari on the map is smeared with a heavy layer of black coal.
The Smudge. Just once, I’d like to see what lies beneath it. Someone must know.
“Our informants say it landed here,” Bront stabs the map with a thick finger, indicating a small swath of land along the coast.
“Sorie, scout the shore. One mile in each direction. Davik, search the homes.” Leanna flips her long golden braid onto her back as she gives the command, and the two soldiers break from the rickety shelter without a word.
My eyebrows pinch together. The entire company was told we came to help the villagers, but we’d done nothing but march past them for three days. Leanna hadn’t explained the mission, she didn’t have to, and I know better than to ask.
Davik and Sorie jog back up to the door and I eye them curiously. There’s no way they’ve run a mile in each direction and made it back so quickly.
“We found it,” Sorie puffs, a little out of breath, “In a cellar, by the shore.”
She leads us to a small shelter sitting on a sandy rise overlooking thesea. Bending down, she opens a small hatch in the center of the hut, and I gasp. The large cellar beneath the structure is bursting with food. Fresh and dried, preserved meats and jarred goods. Enough to last five villages through the harshest of winters.
“Excellent.” Leanna surveys the abundance, not seeming the least bit surprised. “Have it loaded onto a cart.”
The villagers watch from afar as the precious cargo is loaded and taken back to the road. It’s settled safely among our ranks and after sunset, when we’ve all finished our rations, each member of the company is given a fresh apple. My mouth waters as soon as the reddish pink fruit is plopped into my outstretched hand. Rations are little more than stale bread and tough cured meats. I stopped asking what kind of meat it was. I learned long ago that I don’t want to know.
Soldiers settle into their tents around me, and I brush the sandy apple against my pants. Bringing the pink fruit to my lips, I inhale deeply, basking in the fresh scent, wishing I had a dozen more just like it.
My teeth graze the peel as my eyes meet the dull gaze of a boy half my age, shivering in the doorway of the rickety house across from me. I’ve seen a hundred just like him. He won’t last the winter if he doesn’t take the offer Leanna extends in every village—join the march back to the keep and pledge service to the crown. I try not to linger in the knowledge that, in their current condition, less than half will survive the march back to the keep.
My stomach twists when the boy stretches his hand out toward me. His eyes have fallen to the apple I now hold in my lap and my throat burns. He’s too young, too thin, and I know what the dull color of his eyes means. He won’t make it. Not to the keep, not through the winter. He’s already a ghost, he just doesn’t know it yet.
I roll the apple toward him, and he leaps, snatching it off the ground before running off into the night like he’s being chased by a pack of feyn. It’s a useless act; I might as well be feeding a corpse for all the good it will do him. But maybe the boy will pass into the veil among the stars with a memory of kindness and something sweet on his lips.
His face is the last thing I think of when I close my eyes to sleep, and the last thing I see as we march back to the keep the following morning. Hiseyes no longer hold the dull hue of those on the precipice of death; there is no light left behind them. He didn’t make it far, and I wonder how it was that no one heard as he was beaten on the side of road. His hand lays open in front of him, absent the small morsel of food that I’m sure cost the boy his life.
Guilt twists in my gut like a knife. I take one last look over my shoulder, counting the villagers that follow in the wake of our march, fueled by hunger, or hope, or desperation of another kind. A thin but broad man at the front of the villagers catches my eye as he raises his hand to his mouth, biting into an apple. My apple. The boy’s apple. I choke on the sight, forcing myself to face the front and march, like the soldier I’ve been trained to be.
CHAPTER 15
THE MANOR, A’KORI
Present Day
When I arrive back at the manor, Enrik informs me that Felias is still out for the day. I hope to find time to speak with him in private but, for now, it can wait. I stop by the kitchen and rummage through the trays of berries and cheeses that the cooks keep out throughout the day, then make my way out into the gardens. It’s too early for dinner, too early for bed, and too late to send out any invitations for company.
Thank the stars.
I wander deep into the gardens where a large oak holds a swinging bed from its twining branches. I sprawl out on my back, sinking into the down-filled cushions. It’s impossible not to think of the orphans and my conversation with the general. There are bound to be things in A’kori that don’t match up to the horrific image I’d painted of the feyn, but I hadn’t expectedthat.
I would have been surprised enough by the sight had there only been feyn children, but that they allowed human children to stay as well makesme feel sick. Not because I feel they should keep the children separate, but because even if such a place for children existed in La’tari, life on Terr would end before they ever offered a feyn child the safety that all children deserve.
I remind myself that feyn children grow to become warriors. But a child should never be punished for what theycouldbecome. I discard the thoughts that feel like an iron weight pulling me down into the depths of haliel.
A dense gust of wind nudges the bed until it sways beneath the leaves, and I wind a loose strand of hair around my finger. I close my eyes, prepared to let the breezy afternoon lull me to sleep, when a faint feminine voice slips past my ears. I smile, take in a deep breath, exhale slowly, and listen.
Her whisper breaks through the gentle rustle of leaves overhead. “Tha’haynah. She sleeps.”
I crack my eyes open to find two pairs of bright fea eyes staring down at me from within the dense foliage of the tree overhead.
“Is this where you live?” I wonder, and a gentle laugh flits past my ears.
