Chapter 2 #3
“I’m going to join the war,” I said, my voice low. “The army chief promised five thousand gold coins to those who return victorious.”
The air thickened, as heavy as the smoke clinging to our mudbrick walls. The fire hissed, shadows stretched long across the dirt floor, and for a heartbeat, even the night beyond our door seemed to still.
My mother stirred on her mat. Her arms trembled as she pushed herself upright, the wool cloak slipping from her shoulders. Her tunic hung loose on her frame, worn thin by years of labor and want. Her eyes, hollowed but keen, fixed on me with a strength that defied her body.
“No,” she rasped, her voice like reeds scraping in the wind. “Not you, Lazarus. I lost your father to war. Salvatore has already buried his brother. Must this one claim you, too?”
Her voice cracked, but the fire in her gaze did not dim.
“This is not a war for our survival. It is a war of kings. The Sea Peoples strike our coasts, burning villages, and the Hittites falter in the north. Egypt pulls back its hand, and now men fight to seize Ugarit’s harbor, its bronze, its cedar.
They want our city for themselves, and they will bury you in their struggle. I cannot lose you to their greed.”
Before I could speak, Amara came to me. Her long tunic brushed the dirt floor as she crossed the room, the rough linen whispering with each hurried step.
She seized my arm, her hands clutching like a prisoner’s grip on the bars.
Her eyes glistened in the torchlight, wide, unyielding, wet with terror.
“Don’t, Lazarus,” she begged, her voice breaking. “Don’t leave us. Not for gold, not for struggle. You are all your mother and I have.”
Her plea dug deeper than my mother’s sorrow. She pressed against me, her fingers digging into the worn fabric of my tunic as though by sheer force she could tether me to the hearth.
“I must,” I said, though the words burned my throat.
“For the gold—for us. The harbor lies quiet; ships no longer come as they once did. The merchants grow thin, the bronze trade falters, and the scribes write only debts. What else is left for us? This war may be born of greed, but it is the only coin they offer. Without it, we have nothing.”
“No.” Amara shook her head, tears streaking her cheeks. Her voice was soft, cracked, but fierce. “I don’t need riches. I need you. Just your voice at dawn, your arms at night. If you go, you carry the last of me with you.”
My mother’s eyes brimmed with sorrow yet burned with truth.
“Your father swore the same, that he would return. But the war killed him. This war devours all. Ugarit breaks apart, caught between empires and raiders. The harbor rots, the caravans do not come, and still the kings call this ruin glory. It is an endless hunger, my son, and it always eats the ones we love first.”
I bent to her, kissed her brow, and whispered, “Mother, I promise you I will come back. I swear it.”
But even to my own ears, the promise rang thin.
Amara’s sobs shook against me, her face pressed to my chest. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her as if I could shield her from the truth of what I had chosen.
“Come,” I whispered.
She lifted her tear-streaked face to mine, and though her eyes begged me to change, she let me take her hand.
I led her from the fire’s dim glow, past the reed mat where my mother wept silently, into the small room that was ours.
I closed the door behind us, drawing Amara into me as though it were the last time I would ever hold her.
“No… Lazarus,” she breathed. “Please—don’t go.” Her voice trembled with pain and disbelief.
“Amara,” I said, pressing my face into the warm length of her hair, “I promise, my love—I’ll come back to you.” My voice sounded small in the room.
Her hands clutched my tunic like iron hooks clinging to the edge of the world. “Why would you do this?” she cried, her voice splintering like thin glass. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted. I don’t care about gold. I just want you.”
Her words tore through me. I stepped back to see her—tear-streaked, fierce, dangerous in her hunger. “And I want you,” I said, my palms cradling her cheeks. “More than anything. But the gold… it could change everything.” My breath scraped across my ribs.
“I could take care of my mother. I could build us a home, Amara. Not just these stolen scraps between fear and war. Something real. Something safe. Something ours.”
She didn’t speak.
Instead, she pressed her forehead to mine, her breath trembling against my lips, tears glittering like shards of starlight. I could feel the war pounding in her chest—every beat a plea.
Then she whispered, not like a plea but like a truth she could not swallow, “Take me with you instead. I’d rather face the spears at your side than count the nights without you.”
I didn’t answer her back with words.
Instead, I claimed her mouth.
Not just any kiss, but an invasion—slow at first, then darkening, deepening, until her gasp dissolved into me.
Her hands clawed at my tunic, dragging me closer, as if she could bury herself inside my chest. I tasted salt—her tears, her fear, her desperation—and I pressed harder, swallowing her breath as though I could steal her into myself.
Her lips burned against mine, moving with the hunger of a woman who already feared she had lost me.
I tilted her head back, deepening the kiss until our tongues tangled like combatants, every breath a struggle between surrender and demand.
Her moan broke through me like a spear, setting my blood on fire.
She melted against me, her body molding to mine as if we had been forged together from the same stone. My hand seized her waist, anchoring her, while the other slid up her back, fingers splayed across her nape, holding her as though even the gods themselves would try to tear her away.
The kiss wasn’t a farewell.
It was a wound, a sin, a vow whispered in the language of flesh.
Her fingers tangled in my hair, yanking until pain and desire blurred into one.
I kissed her harder, deeper, tasting her, memorizing her, imprinting the sound of her gasps and the tremor in her throat like scripture.
Her body arched, hips brushing mine, breath catching, until restraint shattered and only hunger remained.
She sighed into me, trembling, giving me everything as if she could empty herself into my mouth.
My teeth grazed her lip, drawing a shuddering sound from her that nearly unraveled me.
My thumbs stroked along her jaw, reverent and desperate, while her nails raked down my shoulders, leaving fire in their wake.
When we broke apart, we were shaking—mouths swollen, hearts hammering, the silence around us thrumming with the unspoken truth—this was the last night untouched by war.
“I love you,” I murmured against her skin, my lips grazing the hollow of her throat.
Her eyes—wet, burning—locked onto mine.
“I love you too,” she whispered. “So much it feels like it’s tearing me apart.”
She pressed her palms to my chest as though she could pin my heart in place, force it to stay inside these walls.
I covered her hands with mine, pried them free, and lifted them to my lips. I kissed each knuckle—slow, rough—like scraping a vow straight into bone.
“Even if I must crawl through fire,” I swore, my voice as dark as the grave, “through blood, through the jaws of death itself—I will return. I will not let this war silence me. I will fight until my hands are nothing but ruin, until my body is ground into ash. And even then, I will drag myself back to you.”
Her tears slid down unchecked, streaking her face like molten glass.
“And I’ll wait,” she said, her voice raw, broken. “If it takes years, if it takes a lifetime—I’ll wait until the earth swallows me whole.”
Even though the war had not yet entered our home, I felt its shadow already there. It wrapped itself around my throat, heavy and cold, whispering of spears splitting flesh, of cities burning, of all it meant to steal from me.
But I would not let it take my Amara.
I would not let it strip me hollow.
I would go and fight.
And I would crawl back from whatever hell awaited me.
For her.
For my blood.
For the fragile future clawing to exist—etched in stone, sealed in blood, carried in a heart that refused to die.