Anhara
The waiting was the worst part.
I’d positioned myself in the barn loft, rifle braced against the window frame, cheek pressed to the cold stock. The moon hung low and heavy, casting shadows that moved with the wind. Every rustle of grass could be footsteps. Every creak of timber could be someone testing the boards below.
Don’t die.
I’d said it like it meant nothing. Like it was something you tossed off before a meal, not before a battle. But it had slipped out anyway, past all my defenses, and now it sat in my chest like a stone I couldn’t swallow.
The comm unit in my ear crackled. His voice, low and steady. “Movement on the north ridge. Four contacts.”
I adjusted my grip. Breathed out slowly, the way Torek had taught me. Let everything narrow to the scope, the field, the eastern tree line where shapes were separating from shadows.
“I see movement east. Three, maybe four.”
“They’re splitting their approach. Flanking.”
“Smart.”
“Expected.”
Silence stretched between us, filled only by my own heartbeat thudding against my ribs. Somewhere below, Turnip shifted in the darkness of the back entrance. I’d stationed him at the one path that wasn’t mined. If anyone made it past the traps, they’d meet him first.
He’d been restless all evening. Eager. Like he could smell what was coming.
“Kallum.”
“Yes?”
I wanted to say something. Something real. Something that matched the weight sitting behind my ribs. But the words stuck in my throat, tangled and useless, and then the first trap exploded.
Light and sound ripped through the northern field.
A pressure plate. Someone had stepped exactly where we’d wanted them to step, and fire bloomed orange against the dark, and the screaming started.
I forced myself to breathe. Forced my hands to stay steady on the rifle.
From the ridge, his rifle cracked. Once. The sound carried across the farm, precise and unhurried.
I counted. One.
Another crack. Two.
Then a third. Three.
He was taking his time. Making each shot matter. I pictured him up there in the dark, eye to the scope, finger squeezing slow. Patient. Methodical.
Don’t die.
The eastern approach erupted with movement.
Men in dark armor broke from the tree line, running low through the tall grass. Four of them fanned out, heading for the fence where they thought they’d find cover.
I tracked the one in front through my scope. Watched him run. Watched his boots churn through the grass Torek had planted five seasons ago.
My finger found the trigger. Cold metal. Familiar weight.
He reached the fence. Started to vault over.
I squeezed.
The rifle kicked against my shoulder. The man’s head snapped back, and he crumpled over the fence rail, one leg still hooked on the wood.
The one behind him stumbled, tried to change direction. I adjusted. Breathed out. Fired again.
He dropped into the grass and didn’t move.
The third one saw. Saw his companions fall, saw the muzzle flash from the barn loft. He turned and ran, scrambling back toward the tree line with his head down and his arms pumping.
I let him go.
Let him carry the message back to whoever was waiting. Two down in seconds, and a woman who’d watched him flee without bothering to shoot.
Fear was a weapon too. Torek had taught me that.
The fourth one was smarter. He’d gone to ground the moment his squad started dying, and now I couldn’t find him in the grass. I swept the scope left, right. Nothing. Just shadows and the bodies of his friends.
A crack from the ridge.
The grass twitched forty meters from where I’d been looking. Something heavy settled into the soil.
Four.
His voice in my ear, calm as still water: “Eastern flank clear.”
“Copy.” My own voice sounded strange. Too steady. “I count four down on my side.”
“Two more on the north. They’re pulling back to regroup.”
Half of them down. The rest pulling back.
We’d planned for this. Calculated the odds, set the traps, positioned ourselves for maximum efficiency. But planning was different from doing. Numbers on a map were different from bodies in the grass.
I kept my eye to the scope and waited for more.
The south approach lit up twenty minutes later.
Three of them this time, coming fast, trying to punch through before we could reposition. They made it past the first trap line, boots pounding the dirt path that looked safe and wasn’t.
The second line caught them.
Two went down in the blast, thrown sideways by the pressure wave. The third kept coming, limping now, dragging a leg that bent wrong at the knee. He made it to the barn door. Got his hand on the latch.
The sound Turnip made when he charged was something I’d never forget.
Not a roar. Something lower, wetter. A sound that came from deep in his chest and promised violence. Then the impact, heavy and final, and the man’s scream cut short by the crack of bones and the thick, tearing noise of Turnip’s tusks finding purchase.
I stayed in the loft. Kept my eye on the fields. Let Turnip finish what he’d started.
When the sounds stopped, he grunted once. Satisfied.
“South approach clear,” I said into the comm. My voice didn’t waver. I was proud of that.
“Copy.”
A long pause. His rifle cracked once more from the ridge.
“North is quiet. They’re pulling back.”
Dawn crept over the fields.
Gray light replaced shadows, and the damage we’d done emerged piece by piece. Bodies scattered across the grass. Dark stains spreading into the soil. The man still draped over the fence, one leg caught on the rail.
We’d cut their numbers in half. But I didn’t know about the ridge. Didn’t know if those precise rifle cracks had been his last.
Don’t die.
The ringing in my ears faded slowly. My heartbeat filled the silence, too loud, too fast. I lowered the rifle. Uncurled my fingers from the stock, one by one, and found them stiff from hours of tension.
I scanned the ridge. Nothing moved against the lightening sky.
Nothing.
My chest tightened. I told myself it meant nothing. He was careful. He was trained. He wouldn’t silhouette himself against the dawn like an amateur.
But the silence stretched, and the ridge stayed empty, and the words I’d said kept echoing in the hollow space behind my ribs.
I climbed down from the loft on legs that didn’t want to hold me. My knees shook on the ladder. I had to grip the rungs hard enough to hurt just to stay upright.
The barn floor was a mess. I stepped around it without looking too closely. Pushed open the door and stepped into the cold morning air.
The compound was empty. The fields were empty. Everything was silence and aftermath and the copper smell of blood mixing with dew.
I started walking toward the farmhouse. Rifle still in my hands because I didn’t know how to put it down. Eyes tracking every shadow, every shape that might be a body, might be a threat, might be him lying somewhere I hadn’t thought to look.
Don’t die.
I’d said it like it was nothing. I’d said it like I meant the mission, the farm, the Regalia. But my hands shook and my throat was tight. If he was dead on that ridge I didn’t know what I would do.
He appeared around the corner of the house.
Blood on his face. A dark smear across his temple, trailing down his cheek. Blood on his hands, dried brown in the creases of his knuckles. He walked like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just spent the night killing men in the dark.
I stared at him. At the blood. At the red eyes that found mine and held them, steady and calm and alive.
“You’re hurt.” The words came out sharper than I meant.
“Not my blood.”
Relief flooded through me so fast my knees almost buckled. I had to brace a hand against the doorframe just to stay standing. Physical, visceral, humiliating.
I turned away before he could see it.
“Tea,” I said, walking into the farmhouse with my spine straight and my face carefully blank. “I’m making tea.”
The kettle wouldn’t stay still.
I gripped the handle with both hands, trying to hold it steady under the pump, but my fingers had their own ideas. They trembled against the metal, making the water splash and sputter.
“Damn it.”
I set the kettle down. Pressed my palms flat against the counter. Breathed.
Behind me, I heard him come in. The soft tread of his boots. The creak of a chair as he sat at the table. He didn’t say anything. Just waited.
The domesticity of it was absurd. An hour ago, I’d killed two men. Twenty minutes ago, I’d listened to Turnip tear a third apart. And now I was standing at the kitchen pump trying to make tea like this was any other morning.
I got the kettle filled on the second try. Set it on the stove. Pulled two mugs from the shelf above the sink.
The fire had burned down to embers while we were gone. The house had gone cold. But I could feel him behind me, and where his presence pressed against my awareness, there was heat.
I brought the mugs to the table. Set one in front of him. Sat down across from him with my own cradled between my palms.
Neither of us drank.
My fingers still wouldn’t stop shaking. Adrenaline with nowhere to go, pooling in my muscles, making everything twitch and tremble. I pressed my palms flat against the ceramic, trying to absorb the warmth. Trying to look like I was holding myself together.
Turnip had curled up by the hearth. Blood stained his leathery skin. He looked content. Satisfied with his night’s work.
I didn’t look at Kallum. Couldn’t. If I looked at him, I’d have to think about the way my chest had hollowed out when the ridge stayed empty. The way his name had pounded through my head with every heartbeat. The relief that had almost dropped me to my knees.
So, I looked at my tea. At the table. At the embers in the hearth.
His knee touched mine under the table.
The contact was light. The barest brush of warmth through the fabric of my trousers. The kind of thing that happened when two people sat in a small space with their legs stretched out under a table that wasn’t quite big enough.
Accidental. Had to be accidental.
He didn’t move it away.
I sat very still. The shaking in my hands stilled. Everything went quiet, except for the blood rushing in my ears and the place where his knee pressed against mine.
I should shift. Pull back. Put distance between us. That would be the smart thing, the safe thing. We had enemies still out there and more coming and this was not the time.
I didn’t shift.
I didn’t pull back.
I let his knee stay pressed against mine, and I felt the warmth of it seep through the fabric, and I didn’t do a single thing about it.
“You’re good.” His voice was low. Rougher than usual, edged with something the night had scraped raw. “Under fire. Better than good.”
I made myself look up.
He was watching me. Those red eyes that had tracked enemies through the dark all night were fixed on my face now, cataloging every tremor, every tell.
Blood still smeared across his temple. The cut of his jaw was sharp in the thin morning light.
His mouth was a flat line, but there was something behind it.
Something that didn’t match the stillness of his face.
“Torek trained me,” I said.
“Torek taught you to shoot.” He didn’t blink. Didn’t look away. “The rest is you.”
The warmth in my chest expanded. Pressed against my ribs. Made it hard to breathe.
I should look away. I should pull back my knee, pick up my tea, say something light and deflecting. I should do anything except sit here drowning in red eyes and pretending I couldn’t feel every place our bodies touched.
I didn’t.
His knee pressed harder against mine. Deliberate now. Unmistakable.
The question rose in my throat and came out before I had time to think. Before I could weigh whether I was ready for the answer, whether asking would break something I couldn’t put back together.
“What happens after?” My voice came out quiet. Raw. Like the words had scraped me hollow on the way out. “If we survive this?”
The silence filled the space, heavy and warm. His knee stayed pressed against mine. His eyes stayed fixed on my face. The fire crackled down to ash and the sun rose outside the window and somewhere in the fields, the enemy was regrouping, planning their next assault.
More were on their way.
But he didn’t answer, and I didn’t ask again. Neither of us pulled away.
His knee pressed harder. I felt it in my whole body, that small increase in pressure. Felt it like a promise. Like an answer that didn’t need words.
We sat in the silence and the warmth and the space between questions and answers. We sat with our knees touching and our tea going cold and the weight of what we weren’t saying filling up the room.
Outside, the sun finished rising on a farm full of bodies and traps and everything we’d built to survive.
Inside, I let myself feel the warmth of him against me, and I didn’t ask again. Didn’t pull away. Just waited to see what came next.