Anhara
Ichopped vegetables because my hands needed something to do.
The knife came down hard on the cutting board. Carrots from the cold cellar, still crisp from winter storage. I’d brought them up this morning, before dawn, before the bodies in the field had been fully visible. Something to focus on. Something that made sense.
Chop. Chop. Chop.
The problem kept running through my head like water through a cracked dam. No matter how many times I pushed it away, it seeped back in.
Chop.
The afternoon light slanted through the kitchen windows, golden and thick with dust motes.
Outside, the farm looked peaceful. Fields swayed in the breeze, the compound quiet except for Turnip’s occasional grunt as he patrolled.
You’d never know there were bodies decomposing in the north field.
Never know that death was sleeping under the soil of every approach.
Chop.
My hands moved faster than they needed to. The knife bit into the cutting board with more force than the carrots required. I made a mess of them, chunks uneven, some too thick, some nearly translucent.
Torek would have corrected my technique. Economy of movement, little blade. Don’t waste energy.
But Torek was dead, and there were too many fighters coming, and my hands wouldn’t stop moving because if they stopped, I’d have to think about the kitchen this morning. His knee against mine. The question I’d asked. The answer he hadn’t vocalized.
The answer his body had given instead.
I brought the knife down hard enough to make the board rattle against the counter.
“You’re going to dull that blade.”
His voice came from the doorway. Low. Rough. I hadn’t heard him approach, which meant he hadn’t wanted me to hear him. He’d been standing there. Watching.
I didn’t turn around.
“I’ll sharpen it later.”
“If there is a later.”
My hands stilled on the knife. Neither of us spoke. I could hear my own breathing and feel the weight of him behind me.
I could feel him there. Not just hear him, but feel him. The weight of his attention on my back like a physical thing. The space he took up in the doorway, blocking the light.
“That’s cheerful,” I said.
“I’m a realist.”
“You’re a pessimist.”
“I’m still alive.”
I set down the knife. Turned.
He stood in the doorframe, leaning against the wood with his arms crossed over his chest. The same posture he’d had a dozen times before. But something was different now. Something in the way his red eyes tracked my movement, slow and deliberate, like he was memorizing the shape of me.
“You’re staring,” I said.
“Yes.”
No apology. No deflection. Just that single word, dropped between us like a stone into still water.
I waited for more. An explanation. An excuse.
“You move like you’re dancing,” he said instead. “Like everything has a rhythm. The way you chop, the way you walk, the way you hold your rifle. It’s all connected. One continuous motion.”
Heat crawled up my neck. I turned back to the vegetables, picking up the knife again. Chopping with more care this time, trying to find a rhythm that didn’t feel like performance.
“Torek taught me that,” I said. “Economy of movement. Don’t waste energy.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I didn’t ask what he meant. Didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to think about him standing in doorways, watching me move, noticing things about my body that I didn’t notice myself.
The knife came down. Again. Again.
Behind me, I heard Turnip shift by the hearth. The heavy shuffle of his bulk moving from one spot to another. When I glanced over, he’d repositioned himself near the far wall, leaving a wide empty space between the hearth and the table.
Leaving room.
“Traitor,” I muttered.
Turnip huffed and closed his eyes.
I crossed to the window, abandoning the vegetables. Checked the perimeter because that was something to do, something that made sense, something that didn’t involve thinking about the man in the doorway and the way his eyes followed me across the room.
The fields were quiet. Nothing moved in the grass. The traps lay hidden, waiting.
“You check the perimeter obsessively,” he said.
“Someone has to.”
“You checked it three minutes ago.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was watching.”
I pressed my forehead against the glass. Cool against my skin. Grounding.
“You’re always watching,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t that get exhausting?”
“Sometimes.”
I heard him move. Floorboards creaking under his weight. Coming closer.
“You’re different,” I said, not turning. “From what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. Someone colder. Someone who treated this like a job and nothing else.” I traced a crack in the window glass with my finger. “You care. About the mission. About the farm. About...”
I stopped.
“About?” His voice was closer now. Behind me. Near enough that I could feel the warmth of him through my shirt.
“Never mind.”
“You stopped yourself.” I could hear the faint smile in his voice. “You do that a lot.”
“Maybe I have good reasons.”
“Maybe you’re afraid of what you might say.”
I turned.
He was right there. So close I caught the individual threads of color in his red eyes, the lighter striations where crimson shifted toward something warmer. Close enough that I could smell him, gunpowder and metal and something underneath that was just him.
“Torek used to say something,” I said. “Patience costs nothing and gains everything.”
Something flickered across his face. Recognition.
“He said that to me too. The first time we met.” He didn’t step back. Didn’t give me space. “I was impatient. Wanted to rush the mission. He told me to slow down. Said I’d miss the important things if I was always looking ahead.”
The recognition settled into my chest, warm and unexpected. This shared piece of Torek, this echo of the man who’d raised me living in someone else’s memory.
“Did you listen?” I asked.
“Eventually.”
“How long did it take?”
“Longer than it should have.”
I leaned back against the window frame. The glass was cold through my shirt, but he was warm in front of me, and the contrast made my skin prickle.
“You’re lonely,” I said.
He went still.
Not startled. Not surprised. Just... still. The kind of stillness I’d seen in prey animals when they sensed a predator. The kind of stillness that meant every muscle had locked into place, waiting for what came next.
“You hide it well,” I continued. “The way you fade into the background with your team. The way you talk about them like they’re a unit and you’re something separate. Adjacent.” I watched his face, looking for the cracks. “But I recognize it.”
“Recognize what?”
“The shape of it. The way it sits in your chest.” I pressed my hand flat against my own sternum, feeling my heart beat under my palm. “Like there’s a space where something should fit, and nothing ever does. Like you’re always on the outside of something, looking in.”
His jaw tightened. I saw the muscle flex under his skin.
“I’ve been that lonely,” I said. “Before Torek found me.”
Something shifted in his eyes. The walls didn’t come down, but I saw a crack. A hairline fracture in the stone he’d built around himself.
“I spent years on my own before I came here,” I said. “Moving from place to place. Never staying. Never letting anyone close enough to love.” I dropped my hand from my chest. “I thought if I didn’t need anyone, I couldn’t be hurt by anyone. And I was right. I couldn’t be hurt.”
I paused.
“I couldn’t be anything else, either.”
He was still. So still. But I noticed his chest moving with each breath, slower and deeper than it had been a moment ago. I saw the way his hands had curled into fists at his sides, fingers pressing into his palms.
“What changed?” His voice was rough. Scraped raw.
“Torek. He didn’t ask me to trust him. He just..
. kept showing up. Every time I pushed him away, he came back.
Every time I told him I didn’t need help, he helped anyway.
” I smiled, small and sad. “He wore me down. Made me realize that being alone wasn’t the same as being strong.
That needing people wasn’t the same as being weak. ”
The quiet held. I could hear my own heartbeat now, loud in my ears. Could feel it in my throat, my wrists, everywhere blood ran close to the surface.
“What would it take,” I asked, “to get you to take off the armor?”
He didn’t answer.
He stepped forward instead.
One step. Closing half the distance between us.
My breath caught. I held it, waiting.
He took another step.
I was backed against the window. Nowhere to go even if I wanted to.
I could step to the side. Slip past him. Break the moment and return to the vegetables and pretend this conversation had never happened.
I didn’t move.
He stopped. Inches away. So close I could see the pulse in his throat, quick and steady. So close I could count the fine scars on his hands, silver lines against his skin.
He raised one of those hands. Slow. Deliberate. Giving me time to pull back, to turn away, to stop this before it started.
I didn’t.
His fingertips touched my jaw.
The contact was light. Barely there. A whisper of warmth tracing the line of my jaw, following the curve from my ear to my chin.
My whole body went taut. Every nerve ending focused on that single point of contact, on the path his fingers traced, on the rough texture of his calluses against my skin.
He moved his hand. Cupped my face properly. His palm warm against my cheek, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth.
I leaned into him. Couldn’t help it. My body moving before my mind gave permission, pressing my face into his hand like I was starving for contact.
His breath caught. I heard it, felt it, the slight stutter in the rhythm of his breathing. His thumb pressed harder against the corner of my mouth. So close to my lips. So close.
“Anhara.”
My name in his voice, rough and low. Like a question. Like a prayer. Like he was asking permission for something he couldn’t put into words.
I looked up. Found his eyes. Red and burning and focused on me with an intensity that made my stomach clench.
His thumb traced my lower lip. Light. Questioning.
I parted my lips. Let him feel the warmth of my breath against his skin. Let him see the answer I couldn’t say out loud.
He leaned closer. His forehead almost touching mine. His breath warm on my face.
“Anhara.”
The proximity alarm screamed.
The sound ripped through the kitchen like a physical blow. High and urgent and endless, cutting through everything, shattering the moment into fragments I could never piece back together.
We jerked apart.
His hand fell from my face. Cold rushed in where his warmth had been. The absence hit harder than any blade, like something had been torn away before it had a chance to grow.
The alarm kept wailing. Red light pulsed from the panel by the door. Turnip was on his feet, fur standing on end, massive body coiled and ready.
“They’re early,” Kallum said.
His voice was flat. Controlled. The walls slamming back into place so fast I almost got whiplash watching it happen. One second he’d been open, vulnerable, his thumb tracing my lip. The next he was the ghost again, all sharp edges and lethal focus.
He was out the door before I could respond. Moving fast, disappearing into the afternoon light like he’d never been solid at all.
I stood by the window. My hand rose without my permission, pressing against my cheek where his palm had been.
Still warm. Still tingling. The ghost of his touch lingering on my skin.
The alarm screamed on.
I grabbed my rifle from its place by the door. Checked the chamber. Found the calm place inside me where fear couldn’t reach, the place Torek had built one patient lesson at a time.
The ghost of his thumb on my lip followed me out the door.
The barn loft was cold.
I settled into position, rifle nearby. The same position I’d held last night, through hours of darkness and death. The same view of the fields, the same angle on the approaches.
But everything was different now.
The sun was dropping fast. Late afternoon bleeding into dusk, the light amber and thick. They weren’t supposed to attack until dark. That was what we’d planned for, what we’d built our defenses around.
But wars didn’t wait for plans. And the alarm kept screaming, and through my scope I could see movement in the southern tree line. Shapes separating from shadows. Lots of them.
His voice crackled through the comm. “Multiple contacts. Southern approach. They’re coming in force.”
“How many?”
A pause. I could picture him on the ridge, counting. That patience Torek had taught him, all those years ago.
“All of them.”
I chambered a round. Settled my breathing. Found the rhythm Torek had drilled into me, the economy of movement that had kept me alive this long.
The ghost of Kallum’s touch lingered on my cheek. His thumb against my lip. The question he hadn’t finished asking.
Anhara.
The first wave hit the trap line.
Explosions bloomed across the southern field. Screaming started, distant and thin. His rifle cracked from the ridge, precise and unhurried.
I sighted down the scope. Found a target. Breathed out.
Squeezed.
The man dropped. I found another. Squeezed again.
The rhythm took over. Shoot. Breathe. Shoot. The same dance I’d done last night, the same steps Torek had taught me.
But somewhere underneath the calm, underneath the training and the discipline and the cold place where fear couldn’t reach, I could still feel his hand on my face.
And I held onto that warmth as the killing started again.