CHAPTER 14
BORDER VILLAGE, LA’TARI
Eight Years Earlier
“Shivaria, fall in line.” Leanna’s voice is stern when she gives the command, though I haven’t strayed far from our company’s march through the desolate border village.
Then again, Leanna always sounds stern. I’ve rarely noticed any distinction in the woman’s tone, no matter her mood or what it is she says to me.
I run to my place, slipping back into formation among the throngs of foot soldiers dressed in the standard-issue muddy brown uniforms. The marching procession was sent by our king, with orders to dispense assistance to the small towns along the La’tari coast. Though throughout our venture I’ve been unable to discern what assistance, if any, we might offer our people.
The land remains desolate, dying off a little more every year and with it, the La’tari people.
Every step along the silty, rutted road sends plumes of dust into the air until we are marching in a cloud of dirt so thick, I can taste it. Even the normally pristine, black leathers of the Drakai leading us begin to cake in the debris, camouflaging them among the rest of the legion.
When the feyn came during the war they took more than mortal lives, they took the very lifeforce of Terr from these lands.
Bled dry of its essence, the La’tari found that though seeds could still be sown, we would never see another abundant harvest upon our shores.
This was the price the feyn exacted upon us for fighting back against their slaughter.
If what they stole from the land can be recovered, we certainly haven’t found the way.
The homes we pass are haphazardly pieced together.
Some made from rotten logs, others mud and whatever drifted scraps their occupants scavenged along the coast. Few structures remain standing from before I was born.
They are easy to spot. Blackened boards blistered by brutal fires mark them as remnants of the war.
I can’t help but wonder how many had gone up in flames with their families still inside.
Just like the one Leanna pulled me from as a child.
I eye the remnants of a small garden outside a tilting home built of rotten boards and my stomach drops.
It’s not the first we’ve passed. Every small garden started in early spring inevitably ends as a desperate effort in futility.
Lands that not long ago produced in abundance beyond anything I’ve ever seen, are now little more than barren wastelands.
Vast expanses of unfertile soil spread out in every direction as far as the eye can see.
It isn’t uncommon to find a body lying in the road, bloated in the sun or thoroughly decayed. I’d seen both, stepping over three in the span of two days. I’ve never been brave enough to look down at their faces.
Through the churning dust I spot a small group of children huddled against a large building, abandoned long ago.
They cling to one another in small piles, curled up against flea ridden mutts for warmth.
Anything to protect themselves from the chilly air that promises an early winter.
I haven’t seen a scrap of food outside my rations since we left the keep three days ago, and it is clear by their sunken eyes and distended bellies that each soul we pass hasn’t seen a warm meal in much longer than that.
“Halt,” Leanna issues the order, throwing a fist in the air to signal the end of our march. “Make camp.”
The procession breaks. Not a moment wasted before the mass of bodies around me begins to roil, every soldier confident in the task they have been assigned. That is all it ever takes. One word from Leanna and the entire company would hop on one foot until she told them they could rest.
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 the sea.
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.
His eyes 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.