Spoils of war (Revolt #1)

CHAPTER ONE

The sun never set on the day I was taken.

It feels like remembering another life now, a life before the fire, before the blood, before the pain.

Back when I didn’t know what I was. Back when the world still felt kind.

I didn’t realize it then, but that summer was the last time I would ever feel safe.

Back then, life in Vestance felt perfect.

I lived with my family in a quiet town tucked into the northern hills, Novil.

And I was still a girl sheltered by love, who dared to dream.

Midsummer marked the end of my childhood, and my innocence.

It was the year I turned eight, and I was old enough to remember everything, but too young to understand it.

The midnight sun and the moon watched over me that night, draping the world in a golden shroud.

But before there was nothing—before the endless darkness—there was warmth, and music, and joy.

Everyone had gathered in the glade by the lake, to celebrate the summer solstice.

It was one of the old traditions, a remnant from when gods ruled the world.

Before kings and queens and wars. Or so the stories went. Most people didn’t believe in the ancient gods anymore. In any gods at all, really. But my mother did, and it was beautiful. Her faith gave her something the rest of the world had lost.

Hope.

I wanted to be like her. I really did. I listened to the stories, sat through the prayers and sang the hymns, but eventually, they all blurred together. Gods, myths, legends and fairy tales. Pretty lies, my brother called them.

But not all of them were pretty. There were a few I could never shake. The ones that scared me. The ones about monsters in the shadows, human sacrifices or ancient gods that devoured the light.

I was too young to understand the truth within the stories.

Maybe I still am.

My mother had her own ways of honoring the gods.

Rituals her own mother had passed down to her, and she was trying to pass down to me.

Every year, we’d toss last year’s flower wreaths into the midsummer fire, before weaving new ones.

She said it brought good fortune, that it was a ’thank you’ to the gods for what we already had.

If my mother taught me anything, it was to always be grateful.

If your heart is full of gratitude, the gods will give you more to be grateful for, she’d say.

I remember standing beside her that day, the smoke curling around our ankles and the flames crackling high into the golden sky.

My mother wore her old summer dress, its fabric scattered with tiny flowers.

It had thinned with time and sun, the hems frayed from years of wear, but I still thought it was the most beautiful dress in the world.

I loved the way the pattern danced when she moved, like wildflowers caught in a breeze.

It was one of the few times I saw her without her hair tied back with a scarf, or an apron around her waist. Midsummer, birthdays, and the winter solstice celebration, those were the only days she let herself just be.

Her hair blew loose around her face, golden in the firelight, and she looked almost otherworldly, murmuring her prayers into folded hands.

She always looked so calm when she did her rituals.

As if she felt something the rest of us couldn’t.

Like she could hear the spirits in the wind, while we only heard the rustling leaves.

The bonfire that year was the biggest I’d ever seen. It stood tall at the center of the glade, built from split logs and dry brush. It symbolized surviving the winter. Summer had returned and we were still here to see it. That alone was worth celebrating.

“It’s time, Kera,” my mother said.

She reached for my hand, lacing her fingers through mine with a soft squeeze.

“You ready?”

I didn’t answer.

“What’s wrong, my dove?” she asked.

I stared into the grass. “Einar says none of this is real.”

“Well,” she said, “your brother should learn when to keep his mouth shut.”

“So… it’s not?” I asked.

“Do you want it to be?”

I hesitated, then nodded.

“Truth is, sweetie, no one really knows what’s real and what’s not,” she said. ”We can’t know what happened before we were born. We can’t even know what’s happening far away, right now. But I choose to believe. And I think there’s truth in all stories.”

Her words made me smile, just a small tug at the corner of my lips. But then I remembered the scary stories, the ones about curses and ancient gods and things that lived underground, and my smile faded.

“Even the scary ones?” I asked.

“Especially the scary ones.”

There was something in her tone that made me step back. Maybe it was better if none of it was real. That way, the scary ones wouldn’t be either.

“I think I’m ready now,” I said.

She rose slowly, brushing the grass from her skirt, and we walked forward together and tossed our wreaths into the fire. They vanished in the smoke like they’d never been there at all.

A little boy with dark, unruly hair shoved through the crowd, clutching something in his fist. A wooden toy soldier, worn and scuffed. He marched straight to the fire and tossed it in. It was gone in an instant, swallowed by the flames, just as a woman caught up to him and seized his arm.

“Aran! I told you not to bring that. You won’t get another.”

“I don’t need another,” he said, puffing out his chest. “I’m a man now.”

He couldn’t have been much older than me, but his attitude was that of someone twice his size.

I stared at him, half in awe, half in disbelief.

Toys were precious, my mother always said so, and I always treated mine like treasure.

But Aran didn’t even flinch, he just stood there, staring into the fire like he wasn’t afraid of anything.

And behind us, other boys started whispering, their voices urgent and jealous.

They wanted to prove that they were men too.

After stuffing my face with all the midsummer foods and pastries at dinner, my mother and I stayed near the long tables.

My father had gone off to help someone with something.

I always spotted him keeping busy at occasions like that.

I suppose my mother did the same thing, weaving a new floral wreath for me, quietly singing along to the melody of a fiddle playing somewhere nearby.

My brother, Einar, and his best friend, Isak, had already vanished. I didn’t know where, and I didn’t care to know. They never let me play with them. Instead I listened to the song and watched as the flowers and vines turned into a crown in my mother’s hands.

“It’s so pretty,” I said.

She smiled. “Let me.”

I bent forward, and she murmured something in the language of the gods:

“Vesh un lori, noviel te laani,” she said, ”May fortune forever light your path.”

She placed the crown on my head and for a moment, I felt like a princess, the glade my kingdom.

But the wine flowed faster, and the men grew louder. Arguments broke out over games no one remembered the rules to, and harsh voices cut through the music.

My mother leaned closer and whispered, “Go make some friends.”

So I did as she asked. I slipped away from the tables, unsure where to go, until I saw them. Three girls sitting on a blanket beneath a tree. I recognized two of them, I didn't know their names, but I had seen them before.

I didn’t really have friends. We lived on the outskirts of the village, our closest neighbors an elderly couple who disliked noise.

Einar used to play with me, but lately he’d been avoiding me, growing up faster than I could keep up with.

So when I saw those girls beneath the tree, I told myself it was my chance to find new friends to play with.

I walked toward them, trying to keep my steps light.

I hoped I could be one of them. My dress almost looked like theirs.

My mother had sewn it from leftover fabric after making a new shirt for my father — pale blue linen with soft flutter sleeves.

Clean and pretty, just like them. For once, I didn’t feel out of place.

“Ugh. What’s that smell?” one of them said before I even spoke, wrinkling her nose.

Her dress was white and poofy, not the kind made for play.

Her parents probably scolded her if she even sat on the grass.

She had a face full of freckles and sharp red curls that bounced as she spoke.

She wasn’t friendly or approachable, but I still tried.

“Do you want to play with me?” I asked with the most unsteady voice I could have had. I sounded frightened.

I was also being way too eager, and I regretted my decision the moment I saw the look on their faces. Flabbergasted, all of them. Like ’how dare this girl speak to us’.

“No. We don’t play with mud stompers,” she spat. I didn’t understand the words, but I felt the meaning of them.

“I’m not a mud stomper,” I retorted.

“Yes, you are!” She snapped and rose from the blanket. “You’re a filthy little pig, and we don’t want you here.”

She shoved me hard enough that I hit the ground, my palms scraping against dirt and stone. It didn’t matter that I’d felt like them. She’d smelled that I wasn’t, and now she’d made sure the rest of the world could see it too. My blue dress was streaked with mud, just like my boots.

One of the girls wore a white hat tied with a satin ribbon, and beautiful, structured yellow dress.

“Stop it, Selma,” she muttered.

“I heard she’s stupid too,” the third girl added. Her eyes were as dark as her hair.

“I’m not stupid,” I retorted.

Selma smirked. “Can you even read? Or write?”

They already knew the answer, and I hated that they were right.

“No, you can’t!” Selma crowed, loud enough to draw stares. “Because you’re stupid!”

“Won’t you shut up?” the girl in the hat snapped. She stood and shoved Selma back a step, then turned to me and held out her hand.

I just stared at it.

But Selma wasn’t done.