CHAPTER SEVEN #2
People cheered. I didn’t. What he was talking about was treason.
High treason. Punished by death. And they wanted our boys?
Or men, to go fight a war? Village boys, who’d never as much as touched a sword or a rifle, except for maybe on a hunting trip once in a while.
Some of the people in the room sounded panicked.
Breathless. Others… almost thrilled. Like it was the start of some grand adventure.
But it wasn’t a hero’s call. There wouldn’t be songs about us.
No legends or statues raised. It was death staring us right in the face, and people were cheering.
I don’t know where I went, but I didn’t hear the rest of what he said, so my mind must have wandered, and when Will nudged my arm, and everyone was staring at me.
Jorek cleared his throat, “Kera, right?”
I nodded. What?
”You work at the bakery?” he asked. “Think you could stash a few loaves? Maybe bake extra?”
“We’re already baking at capacity.”
“So make more,” someone muttered.
“We’re going to war for you. Least you can do is bake some bread,” another added from the shadows, his voice dripping with resentment.
I swallowed it down. “I’ll see what I can do. But Mrs. Holt won’t like it.”
“You can’t tell her,” Jorek said, his voice iron. “No one outside this room can know about this. No siblings. No parents. No one who wasn’t here can know.”
“Why not?” Idalie shot back.
“Yeah,” Nora added. “What if they want to help?”
“Would they let you go?” he asked. He didn’t need to say more, I understood exactly what he meant. I already knew my answer. My parents would never let me. And Einar? He’d try to stop me. Tell me it was reckless. That I didn’t understand what I was walking into. And he’d be right.
Jorek reached into his coat, pulled out a folded sheet of paper, and slapped it flat on a table.
It was a map of North Vestance, creased and stained at the edges.
He slapped his hand down, pointing at the map.
“This is where they’ll be.” I didn’t see what he pointed at, but I wasn’t going, so it didn’t really matter.
What mattered to me was that he was going to bring people I knew and cared for. Eryx, Aran, and…Will.
No.
Selma raised an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”
“We’ve got an informant.” Jorek retorted. ”There’s a promotion ceremony planned. High command’ll be there. All of them, celebrating.”
“And what—you're gonna hide in the cake?” Selma scoffed. “Sounds like bullshit to me.”
“Then… stay… home,” Eryx drawled.
“We leave at dawn,” Jorek continued. ”Two days from now.”
“Do we even have weapons?” someone asked from the back.
“Knives,” Jorek said. “And eighteen rifles. If you’ve got your own, bring them.”
“And what if we lose?” another voice asked. “What if we get caught?”
“Then they kill us,” Aran said, like it was painfully obvious.
“Then maybe we don’t go. Maybe we wait.”
“We’ve waited long enough.” Jorek stared coldly at all of us, like he was daring anyone to argue.
“But we’re not soldiers—” someone shot back.
“No,” Aran cut in. “But we’re not cowards either.”
Then the shouting blurred together, dozens of voices rising at once, too many to separate. Someone yelled they didn’t want to die. Someone else told them to grow up. A few started pushing, shoving, snapping at each other, like panic had finally reached its boiling point.
I couldn’t move.
The air was too thick, too hot, full of breath and sweat and fear. Bodies pressed in around me, loud and shifting, and I had nowhere to go.
“LISTEN TO ME.” Jorek roared.
Everyone jolted. He leaned in over the table, his voice razor-thin. “No one talks about this. Not to anyone. Not a hint, not a whisper. If this gets out—even by accident—we do not get warnings. Do you get that? No trials. No graves. We’ll just be gone.”
Then Idalie, of all people, cleared her throat. “So… are we all in? I mean—girls too?”
The question sucked the air right back out of the room.
Eryx snorted. “What, you want us to bring everyone’s little sisters?”
“We can fight,” Selma snapped.
“If we lose,” Eryx said, “You’ll have to be here to repopulate Novil.”
A few boys laughed.
Selma didn’t.
“Funny,” she said. “But I’m a better fighter than most of you. I even had a soldier by the throat last night.”
“Yeah,” Eryx snorted, “until he disarmed you and knocked you flat on your ass.”
“And you’re better? You just stood there and watched him choke Aran!”
Eryx opened his mouth, then shut it again. Selma was right. No one else had dared to intervene. Maybe we were all cowards after all.
Selma turned to Jorek. “If you need fighters, you can’t afford to be picky.”
“The Wardens aren’t taking women,” Jorek kept his eyes on the map, as if the conversation was already over.
“Why not?” Selma pressed, slamming her hand on the map, her glare locked on him.
“Because if we lose,” he finally met her eyes. ”The Vultures won’t just kill you.”
The room went still again, and I felt bile rise to my throat. He wasn’t wrong. Women weren’t just killed in war; it was worse than that. If we lost, we wouldn’t get the mercy of a quick death.
Will raised his voice, “We’re doing this to protect you. That’s the whole point—”
Selma spun toward him. “I don’t need you to protect me,” she snapped.
Across the room, Idalie shifted her weight, fingers fiddling with the hem of her skirt. “What if someone panics?” she said. “What if they tell?”
“Then they won’t live long enough to regret it,” Aran said, slouched against the wall with his arms crossed.
That got attention.
A boy near the stairs scoffed. “Real comforting. We killing each other now?”
“Shut up, Vidar,” someone muttered from the shadows.
Vidar stepped forward, eyes bloodshot, mouth twisted into a sneer. “No, seriously, let’s talk. Because apparently I need to worry about getting stabbed in my sleep now?”
“Better that than watching your dumb ass ruin everything.” Eryx added.
“You want comfort?” another voice snapped from the back. “Go home to your mommy.”
“I don’t have one,” Vidar shot back, his face flushed. “Thanks for the reminder.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Nora hissed. “Gods, you’re exhausting.”
The room exploded.
Not literally, but it felt like it. Words collided like fists, louder, faster, sharper. People weren’t speaking anymore—they were shouting over each other, through each other. I pressed back into the wall like I could phase through it, like I could disappear if I just stayed still enough.
“Everyone just SHUT UP!”
I didn’t even know who screamed it. The voices all bled together. Screaming. Sobbing. Mocking. I couldn’t breathe. The noise pulsed through my skull like waves. My lungs felt too small for my ribs.
“I need air,” I choked out, forcing my way through the press of limbs and heat, my eyes locked on the back door.