CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The fields were absurdly beautiful, and it should’ve been comforting, but it wasn’t. The sun was on my skin, and still, I felt nothing. Not warmth. Not cold. Just a strange distance. As if my body was there, but I wasn’t.
Will walked beside me, quiet. Hands shoved deep into his pockets, head slightly lowered, like he didn’t want to disturb the silence.
I’d had too much time to think. Too much time to remember.
Every memory played on a loop, some clearer than others, and I kept trying to make sense of it.
Fit it all together. But no matter how I turned it around in my mind, one piece was missing.
A piece that wasn’t mine to remember.
It was his.
“Will?” I said.
He blinked, startled, like he’d forgotten I could still speak.
“Yeah?”
That was it. I had to ask. I had to know.
“When you found me…” I kept my eyes on the horizon, afraid to look at him. “What was it like?”
Will’s steps slowed. He didn’t answer right away. Just shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets, like the memory physically hurt to touch.
“I thought you were dead,” he said finally. Voice low. Steady, but only just. “You were wrapped in this blood-soaked blanket. Face pale. Eyes shut. I couldn’t tell if you were breathing.”
He paused. “There was so much blood.”
He looked off down the road, like he was still seeing it.
“I put you on my horse and rode like hel,” he said. “Didn’t even know where I was going. Just knew I had to get you somewhere safe.”
There was a pause.
“I begged them to save you.”
That broke something in me. “Was the village still burning?”
He nodded once. “Smoke everywhere,” he said. “But most of the fire was out by then.”
“Do you think anything’s left?” He looked over at me. “The houses? The school?”
Will shook his head. “Maybe a few buildings. Not much else.”
“But not the people.”
He didn’t look at me when he said it. “No. Not the people.”
I hesitated. The question burned in my chest.
“Your mother… did she suffer?”
His whole body locked up.
“I don’t want to—”
I winced. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I just—” My voice cracked. “I keep thinking maybe if you’d taken her instead of me—”
He turned to me so fast it startled me.
“If I had, I’d have lost you both.”
“But what if there was a way—”
”There wasn’t.” His voice cracked straight through the middle.
“You should’ve saved her,” I said. “Not me.”
He turned, fists clenched, eyes glassy with everything he was trying not to feel.
“They cut her in half, Kera,” he snapped. The words ripped out of him, loud and brutal. “She was already gone.”
He didn’t ever look at me when he said the next part.
“There was no one left. Just you.”
That’s what he said. Just you. And it hit harder than I thought it would.
Because in that moment, I realized something.
Finding me hadn’t been a relief. It hadn’t been a victory.
He had just found his mother’s body in the streets.
And then he’d gone looking, hoping, maybe, to find someone, anyone, still alive. And all he’d found… was me.
He didn’t answer at first. Just stood there, fists clenched at his sides, staring out over the valley like he was searching for something—anything—to make sense of it all.
Then, quiet. Shaking.
“Why? Why would anyone do that?”
“I don’t know.” The words hurt coming out. “I don’t think there is an answer…” I trailed off.
His breath came out sharp, like it burned. “And yet they did.”
I nodded, slowly.
Maybe there was never a reason. I’d been carrying the guilt like it belonged to me.
Carving myself open with it. Convinced that if I had just been stronger, faster, better, none of it would have happened.
That I could have stopped it. Saved them.
Saved me. But the truth settled in, quiet and awful.
I could not let Will carry that weight too.
“Maybe evil doesn’t need a reason,” I said.
And for the first time… I think I believed it. Maybe not for me. Not all the way. But for him, I needed it to be true. Because if it was, then it wasn’t his fault. And maybe—just maybe—it wasn’t mine either.
We kept walking. The path curved toward the town center, and suddenly we were somewhere else entirely. We’d crossed a line and stepped into someone else’s life. Someone else’s world.
Laughter spilled through the streets. Kids ran barefoot over the cobblestones, shouting and chasing each other.
A woman laughed so loud it startled me. The air was thick with the smell of bread, honey, and fresh-cut fruit.
Will’s gaze drifted to the kids by the fountain.
His face didn’t change, but I knew what he was thinking. I was thinking it too.
“Remember when life was that simple?” I asked, my voice quiet.
He gave a small shrug, but the ache in his eyes said everything.
“Maybe one day it’ll feel that way again.”
We found a shop tucked at the edge of the square. The wooden sign above the door swayed gently in the breeze, creaking like it had done so for years.
Inside, the air was warm, laced with dried herbs and something sweeter, jam, maybe.
Or candied fruit. Golden light pooled from a row of mismatched oil lamps along the walls.
Their flames flickered, casting a soft haze across the room.
Shelves sagged under bolts of fabric and jars of pickled vegetables.
Baskets overflowed with apples and late-season pears.
Every corner felt carefully tended, like someone still believed in beauty.
Muted tones surrounded us, earthy browns, sun-faded reds, sky-washed blues.
A man behind the counter lifted a hand in greeting.
“Welcome, my friends,” he said warmly. “What can I help you with?”
Will stepped ahead, his voice low and steady.
“We’re looking for shoes.”
By the counter, a small wooden table held hand-carved animals, beaded bracelets, tiny woven baskets.
I drifted toward it and let my fingers brush the edge of a wooden fox.
Smooth and warm. Like it had been touched a hundred times before.
I found a cloak, a blue one, like the sky just before dusk.
Like a summer lake. Like Will’s eyes. I reached for it before I could stop myself.
The fabric was soft and cool against my skin.
Will came up beside me.
“That’s lovely.” He nodded toward the cloak, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You should try it on.”
So I did.
At the back of the shop, an old mirror leaned against the wall, edges tarnished, glass warped and speckled with age. I stepped in front of it and almost didn’t recognize the girl staring back.
But she looked... alive.
Just for a moment, I didn’t see the bruises or the dirt. Not the hollowed-out eyes or the blood that had once soaked through my clothes. Just a girl in a blue cloak, her hair falling in loose, golden waves around her shoulders.
Next to the mirror sat a pair of black boots. Sturdy. Real. I crouched and slid them on, fingers clumsy on the laces, but I got it done. They hugged my ankles like they belonged there.
Across the room, Will was slipping into a battered brown jacket, the stitching frayed at the shoulders. He tugged on a pair of worn boots, then grabbed a thick-strapped pack and slung it into place.
“Ready?” he asked.
I gave a small nod. The cloak swayed as I straightened. It didn’t change anything, not really. But it helped. Just a little.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m ready.”
We picked up food for the road, too. Dried meat, wrinkled fruit, a jar of something sweet I didn’t bother to name. It didn’t matter. Nothing tasted right anyway. When we stepped outside, sunlight hit my face. I closed my eyes and let it soak in.
For a second, I pretended I could feel it.
But it didn’t last.
Near a vendor stall, a group of soldiers stood clustered together, rifles slung across their backs. One of them turned, tall and broad-shouldered, dark hair curling at his collar. His eyes swept the crowd.
And then they landed on me.
Everything stopped.
It wasn’t Arche. I knew that, but my body didn’t.
The world tilted. Blurred. His stare sliced through me like a blade, straight to the bone.
My lungs stopped working. My feet wouldn’t move.
The air thickened, choking, turning to smoke.
Everything around me turned into a haze.
His stare cut straight through me, clean to the bone, and I couldn’t breathe.
The air shifted, thickened, turned to smoke in my lungs.
I was back there.
I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t pull myself back. The market fell away. I wasn’t standing beside Will anymore. I saw him. I saw his uniform. His stance. His eyes. I could feel him all over me. His weight. His breath.
The snap of leather.