2
Cillian argues the finer point that extra coin would be helpful regardless of what we use it for, and stresses that he gave his word and can keep it and his pride intact if he washes and mends the robes for the girl with the mangled fingers. Just this once.
I don’t get to spout adamant and unyielding displeasure at the situation he’s put us in, because there’s a knock at Abuela’s door.
Breath catches in my chest.
I’m jolted back to a morning like this one, a few years and yet a lifetime ago. We were sitting down to eat breakfast then, too.
“Are either of you expecting visitors?” Abuela carefully asks.
Cillian locks eyes with me and then shakes his head.
No one ever comes here. It’s too remote.
Abuela tells us to stay in the kitchen. It’s her door and she’ll be the one to answer it.
My heart pounds as her footsteps trail away, her skirt swishing as she approaches her colorful door. The shade of bright green is her favorite, because it matches the resplendent quetzals she loves so much.
My palms turn cold and begin to sweat. As does my forehead.
I can’t get a deep breath. Only shallow sips.
It’s probably nothing.
It has to be nothing.
“Cal?” Cillian tosses the silver robes over the back of his chair and hurries to me, holding my biceps. “Do you need to sit down?”
There’s a roaring in my ears so loud I barely hear Abuela when she calls my name, turning to find me with worried eyes. She’s wringing her hands again. Something is wrong and I know what it is…
My vision darkens at the edges.
No.
Not again.
I can’t do it.
I won’t survive it.
“Callalie?” Cillian gingerly says.
Blinking until my sight returns, I tell my brother, “I’m fine.”
I am absolutely not fine.
I count to three before pulling away from Cillian.
My mechanical knee grinds as I walk toward the door and whomever waits outside it. I take my steps with what’s left of me, the knee I was born with watery and weak.
Cillian stays by my side as I go to the door.
Abuela’s thin lips are pursed. Her arms are crossed over her chest as she openly scowls at my visitor. She finally turns to face me. Tears streak down her cheeks before her attention slides back to the person – soldier – waiting at ease at the bottom of her steps.
I see his black kern uniform first. Then the silver embellishments of Morrigan’s infantry. Lastly, I look into the face I regret ever memorizing.
Niall’s stare retreats, as if he might find the desert easier to survive than my glare.
“What do you want?’ I snap.
He wipes sweat from his brow before reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a piece of parchment. It’s sealed with a thumbprint-size oval of sable wax bearing Morrigan’s crow, deeming it an official correspondence from the goddess who’s claimed me wholly, even though my blood is only half hers.
There’s only one reason Morrigan would send him.
Niall is the only one who knows where to find me.
Am I being recalled or dismissed? The thought spins through my mind as I stare at the missive.
Cillian pushes around me to tear it from Niall’s hand.
My hands quake as I take it from my brother.
“I can read it,” he offers.
I shake my head. “This wasn’t written by an acolyte. This is from Morrigan. Her message won’t appear for you.”
He hesitates, stubbornly holding onto the parchment as I try to tug it free from his grip. “Whatever it is, I’m here,” he promises before releasing it.
“As am I,” Abuela adds, pressing a solemn hand to her chest.
I break the seal and watch as Morrigan’s sharp, handwritten command appears letter by letter on the page. I read it once. Twice, to be sure. Skim it a third time.
I’m not being dismissed.
I’m not being dismissed, so Abuela and Cillian will be okay. Even if I won’t, they will be.
Cillian’s eyes beg me to tell him what the goddess wants. Abuela’s are closed like she’s bracing for a blow she knows is coming.
“I have to go,” I croak, trying to infuse my voice with strength. I don’t want them to see me break apart any further. They both worked so hard to put my jagged pieces back together when I shattered the first time.
I give Morrigan’s orders to Cillian to hold.
The screeching of my leg as I retrace my steps down the hallway doesn’t drown out the bang of my brother’s fist on the door or dull his angry curse.
Abuela hurries to follow me to my room. “Where is she sending you?”
I make myself blink and try to recall what she just asked. My mind, body, and spirit don’t feel like they’re mine anymore. Then again, don’t we all belong to the gods? We live to serve them. To amuse them. And more often, to die on their behalf.
Dying is the only thing we can do that they can’t.
“Callalie,” she begs. “Where must you go?”
I take a deep breath. “She didn’t say. I’ve been ordered to appear before her in uniform with a single packed bag. I’ll write to you when I can and let you know.”
I’m not being discharged.
I’m not being discharged.
They’ll get my commission while I’m gone and a healthy severance if I die. They’ll be okay…
“Is he going as well?” Abuela asks of Niall.
“I’m sure he is,” I answer.
“Whatever happens, Callalie Ryan, don’t risk yourself for him again,” she tells me.
I hate hearing the bitterness in her sweet voice; a sound that’s as much a home to me as these walls and her outstretched, open arms.
“Come here, mija.”
“I need to pack,” I tell her, but my voice cracks with the fissure already spreading between us.
“And I need to hold my granddaughter.”
I limp to her, wrap my arms around her shoulders because she’s a head shorter than me, and try to memorize how this feels in case it’s the last time I hug her.
She smells like the breakfast she made for us this morning, like the herbs and flowers of her garden and the quetzals she dotes on. She smells like safety.
I breathe her in and do my best not to cry.
“Callalie, I love you,” she says into my neck, holding me tighter. Her tears soak into my skin and make my chin wobble.
When I left for Morrigan’s army the first time, she didn’t shed a tear in front of me.
She told me how strong I was and that I’d come home soon enough.
She smiled, helped me pack, and gave me a good luck charm to take with me for protection.
A quetzal feather I kept with me through every war, until my final battle, even when it was tattered and soaked with sweat and blood.
The healers stripped off my uniform when they saved my life. They burned my ruined clothes and with them, the feather in the pocket of my trousers.
She doesn’t smile now. Doesn’t lie and tell me I’ll be fine. I’m not the same girl who left the first time, and there’s little hope if this war is anything like the last.
I manage to tell her, “I love you, too.”
Cillian joins our embrace, wrapping his long arms around us both. He kisses my head because he’s as tall as a tree when I’m no taller than a sapling.
I pull away while I still can, extricating from their embrace when it’s the last thing I want to do.
My duffle is crammed beneath my armoire.
Leaving one to change into, I tear the rest of my uniforms off their hangers and fold what I can, stuffing my duty and fear into the small bag, focusing on one tiny task at a time.
If I think beyond that, I’ll fall apart.
When my uniforms are packed, all that remains is my only pair of extra shoes, which I won’t need where I’m going.
Once my armoire is clear, I move to my dresser and empty the drawers of all I own.
I think of how full my sister Carina’s room still is, and how little will be left if I don’t come home and this room becomes my mausoleum.
“I need to change,” I tell Abuela and Cillian.
Cillian steps out of the room. Abuela follows and pulls the door closed behind her.
When I’m ready, my boots tightly laced, I tell them I’m decent. The door swings open and my family steps in. Cillian holds the feather the quetzal left for us this morning. He brings it to me. “Take this. The last one brought you home.”
My tears cascade down my cheeks as I place the feather on top of my things before zipping it out of sight.
The duffle is heavy on my back. Despite months of working to strengthen it, my body is still weaker than it was. The extra weight adds more strain to my rusted joint. Each step I take is louder now.
“Get the oil,” Abuela asks of Cillian, shooing him toward the kitchen.
He runs and grabs what she’s saved for me, which is no more than a cap full. I lift my pant leg and let him work the thin liquid into the hinge.
The oil is not a cure, but it does help. My knee no longer threatens to lock up as I step into the hallway, turn and hug my family one more time, and walk out into the courtyard surrounding our house.
Niall unlatches the gate built into the adobe wall and holds it open for me. I look back over my shoulder and wave at Abuela and Cillian where they linger on the landing.
They would come with me if they could.
Cillian would report for me if Morrigan would agree, but I would never allow it. The gods can take one child per family, and I was called from ours to fight for her. If I die fighting, so be it.
One day, when my baby brother finishes honing his craft, he’ll be able to raise his family in peace. I want him to find happiness.
My feet carry me away from the only place I want to be, as I walk beside the last person I want to be with.
At first, Niall is quiet as we make our way down the rust-colored road past homes formed from hand-shaped, hardened red earth, like Abuela’s.
We pass cacti and agave, banana trees and jacaranda.
Two carefree children excavate rocks they call ‘treasure’ while a trio in the next yard chases one another, squealing and laughing.
It wasn’t so long ago that we were their size and hadn’t yet felt the weight of viciousness and hatred.