Page 59 of War

I give her a sad look. “You’ll be forced to celebrate the slaughter of your city with the rest of the camp.” Already I can hear the horde gathering in the central clearing. The drums haven’t started up yet, but they will soon.

I exhale. “After the celebration, you go to bed and you’ll wake up in that tent tomorrow and you’ll realize it wasn’t just a nightmare after all. That this is your life. It’ll be up to you what you make of it. But the pain won’t stop. War and his best fighters will hit all the surrounding communities in the next few days, and they’ll kill everyone, and you’ll be helpless to stop it.”

“Bastards,” she swears.

“And then you’ll be given a job—either as a soldier or as a cook or something else, and that’ll be what you do here.”

“And if I don’t?” she challenges.

We both already know the answer to this question.

“Then you’ll probably die.”

Zara glances at me. “Youhaven’t yet.”

I can tell she’s remembering earlier, when I stopped War from killing her, but all I’m remembering is the feel of that zombie’s hands on my throat, choking the life out of me.

I give Zara a long look. “Yet.”

By the timethe sun is setting, the war drums have started up. I can smell someone’s prized animals sizzling over a spit, and people are steadily streaming towards the center of camp, chatting idly like we didn’t just massacre a town. Torches have already been lit and people have changed into festival attire.

I head towards the clearing, driven by my hunger. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, my empty stomach is cramping.

I slip into line for food, and while I wait, I study the crowd. Tonight, I see something I hadn’t before. So many faces hold a desperate edge to them. They smile and act normal but there’s a haunted, hollow look in their eyes that I hadn’t taken the time to notice before.

It was a shit move for me to assume that these people aren’t just as scared and witless as I am. They’re petrified. We’re all petrified—me, Zara, and everyone else.

And we have good reason to be.

Through the haze of the crowd, I see War sitting on his throne, leaning to one side as a phobos rider chats with him.

All of my earlier emotions rise up. He sacked a city, then raised the dead to feast off the scraps of it.

And then he saved me from his ungodly abominations.

The horseman rubs his lower hip as he listens to the rider, his kohl-lined eyes looking as dark as pits.

Swiveling away from him, I grab two plates of food and two drinks and head back to the women’s quarters. The torches burn low here.

“Knock, knock,” I say when I arrive at Zara’s tent.

I don’t bother waiting for her to answer before I duck inside. I remember how little energy I had for manners or anything else the day I arrived.

Zara is using what’s left of the previous owner’s eye makeup to draw images on the dirt floor, though in the fading light, it’s hard to make out exactly what those images are.

I hand a plate of food to her.

She stops drawing to take it from me. “Thank you,” she says. “This was kind of you.”

“I also grabbed you some wine, but …” I give her headscarf a meaningful look. “I don’t know if you want it.

She takes it from me anyway and sets it aside with her plate. Her gaze moves from the food back to my face. She studies me a little. “Whyareyou being kind to me?”

Why indeed.

I take a sip from my own glass of wine and sit down next to her. I don’t bother asking her if I should leave. I probably should, and I also know the two of us would be all the more miserable for it.

“Because you’re worthy of it. Also, you managed to shoot War, and I’m a little jealous of you for it.”