Page 135 of Ashes of Honor

But Abel—he wasn’t out.

“Where is he?” Riley screamed, his voice hoarse from the cold and panic.

My eyes darted frantically over the battlefield, over the bodies frozen in the jagged expanse of ice.

“I’ve got him!” A soldier’s voice rang out, a flicker of hope amid the carnage. Abel dangled from the man’s grip, his arm limp, his face a gray-ish hue. He was barely holding on, his breath visible in shallow bursts.

“Get him to the medics!” I commanded, my voice shaky as I watched them haul him onto solid ground. My heart pounded in my ears, and I felt the weight of every decision leading up to now—every failure.

If I hadn’t broken the ice, they both would have slipped away. Drowned. But breaking the ice had hardly saved them and likely made us lose many others. I’d fucked up. I’d exchanged their lives for others.

Reina coughed violently as Millie gently laid her beside Abel, her frostbitten hands clutched his sleeve as if to reassure herself he was real. Her voice was weak, but her spunk was still there. “Can I give you the … arm thingamabob now?”

Abel managed the faintest of smiles, his lips blue, stubborn as the day he’d entered our family. “No.”

My boots crunched against the frost, each step heavier than the last. The weight of what I had done coiled around my ribs, squeezing until my lungs seized in uneven bursts. Alexiares’s hand gripped my arm, his touch grounding yet infuriating all at once. Riley stood rigid, his jaw locked tight. Blood streaked across his temple, his eyes stayed on me.

“What you did saved lives,” Alexiares said quietly, breaking through the war that raged in my head.

“Did it?” I snapped, my voice brittle. “I killed our soldiers too. People who trusted me. I broke the ice early, Alexiares. I sent them to their graves.”

Riley’s hand clamped down on my shoulder, pulling me toward him. “You didn’t damn them. You gave the rest of us a chance. The ice was already breaking, and we were losing control.” His tone was sharp, almost scolding, but his eyes were soft.

And yet, this was the truth of war, wasn’t it? Victory wasn’t clean—it was carved from sacrifice. Some were chosen, others stolen. And in the end, you didn’t get to feel good about it.

“War doesn’t care what it takes,” I muttered to myself. “Only that you’re willing to pay the price.”

Air scraped down my throat as my gaze locked on the battlefield. Bodies littered the frozen ground, some of them ours, others barely recognizable as human.

Guilt fought against the relief threatening to spill over. “I didn’t just do it to save them,” I murmured, the admission tearing at me.

Alexiares leaned closer. “No. You did it to win.”

The words cut through me. They were only painful because they were true. I swallowed hard and walked off without my family at my side. The battlefield was quieting, but I couldn’tlet myself revel in the silence. Not yet. Maybe not ever. My eyes drifted over the river, now frozen over with jagged ice, and frozen bodies. The snow had stopped, and in its wake was the light of a sun that didn’t deserve to shine today.

The fire pit crackled weakly,barely enough to push back the biting cold as the allied leaders faced each other in a tense circle. I stood at the center, my arms crossed, watching their frustrations boil over.

“You’re saying this wasourfault?” Kellan, the young officer from Fargo spat, his voice cutting through the night. “We lost half a unit because ofherdamned plan!” He jabbed a finger at me.

“No,” Isabella reasoned, her expression carved from stone. “You lost them because your soldiers broke rank. Orders were clear—stay off the ice.”

“You think this is about the ice?” General Mason Wilder—failed commander of our cavalry snapped, stepping forward. The outburst was unexpected; Rochester Compound had been easy going up until now. “It’s about leadership, Everhart. Leadership that sacrifices us while keeping her own people safe.”

I blinked slowly at him, letting his words hang in the air. Then, with an eerie calm, I spoke. “Leadership is what got you through that battle alive, Wilder. The same leadership that told you how to keep your soldiers breathing. Ensuring they follow orders? That’syourjob.”

He sneered but didn’t respond, his chest heaving as he tried to find something to throw back at me.

I tilted my head, studying him with a smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “Keeping your soldiers in check, making sure they don’t step where they shouldn’t, holding your own damn line—also your job. My job is to make sure you have no problem doing your job well. Make sure you aren’t too fucking incompetent to keep people alive. If I have to do your jobandmine—if I have to hold your company’s hand every time the situation gets hard—then I don’t need you. But I do need you, don’t I?”

He didn’t answer.

“This is where you nod,” I whispered, leaning in close enough to make my point clear.

Wilder gritted his teeth with enough force to crack them, then gave a short, jerky nod.

“Great.” My voice brightened. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“That was her polite way of saying, ‘Get the fuck out,’” Alexiares drawled from behind me, his tone as dry as the wind cutting through the camp.

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