Page 138 of Ashes of Honor

My voice cracked, and I yanked at the braids framing my face. “I didn’t ask any of you not to serve your purpose in this war for the sake of my heart. Don’t ask me to sacrifice mine.”

The silence in the tent was suffocating. The faint creak of the lamp swinging above us was the only sound.

Reina shattered the stillness, her voice low but fierce. “Tell her, Alexiares.”

“Reina …” There was a warning in Abel’s tone—one that said Reina was about to do everything but mind her own fucking business.

She didn’t flinch. Instead, she stepped forward, her eyes burning with a mix of fury and sorrow. “Hear what your fiancé thinks of you putting your life on the line every time we turn around. Tell her how I’ve had to use my magic 24/7 because the anxiety has eaten away at you so much you can barely function. The man eats and breathes fear for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Fear foryou. Your safety.”

Alexiares’s jaw clenched, his gaze hard as steel as he stared her down. But then his eyes shifted to mine, and I wished he hadn’t because I knew it would never change. As much as it broke my heart, my duties outweighed the life I desperately wanted the two of us to share. I had warned him that I could not give him what he deserved and now the reality of it was shattering the heart that I swore we shared.

“Uh … congratulations?” Serenity muttered awkwardly.

I hadn’t exactly walked around flaunting my ring. Screaming from the rooftops that I was his in the most precious way possible. There were people out there that would hold such a permanence of a title against me—usehimagainst me.

“Not really the time,” Hunter said, pulling his rifle over his shoulder and nudging her toward the exit.

“Why?” she shot back, but she followed him anyway. “Show’s just getting started.”

Hunter squeezed Reina on the shoulder on the way out, her head briefly resting against his shoulder before she kissed it, wishing him a good rest of his night.

She turned back to me, voice wavering, but the storm in her eyes never faltered. “We’re trying to save you, Amaia. If you’d just let us have an opinion …” Her eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall, but the fury still burned hot in them. “I can’t do this anymore—watching you throw yourself into the center of every risk or battle. Please, let us help.”

“Save me?” I laughed—bitter, cruel. It felt wrong in my heart and my mind but came out on reflex. “Sorry for being a burden. I’m trying to save you and the whole damn world, apparently, at the same time. I didn’t ask for you to save me. I’m doing myjob. I’m protecting our family. But I can’t do that if you keep questioning every damn move and try to make me feel guilty for doing what I’m oathbound to. Seth is dead! Seth is dead, and Abel’s arm—” I choked on the words, my voice cracking. “In the middle of an apocalypse, I’m still fighting for you all, and you want to pull me back? To not take risks. You think that’s saving me?”

“We never asked for you to save us either.” Abel paused, his gaze the only soft one in the room. “I get it, man, it’s what family does, we save each other. All I’m seeing here are people who love each other and want the best. And it’s not easy watching you march into danger every damn time, knowing what it costs. Tomoe and I are … sensitive to those things, Reina can feel it whether we express it or not, and Alexiares is forced to watch it all play out in real time. I think … I think you can find it in you to see what it’s like for the rest of us too. What it’s like to live with that fear, not knowing if you’ll come back from the next fight.”

The room was impossibly still. I could hear my own heart pounding, a beat that echoed in my ears.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You didn’t ask,” I said quietly, the words burning as they left my mouth, “but it was implied the day I met you. The day I called you my brothers and sisters.”

Alexiares hadn’t spoken a word. Didn’t offer anything. His eyes were locked on mine, but I couldn’t read him—not this time. It was a wall of concern, one I couldn’t tear down.

We needed to talk, but it was a conversation to be had later. In the privacy of our tent. A fight between lovers that did not need the audience of the world.

The silence stretched between us, and the weight of his stillness gnawed at my gut. It was deafening, louder than anything anyone had said. The others seemed to sense it, their reactions as volatile as the air around us.

Tomoe shifted her weight, crossing one leg over the other from her seat. “We’re not going anywhere until we’ve said what needs to be said, Amaia.” Her eyes flickered briefly to Alexiares, who remained unmoving, then back to me. “You can’t brush this off. Not this time.”

Reina’s anger matched Tomoe’s, layered with something else—a desperation. “You’re pushing us all to the edge. Can’t you see how much we’re bleeding for you? For your decisions?” She stepped forward, hands shaking. “We’re not asking you to stop fighting. Only begging you to stop shutting us out.”

I flinched, opening my mouth, ready to argue, but the words died before they could escape. They were right. Didn’t mean I was ready to admit it. It was easier this way. In hindsight, my family would understand—they were better off not knowing all the facts. Not all promises were meant to be kept.

The tension in the room ebbed, but it didn’t disappear. Not entirely.

Then I turned to Riley, needing something—anything to break the silence. “No goodbyes?”

He met my eyes without hesitation. No judgment. No pity. Just that steady, unwavering strength I relied on. “Never goodbye.”

The others moved toward the tent, the weight of exhaustion settling over them. No lingering animosity. No unfinished business. They were too tired to hold on to anything more.

I stayed behind, frozen in place. The silence pressed down, a heavy hand louder than the war raging in my head, louder than everything I hadn’t said.

Alexiares still hadn’t said a damn thing. When I made it to the tent that night, he pretended to be asleep.

The Mississippi Riverchurned steel-gray water as water elementals merged with the forces of nature to freeze our rather—but understandably—hesitant troops a safe crossing. Sky and water matched each other, the murky gray matching the overcast mood of every soul moving in this army. It was late afternoon, the ash-tainted clouds sprinkled soft, persistent snowflakes down from above.

I swiped my hand over my soaked eyelids, the snow not giving me a chance to clearly see what we were working with. The Dorena-Hickman Ferry lay frozen in time. Its hull rested half-submerged against the Missouri shore.

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