Page 87 of Frost Like Night
Ceridwen raced for Jesse’s tent. He slept with his children every night in the area given to the Winterians. Well, he’d slept there every night but one—last night, the one after their . . .
It was appropriate, too appropriate, for that clearing to be a battleground now. Perhaps it was punishment, on some level. As Ceridwen slid to a halt outside Jesse’s tent, she felt that realization shatter the thin structure of happiness she’d built.
This was punishment, for believing in joy during a war.
This was punishment, for being happy when she had no right to be.
Ceridwen grabbed the flaps of his tent, drew in a breath, and ripped them open.
Let him be here, let him be here . . .
She saw Melania first. Then Geneva, and Cornelius, huddled together on the floor, wrapped in a single long wool blanket. They blinked up at her, their eyes wide behind their small, tattered masks, the only ones they’d been able to bring from Rintiero.
Melania put a finger to her lips.
“Shh, Cerie! You’re interrupting.”
And she settled back against her siblings, looking upat Jesse, who paused over a book open in his lap. His eyes caught Ceridwen’s, wide at first in a smile, then narrowing when he saw her tension.
He set the book aside and rose from his cot. Melania groaned.
“No, you have to finish it!” she begged. “Nessa didn’t finish it either.”
Jesse batted a hand at her and looked up at Ceridwen. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t know. He didn’t know about the battle. He was here, reading to his children.
A single laugh slipped free of Ceridwen’s throat, but it dissolved on her tongue, and tears came with it, spilling down her face. Jesse rushed to her, and she knotted around his neck, heaving against him as she tried to keep from sobbing too loudly, if only so his children didn’t worry.
“It’s started,” Ceridwen whispered to him. She felt him coil under her touch, his grip on her spasming. He hesitated, pressed a kiss to her cheek, and turned back to Melania, Geneva, and Cornelius.
“I need you to go play with Amelie,” he told them. He looked at Ceridwen for confirmation that this was safe, and she nodded. From here, the Summerian section of the camp wasn’t in the path of the battle, which had ended by now anyway.
Then Jesse turned to Ceridwen, and she put out herhand, needing to hold on to him. A part of her ached as though she were still outside this tent, waiting to separate the flaps, unsure of what lay within.
That was how every moment would be from now on, she realized.
Uncertain.
25
Meira
“THE CORDELLANS WEREdefeated by our forces.”
“. . . only half a battalion. Phil led a small group from those stationed in Oktuber.”
“They were unprepared, as though they came in a hurry.”
“Thankfully we only had minor losses—”
Minor losses.
My fingers tighten in the sleeve of Nessa’s dress, her dried blood breaking across my skin. The voices around me stop, halted by my sharp twinge where I haven’t moved in hours. Days, maybe, just here on the ground with her body in my arms.
“Meira.”
I peel my eyes away from the gore-covered clearing that once hosted Ceridwen and Jesse’s wedding celebration. Is that stain there blood, or wine someone spilled?
