Page 26 of Spoils of war
No more aching arms and cracked knuckles. I’d take bread off the menu entirely; it had stolen all the joy from baking. But there would be a whole shelf of my family’s recipes: my grandmother’s strawberry cake, my mother’s blueberry pie, and her amazing honey cookies.
But that was a dream for another life. This life was just flour and sweat and endless kneading, a job I used to love turned into something that hurt. So I still clung to the dream. Because it was mine.
Outside, light spilled over the rooftops and trickled down into the quiet streets. For a moment, through the smudged windows, the world almost looked peaceful. And then the door slammed open, and soldiers barged in.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” I said. My voice clipped but polite. Always polite. Always careful.
“Rough night, sweetheart?” one of them asked.
I must’ve looked how I felt. A taller man stepped forward, his gray eyes hard and fractured like cracked stone.
“I knew I recognized you,” he said, grinning as if it were some kind of reunion. He was striking, in a way that made it hard to hold his gaze for too long. I hated that I noticed. Hated the flutter it sparked deep in my chest.
“I’ll take a loaf,” he said.
I passed it to him, and our fingers brushed, just barely. But it was enough to make my pulse spike. It felt deliberate, like he knew exactly what he was doing, and I didn’t pull away. My heart pounded behind my ribs, but my face didn’t show it. I’d trained myself too well to let it slip. On the outside, I was calm, but inside, I was glass. Thin. Brittle. Splintering.
“You’re too beautiful to be stuck in a place like this,” he said, his eyes dragging over me.
I gave him a tight smile, then the second soldier stepped in and caught my wrist. Not hard, just firm enough to remind me I wasn’t going anywhere.
“You wish she was in your bed instead, Arche?” he jeered. “Tell me, sweet girl—what’s your rate for a night with a soldier, mm? You look soft. Bet you’re sweet too.”
I kept my eyes on the floor. Didn’t rip my hand away, didn’t spit or scream or slap him like I wanted to. I just held my breath.
“Enough.” Arche’s voice was thunder, and it shook the room. In less than a second, he was on the other soldier, shoving him so hard into the shelves that a jar of honey crashed to the floor and shattered. He grabbed the man by the hair and slammed him against the counter, shouting something I barely heard through the ringing in my ears.
“Apologize,” Arche roared.
The soldier tensed. “I’m sorry.”
“Not to me. To her.”
Arche grabbed his face and turned it toward me just as Mrs. Holt came out from the back, her apron dusted with flour, her eyes wide with shock.
“I beg your pardon, miss,” the soldier said, low and unconvincing.
Then shouting erupted outside, voices rising, boots hammering the street. Arche dropped his hold on the man, who stumbled back and caught himself on the shelf. Arche reached into his coat and tossed something heavy onto the counter. Coin. More than the bread was worth.
“Duty calls,” he muttered. “Keep the change.”
He turned and walked out, followed by the others. The door slammed shut behind them, leaving muddy prints from their boots on the floor.
“Who do they think they are?” I spat. I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“The king’s men,” Mrs. Holt said.
I turned back to the window. Outside, a man was on the ground, and one of the soldiers had his boot on the back of his neck, pressing down hard. Arche and the rest rushed over. The man wasn’t fighting. He was barely moving.
“Not my king,” I seethed through clenched teeth.
Mrs. Holt snapped her head toward me.
“Kera,” she hissed. “Don’t say that. Not here. Not ever.”
I swallowed the rest of the words burning on my tongue.
It was sometime around noon when more familiar voices drifted into the bakery. I was scraping the last of the dried dough from the counter, little curls of crust collecting beneath my nails. The next batch wouldn’t bake until dawn, but it needed time to rise. I braced for the smell of steel and sweat—for another crude joke, another lingering stare. But it wasn’t soldiers.
