Page 71 of Spoils of war
I wondered what had happened to him.
If she’d lost him.
If that was why her eyes looked so tired now.
"What wereyouthinking?” she snapped, rounding on Will the moment the door latched.
I barely heard her. My mind was somewhere else.
“Is there no curfew in Novil?” she demanded.
“Not anymore,” Will countered.
“I did not mean..." she started, but the apology wilted on her tongue.
I ran my hands up and down my arms, trying to rub some warmth into my skin. Inside, the stone walls sucked the warmth from the air. It felt even colder than outside.
“You must be freezing,” she said briskly, already moving toward the kitchen. Grief still clung to her, but she shook it off the way people do when they can’t afford to fall apart. “I’ll warm some cocoa.”
Cocoa.
The word almost knocked the breath out of me. It reminded me of my mother, how she would make hot cocoa for me every year on my birthday. It was always just the two of us, awake with the sunrise.
Cocoa wasn’t anything special. Just warm milk, sugar, and a pinch of cocoa powder she had saved. But it tasted like love.
We followed Iria into the sitting room. A fire burned low in the hearth, the coals glowing quietly in the dim light. I sank down in front of it, knees tucked beneath the stolen dress, watching the flames curl around the logs.
Fire is strange. It could save your life, or take it from you. It could warm you or reduce everything you love to ash.
I let the heat sink into me as the smell of cocoa filled the room, thick and sweet. Iria handed me a cup. It burned against my palms, but I didn’t let go.
It was a good kind of burn. The kind that reminded me I could still feel.
“Everyone’s heard... what those monsters did,” Iria said suddenly, her lip curling with disgust. “People are scared now. They’re saying if it happened to Novil, it could happen anywhere. Even here.”
She paused. Her gaze found Will. Whatever strength she’d been holding onto flickered for a second, and something heavier settled in her face.
“I’m so sorry, Will.”
He didn’t blink. “I’m fine,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”
He glanced sideways, just enough for her to follow his gaze.
“She was.”
Iria’s eyes landed on me.
“Kera, was it?” she asked, her tone softening.
I nodded and shrank back into the cushions, trying to disappear. I caught Will’s gaze, and sent him a silent plea.
Please don’t say more.
But he didn’t stop.
“I found her and brought her to Fjelltorp. She was the only survivor. At least the only one I could find. If there were others, they were already gone.”
Iria leaned forward, her hands twisting in her lap.
