Page 70 of Spoils of war
Stars.
The wood was dark, carved with curling vines and strange beasts that twisted through the grain like they had always lived there. It looked ancient. Like it belonged to another time.
He knocked again, this time louder. His knuckles met the door with a dull thud, and something shifted in him. He looked vulnerable in away I wasn’t used to seeing, his posture stiff, shifting from foot to foot as if debating whether to run or stay.
I stood beside him, arms crossed against a shiver that wouldn’t leave. Summer still held the days, but the nights had begun to change.
Then came the sound of footsteps, the hinges groaned, and it creaked open. A woman appeared in the doorway. She was shorter than me, small. And tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour. The kind of tired that settles deep in you and stays there.
Her hair was streaked with gray and pulled back loosely, strands falling across her lined face. She wore a silk robe, dark purple, soft-looking, shimmering faintly in the light from inside. Behind her, the house was still and shadowed. Quiet in the way a home is when no one speaks above a whisper anymore.
When her eyes found Will, they widened in surprise.
“Will?”
She didn’t wait. She reached for him and pulled him close, wrapping her arms around him with a force that made it look like she might never let go.
“My dear boy,” she breathed into his shoulder, her voice trembling. “I knew you’d make it.”
Then her gaze drifted past him and landed on me.
“And who is this?” A crease formed between her brows. “Where’s your mother?”
I looked down as my chest tightened. The warmth of the moment slipped away.
I was intruding.
I had wandered into someone else’s story, a place I did not belong.
“I’m so sorry, Iria.”
That was all he said.
It was all he needed to.
Her expression crumpled.
“No, no,” she whispered, reaching for him again. Her hands trembled as she clung to him. “Oh, my boy.”
He pulled her into another hug, steadying her as she began to cry into his shoulder.
I looked away, but not fast enough. It felt like I shouldn’t be there, but I couldn’t bring myself to move.
When she finally pulled back, Will kept one hand on her arm, as if grounding them both. His voice was quiet. Almost shy.
“I thought maybe... we could stay the night,” he said. “This is my friend. Kera.”
Iria blinked. Her eyes stayed on me a moment longer than I expected. Measuring. Considering.
Then she stepped aside and held the door open.
“Of course,” she said, her voice steadier now. “Get in, quickly, love.”
We stepped over the threshold, the door shutting behind us with a thud that seemed to seal us away from the world outside.
“What was I thinking?” Iria muttered under her breath.
A hallway stretched out ahead of us, dim and cavernous, a large portrait hung, capturing a younger version of Iria. Her face was smooth then, untouched by time, her dark hair falling loose around her shoulders. She stood beside a tall, handsome man dressed in a fine suit and top hat.
