Page 3 of A War Apart

“Welcome, welcome!” he said in a honey-sweet voice, much higher than I expected. “I apologize for the accommodations, but you understand. Perils of war and all that.” He walked around the fire, gold glinting around his fat stomach and arms. “I have a proposal for you, sirs. My brother, Borislav, once the Grand Duke and pretender to the throne, is dead. Now, a wise man knows when his cause is beaten. I’m prepared to be merciful.” He gave a warm smile that turned my stomach. “Renounce your ties to the pretender. Kneel before me, and all will be forgiven. You can return to your homes and families.”

He paused and looked at us, gauging our reactions. “If, however, you will not kneel, the punishment will be…severe.”

The threat hung over us like a cloud. Further down the line, someone knelt.

“Traitor!” Benedikt shouted. “You should burn for that!” He yanked on the rope that bound us together.

“What an intriguing idea.” Miroslav’s sweet voice dripped with venom. He snapped his fingers and held out a heavily jeweled hand.

Benedikt stopped struggling and eyed the velvet-clad man. A soldier handed Miroslav a long, black staff, which he caressed.

“‘You should burn for that,’” Miroslav repeated. He stalked toward us, his movements surprisingly smooth for a man of his size. I took an unconscious step back as he passed me. “Shall we see what that looks like?” He stopped in front of Benedikt and touched his staff to my friend’s head.

Benedikt burst into flames. He fell to the ground, screaming. The rope binding us together burned, releasing me from myfriend. I scrambled back, desperate to avoid his fate, as the flames licked my arm.

After a moment, the screaming stopped, and there was only silence and the acrid smell of burning hair and flesh.

My stomach roiled as I watched Benedikt’s body burn. What was I going to tell his wife? Their son was only two, and they had another baby on the way. He’d been fighting for them, to make the country a safer place for his children, but what would happen to them now that their father was gone and a monster ruled the tsardom?

“Kneel,” Miroslav said in a sickly sweet voice. “Kneel, or face the same fate.”

I had to make it home to Mila. I had to survive for her. Her face flashed before me, her warm brown skin flushed with worry, umber eyes full of unshed tears. We were supposed to marry this fall. What would she do if I didn’t come home to her?

Bile filled my mouth, but I knelt. All along the line, other prisoners knelt as well, until we all bowed before the vile creature who had slaughtered our army and murdered Benedikt.

“You will never again take up arms against me.” Miroslav turned and spoke to the guards. “Remove their sword hands before you release them.”

Chapter two

Five Years Later

Han

“Going to be a hot day,” I said to no one in particular. It was just past dawn, but already the smells of dirt and sweat mingled in the air.

“Can’t handle the heat, old man? If it’s too much, I’m sure you can take the day off.”

I cast a withering look at the freckled face of Yakov Aleksandrovich, my tenant and best friend. “And miss the chance to make you buy me a drink? Not a chance. First to the end of the row, as usual?”

Pyotr Vasilievich, an older tenant with red-brown skin and a forked gray beard, shook his head. “I remember the days when the landowner was a man of dignity. He didn’t stoop to childish competition with his tenants.”

“But it’s so much more fun this way.” I grinned at him as I buckled the sickle to my wrist. “Ready?” I asked Yakov, who had finished buckling the sickle to his own wrist.

“Go.”

We swung the blades with practiced ease, letting the wheat fall to the ground. Some of the younger boys who lived on the land trailed behind us, gathering the fallen stalks and binding them into sheaves.

As I worked, my mind wandered back to the battle at Barbezht and the night I first met Yakov. I had taken it on myself to see Yakov home alive and safe—or as safe as could be expected for a marked traitor with a dangerous wound. After tending to our injuries as best we could, the two of us, we’d made our way home together.

On our return to Selyik, I’d brought the boy into my home. My fiancée, Mila—now my wife—and Yakov’s mother had nursed us back to health. As owner of a large farm with several tenancies, I’d offered Yakov and his mother a house and a field on my land. In the five years since the battle, we’d learned to live without our sword hands, and we’d developed a friendship from our shared tragedy and the work we’d done to overcome it. Yakov had grown, too, until I no longer considered him a child to be protected, but an equal.

An equal who was going to win our competition. I swung my blade faster.

“Keep up, old man,” Yakov tossed over his shoulder.

“‘Old man.’” I scoffed. “Twenty-eight isn’t old to anyone but children. Which, I suppose, you are. Maybe you should be gathering the wheat instead of cutting it.”

The heat and grueling work made conversation difficult, so we worked in silence to the end of the row.

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