Page 7 of Kissed By the Gods
I blink again, and I realize I’m snuggled with Leo under a pile of our mother’s quilts in the back of our farm cart. Our donkey has stopped in the Weeping Forest, where the mighty pine trees always look as if they’re crying. Their sap is clear and seeps down the trunks and falls off branches in a continuous drip, no matter the season.
The sunlight dapples through the trees, reflecting brightly on the large collection of swords, daggers, and armor piled up next to me in the cart. The pile contrasts sharply with the small pile of sentimental things packed from home—the family quilt mother worked so hard on in the days before Levvi was taken; the old book of Selencian fairy tales, its pages brittle and worn but irreplaceable; father’s recorder, which he’d play at night by the fire.
Reality washes over me as Seb approaches the cart.
Mother. Father. Gone. Because of me. My breath hitches but Seb is shaking his head at me, his eyes darting to Leo, who is already crawling into my lap to burrow into my chest. I strangle the sob, cutting it off while it’s still in my throat. It burns there, making me desperate to cough.
Leo’s barely able to get out words, his little hands clenched behind my neck, his breathing ragged. “I’m so scared,” he whimpers.
“Shhhh, Leo, shhhh,” I murmur in his ear, rubbing his back. I’m so weak I can barely move, but it’s a weakness I welcome. I haven’t held Leo in too long. “It’s alright. Everything will be alright.”
Everything is not alright, and I don’t know if it ever will be. It’s an empty platitude to comfort a small child, but I have nothing else to offer. Still, he cries himself to sleep within a fewminutes and then he’s limp in my arms, an occasional hiccup interrupting his breathing.
“Thank gods,” Seb says, the weariness in his voice a heavy thing. “He’s barely slept.”
I lay Leo down in the pile of quilts and cover him up to the chin with Mother’s favorite—a soft wool quilt with soldiers marching along the border and a black faravar rearing in the center. This one, she didn’t make. It’s been in our family for generations.
I trace the border of the soldiers with a solitary finger. Selencia hasn’t had soldiers in some one thousand years—not since the Kher’zenn first attacked the continent of Aesgroth and left us dependent on Faraengard for our survival. Not since the start of the Eternal Wars.
I look up to find Seb has tethered the donkey to a solid oak tree and is returning with a pouch of water.
“Here,” he says, handing the bag to me. “You need to drink.”
I drain the pouch in a desperate chug. “I can’t believe how thirsty I am.” I hand it back to him, wiping the back of my hand over my mouth and climbing out of the cart to stretch my legs. Every single muscle complains at the movement, my back popping as I stand upright.
Seb grunts.
“I can,” he gestures at me. “You’ve lost weight in the last couple of days.” He marches over to the packs he dropped on the ground, digging around in one before he hands me a mound of deer jerky. “You need to eat, too.”
Wait. What? “Couple of days?”
“You’ve been unconscious for two full days.”
My mouth would fall open in shock, but I’m devouring the jerky too quickly. Seb’s lips quirk in a small smile. “I see I’m going to have to go hunting sooner rather than later.”
At the mention of hunting, I panic. “My weapons! Seb, did you pack my weapons?”
He shoots me a look that only a brother can—full of annoyance that I would question him—and points toward the collection of swords, daggers, and bows and arrows he must have lifted from the Faraengardian soldiers. “I grabbed it all.”
It is perhaps the only thing he could have said to tear me away from the food. My gaze drops to the soldiers’ weapons, and the panic grows. I’m shoving away shiny shields and swords. My hand brushes a wooden handle, and then I’m grasping my scythe with both hands, a relieved breath whooshing out of me. I keep digging until I find the pruning shears.
Seb stares at me skeptically. “You know, I’m not even sure why I threw those in there. The swords are much better weapons. Designed for fighting. That,” he points at my scythe “is a farming tool designed for chopping wheat.” He cuts a derisive glance to the pruning shears. “And I won’t even comment on those.”
I shrug. I can’t explain why I need them. I go back to munching on the jerky and avoid looking Seb in the eyes, the memory of the soldiers and our parents a heavy weight.
But he knows. Seb always knows.
He clears his throat, but his voice still cracks when he speaks. “I’m glad you fought back, Leina. I know I was curt right after ...” He stops, trailing off, and I fight the rush of tears that tries to escape. “I know I was curt with you. But I am glad you fought back.”
I laugh, but it’s brittle. “I’m sure Mother and Father feel the same way.”
“You say that sarcastically,” he says, his eyes on the ground, “But I think they would. I think they do. Now, we can keep fighting for a better future. That’s all they ever wanted for us—a future.”
“Fight? We’re not fighting. We’re running.”
He nods, nervously playing with his fingertips. “For now, yes. For now, we run.”
I wave my arms at our two-wheeled farm cart with the sleeping five-year-old buried under a mound of quilts.
