Page 139 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
“Soon as they start releasing people back to the surface, we’re headed home,” Hallie’s mother announced as she tied off her gray braid and pinned it into a bun at the base of her skull.
Hallie paused while tying off her own braid. It’d grown longer in her time away and needed a good trimming. She didn’t tie it back into a bun, though, letting it fall down her back. “Home? To Stoneset?”
Her mother eyed her daughter’s hair, but didn’t comment, though Hallie could tell she wanted to. Dearly. “Yes.”
She didn’t elaborate, only tied on her matron belt before digging through the collection of tiny vials collected in one corner of the tent.
Hallie didn’t know what to think. With her parents on their way back to Stoneset, she would be free again—but out on the open road, they’d be targets for any Cerls roaming the countryside. They were in an active war with Cerulene, and her parents wanted to go right to the border.
Despite wanting some freedom, Hallie didn’t want them to leave.
She chewed the inside of her cheek as her mother pulled out a small vial tinged a light green—a headache cure of her father’s. Zelda held it out to her. “Take this.”
Hallie blanched. She’d always hated the taste of it—like molded mint leaves. Her mother shook it. “If you don’t, you’ll end up with another headache after today, and I’ll need you at your best if you’re to help us prepare to leave.”
“So you’re going to go back, just like that?” Hallie took the vial, but she didn’t uncork it.
“My first purpose for coming to the capital was to get the word out about what happened to Achilles and Stoneset.” Her mother straightened. “My second purpose was to find you and bring you home.”
Hallie froze. Her mother expected her to go with them? Now? “I can’t go back.”
“You can, and you will.”
Was she hearing her correctly? “Mama, there’s no Stoneset to go back to.”
With everything else that had happened, she’d pushed the attack to the back of her mind.
“Of course there is. I’ve seen it. Now drink up.”
Hallie shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. Soldiers found the cavern somehow, and—”
“We’re survivors. We will rebuild.”
Zelda packed her own little bag for her shifts that day. She had brought some extra sugar and spices and liked to add to the rations when she could. As a baker at heart, she couldn’t help it. She’d garnered a little bit of a cult following in the last few days.
“Mama…we can’t just leave.”
“We’re in a war we never asked to be a part of.” Her mother crossed her arms. “I refuse to lose my daughter a second time. We will find a way to survive and help our neighbors rebuild.”
Hallie shook her head. “I don’t even know if there’s anything to go back to. General Correa was looking for me, so I ran, and I left before I could check to see if anyone…”
She couldn’t even finish that sentence.
“Like you left Niels behind before coming here?”
Hallie blinked. Because she wasn’t sure if she heard her correctly. Where had that come from?
“That was three years ago.” Hallie drew herself up to her full height. The other woman did not back down. Hallie mirrored her posture, arms crossed. “And it has nothing to do with what happened to Stoneset a few days ago.”
This was why she needed her own tent. She loved her mother, but just three days under the same roof again was just long enough for them to be back at each other’s throats for no real reason.
Whether or not her mother heard her words, she trudged forward without stopping or caring what grenades she hurled.
“You left him to go to University.” Zelda wagged her finger in the air. “Now he’s lying unconscious in the ward with no hope for tomorrow because he decided to chase you this time.”
Hallie let out a frustrated noise. “What in the blazes does that have to do with me coming back with you to Stoneset? A place that I’ve established may no longer exist, by the way!”
“I have every right to let you know when you’re throwing your life away.” Zelda’s ears were as red as Hallie’s hair. “None of these people here care for you like your father and I do, like Niels does.”
