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“No,” she said. “No, I won’t accept that. I won’t allow it!”
Oswin didn’t answer; he just folded his arms—the only defense he had against the hurt in his wife’s voice.
Serra paced their bedroom, the lines at the corners of her mouth and the furrow in her brow more pronounced than usual. Her knuckles were white, fingers clutching at her skirts to keep them from dragging the floor. She turned to pace to the door and back again.
“I forbid it!” she said when he opened his mouth.
He waited.
A minute passed, and then two. She finally sank onto the edge of their bed, tired and looking a little ill. “No,” she said once more, the word little more than a murmur as it fell from her trembling lips.
“I’m sorry, Serra,” he said, and lowered himself to sit beside her before he settled an arm over her hunched shoulders.
She shrugged him off, sniffling, but held onto his hand. “Can’t we just have a moment of peace?” she asked. “Can’t we be allowed to just live?”
He felt the same way, but shook his head. “You heard Lord Athos as well as Lord Hector and I did,” he tried. “Did you think his premonition would pass us by?”
“No,” she said, and her voice wavered, “but I hoped for it. And prayed.” She lowered her eyes to her lap. “Every morning, Oswin, and every night…for all these years.”
He couldn’t have known and certainly would not have guessed it. After the war, Serra had remained a devout follower of Saint Elimine’s teachings. For the whole of their marriage, she had insisted upon kneeling beside the bed twice every day to pray, and had done so without fail—no matter the state of her health or mood. Sometimes her prayers had been long, and other times very short, but she always took time for them…and they remained silent—a private conversation he was not privy to.
He squeezed her hand. “I’m afraid there’s nothing else we can do. Lord Hector says—”
“Haven’t I lost enough?” she interrupted, and lifted her head to stare at him, sorrow and fear in the depth of her gaze. She blinked back tears and fumbled for control of the conversation: “Well, haven’t I? Haven’t we? All of us? Florina—” She choked on the name as if the grief was still fresh and not buried under ten years of living.
“I know,” he whispered in answer, thinking not of Lady Florina’s unfortunate death, but of dozens of sleepless nights and the sight of his wife and young son burning with fever.
“Lord Hector should be more understanding, then,” she said, and he watched the tears slip out, one after another.
They made him feel as powerless now as they had every time before. “There is no other recourse,” he said.
“Than to go to war?” she asked. And when he nodded, she reached into the bedside table drawer to take out a handkerchief, pressing it tightly to her face.
“The official order will be given tomorrow afternoon, and we will move out daybreak next.”
She shuddered under the weight of his words and let go of his hand to blow her nose. “As if I don’t have enough to worry about,” she said, stuffing the handkerchief back up into her sleeve. “Even with Florina dead all these years, there’s still L-Lucius and all of those children—and Lady Lyn, and Farina, and Erk…”
“I’ve no choice,” he said as gently as he could. “I must go.”
She took his hand again and held it to her damp face. “I know,” she moaned helplessly as fresh tears began to form. “Everyone always leaves. They never write and they always leave me to wonder and worry.”
“I am sorry,” he said in an attempt to comfort her, but she ignored him and just held onto his hand as if she might lose him the moment she let it go.
War was inevitable; they’d both known it for years. Lord Athos’s premonition had warned them, and combined with the news Ostia had received from Bern: what else could it be? Still, Lord Hector’s decision—and the weary way he’d spoken the order out loud—left Oswin’s mouth dry. Some nights, he still woke and had to remind himself that Nergal’s mad laughter and the heat of dragonfire were long behind them. Through some miracle, everyone from Ostia had survived the chaos and destruction and had made their way home again.
Only for the letters to trickle in later that spoke of those who had been less fortunate. Serra had been so devastated by the news of Sain’s passing, only one month after his return to Caelin, that Oswin had felt it necessary to delay their wedding. Lady Florina had done her best to comfort Serra through her own grief, but it had done little to alleviate the guilt.
And the losses hadn’t stopped there. They’d lost their second child before it could even be born, and the first did not live to turn four. They had not been blessed with a third.
Lady Lyn left for Sacae and no one had heard from her or her rumored lover for almost fifteen years. Lucius’s letters came less and less often. Erk and Priscilla had stopped writing altogether. Then Florina had taken gravely ill after giving birth to Lady Lilina, and even Serra’s skilled healing had only been able to delay the inevitable.
He hated how deeply Florina’s death had wounded his wife—and how deeply she still hurt, even after all the years that had passed. She’d thrown herself into studying healing magic as if hoping to learn what might have saved Florina or Sain or even their own little ones; it was as if she believed the knowledge existed out there somewhere, and that when she found it, it would heal instead of haunt her.
“I prolonged her suffering,” she’d sobbed into his chest the night she finally stopped looking for answers. “I didn’t want her to go and so I kept her alive until I couldn’t anymore. Until there was nothing left.”
And now it was his turn to leave her. The thought of her waiting for news as the weeks faded into months turned his stomach.
When her tears stopped, she sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“I can’t let you go without me,” she said.
He opened his mouth as if to argue with her, or maybe just apologize again, but she stopped him with a glance—the way she had on their wedding night, determined to have things her own way, and it stilled his tongue just as it had all those years ago.
“I won’t be left again, Oswin.” Her resolute voice belied her cold and trembling fingers. She turned her head to kiss his hand without breaking eye contact. “I won’t allow it. You promised me ‘til death. If Lord Hector requires your presence, then I am determined to accompany you. Order me to heal on the front lines if you must! I survived it once, you know; I can do it again.”
“Serra,” he said, and watched her brow crease as she prepared her argument.
“You promised me ‘til death,” she repeated, her voice teetering as if on the edge of some great abyss.
She was right, of course. He’d sworn it—and a great many other things besides. Twenty years had passed and he’d held up every promise he had ever made to her; he didn’t think he had the heart to break one now.
He took her hand in both of his. “You know the perils better than anyone. If you wish to remain at my side, you must promise me you will never leave it.”
A ghost of a smile flickered over her face, but he recognized it for what it was: relief.
“I do,” she said and stood, looking so much like her old self suddenly that it made his chest ache; though her hair was pinned back neatly, now, and her face was lined from all the losses they had both endured, a fire he’d believed long-extinguished had blazed to life in her eyes. “I will pray every day for Ostia’s victory.”
“As will I,” he assured her as she moved toward a chest that had sat for years in the corner of the room.
“But in the event that Saint Elimine does not hear us,” she said, lifting a well-worn staff from the chest, “you will have me to watch your back.”
“And I yours.”
“Whatever would you and Lord Hector do without me?” she asked, but her words lacked the self-righteousness of her youth and instead harbored a quiet sense of hope. “You know I will give it my all, don’t you?
“I do,” he said, the echoed vow so intentionally tender it may as well have been a caress for the way it softened Serra’s face.