“Just be on my way . . .” A mumbling woman was first to amble past, her modest once-brown dress was torn and frayed, scorch marks and ash dotting the bodice to expose the singed and infected flesh beneath. Her eyes were vacant and unblinking, appearing to not even see us as our horses clipped past her.
I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth and careened my neck back to watch the woman stumble her way up the dirt road, unable to tear my eyes from the pitiful sight.
The state of the first woman did nothing to prepare me for the flood of refugees that we clipped past. There were women, children, and elderly nearly as far as my eye could see, all in various states of distress. All were covered in soot and blood, their hair matted to their skulls or falling in limp clumps against bruised and battered faces. A fair few were missing limbs, and the majority had more than one infected wound.
Seeing the elderly and women in this state was something I could barely stomach—the children were another story completely.
But once I started looking, I couldn’t stop.
Some cried, their tears a constant deluge down dirt-stained faces, leaving tracks of clear skin in their wake. Others were stoney-faced and silent, eyes unseeing and hard. Still, others looked like they were living in one of their nightmares, gazes shifting quickly from one perceived threat to the next as they flinched at every small noise or movement. There was a baby not even a year old missing an arm; a dirty, blood-soaked bandage tied loosely around the stump as he slept against his mother’s breast.
At that, I had to look away. My stomach churned and my breath came in pants as I desperately fought to contain the rapidly rising nausea.
Who would hurt achild? A baby, for gods’ sake.
I shifted my gaze to Leal and saw the same torment I felt in my heart reflected in the clenching of her jaw and hard set of her stare. A dagger materialized in her palm, and she twisted it between her fingers so quickly the shiny blade became a blur.
“I want mama . . .” A soft voice hiccupped as I rode past a cart filled to the brim with children.
“I know,” an older female voice answered. She still had that tinge in her voice bespoke of youth, but the undercurrent of innocence was completely lacking. A quick stolen glance confirmed the girl was barely eight. “She might meet us in Vespera. You’ll see . . .”
Her words became muffled as the cart jolted and bumped along the path and out of earshot.
“Oh, thank the gods, you’ve come!” An older woman with greying hair and a ripped dress that constantly fell off her frail shoulders threw herself at Alois’ horse, clutching his leg and boot in her bloodied grasp.
Alois’ horse flinched, frightened from the sudden movement, and Alois gently tried to peel the woman’s hands off his leg. She shuffled along with our column of riders, muttering praises and unintelligible platitudes as tears shone in her brilliant blue eyes.
There was hope there; hope that we’d come to save them, to destroy whatever evil had sent them in this direction in the first place. Even as our horses clipped into a quick canter and her hold was eventually violently broken; even as she was sent careening to the ground, her dress falling off completely to expose bruised and torn flesh, that hope shone.
I watched as another woman—this one clutching two crying toddlers—bent to help cover the older woman, eventually pulling her to her feet and back into line.
The line of refugees continued for nearly an hour, even at our brisk canter. There were periods where the flood of people was so heavy they walked ten abreast and deep; other timesthere were pockets of empty space, a straggling person or two filling the gaps. I tried to catalogue every face, every injury, every child’s cry for their missing mother or father, sister or brother. But, even with my hyper-vigilance and deep-seated desire to dosomethingto ease their distress, eventually it all blurred together into a hapless form of indiscriminate cries and pleas; the scent of ash and filth, of blood and infection, heavy in my nose.
“Why won’t Alois stop and reassure them? Offer some sort of platitude or comfort?” I mumbled to Leal at one point when the stream of refugees had trickled until it was nearly nonexistent.
She simply shrugged her tight shoulders, the dagger still spinning dangerously in her fingers.
I ground my teeth together, frustrated both by my inability to do anything and Alois’ lack of desire to do the same.
Gripping the reins tight in my hands, I pulled hard to the left, maneuvering myself out of line. I clicked my tongue, urging my chestnut mare into a quicker pace until I drew even with Alois.
“Why won’t you do anything?” I spat in a rush, my cheeks flushed with anger, determination, and a tinge of embarrassment once I realized the entire company of cadets was watching the exchange between my husband and me.
“And what would you have me do, wife?” Alois intoned with little inflection, his coffee-brown eyes fixed steadfastly on the rump of Lex’s horse.
“Something. Anything,” I practically growled.
Before Alois could say anything in return, I heard Lex’s Pain Vessel, Sasori, scoff.
“In case you misunderstood,cadet, our mission is to scope the Borderlands, particularly Cellia, which was hit the hardest, to best understand the threat. From there, we can ascertain the best course of action.” I didn’t mistake the hint of derision in her tone and heard more than one of the other cadets snigger.
My cheeks burned hotter.
“But those people”—I flung my hand behind me—“could have used some sort of direction, some sort of hope to hold onto. Even the knowledge that we’re going to Cellia . . .”
“Is currently a classified mission and needs to stay that way. Or are you presuming to know more about the movements of armies than the General and Lord d’Refan?” Sasori replied silkily.
I dropped my hand to my side, my whole body shaking with barely suppressed rage.
