“I’m coming home soon, Mother. I have so much to tell you,” she whispered, a small smile tugging at her lips. It had been months since her last visit.
She sat down, and her eyes caught on the painting once more. The smile faded. As a girl, she had glued a few blue rose petals to it, plucked from their secret garden. The petals had never withered. Not in all these years.
Loud steps echoed outside her office. Every thud of heavy boots against the floor became louder as the seconds passed. When the door swung open, her lieutenant colonel stepped inside. His face was still, as always, his expression cold.
Even as he walked across the room to place a white gown on the worn sofa.
“Sergeant Ársa, put this on.”
Noël looked at the white gown, clenching her fists. She knew what it meant. There were only two options: new beginnings or the end.
That day, the petals on the painting turned black.
1
THE VOID LEFT BEHIND
“A leader does not rise from triumph, but from loss. It is grief that carves the shape of a ruler, and only those who survive the carving will stand.”
—Láda Veléša, Goddess of Leadership and War
Noël
“Don’t touch her! I’ll burn this place to the ground!”
I thrash, but I can’t move. The two soldiers holding me by my arms refuse to let go. My boots scrape against the cold ground of Tárnov’s village square, the rough stone biting into my soles. The men don’t speak. Don’t say a word.
They are statues, void of feeling, dragging me back like I am nothing.
It’s daytime, but the world is dark. The sky above is bleak, a muted gray that swallows the sun. Cold seeps into my bones. It wraps around me like a second skin.
This isn’t real. It’s nothing but a nightmare.
“Let go of me! That’s an order!” I scream. I am an officer! I can throw them into the pit and forget their existence! My word holds weight.
But they don’t listen. They pull me back, farther away from her. “Mother!” My cry tears from my throat, but it does not stop them.
The dark wooden carriage lunges forward, wheels grinding against the hard soil as its black horses carry my mother’s lifeless body toward the main gates of the village. She is inside. Wrapped in white. Motionless. Her knees bounce beneath the thin shroud, and I can see their shape through the fabric.
What’s going on? They never take corpses out of the village.
“Keep your tongue behind your teeth, Ársa.” My lieutenant colonel’s silhouette grows bigger as he approaches.
“Where are you taking her?” My voice breaks. My heart slams against my ribs. I can’t breathe. There is nothing left now. Nothing but the blurred spin of the wheels, the cruel trudge of the horses, the tightening of the soldiers’ grips as they keep me in place.
“Who do you think you are?” he says, stopping a few steps before me. “Got a rank and now you speak?”
My eyes narrow, and my teeth grind as my pulse pounds in my ears.
“We arrived here at the same time, Ársa. You’ve seen what I’ve seen.”
I shake my head. No. “You don’ttake the deadout,” I rasp. “You bury them. You burn them. But you don’t—” I gag on bile. “You don’t cross the gates.”
This is it. Sobs tear through me, leaving only emptiness, as if each one is hollowing me out from the inside. “You don’t take her. No one takes her!”
The soldiers say nothing. Remain cold fingers and locked jaws. Like they don’t hear me. Like I’m no one. I twist, trying to headbutt one. He dodges, but only barely.
It hurts too much to scream again.
