“Heart failure,” he finally says.
Nonsense. My mother was always so healthy, so full of life. Everywhere in our house, there was salt and rosemary, herbs to ward off illness like magic amulets. She couldn’t just... die. It doesn’t make any sense.
The colonel steps forward, hands clasped behind his back. He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. That detached gaze, the coldness in his lifeless eyes—I want to burn them.
“Release me!” I scream again, thrashing against the soldiers’ grips. The colonel slaps me across the face. It stings.
“Take her home,” he orders. “She’s unwell.”
They drag me down the narrow path toward my mother’s home, past the rows of stone houses that watch with shuttered windows and silent doors. I twist hard, once, twice, and manage to rip my arm free from the soldier on my right. My elbow shoots up to slam into his chest. He grunts and staggers back.
I almost break loose.
But the moment I think I’ve got a chance, the other lunges, and both their hands clamp around my throat.
My back slams against the wall of a nearby house. The stone is cold. Their grip is colder. I choke on air, eyes wide as they squeeze just enough to make the edges of my vision blur.
“Shut up,” one of them hisses. “You want to make a scene?”
I snarl, trying to fight, but my strength is slipping. My tears haven’t yet dried.
The second soldier leans in close. “Show the others what order looks like.”
Through the fog in my head, my chest heaving, throat burning, I glare at him. But there’s no point in fighting now. The carriage is long gone.Motheris long gone.
“Where is this house?” the first growls as they drag me against the wall.
“The colonel said it should be somewhere around here,” the other replies.
Are they blind? My home is right in front of us.
I twist, grab the front of their uniforms, and slam them both into the stone wall. Their pained grunts as they fall to the ground almost bring me a dark satisfaction. Almost.
Grabbing the sides of their heads with both hands, I shove them back again, hard. These two are nothing compared to me. I’ve sent countless men just like them to the healer over my years in the army.
“I can walk on my own.”
Without waiting for a response, I leave them there, crumpled outside my mother’s home, and walk toward the door.
I exhale deeply.
But today is not about them. It’s about her.
After all, she was the reason I joined the army in the first place. She never yielded to those restrictive rules set by men who think themselves gods to rule over everything else in existence. She taught me to think critically, to wield my strength, to never take anything at face value. Defying their conventions, surpassing their expectations, I climbed the ranks. Where women were silenced, my voice was heard.
My mother was the light of my soul. She was a strong-willed woman who always urged me to question everything around me. “Never let anyone say you can’t do something, Noël.” Her eyes used to flare with the same spark that lived in me until today.
Our home was a stronghold, where intellect and influence were nurtured. She taught me how to read, how to be strong,and how to fight for what I believe in. Many nights were spent out in our garden, training with wooden swords, secretly, as she commanded every step I took. “Strength comes in many forms,” she would remind me often. “Physical, mental, spiritual—you must master them all.”
I am a few steps away from the door when something dark catches my attention, and I move to crouch beside a stain on the soil to the left of the entrance. What is it?
I run my finger through the earth and lift it to my nose.
My heart sinks.
It smells of blood. What? Mothe— No. This can’t be it. There were no blood stains on the shroud that covered her body. This just cannot be true.
I rise to my full height and smear the dried blood on my skirt, wrinkling my nose, and turn to the door.
