Page 11 of The Last War We Ever Fought

“I’ve seen too many of them to find any interest in them anymore.”

“Why did you apologise to me the other day?”

His head tilted to the side. “You have so many questions, Rowan of Ingburn. How do they ever sate your curiosity around here?”

“By answering me.”

He flashed her a slow smile as he backed away to sit on a raised rock, not far from her. “I was born in a fire. Fleshed from smoke and flames. That is how they tell my story. I am not like the rest of Gods, born in their power, born from necessity. My existence does not predate humanity. I was born along with humanity, though I am far from being human. When you are what I am, it is sometimes impossible to acknowledge the consequences of my birth. To question my existence. I am simply a derivative of hate, anger, greed, desire.” The strange God looked away from her to stare at the loud stream of water. “Once you become accustomed to your own scent, you slowly start to forget it is even there.”

For a brief second, she could almost relate to him. “Then why did you apologise?”

His attention flustered her, but she forced her strained neck to keep still when his violet gaze returned to hers. Under the sun, it was such a pale violet, so soft, so gentle to belong to someone like him. “I might be the creation of others, a simple consequence, but I am also an entity. One that has simply ignored what I am. That is a choice. One the very few I am permitted to have. The least I can be for the harm that I have caused is regretful.”

“If it is pity you are offering, I don’t need it. And I highly doubt you need me to accept it.”

“Believe me, Rowan. You’d know what my pity looks like.” He stood and reached her closer, kneeling as she had, still forcing her to tilt her head back to look up at him because of the sheer size of him. “I don’t need you to accept my apology either. I’d rather you not. I’ve grown intensely fond of the way you look at me. Unsure if it is to strangle me or eat me whole.”

A nerve on her temple pumped intensely hard and fast. “There is something terribly wrong with you.”

“Isn’t that true,” he crooned, his eyes dropping all over her face, the messy braid over her left shoulder, and further down her plain, borrowed loose clothes she wore.

The look he gave her was intense enough that she subconsciously looked down at herself, wondering if her once white shirt had any stains in it. “So help me gods,” she mumbled low between her teeth as she chastised herself for even caring.

“What do you want me to help you with that you so desperately call upon me?” he asked, smirking at her.

“I didn’t call upon you.”

“You think any other God heard you speaking that low?”

She stood and glared down at him who was now looking up at her as if she was some sort of a shrine, violet eyes eating her whole. Rowan had never been looked at like that. Like she was something to behold. It made her uneasy to think why he would regard her as such. It made her wonder if she was being made an accessory to some evil plan of his. But then, she was sure he could knit evil plans all on his own.

“Yes?” he asked, remaining kneeling right before her.

“I don’t know what is this sick and twisted fascination you have with me.”

“I might be sick and twisted, but believe me, my fascination with you isn’t.”

“Hard to believe.”

“Then I will have to be more convincing.”

Four poppies

Rowan had gone over every map, every historical detail, every number from population to streets and shops. They were one battle away from winning the war.

One last battle.

They could march there tomorrow and win it, but no one knew that beside her.

Everyone had already started making plans on what they would do after it.

Rowan had tried to do the same. But there were no plans she could think of. She had no loved one to return to. No home. No city she could call hers. The one she’d been born in no longer existed. Destroyed in the battle that took her parents away and almost had her captured by Mugril slavers. Mugril, not Gobresh. Her own people would have sold her less than five pounds of poultry.

She grabbed a hairbrush that an old kitchen maid had given her fifteen years ago that first night when she’d shown up at her door looking less like a human and more like something that belonged in a barn. She’d taken pity on Rowan. Bathed her and then combed her hair—it was the most anyone had done for her in her whole entire life. Even left her the comb to keep. It was the only item she’d held onto. Nothing else belonged to her. Only that one comb.

Pulling at the hair tie, she undid her braid and then violently had a go at her hair, trying to comb out the tangles from the thick curls and the frizzy strands. No one had taught her how to do it properly. Most men kept their hair short, and the only women who had joined the soldier ranks kept their hair short, sometimes shaved, too. Despite never having loved her hair, never having been attached to it, Rowan refused to cut it, let alone shave it. It was the one thing that heavily distinguished her from the other soldiers, and she liked them knowing that they were taking orders from a woman.

A distant scream made her put the comb down and head straight outside, her long frizzy hair blowing everywhere in the night wind as she searched for the owner of the harrowing call.