Page 21 of The Last War We Ever Fought

She spun to him as she reached her tent. “You.”

He grinned ear to ear. “Hard to believe that when you made me promise not to touch them that night. But let's say that is the truth, how were you ever going to convince me to eat them?”

“You don’t need to eat haleberries. If you grind them to very fine powder, if it touches your skin, I’ll be rid of anyone I wish. Breathe the dust and I’ll be rid of anyone I wish even faster.”

“Terrifying.” His eyes dropped to her hands laying limply to her side. His mouth tilted to a smirk. Probably when he noticed the pinkish tips of her fingers from crushing the haleberries all of the afternoon. “You’re truly terrifying, Rowan of Ingburn.”

Rowan had never been told that. She’d heard it from others, usually whispered under their breaths. No one had dared tell her.

“You’re more terrifying to me,” she admitted, wanting to feel human because being told she was something of fear made her feel entirely inhuman. It often made her think so. So often that she’d almost believed it, too.

“I stand before you unarmed, without armour, yours to kill.”

“As am I.”

He shook his head. “You’re not mine to kill, Rowan. Even the gods would not be that cruel to you. To make you mine to kill.”

A deep ache began pulsing under her chest. “And they’ve made you for me to kill?”

“I have. I give you that permission. You and no one else but you. Have it. Have my death.”

She scoffed and stepped forward, standing almost head-to-head with him as she glared up at him. “I’ve yet to see through your games. But maybe they’re just games of a silly bored God who had nothing to do but meddle in human affairs.”

“Maybe.” He reached a hand forward to push a single coiled strand that had fallen over her eyes. “Will you play along?”

Resisting the urge to lean in or away from his touch, she said, “I’m not interested.”

“What a shame. I would have made it good for you.” His eyes dropped to her lips, and she blinked away, looking at the dark distance of the forest.

He tilted his head, trying to catch her strayed gaze. “When you’re not glaring, brooding, covered in mud and smoke, you’re not so bad to look at,”

Her mouth twitched, but she didn’t let herself sneer at him, otherwise he might think she’d truly been offended. “Oh, but thank you, your holy divinity,” she all so politely crooned, and then bit out, “Now fuck off.”

“So terribly mean,” he said, not looking hurt or offended even a bit. “And so, so terribly violent.” Backing away, he added, “Go sleep now, Rowan, before you strangle me.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“I might like it.”

She shook her head. “You’re tiring.”

“Good. Head to sleep now.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Then stay.”

She heard him chuckle when she spun round and headed inside her tent. The noreberry powder dissolved in her water cup, sitting at the bottom, and she stared at it for a long while—so long that sleep began calling for her without its help. Shooting a look at the tent’s entrance, she set the cup on a stool and laid down on her mattress. A sense of safety settled in without her even realising. That same sense of safety drew more sleep in until her lids felt heavy, and she was jumping inside nightmares.

Six poppies

Something had bothered Rowan since the night when she’d seen Adam and Henry lead a few captains inside the generals’ tent. It had bothered her even more when she’d waited for days to no end for Daniel to confess to her that he’d been called by Henry and Adam, and what for.

So, she’d sent word for the front guard to head for lunch with promise someone else would take on his shift soon and then waited until Adam and Henry pulled most soldiers to train by the river back because of the humidity, long and far enough for her to search their tent—a place Rowan wasn’t really allowed to be in despite her status. She had her own general’s tent. On the other side of the camp. Adam and Henry trusted her to win their queen’s war, but not enough to hear her direct orders or reports. It had been so long that she’d heard back from Mugril that she had started wondering if the city she’d been born in even existed anymore.

A shiver went down her spine when her senses rose to alarm her of another presence inside the tent. She was being watched. Yet again, as she had been for the past two weeks. “What are you doing here?” she asked, continuing to carefully rummage through the letter stacks to find the latest order by their queen.

His tall shadow fell over her when he leaned in to take a closer look at what she was doing. “Could ask you the same. When I saw you lure that poor soldier away, I knew you were up to no good.”