Shifra stuck the extra sword she’d found into the metal warrior’s neck, with a sputter and a pop, its neck snapped, shooting out shards of gears.

Sweat poured down her back. Her breath came in and out. Not in a steady rhythm, but with the flow of her movements. She fought a fatal dance with the metal men. They were clumsy compared to Master Atin. A metal man swung at her head. She blocked the blade, twisting to the side.

The spear of a metal warrior lay on the ground, and she grabbed it without a thought. She spun and thrust, lodging the spear into the metal warrior’s shoulder gears. It fell with a warped cracking.

She looked up the hill, Kaiato was still there, reloading yet again after killing another metal warrior. She scowled at Qadi, who still stood at the top of the hill.

She heard the crunch of earth and spun, blocking another strike. It pushed her own blade back. These things were strong.

A thrill rushed through her, every inch of her coming alive as she fought the metal men. A small whisper of guilt tugged at the back of her mind for the violence, but she focused on them being soulless machines, not men. They could not be negotiated with.

She struck another down, her sword finally snapping in its leg gears. In a panic, she looked around. The metal warriors were either destroyed or disabled, and a consistent scattering of soldiers stumbled past her, desperately seeking safe ground.

She looked up the hill, seeing Qadi’s face. Her friend shot her a weak smile, her shoulders fell in relief. Shifra wiped mud from her face and began her ascent up the short hill. She had not been planning on fighting today, but it had happened anyway.

Someone screamed, Shifra whipped her head back up the hill. Right in front of her, Qadi’s eyes were wide, and she pointed behind Shifra.

Shifra turned around. A metal warrior stood at the bottom of the hill; musket trained on her. She dropped, rolling down the hill to intercept the thing.

With a piercing whistle, the weapon fired, narrowly missing Shifra’s head. She yanked it out of the thing’s hands and kicked, knocking the broken-legged metal warrior back to the ground.

Then, she heard a shout of pain.

In terror, she looked up the hill. Qadi was swaying, Kaiato jumping to her side. Qadi held a hand to her face, falling to the ground.

Every heartbeat was the slow rhythm of a brachiosaur foot. She rushed up the hill, weapons and soldiers forgotten. She a few of the retreating men aside, making her way to the top of the short hill.

Her friend lay on the grass, Kaiato leaning over her. She held a hand to her face. To her eye. She screamed in pain, body trembling and rolling, tears streaming from the other eye. Her wracking sobs and shouts like claws scraping stone. The blood.

There was so much blood.

✦✦✦

Revin fell to the grass. His mount walked off. Breathing was too difficult.

A corpse lay before him, blood and entrails. He vomited. Trembling he looked again. There was no body. Only memory. He saw a man torn apart by the cannonball. A soldier with a spear in his gut. A wretch reaching out from a circle of death, tears and blood.

He looked up. Soldiers limped. Some collapsed, gasping. Moans of pain. Eyes devoid of life stared at dirt or sky. He looked away.

He didn’t move. He stared at the trampled grass, torn dirt, and green blades shaded dark with droplets of blood. Metal feet, smashing crushed men, blood and viscera splashing like puddles. Children playing in a mud of red fruit. His vision darkened. The pressure on his head intensified.

With a grunt, he turned his attention back to the grass. There was a flower back home that bloomed in red-tipped green petals. They were beautiful. He wished he were there. Smelling them. Watching the stars with Blackfire.

Something tickled the back of his mind. He looked up. Omrai and a limping mount made their way to the camp, haggard and worn. He looked beyond to the battlefield.

The peaceful plains from when they’d first arrived were no more. It was a field of corpses. Mostly human, many saurian. He remembered that as he fled, he heard the moans of those stuck near the cannonballs. He heard no more now. He didn’t know if that was because he was too far from the battlefield, or because all were dead.

The last remaining soldiers tried to flee the battlefield—some were picked off by the metal monsters advancing behind them, though many made it back to camp. The metal monsters stopped abruptly, forming a gleaming line of metal bodies and weapons. The sun reflected brightly off their armor. Each stood in perfect posture, the only difference discernable difference between the abominations were their weapons and the patterns of blood splattered or smeared across their armor.

Revin thought they would charge, and he would have to run again. His throat caught, and the surviving soldiers let out exclamations of fear. But the wall of metal and blood didn’t advance. It stood immobile, only watching the army struggle to pack up camp and retreat. They didn’t attack. Why not? Why would they stop?

He couldn’t pull away. Their blades, the blood. His mind ignored his pleadings once again. He leaned down to face the ground. He grasped dirt and grass, feeling the breaking of his saurians as he broke the earth. He trembled. He ripped out roots, remembering a man torn in two as a metal monster speared his gut and a saurian stumbled past, tearing him apart and falling on a forest of spears. Guts shredded. Brains clubbed. The popping of bone and the squish of the insides falling out.

Revin gagged. He remembered every strike. He remembered the bloodied faces of men and saurians, lying on the ground, broken and groping for life but finding none. Dying. All dying. Their final resting place a crushing field of blood, bone, and broken metal.

Death and death again, Jebuthar had told him...

Revin trembled, anxiety twisted his insides until he vomited again on the grass. He rubbed his face again and again, trying to get the images out. But all he did was smear the ceratops blood that still covered him. He wanted it to stop. To go away. But it wouldn’t.

He wept for a long time.

✦✦✦

Shifra stared at the fire.

She had been sitting on this log for hours, watching the dancing flames shift in and out of existence, like ethereal banners in a strong wind. The embers crackled and popped.

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Her back hurt, her shoulders bent almost to her knees. Exhaustion wore her down, and the cold of the night drew her in toward the flames.

Soldiers had come and gone, some enjoying the flames, others adding more wood to the pile. Many had tried to meet her eyes or glanced at her curiously. But she made no response. She didn’t even lift her gaze.

Other soldiers passed her in drooping postures, arms hanging from their sides. Many of them, like her, bore bloodstained hands. She’d overhead medics speaking. Some soldiers just needed a bandage. Others a sling for a broken limb. Whereas others bore far worse wounds. Some never to walk again, many doomed to live with a missing arm, and others wept for fallen brothers. Those who, despite making it to the healers, were too far gone to save.

Qadi would make it. The bullet had lodged into bone, right above the eye socket. The eye was gone, destroyed, and she did not yet wake. How would she be, once she woke up? If she woke up?

A thousand moments of stupidity sprung to her mind. She was stupid to have gone into the middle of a warzone. Her father hadn’t listened, and never would. She shouldn’t have brought Qadi with her. Shifra had doomed her. Hadn’t Qadi’s father warned them to be careful? Hadn’t her own father said to keep away from the battle?

Shifra gritted her teeth, the tension grinding and sending pressure into her jaw. Her hand tightened into a knuckle-popping fist, and she slammed it down hard against the log. She immediately flinched, the thick bark roughing up her skin.

Again.

“It’s all my fault,” Shifra said. She felt a rush of despair. A sudden feeling that… that… war wasn’t some crazed zealotry, but a last resort. Who else would take such risks if any other option existed? How many lives had her father saved when he stopped wars by his reputation alone?

How many lives had he spent?

Shifra thought she was on some grand mission to free the people of Ateya. But her father had already done that. And he continued to do it.

Her mind rushed back to Qadi’s body lying on the hill. A scream on her lips and her hand on her eye, small streams of blood escaping between her fingers. Kaiato speaking calmly, but firmly. He had wrapped her and had carried Qadi back to camp. Shifra could hardly even speak. It had taken an angry shout from Kaiato to get her to move.

Suddenly, Senator Thersha’s words flooded her mind. I want you to see what Omrai shields us from. How would he react, knowing that Qadi was injured? Knowing that it was Shifra’s fault?

Someone sat on the log next to her, and she whipped her head to glare at the intruder of her personal space.

It was her father.

She turned back to the fire.

“Shifra.”

She felt a hand on her shoulder.

It was her fault. Qadi could have died. Could still die. Some desire had possessed her. If only they had fled back to camp, let the soldiers fight their own battles… But what would have happened to the soldiers she had saved?

Her mind buzzed harder with the idea of her father sitting right next to her, the silence full of intention. “I don’t want to talk.” She shrugged her shoulder, hard, knocking his hand down.

“You don’t have to say a word,” he said. “I’ll speak.”

“I’m sorry!” she said, turning to look at him. “I shouldn’t have fought! I should have stayed behind!”

“Sharpshooter Bakeh said you fought well,” her father said.

Shifra paused. A flush rose to her cheeks. “He did?”

Her father nodded. “But you are right. You should have stayed in the camp. You should have run. The men you saved… they are grateful. But it was a risk you shouldn’t have taken.”

She frowned. “I know. Qadi got... If I had just run. ”

His eyes grew hard. “I’m going to say something that I know you don’t want to hear. But it must be said. You marched into my camp, demanding I change everything. That I stop what I was doing. That I was wrong.”

Omrai’s back, which was already upright, stiffened further. “I think you may be beginning to see, that sometimes, there is no good choice. That you must decide, in the moment. Lives will be lost. Consequences, Shifra.”

Shifra frowned. “I know. I think that lesson has been beaten into me now.”

“No, Shifra, it hasn’t.” His tone was sharp, the consonants biting. His lips were set into a thin line. “You worry over a handful of lives and wonder whether one friend will live or die. I, and your uncle, make decisions every day that affect thousands . How many soldiers died in the rebellion, compared to the people that suffered? How many struggle with our laws and taxes, but those same laws keep us safe, and those taxes fund my armies? Perhaps I could save more soldiers, were I more inclined to diplomacy. But would that diplomacy get more citizens killed, because I showed weakness? You grew up in a well-defended nation. Our enemies are vicious. Merciless.”

Every word filled her with a mixture of guilt and anger. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. She got it . War was hard. Running a country wasn’t simple. Why did he always have to drill things in? She had been crying for Nether’s sake!

“I think I’ve seen enough,” Shifra said. “I get it.”

“I don’t think you do,” her father said.

“Haven’t I been through enough today?” Shifra snapped. She stood from the log. “Why are you telling me this now? My best friend almost died; she could still die! And all you care about is whether I understand that being a leader is hard? What else do you want from me?”

His hand gripped the log, bark crushing slowly under his iron grip. His frown deepened. “Your mother and your tutors have been far too lenient with you. You shouldn’t speak to your commanding officer that way.”

“I’m not your soldier!” Shifra shouted, throwing her arms up in the air. She glared down at him. “I’m your daughter.”

She turned and ran. Her skin rushed with a deep chill. She knew that not all of it came from the night air. Soldiers stepped out of her way. They saw something in her eyes, anger and a vein of sadness.

They knew that feeling of loss better than she did. Why were they all judging her? Or pitying her?

She finally made it back to her tent, sitting on her sleeping roll. She had half an instinct to turn to Qadi, to ask her for help. But Qadi never came. There was only Shifra, alone in her tent. Praying that her best friend would be coming soon. But even if Qadi did make it through the night, she wouldn’t be coming back here. She’d be going home.

Shifra almost wished she could do the same. Even if she wanted to, Qadi’s injures would keep her from going any further.

For the first time in a very long while, Shifra felt completely alone.