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Prologue
Everyone talks about what death takes away; seldom do they tell you what death gives... to those who are still living.
Her eyes burned with unshed tears, and her chest rose and fell with her every breath, but the gaping hole she felt there filled her with a complete sense of emptiness. How much had she lost in her young life? Too much. Her stomach turned at the thought, nausea overwhelming her.
On limbs that had fallen asleep under her unmoving weight, she pushed to sit up. Her bed, her chest... everything in her room looked the same as it had that morning, yet everything had changed. Darkness had fallen, and eerie shadows danced across her floorboards and filtered through the moonlight. A shuffle to her left drew her attention.
Her father sat in the corner of her room, under the moonbeam shining through her window. She couldn’t look him in the eye. She didn’t have the words to tell him of her deep regret. Of her failure as a daughter. Her fault. Her fingers gripped the side of her bed as he approached and sat next to her, the cot shifting under his weight.
He reached out his hands and took hold of her shoulders, turning her to face him. “Eva, I’m so sorry. If I had—”
“Don’t, please. I can’t . . . I just can’t.”
“Eva, look at me.” Her name came out like a plea.
Tears springing to her eyes, she shook her head. He put his hand under her chin, tilting her face up to his. When her eyes found her father’s, the connection was a stab to her heart.
A strangled gasp escaped her. “I didn’t see it coming, Dad. I thought we were a safe distance away. I—”
“Shhh, Eva. No, no, this was not your fault. It wasn’t your responsibility. Your mother knew the risk of treating the injured near the battlefield. You know all she ever wanted to do with her life was to help others. She died doing what she loved. The man she was treating, the man you helped her treat, lived.”
Tears streamed down her face now, the hollow feeling in her chest expanding until she thought there would be nothing left of her. She wrapped her arms around her torso, in hopes of holding what little of her was left together.
Her father took her in his arms, and she sobbed against his chest as he rocked back and forth, singing a song from her childhood. “You Are My Sunshine.”
She pulled back from him, a question lingering on her lips. “Whose bullet was it?”
Facing forward, her father strung his arm around her back as he rubbed her shoulder absentmindedly. “You know this feud with Stone Haven—Eva, I never wanted it. This is just the world we live in now. It’s a game of survival.”
Her chest fluttered with unease, a rising heat overtaking the hollowness. She wiped the tears from her face and nodded. He was right. Mother Earth, how he was right. She had trained with her mom in the art of healing. How little did she know about fighting and survival? They lived in a new world—an unforgiving world. The best thing she could do was learn to fight, to defend herself and the people left that she loved.
“Teach me.”
He twisted to face her. “Teach you? The art of combat? You’ve never wanted to learn before?”
The emptiness she felt lessened the more she thought about fighting against their enemy, her body embracing the idea of being able to protect Everwood and the people in it.
She took a deep breath and gathered her lingering sadness, then forced it under her new resolve. “I was a fool before; healing is useless against our rivals. I need skills to use in combat, to protect the people I love. You can teach me.”
He smiled and brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. “Eva, battle isn’t for the faint of heart. You will need to harden yourself to confront some ugly realities. You will face things—things you never have before. Are you willing to possibly be put in a position to take a human life?”
Eva gazed across her room, finding the only picture she had of herself with her mother—the only thing she had left of her. Fire erupted inside her, taking the place of the emptiness and grief she felt.
This new flame that had ignited in her made her feel... better. Hell, it made her feel powerful and in control. If becoming a soldier under her father’s rule kept her from experiencing this pain, then she would become their enemy’s worst nightmare.
She nodded. “I am.”
She would train every day. Learn all she could on how to survive in this new age they lived in. She would protect the people her father led, and she would protect herself.
Never again would she let in this agony, or anyone else that could make her feel anything at all. Becoming too close to people, loving someone, letting people in... hurt.
Her father patted her knee as he rose from the bed. “Get some rest, Eva, we can talk more about this—”
“No, my mind is made up. We start tomorrow.” His eyes bored into her as a few seconds ticked by. “Please, Dad, I need this.”
He nodded. “Tomorrow, then. Meet me at zero eight hundred.”
“Thank you, Dad.”
