Page 8 of Seasons of War
Zayne
The Territories
Bluehaven, Antor
833 P.C. [Post-Collapse]
Adrop of rain landed against Zayne's eyelid. He gasped.
Gunfire rumbled like thunder from the town’s center, and distant explosions vibrated the earth. The stillness on his block closed in on him, blocking out all that war. The fighting moved on, leaving only the broken behind.
And his friend’s dead weight crushed his lungs.
“Edwards?” He rolled his tongue over the film of dust covering his mouth and coughed. “Hey… Edwards…”
No response.
“Come on.” His voice broke in a whisper. “Sara? You can't…”
Grief crushed him, even though only pieces of his mind caught up with what his body already knew and felt. He reached around his friend to check her wound, his palm sliding over loose clotters swollen with blood. The explosion must have dislodged them.
Though Zayne’s chest heaved with pain and panic, Edwards didn’t move.
Why? Of all the people in this division, why her?
He clenched his hand and pressed his fist against the gunshot wound, even though no blood flowed out. That silence ensconcing the block swallowed him up, dividing his mind between the chaos buried within and his duty with lethal efficiency.
He pushed himself up, but pain ripped through his thigh and flattened him on the ground.
“Medic!” Zayne scanned the surroundings for Brock, his heart hammering. “Medic!” If Brock hadn't made it—
No. No letting panic crash through that quiet in his mind.
Zayne held his breath and released.
He felt his mother's hand sliding over his, her warm voice filling his mind, reminding him not to waste energy fighting himself.
So, he allowed his thoughts to wash over him, of his squad and their families, of the sisters waiting for Corporal Sara Edwards back home. And then let their faces drift away until he felt everything and nothing all at once. Until everything faded into the background while his breathing slowed.
His mother’s church had taught her this form of meditation—the silence—and she’d passed it along to Zayne. It wasn't a faith he shared, that of the Followers. They believed in the strands of fate tying them to the Old World and to the cycles of humanity. They believed in eternal justice that lived in the hearts of those who resisted tyranny. These tenets guided Mom’s life.
He’d only gone with her to a meeting once, and it horrified him that she'd put herself in danger by sneaking into an unsanctioned, underground church. Still, a few of their practices helped, like the silence. Except he didn't use it to replenish himself as they did. The opposite, actually.
Better to feel nothing. Think nothing. Be nothing.
To leave it all behind in the silence, every speck of his soul, so the war filled him up within whatever it demanded of him.
Right now, it demanded that he get his shit together.
First, observe, even if nothing felt real. Then take one action.
The initial shots pierced the air only a few minutes ago, and in that time the soldiers reduced the block to shattered windows, splintered doors, and blood-stained brick. Two dead soldiers tangled like weeds in a wild field. One body hung from a window beside him, another halfway out the closest door. Most of the uniforms bore the gold stitching of his comrades, not the rebel United soldiers.
A massacre.
Zayne lay here, trapped, lacking the leverage to rip the shrapnel free. And he couldn't leave Edwards behind regardless. To get to the rest of his squad, he needed to take her with him. Moving a person with her injuries was too dangerous, but that didn't matter anymore, despite that he refused to think about why.
Keeping hold of her with one arm, he anchored his other on the ground and threw his weight to the side. The metal twisted inside his thigh and seized him with the shock of pain. A frustrated growl rolled out from deep within his chest.
