GRAVESKIES

Chapter 21

The Akan Federation had officially defeated the Free Union of Belvarre.

It was an accomplishment too spectacular to feel real. Belvarre was irretrievable. Out of the war. Belvarre was the dirt on the boots of the Akan soldiers. They had won.

On the train ride to the Capital, the soldiers watched fireworks bloom over the vales and crevasses of Akan. They were taking a break.

The outcome would've been perfect, if only the Rakian Lost Divisions hadn't been trampled to death. At the end of their run, they hadn't even had time to announce it. The communication channels died. The line went blank.

Even though Rakia had been successful on Rakian territory, they still had to recover from the loss of their allies. For a while, no attacks could be expected. The Akan army would celebrate, a real celebration this time, the kind that could not be organized on a frontline.

Pierced with wounds and boasting with energy and pride, Ryujin travelled to the Capital again. Axis would fuel her ego even further. She heard the chants of the crowd miles away from Axis. Ryu could finally breathe out. As she scratched thick blood from under her fingernails, stress left her body warily and disbelievingly, like a deflating balloon.

At the train station, she expected ten times the usual crowd of supporters, uniting for this national success. And they were there. Only they had never manifested like this.

Their chants rang louder than ever. Dozens of sturdy lines of bodyguards did not suffice in holding back the influx of people. They went insane at the final puffs of the train, at the waft of metal doors retracting. They threw rocks. Their shouts blended together, forming an unintelligible tumult. Must've been the echo inside the white dome. Ryu felt an itch at the back of her neck.

She forgot about it the moment she noticed one much more alarming detail. Her heart froze still in her throat. Behind the guards, in modest clothing, dodging to remain unscathed by the protests, Ryujin's mother stood alone.

The soldiers got the rest of the day to reunite with their families, before settling into the Armyhouse. Ryujin hadn't expected her mother to show up.

As she headed towards her, someone grabbed her wrist. She turned to narrow her eyes at Willow.

"Will you be okay?" Wind sweeped back her blonde hair. The memory of Willow giving steadfast orders to their troops tasted sour on Ryujin's tongue. The final strike of a judge's hammer, the conviction that they were no longer equals.

"Do you care?"

"Don't be an idiot, Ryu. I'll always care."

"Then I'll always be okay. Colonel." Ryu snatched her hand away and scurried off.

Her mother waited, glancing up and away fretfully. She had the same ebony hair, only longer and smoother, gathered in a strained ponytail. The same distinct, sharp eyes with a monolid. A small frame that Ryu hadn't inherited. The soldier confronted her in public, where it was safe, before her mom would get the chance to remind her of who she was, to transpose her back into the fears that had haunted her childhood.

"You didn't come for my Walk of Glory."

"Well..." Suni Volta shuffled on her feet. She had the decency to look sheepish. "All the attention would be on you, and I didn't want to—"

"Be seen with me."

"You understand, then." It laced in their every interaction. Secretly, her mother hated her for what she'd become and for who she could never be. Ryujin didn't know for which to apologize first.

She opened her mouth to say it, say sorry, when her mother spoke up.

"Did you and Willow have a fight?"