But it was so unfair.

Their countries forced them to dull their emotions, to fight before they knew any better. War demanded sacrifices they were not prepared to give, the cost of which they could not understand. People like Hal shouldn’t have existed. Both Danu and Vesria created monsters the moment they stooped to recruiting children.

She’d never forget those months of deployment, the countless hours she spent bent over bodies too small for their issued uniforms, in tents so crowded she gagged on the cloying stench of putrescine. She’d never forget how she helped dig graves until her hands blistered and her shovel dulled. She’d never forget the hot nights spent curled tight against Una’s side, so close it left no space for dreams.

“Why are you crying?” he rasped.

She was crying for Hal Cavendish. For herself. For the broken people they were and the children they should have been. For her lost comrades. For all the people who would end up like them—or dead—if their nations went to war over Lowry’s crimes. All she could manage to say was, “Goddess knows you won’t do it yourself.”

Hal didn’t speak. He looked as if he might break.

“Give me another chance to help you.” She smeared away the tears on her cheeks. “Please. I won’t rest until I see Lowry behind bars, and you as Vesria’s grand magistrate. We can stop this war together.”

Her words tugged something loose in both of them. He reached out to her, as if to swipe away a tear, but let his hand drop before he touched her. Wren had never felt such disappointment at something so small. She had never wanted anyone to touch her so badly.

“You can,” she said, lower and more breathily than she intended.

His eyes darkened, surprise melting into hunger. Wren tried not to panic. Tried to dismiss the churning heat within her as a natural, hormonal response: a flood of oxytocin from their conversation and nothing more. But it was far too late to theorize this attraction away.

Hal, tentatively, slowly, raised himself up onto one elbow. The springs of the mattress groaned under his weight, and his heat rolled over her like the flow of the tide. As he bent closer, the ends of his hair tickled her face. His lips nearly brushed against hers, his breath sweet as brandy and honeyed tea.

The space between them was a question.

It would be so easy to wrap her arms around him and pull him against her. But it would never be simple. He was Vesrian, and she was Danubian. Even if they forged peace between their nations, they would have to go their separate ways. It would hurt too much. She’d lost too many people she cared about lately.

She turned her face away from him. “It’s late.”