Celeste's povBlood.That was all I could smell and all I could see. I could also taste it in the back of my throat as I stumbled through the medical tents, my hands slick with it, my dress soaked through.The sounds were worse than the sights. Screaming and begging. The wet, rattling breaths of men whose lungs were filling with fluid. The sudden silence when those breaths stopped altogether."Celeste!" A healer called my name—Mara, one of the few who'd been kind to me. "I need pressure here. Now!"I rushed to her side, pressing my hands against a gaping wound in a soldier's side. He thrashed beneath me, eyes wild with pain and fear, and I had to use all my weight to keep him still while Mara worked."It's alright," I murmured, the words automatic now. I'd said them a hundred times tonight. "You're going to be alright."I didn't know if that was true. I didn't know anything anymore except that my hands were shaking and my back ached and there were so many wounded, so many dying, and I
Last Updated : 2025-11-04 Read more