Sleeping on the barracks’ cots was torture. Not real torture, but it could have been if they added shards of glass and rusted nails to every mattress to compliment the ones with bedbugs and the others with half-uncoiled springs that made the most horrendous noise with even the slightest shift. And that, the latter, was Milo’s cot. The first day on the wall had been uneventfully unnerving. The smoke on the horizon hadn’t moved, and the scouts had nothing to report. Makler kept to himself, hidden away in his office praying to whatever god he thought would listen and stop the ones destroying the world. Milo knew none of the other gods cared.

  It was strange, there being gods. A pantheon. And their names were no more known than where the hours of the afternoon had gone. The only gods anyone knew for absolute certain were the four, the Horsemen who’d come from…well, no one actually knew where they’d come from. They come down from the sky, and maybe they’d been there the entire time. Or maybe they’d secretly dwelled in the sea, in the deepest and darkest waters. Or maybe they’d crawled and clawed their way from the bowels of hell itself and took to the skies to announce their arrival. Either way, they rode down their enemies—anyone alive qualified, a solid heartbeat and will to live sufficed—and brought them either to their knees or to death. It didn’t seem to matter to them which happened as long as there was a conclusion to their efforts.

  Gods, the fearless destroyers, devoid of empathy and meaning beyond chaos and ruin. Milo rolled over with a huff, the cot squealing its protests, and tried to keep his eyes shut. They weren’t heavy enough to obey. Staring at the wall, tracing the line of brick, he wondered if the gods slept. Or did they, like him, lay awake making friends with the crickets and simple architecture, wondering what it would be like to be on the other side of things?

  To be a god would be terrible, Milo reasoned. The whole of their existence, infinite as it may be, lacked much more than a singular purpose. As far as he understood, there were gods for all manners of things. Elements, storms, emotions, colors, sensations, seasons, and fates. Lukas had found a handsome stack of books on it. There was a god whose entire purpose was to watch over the orchard of the underworld, which was a sort of afterlife. And there was one of sincere love who punished those for their insincerity and another who reigned over stupidity. In Milo’s opinion, those two were the same with different names. Kelsey was quick to disagree and point out the obvious and wretched truth to their musings over which god did what. They didn’t know if any of those other gods existed. The only ones they knew of for sure were the ones in the world now, wreaking havoc and chaos for their own splendor.

  Milo groaned and shoved himself up from his squeaky bed. There was no sleeping. Between the snores of overworked soldiers and the endless churning in his mind, and all the things he hadn’t finished from the day, he wouldn’t get an hour of sleep even if he tried. Leaving his cot behind, he trudged down the long rows of beds and headed into the hall. No one else was awake, and he didn’t have it in him to remedy the situation. And so, Milo dragged his feet and wandered outside to where the sky was bright beneath a silver moon and the blue shadows seemed to stretch on forever.

  Outside the wall, a place he hadn’t seen since before Michael was born, was beautiful. The grass waved with the wind, the little clovers bobbing against tall blades, and the distant gurgle of the river was one of the few sounds in the quiet night. Milo stared out at the open field, watching the fireflies dance up and twirl around each other. The cool air kissed his cheeks. He could have stayed there for an eternity, and yet those few moments were eternity enough.

  “Milo?” Her voice broke the still silence. “What are you doing up?”

  He turned. Kelsey folded her arms over, a shiver rocking through her and her stubbornness hiding it as if it changed anything. She scooped back her red curls and tossed them over her shoulder. Milo looked down at the ground, kicking it with the toe of his shoe. “I couldn’t sleep.”

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  “That’s been a real problem lately.”

  “Restless mind, I guess.”

  “No kidding.” She stopped and leaned on the tree, staring out at the distant hill. There was no doubt the Razen would come down over it, tomorrow or the next day if they were lucky. But luck was not something anyone had. It was something they made. Luck was the product of taking advantage of opportunities and seeing it to the end, and always hoping for the best. Or, at least, that’s what Kelsey thought. “Do you think we stand a chance?”

  “They stopped a few miles out, and as far as the scouts have assessed, they’re redirecting toward the northeast to cut off larger supply routes to Baseel. It’s one of the only cities left. It makes sense for them to shift their focus in that direction.”

  “But?”

  Milo frowned, eyes lifting to meet hers and finding she was quick to look away. “But,” he said slowly, “they’ve been on course to Bethany for months…we have something they want.”

  “What?”

  “Not enough children.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “There’s a lot of young soldiers. And they’ve—we’ve never seen a day of battle. War. We’re what they want. The weak ones will turn. The rest either die or live long enough that they wish they did.”

  Kelsey scoffed, turning away. “You’re so jaded. You’ve spent too much time in those exterior camps playing Commander with Makler. If you ask me,” she shot him a dark, teasing, glare, “and I know you haven’t, but I think you’ve lost sight of what matters.”

  “I haven’t,” he said, watching her carefully as if she were a half-second from punching him in the arm or gut the way she usually did.

  “The Razen are going to come for us, and everyone else. Tomorrow, the next day, eventually. It doesn’t matter when. It’s inevitable.” She forced a quick smile and then looked down, pressing her lips in. “They’ll come. But we can’t lower ourselves to their cruelty. We have to keep sight of what we’re fighting for. Our homes, our families, the people we love…”

  “Our lives,” Milo offered, not as a suggestion or addition to what she said but as a conclusion. They were fighting for their lives. To live. To experience every moment they could with whatever time they had, and take pleasure in the small things like fireflies dancing over the open fields, and the big things like the holidays where friends and family gathered around a too-small table and bickered over politics, news, and money. Inevitably, those things didn’t matter and the merriment of the company was far greater. That was what they were fighting to protect, keep, and have for themselves. To live, to truly live, was more than any god or man could ever find words to describe. It was more than could be comprehended. And if only the gods could see that…

  “I’m not afraid of what’s going to happen,” Kelsey stated.

  “You should be,” Milo said. “We all should be.”

  She gulped down her own lie. Between them, they both knew she was terrified. The stories circulating about scouts who came back, turned inside out, and tied to their horses, were the least gruesome. There was something about the people with visions, the way they spoke, that was like needles to the skin. They were unsettling at best. Kelsey pushed off the tree and turned back toward the barracks. She shook her head. “I wish I knew what to do with myself. I feel like I’m stuck in a shed again. Trapped with no way out.”

  “Kelsey,” Milo grabbed her by the arm, stopping her in her tracks. She turned to face him, sadness marring her expression for having turned the pleasant night into a dark dream of the horrors to come. “I can’t promise anything about what’s going to happen when they arrive, if they come at all, but I’ll always protect you.”

  “I know,” she smiled, her cheeks rosier than usual. “You always do.”

  He wanted to say something more, make sure she understood what he truly meant when he promised to come to her aid, but he couldn’t find his voice. It was lost behind the rapid beating in his chest and the tension pulling through every muscle. He could practically hear Lukas screaming in his ear. And before he could mentally argue with his phantom fantasy of his friend, her hands grabbed his face and dragged him down into a weirdly rough and entirely soft kiss.

  Pulling back almost as fast as she’d moved, she bit her lower lips and then shoved him back. “Idiot,” she grumbled.

  “Hold on,” he whispered, racing through his thoughts about what had happened and why. Was it obvious how he felt about her? Or had she felt this way about him, too? Oh, to hell with it, it didn’t matter that much. And without another wasted thought, he pulled her back and kissed her in return. Soft, slow, and willful. There was no rush when tomorrow was forever away, and the moment they had was everlasting.