Page 28 of Ashes of Honor
Why does everything in my life have to be so … so … sothis?
Responsibilities on top of pain and sorrow and my God, endless amount of disappointment. To me. To others. Me to others. I was suffocating.Why can’t I just have a win? Why can’t I do anything right? Why does everything have to end in failure?
Why am I a failure?
I swallowed down an agonizing lump full of dishonor. Regret. I couldn’t remember the last time I regretted anything. I’d built my life around the belief that everything happened for a reason. Every action had a purpose, every decision a consequence. Everything in life appeared to have an answer. Things made sense. Even in the landscape of a world filled with uncertainty and despair, there were answers. There was science. Things would happen that made you glad someone you knew didn’t live to see it.
Prescott’s death was none of those things. The more I looked back, the more I played the scene over and over and over again in my head, the ever burning flame of doubt simmered in my heart. It wasn’t some unfortunate inevitability I could rationalize.
Emma walked up to us, tying a flannel around her waist and whistling an upbeat tune. She clocked the tension between us and took a giant step back. I watched her out of the corner of my eyes as she found something to pretend to be busy with.
“I did what I was told. What my responsibilities required of me. I have an obligation to put the people here first, even if it means screwing myself in the end. That’s what being a soldier means. What being a leader is. You bear the burden and take the fall so your people never feel the consequence of your misjudgments.”
“Bullshit.” Elie’s cackle pierced my ears. “You would have never done that if it were Amaia.”
If she had stabbed me, it would have hurt less. For a moment, I stood there, still and quiet, the question ricocheting around my head. Could I honestly say I would’ve made the same call? I was a lot of things, but I was not a liar.
“We could have saved him,” Elie whispered.
What I hated the most about her statement was the truth of it. Prescott had survived their torture, after all. But out there, in the chaos, with the fire of unknown weapons, magic, and death all around, it hadn’t seemed as though there was much of a choice. Prescott had made that final call. Ordered us away. He had known the risk—we all did every time we left the relative safety of our gates. But that was a cop out. A way for me to avoid responsibility.
“Out in the field, there is always a chance you’ll make a decision you’ll live to regret one day. It’s part of the job.”
“So that’s it?” Her hazel eyes ebbed closer to green as they blazed with fury. “I should just get used to it? Prescott was like a father to you. How dare you chalk him up to some dumb statistic! He was aperson—ourperson.”
I wanted to kick myself. She wasn’t just talking about Prescott anymore. This was about her parents. About the loss she’d barely processed. With everything going on, I’d forgotten that Elie hadn’t experienced death like the rest of us. Not in the same way. It wasn’t a battle of losses, but rather the perspective I needed to know how to handle Elie going forward.
Elie was from a small town down the coast. Her family had remained intact as they sheltered, surviving on her father’s boat, tucked away from the worst of the chaos. It wasn’t until they ran out of supplies that they’d come ashore. It was there that they were picked up by one of the recruitment teams. She hadn’t lived through the brutality the rest of us had. Elie had never watched her world crumble piece by piece until now.
“You never get used to it, Elie.” My voice softened, but I didn’t let the edge leave. She needed to hear the truth. “But this won’t be the last time you lose someone. You need to find a way to deal with it, to process it, or it’ll kill you. You’ll end up dying chasing after ghosts.”
There was a brief glimpse of acceptance behind her now blank stare. “What do you want me to say? Thank you? Thank you.” Her tired voice dripped with sarcasm. “There. Happy? Does that make your heart all warm and fuzzy? Will it help you sleep better at night?”
Her words stung, but I didn’t flinch. I wasn’t groveling for her gratitude. I simply wanted her to understand—to survive. Everything else was outside my control.
My chest tightened as the memory of it all came back full force. “I had orders. Orders Prescott demanded I upheld in his last moments. Don’t disrespect his death by questioning theoutcome. He was a soldier before all else. Prescott went out the way he’d expected to twenty times over, protecting those he cared about.”
The words didn’t register with her. Instead, she stared back at me, jaw slack, eyes blinking back with disbelief. How could I expect her to understand my perspective, after all? With over a decade of life experience on her and navigating the onset of the apocalypse on my own, we would never see things the same way. The only one of us that had a chance of relating slightly was Abel, and he had the heart of a soldier. He would always put The Compound first. It was all he had tethering him to reality during his time in Duluth.
“Following orders? Sounds like a lame excuse to not have to do the hard thing. To make tough choices as unscathed as possible. I don’t know,empathizea bit. Everything is so black and white with you, Riley, and honestly, it makes me feel bad for you. It’s sad,” Elie said, her entire demeanor laced with venom as she twisted, diving the knife through my heart deeper, doing irreparable damage.
I clenched my fists, nails digging into my calloused palms as I fought to maintain my composure, but she wasn’t done. Another wisp of blonde hair came into view in my peripheral vision. Elie’s eyes scanned behind my shoulder, taking them in before she continued.
“You lost three people close to you in less than a year and you haven’t even shed a tear. Three people are dead and each one of them died mindlessly following protocol. Following‘orders.’There are times to be a soldier, Riley, and then there’re times to put your family first.”
Heat surged through my chest, rage building with every word she spoke. Elie stepped closer, her eyes locked on mine, unflinching.
“I hope I never lose my humanity,” she said, her voice quieter now but no less piercing. “I would hate to end up like you.”
I swallowed hard, forcing down the lump of anger burning in my throat. Keeping my voice even took everything I had, but I couldn’t let myself snap. She wasn’t just talking about Prescott. She was talking about her mother. About how I’d told her to wait. How I’d convinced her mom to hold off on searching for her father until I could gather a team.
And maybe—just maybe—if I hadn’t done that, if I’d let her go when she wanted to, things would be different. Maybe Elie’s mom wouldn’t have jumped. It was the maybes in life that weighed on us all the most.
“I answer to my general and only my general. If you want to be a soldier, Eleanor, then I expect you to do the same.”
Her eyes flared with a heat that burned right through me, and before I could get another word in, she turned on her heels, storming off toward North Gate. Not once did she look back. For a brief second, I felt that familiar urge rise in my chest, the one that told me to go after her, to stop her from making whatever reckless choice was about to follow. I always tried to stop it. Always thought I could fix things if I acted fast enough.
But I didn’t move.
