18th Day of Summer, Year 9132 of the Unic Reckoning. Bloody Meadows, Laref.

  The children screamed with joy as they gathered around the bonfire. The adults smiled indulgently, occasionally glancing their way.

  “Tell us a story!” a little girl shouted, tugging at the sleeve of an exhausted old man’s sweat-stained shirt.

  “I’m tired today,” he replied, but the child wouldn’t relent.

  “Just one!”

  “But…”

  “One!”

  The other children soon joined in. Some tried to make threatening faces, while others showed tearful eyes. The old man stood firm. He truly was tired that day. Summer had come heavy and hot for this part of the world. Sure, he had lived through harsher suns and walked on more scorched lands, but he had been younger then—he didn’t have to worry about crops, livestock, or the well-being of his family.

  “Pwease,” quietly pleaded a chubby three-year-old boy with eyes as green as the lush grass covering the meadows of Sur Amar.

  The old man sighed softly. He had such a soft spot for that child. Those green eyes and that innocent purity reminded him of the best years of his life. But today, they also reminded him of how old he had become.

  “Not today… Tomorrow, or…”

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  “Just one?” asked a hopeful young lad, handing the old man a bowl of watered-down soup. “Please, grandpa.”

  Oh, that was a low blow. How could he refuse his beloved grandson? The old man glared angrily at the man sitting nearby—his son. He shook his finger at him in annoyance, but the son merely shrugged and burst out laughing.

  “Will you refuse your grandson?” the son asked, raising his eyebrows high.

  “Tehor klak nur,” the old man cursed quietly in the Kibar tongue, knowing that none of those present understood it.

  His son laughed even louder but said nothing. The old man reluctantly turned his gaze to his grandson. The boy was already at an age when he should be looking for a wife, not listening to stories by the fire.

  “Aren’t you too old for all this?” he asked, not hiding his irritation.

  “Is my father too old? Or Crooked Pat? They listen to you carefully. Everyone does. Mom and sister, too. Even Old Lenka listens to you.”

  “I’m not that old, you village idiot!” the mentioned woman yelled, waving her cane threateningly.

  “You’re from the village too, Lenka, so don’t insult my boy!” the old man replied, shaking his head and rolling his eyes dramatically.

  Old Lenka snorted and went back to braiding her great-great-granddaughter’s hair.

  “So, will you tell us a story?” the boy asked again.

  The old man sighed softly but finally nodded in resignation. The gathered children squealed with delight, quickly sitting as close as possible and listening intently to the old man’s words. The adults also lowered their voices or fell silent altogether, even though everyone already knew these stories by heart. It wasn’t about what was said but how it was said. And it was said in a way that, for a moment, they could forget who and where they were. They could see lands and places they would never reach, become people they would never be. For a moment, they could do anything. That was all that mattered.

  “You won’t let an old man rest,” the old man growled, then cleared his throat, spat to the side, sighed heavily, and finally began his tale. “I was young and foolish back then, but if I hadn’t been, I never would have enlisted…”