The truth was he'd never seen something so beautiful.
Too beautiful for war.
Too beautiful for ashes.
She belonged in fairytales. In long pink silk with ribbons in her blond hair. Her eyes would catch the sunlight just right. They'd look like stars dancing in a pale green sky, the laughter resonating like the sound of her voice carrying on the soft, gold-washed breeze. And there would be no death to destroy her, shard by shard, as if she were nothing more than a reflection of the lives she was forced to guide away. Guide home, to angels waiting with open arms. To God. He would keep them for her. Keep them until she could come to them and sob on their shoulders, no longer the portrait of bloodshed, no longer the progeny of war. She would beg forgiveness then. Please, forgive me. I tried…I tried.
She would be whole. She would be alive.
The stain of regret would be removed.
The truth was she was nothing more than a graveyard paved in skin. In flesh that wouldn't rot. Wouldn't fall away from broken bones. She wasn't living anymore. She merely existed for these men, the ones she held as they whispered into a half-dream. Delirium. Death.
No. I never want to treat another wounded man again.
Her hands lay in her lap, the scarf pooling in her palms like sacred water. He stared at them. The ache to take them, to heal her, was strong. To speak to her across the chasm that separated their empty lives.
But he stayed. Because she was Heaven.
And he couldn't reach her from Hell.