They do their best to stand straight as soldiers. They mime the posture, they hold so perfectly still they are obviously recruits. First-off, none of them know for certain how to hold their hands. Some cast their fingers straight down, others curl them in fists. In less than a week, they'll all be too tired to do more than just hold their hands relaxed at their sides, unlock their knees, and breath evenly under their uniforms. For now, every glance or barked order makes them jump. There's too much inside of them. Too much fear. Too much hope. Too much excitement. So many questions.

Who will kill first? Who will be killed? Who will cause an accident? Friendly fire? Missed assignment?

One glance to the captain and I know she's making the same wagers as I am. Every three months, the high houses and common silvers alike send a few of their children to become heroes. Leaders. To become like me, to be like General McCathos, or the Panther. To prowl around the Lakelands and finally end the war. They send them to be the bringers of glory where no glory has ever been found.

I killed my first man in my sixteenth week. He was tall, small for a Strongarm, and light on his feet. He came to the rear of the camp and would have crushed me. I laid him out with a steal stake through his neck. I had been aiming for his heart, but I missed. I told my commanding officer I didn't want him to scream. They gave me my first medal for an accident. I served the rest of my guard shift stinking of blood, feeling the faint iron within it. I did not feel any glory.

Who will go home in a box? Who will go home a ghost? Who isn't human enough to be haunted? The questions, the statistics wear me out.

Pacing up one line and back down another, we examine the recruits. I look for their uniform to be in standard, pristine position. No wrinkles. No stains. Collars buttoned and name tags straight. I stop and correct the alignment of a shirt. The recruit holds her breath the entire time. Her jaw quivers. She might be frightened enough to have a chance or just enough to freeze. I finish. I move on.

If I didn't see the insignia, I wouldn't have been able to pick the prince out of the new recruits, but he wears the black crown on his left shoulder. I knew he would come soon, eventually, just not now. We're told to treat him the same, but that splash of black means differently. We're to keep him alive, keep him safe, let him collect stories he can tell until he's grey in the temples. Every King needs stories about war, none of them have ever seen a real fight, just a play for their stories.

Silvers, get sent when our families please. Fifteen for Prince Tiberias, I doubt he's ever had to shave. I see others in the row that must be younger than thirteen. None as young as I was when Uncle Volo sent me. Up to a quarter might die in the next six months because there's no truly safe place. Those that survive, those from the high houses, they'll go home with their stories. The rest, they'll likely stick out a full five years for their stipend. A stipend gets a good marriage, some property, a business. None of that is glory.

"Thoughts, Samos?" Crevling asks when we meet at the front of the formations.

"Third row, third from the end, box for sure," I sigh. She gives me her wager. And then training commences. They'll be in the trenches in six weeks.

.

I write the letters home. If we don't know what happened, we use a form letter, like the reds. They lose too many for specifics. But when I can, for my soldiers, I try my best to give their families what I would want if I had a child lost in this war. Today, I write the first letter for the latest recruits.

.

Dear Mrs. Morrits,

I am truly sorry to inform you of the death of Julia Morrits. She fell during combat at the front lines defending Norta against an aggressive and formidable enemy. Her sacrifice is now your burden and for that I am sincerely sorry. Julia died as she directed a red unit's advance across the Choke. Her planning and preparation made this an otherwise successful push. She did not suffer and went quickly, I hope these small details can bring you some amount of peace.

Regretfully yours,

Captain, Lucas Samos

.

"You baby them," Crevling yawns and lurches up from our bed.

"They just lost a daughter." We have this discussion with every first death.

Julia is just another in a long line of deaths and she won't be the last. She was fifteen years old from a common silver family. I try not to think what the stipend meant to them.

"They sent her to war. What did they expect?" Crevling pours us both a drink.

"Not a box."

"Then they don't understand war."

"No one understands this war. Well, except the reds. Sometimes I think they're the only ones who do."

To this, she always agrees. I drink. She drinks. She lets me finish my paperwork in silence. Then she kneads my shoulders and pulls me to bed. She is the only thing that I don't hate about my life.

.

I will not be known as the captain that got the prince killed.

Shit-for-brains Calore has sunk waste deep in shit before setting off a flare. The Lakelanders are careening across the plain with arrows and missals. They have guns drawn and if it weren't for the reds shielding us with numbers, I know the entire company would be dead. But instead of retreating, we are saving the future king of Norta.

The ground is unstable. I can't form a solid base to pull him up by his armor. He panics, lashing out, shoving at the weight on his shoulders, shedding his weapons and working on the buckles to rid himself of the only thing he has that will let me help him: iron plates.

"Push the water! Call a Telkie!" I shout at the Nymph beside me.

She draws the water away from the prince but not faster than the flood being pushed from the north. The water rises, but the mud also loosens. Stoneskins take position to block the aerial assault. A Telkie scrambles forward and strains to lift Tiberias above the rising waters. A rope circles him and pulls him in as we lose a good man to the current. The half-drowned prince is a brown ball of mud when he comes to the high ground.

He has a story to tell, I wonder if he'll remember the three hundred reds he lost under his command. Or the fifty or more that survived by deserting their posts. They'll be executed for their lack of bravery. What will Prince Tiberias say when he recounts the day he almost died in a Lakeland flood?

.

Crevling stares at her letter, stunned. Her request to discharge at five years has been granted. She's going home with her stipend. She hesitates. I won't let her stay. There is no longer anything about this war that I don't hate.

.

My request to Uncle Volo to serve the Rift has been denied. I bring too much honor to the family by serving so long and so valiantly. Politics I'll never understand. Family spats are even worse.

.

The Prince struggles with his body count. I teeter between admiration and disgust. He shouldn't be so soft. He shouldn't be so effected. He has hand written every condolence letter for the reds he lost. I help him seal the envelopes. We talk about expectations, and family duty. He talks about luxuries we both don't have like baths and choices. If he makes it to the throne, perhaps he'll end this war. If I live to see it, I would like very much for that to be true.

.

"When was the last time you were home?" Beamish asks.

"Six months," Cal admits, adding quickly, "Not very long ago." To be polite, he turns to her and asks, "You?"

"Oh, a few years. I got my three-year-leave coming, though," she smiles.

"Well, I hope the days pass quickly," Cal covers his pity well enough that Beamish doesn't notice. She's still a little start-struck to be escorting the prince. He looks away from her, back to me, seeking a way out of the awkwardness he feels. "You, Samos? When was the last time you saw home?"

"Five years, my lord," I bow as I address him, the way I was trained as a child. It feels more natural than the saluting and soldierly requirements. I'm not certain which protocol applies, but he nods and smiles more broadly. If I've messed up, he doesn't care.

In the last five years since I left the front lines, I have cycled into and out of the choke seventeen times. Each time brought dread and danger, death, and killing. But somehow, I feared it less than the prospect of going to the Rift. Five years ago, I took leave to sit at my grandfather's deathbed as he passed over my father and my line to bring my uncle Volo into power.

I neither wanted the responsibility, nor the drudgery of keeping the Rift running. But it was a slight against my father and his delicate son. I had ten years in the trenches, fifteen at war by then. And still the bodies I put into the ground weren't enough because they were in the name of Norta, not for pride. The rest of the house seems defectively brutal. Each battle that comes to a close makes me wonder if they're the way they are because they've never spent more than a week at war.

My lack of favor with Volo could land me back on the front despite Cal's best attempts. The prince has penned my recommendation to the Palace Guard. A slower pace, less death, less trouble than the front. But Volo can command me to the Rift, call me to serve in my birthright as a support to the house. A decade more and then I can retire to the countryside to one of the Samos estates outside the Rift. Someplace where I wouldn't have to beat the servants or starve taxes out of the people to survive. Some place I can pretend not to be a Samos.

Cal tries to insist we ride with him inside the transport, but it breaks protocol, which he also must know. While he sits alone inside, Beamish and I ride on the top, rifles ready, scanning the horizon.

"What are you gonna do now that you're not a soldier?" Beamish asks.

"I… I… don't know."

"You don't know?" she chuckles. "Tell you what, if I was getting off the front line, I would take a bath every night with bubbles and a glass of wine. And chocolate! I would get fat on chocolate."

"There isn't enough chocolate in the world to make you fat," I snark at her. It's not the first time I've teased her for her thinness.

"But can you imagine the fun of trying?"

"I'll give it a shot and send you a letter."

"Better send me some of that damn chocolate, captain."

Beamish doesn't come from a high house. She's enlisted because her parents died and no one could take her in. Since Crevling left, she's been a light in the gloom. She'll brighten someone else's days now that I'm gone. I hope I meet more like her at the Palace.

Hope. What a funny feeling after all these years.

.

"Captain Samos, welcome to the Palace Guard."

I snap to attention and salute when I see General McCanthos. She salutes back.

"At ease, sir. I am not your commanding officer here, I was just stopping in to share the progress on the last munitions order." When she leaves, I'm alone with the smug faces of play soldiers.

The Palace Guards have never been tested. I am the only one that's served the front. It takes less than a day for me to trace them all to the high houses, mostly the leading family lines. In that way, I fit in, but in all others, I am alone. This place is not my family and I miss my soldiers. Who knew I could miss something about the front?

.

"Come on Lucas," Cal drawls, drunk and swaying down the hall.

"I'm on duty, my lord," I attempt to excuse myself. I can't help but hope he persists. It's fun when Cal is drunk and rambunctious – still so young and without too much responsibility.

"Cal! Not my lord. Cal!" he nearly slips on the first step. I steady him. "One game. Then I'll go to bed, I swear."

It's against protocol, and my better judgement, but I follow the Prince to his suite of rooms. Somehow, three others know to meet him in his chambers. I recognize the girl, she works in the gardens, a Greenwarden. Cal introduces her with a blush. The other two men work as administrators, an Oblivion and a Windweaver. They're older and eye me like an intruding father. I suppose I'm old enough to be one.

"No, no! Lucas is cool. He's totally cool. Aren't you Lucas?"

"I am intruding, my lord," I start to back out, but he grabs my arm.

"Sit. Please. Sit and play a round. It's no fun without four and Maven's up at the front," Cal encourages everyone to the table, bringing the deck out and starting to explain the game.

It's one I've played for over a decade in every trench I've ever made my home. If he wasn't drunk, I'd have taken half his money, as drunk as he is, I take everything he puts on the table. The others are uneasy at how fast I win, thought I'd wager they're trying to lose to be in Cal's graces. I lose a few hands to them, splitting Cal's money a little before he declares himself bankrupt and we are excused for the night.

The Greenwarden and I share a small smile as we pass in the hall the next day, but she's careful to hold the line that divides us-guard and guarded. Cal is hungover the entire day. We repeat this cadence when ever he comes home from the front. I even look forward to it. It almost feels like a friendship.