“I—I liked foraging. I used to go with my father, during the summers.” There was a pause. “I didn’t realise it was important to you.” She was silent for a moment. Thinking of the wetlands stretched out around her, nothing but the wilds and the mountains and the brilliant blue sky above, the only place where she could breathe without smelling blood. “Sometimes it was the closest thing to freedom I still had.” She felt him freeze. “It’ll just be until the end of the war,” he said, the words half plea and half vow. A bitter laugh caught in her chest as she looked at him. “Just till then? When’ll
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