The Last Light (The Wandering Inn, #5)

by Pirateaba

“I get it, Teres.” “What?” Trey hesitated. How could he explain? He thought and whispered into Teres’ ear. “Think about the Great War, Teres. The Lost Generation—you know? Think of it like that. Only the opposite.” She looked blankly at him, and then her eyes widened. She took in the room, the aged faces. The lack of young ones. “Oh.” It wasn’t the faces Trey saw that had bothered Flos. It wasn’t the living. It was those who weren’t there. The children. The young people. There were scarcely any people Trey and Teres’ age, and he had seen…how many children over the month he had been here? So few. It was a flash of insight. Flos, the King of Destruction would go to war. He would ride off, and his kingdom would rise with him. They would follow his banner into war again, as they always had. Only this time, no one would come back. Or rather, there would be no one to come back to. This time, there was no generation of young men and women to fight. It would be the fathers and mothers who took up arms, every living soul. There weren’t enough bodies left. This generation would be the last. This was Flos’ kingdom. Dying. They had come to life, but that life was fragile. Tenuous. They were what remained, but if Flos rode to war, there would be nothing left.