Autumn gave way to winter. His departure took whatever warmth was left in the village. At least for me. Idania had Bohdan to keep her warm in the November cold. Even Arron had found some recently widowed woman to share his hearth. This was no war, so it wasn’t their duty to fight. That made the burden harder to bear because I carried it alone. People laughed at the market and greeted me with a smile, but I didn’t need their smiles and couldn’t face their happiness. It repulsed me.

I stayed home, where I could gaze through the window in silence. Where no one could tell me that things would be alright. Where they couldn’t ask me how long until Roric came back. You would think one gets used to this the third time, but you would be wrong. The clump in your throat is there each time. The chill in your spine is unforgiving when your mind plays all the possible scenarios in your head. You think you are prepared for anything after rehearsing it over and over again, but you would be wrong again.

I will never forget the day the news came. It had snowed a few days before, and I couldn’t remember the last time I went out of the house. I was once again sitting on the window frame when I heard a noise coming from the front. I opened the door, and the people in front seized their conversation immediately. Bohdan, Idania, Arron, and another soldier with a vicious scar on his face stood on the other side of the yard. From all of them, only the soldier dared to look me in the eyes.

At this point, I already knew. I felt it long before the boy opened his mouth. So I didn’t rush, I didn’t cry, and I didn’t yell. Whatever he told me, I would face it with dignity. I walked to them barefoot in the snow with my head held high and shoulders back.

“Madame, I regret to bring such news to you, but your husband, Captain Roric… He has fallen in combat. The battalion was ambushed in the forests en route to Rhana. There were no survivors.”

His words faded out as reality came crashing down upon me. The last words of love you will get when you love a warrior. Fallen in combat. So impersonal, so grey. So that’s what those people felt, the ones who lost their fathers and brothers. While I held Roric in my arms the last two times he fought, they screamed and cried, and now it was my turn.

The pain of his death didn’t hurt. I knew he had accepted his fate with dignity. What hurt me was that I would have to live without his fire. The gods take the best ones early, and Mora had wanted him for so long. Well, she had him now. Life gave me everything, only to pull it away.

They continued talking, but I couldn’t hear anything. I didn’t feel the cold wind or the snow under my feet. I turned around and wanted to go back inside but stopped in my tracks. I saw tens of little blue flowers, the color of the summer sky, popping up from the snow. Those seeds that he had sown were flowers. The ones I loved so much.

“His love for you is forever.” - Bohdan said behind me.

I fell to my knees and picked up one of the flowers. I held it gently in both hands as if it was made of glass. My tears fell on its small petals, and a smile appeared on my face. Roric always kept his promises.