Growing up on a farm in Crestfield was supposed to be peaceful; and for the most part it was.

My childhood was spent riding my bike through wheat fields on my family's farm on the outskirts of the village, the wicker basket attached to the front of the metallic structure often holding things for a picnic. Walking for hours through fairytale woodlands surrounded only by the sound of birds chirping and small animals. I didn’t need anything else, because that was all I knew. Crestfield Farm was the idyllic paradise in a world at war, a war that had gone on for centuries already and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. Most of the people in the country didn’t even know why we had been attacking our neighbouring kingdom for so long, only that it had been going on for centuries. It was a well guarded secret kept in the possession of only the few closest to the royal family, seemingly the one thing both royal families agreed upon.

My finger hit the bell on the pink painted handlebars. I didn’t even know why I was thinking about the war right now, everything was good and it had never even affected us this far from the border, it could do nothing but weigh down my thoughts. My long ebony hair was billowing back in the wind, the late September air not quite earning its bitter winter chill yet.

“Morning Ellie”

Mrs Carter called to me from the other side of the lane, smiling her usual morning smile. She owned the quaint florist shop in the centre of the village, the place where I would go almost every day after school to get a new bouquet for the dinner table. By the time I became a teenager Verity Carter had become a grandmother figure to me, someone I could go to when I couldn’t even tell my parents.

“Morning Mrs Carter, how are the petunias coming along?”

I slowed my bike to continue the conversation, hearing metal sewing tin I had just brought clash to the front of the basket with my stop. Most of the things my family needed were self produced on our farm. Every morning it was my job to muck out and feed the chickens and cows, leaving the horses and crops to my parents and pigs and sheep to my older brother. Not that we had done that in a while, given that now it was just me and my parents in the farm house.

My older brother Azariah was killed in a hit and run five years ago. He was out at the market buying me a new winter coat for my birthday that coming November when it happened. I remembered being 15 and sat waiting in the living room with my mother, book in hand and steaming hot chocolate on the table in front of me, my father upstairs in the library like usual. The knock at the door after three hours was completely unexpected, the police officer standing on the other side even more so.

‘I’ll be home within the hour, love you pumpkin’

That was the last thing my brother ever said to me.

It was five years ago now, but I could still remember the screams of my mother, the crack of my fathers knees hitting the hardwood floor of the entryway as he came down the stairs. For a long time I was numb, numb to the fact that I would never see him again, numb to the fact I would never be chased through fields with my big brother again, numb to the fact that never again would I sit in the library reading with him, numb to the fact he was dead. The funeral was much the same, tears rolling down rosy pink cheeks that seemed even too colourful for the sombre environment. Everyone in Crestfield came, paying their respects and laying flowers weeks later. It was nice really, but I've never understood funerals, waiting until someone is gone to say how much you loved them.

By the time I remembered to pull myself out of my memory I was already pulling up to the front porch of the house. It was an old Victorian building, with a large porch wrapping the exterior and slightly chipping white panelling. My bedroom was at the top of the tower in the back of the house on the third story, pertaining to fond memories of watching my brother play outside. My family owned a few hundred acres out here, almost entirely covered by either animals or crops, namely wheat and corn. We moved here the month after I was born, when my brother was four, before that we had lived in Alverton, capital city of the Kingdom of Pedian. "I'm home!"

I yelled up to my parents. Since Azariah, it had been our thing to call out whenever we came in.

My feet trudged up the stairs, carrying the new metal sewing tin with me to my bedroom as I went. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have perfectly good clothes that didn’t have holes in them, sewing had never exactly been a passion of mine, if only buying a kit today was any indication. This sewing kit wasn’t even for my things, it was for my brothers, the moths taking up residence in his wardrobe had been annoying me for months now and I needed to fix his outfits before they completely fell apart.

Based on the hushed voices I could hear, my parents were in the library, currently their favourite place to have discussions without me present. My father had been an avid reader in his youth so encouraged my mother to turn the forever unused guest room into a library for all of us. Clearly it worked as now I couldn’t go anywhere without bringing along a reading companion to delve into another word. That didn’t mean I developed my father’s taste in reading though, his poetry books would forever be a mystery to me and my fantasy worlds. I knocked on the mahogany library door, my fist teetering on the edge of being heard while still maintaining authority as an adult not a child.

“Come on in Ell”

My arm pushed open the door, revealing my parents each sat on their designated bean bag chairs with serious yet unsure looks on their faces.

“Everything ok?”

My head cocked sideways slightly, black metal framed glasses slipping to the tip of my nose before I pushed them back up.

“Fine Ell’s just a heated debate about poetry books is all”

My mother smiled that smile she gives me to ensure I don’t further press the matter. It had been happening more often than not with her hushed conversations recently and each time the curious side of my brain ran with wild theories and speculation. Still, my mouth remained closed, my lips curving upwards to form a smile as I sunk onto my chair, knowing it would mean the end of whatever debate my parents were having.

I was twenty years old by now, and sure I still lived with my parents, didn’t have a job, or any plans to move out, and the most social life I had was with the florist shop owner, but I wasn’t a child anymore. For once I just wanted to know what was going on right under my nose. But I wasn’t stupid, I could see the way my mother wanted to say something, then came the pertinent look from my father telling her that under no circumstances should she do that.

I sighed, closing my eyes as my father began in the middle of a conversation about poetry books, as if that was actually what they had been talking about. I just rested my head back against the soft material of the beanbag and tried to sleep. Trying to figure out what my parents were hiding from me was complicated and to be honest I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. That was a tomorrow me issue.

The next day I awoke to a fight again. It was louder. More violent. And it wasn't just my parents yelling downstairs. Slowly, I crept downstairs - and then I saw him. Azariah, stood there, in the flesh. And with him, two other boys his age, dressed in ragged black and denim and leather. Each boy had a gun. And Azariah was pulling at the leash of a sharp-toothed dog, snapping at my father's heels.

"Az?" my mum asked, bewildered.

"It's not you he wants," the dark-haired boy behind him speaks. "He wants his father."
I looked at dad, who was crying now. He tried to make a run for the stairs, and then he smacked into me, sending us both toppling into the light.

It all went quiet.

"Azariah?" I called out.

"El?" He whispered, voice hoarse and croaky
"What is-"

"Your brother is blind. And deaf. Because of him." The dark-haired boy points at my father.
The words landed like a stone dropped into water.

Blind. Deaf.

I stared at Azariah, really looked at him this time. His eyes weren’t quite right—too unfocused, drifting past us instead of landing. When the dog snarled, he didn’t flinch. He only tightened his grip on the leash, knuckles white, jaw clenched like he was holding himself together by force alone.

Dad was scrambling backward now, palms sliding on the floor. “That’s not—” His voice broke. “That was an accident.”

The dark-haired boy laughed, sharp and humorless. “You don’t accidentally pull a trigger.”

My stomach turned. “Trigger?” I whispered.

Mum shook her head, backing toward me. “Azariah died,” she said, pleading, like if she said it firmly enough it would become true again. “They told us it was a hit-and-run. They told us—”

“They told you what he told them to,” the boy replied, jerking his chin at my father.

Azariah lifted his head at the sound of his voice. Slowly, carefully, he reached into the inside of his jacket and pulled out something small and metallic. It clinked as he dropped it onto the table.

A dog tag.

Not military. Resistance-issued. I’d seen pictures on the underground feeds before Dad had banned the network in our house.

“He found me at the checkpoint,” the dark-haired boy continued. “Trying to get out. Bleeding out in the dust. He didn’t finish the job. Your brother dragged me away instead.”

I swallowed hard. “Dragged you… how?”

Azariah turned his face towards him at the sound of his voice, like he was tracing it. His mouth trembled. “Couldn’t see,” he rasped, throat dry with non-use. “Couldn’t hear. But I knew you were screaming, Donny.”

The room tilted.

Dad let out a sound that wasn’t quite a sob. “You were going to get yourself killed,” he said, voice cracking. “That war—it’s poison. It takes everything it touches. I was trying to save you.”

“You shot me,” Azariah said simply.

Donny shifted his stance, shifted his gun too. The dog growled low, sensing it.

Azariah straightened. Whatever boy I’d lost two years ago was gone; in his place stood someone harder, held together by anger and memory. “You told them I ran into the street,” he said. “You buried an empty coffin. And you went back to work the next morning.”

My chest ached. “Az,” I said, stepping forward without thinking. Mum grabbed my arm, but I shook her off. “Why are you here now?”

His face softened—just a fraction. “Because the war’s coming home,” he said. “And because lies don’t stay buried.”

Donny raised his gun—not at us, but at the door. “We don’t have long,” he warned.

Azariah tightened the leash once more, the dog baring its teeth at my father.

“Tell her,” Azariah said, his voice steady now. “Tell them all what you did.”

And for the first time in my life, my father had nowhere left to hide.