No Promises by Z.J. Cannon

Author:Z.J. Cannon [Cannon, Z.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Z.J. Cannon
Published: 2021-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

I forced myself to sit down on the bed next to Skye. I didn’t intend to have this conversation while looming over her, lecturing her like an overbearing parent. As soon as I sat, my body reminded me forcefully how close I was to a human—a human who had seen the truth of me, no less. All my muscles locked up at once. Restless energy flooded through my veins. The sounds in the room took on a perfect clarity—the ticking of the clock, Skye’s rhythmic breathing, my own foot tap-tap-tapping the floor in a frantic rhythm.

I made my foot go still. “What I told you before was true,” I said. “I fought alongside your grandfather. You remind me of him, you know. At first glance, he looked weak. Fragile. More than one person—his own family among them—said he didn’t belong in the army at all.”

“And that’s what makes me remind you of him? Gee, thanks.”

“But there were two things about Ernest that proved them all wrong. The first was that nothing could ever get him down. He could see someone die beside him, so close his own face was splattered with blood, and an hour later he’d be telling me an old joke from his childhood, trying to pull me out of whatever dark pit I had fallen in.”

That brought a faint smile to Skye’s face. “I remember his jokes. Not a single one of them was any good. Even as a kid, I knew they were terrible. But they always made me smile anyway. It was something about the way he told them. Like all he wanted in the world was to bring a little joy into someone’s life.”

Against my will, I echoed her smile. “Yes, exactly. And the other thing about Ernest was, he would never turn away from what he knew was right. He wasn’t a fighter, and he knew it. But he saw a need, and he was helpless to resist.” My voice softened, remembering. “The two of us were alike in that way. Although I was growing disillusioned even then. He helped to change that, for a while. We fought together—good versus evil. He reminded me of a time when life had been that simple. Through his eyes, I saw that it could be that simple again. It helped that the war felt like exactly the kind of conflict that had appealed to me all my life—a hopeless cause, the forces of righteousness against the forces of darkness. Those noble crusades I mentioned? There’s a reason I know how the story always ends. I’ve been throwing myself at them headlong since I was your age.”

“In the time of castles and dragons,” said Skye dreamily.

The words didn’t set me on edge as much as I expected they would. Maybe because I could imagine Ernest saying them, if we had ever had this much honesty between us. “Not quite,” I answered. “I was in Ireland back then, and our little one-room hut was a far cry from a castle.

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