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Ilana had grown up hearing the stories of the Manhunters. They came to Volkreg and ravaged it, killing indiscriminately and without mercy. The young, the old, the strong, the weak. No one escaped the Manhunters. Eventually, they stopped and died themselves, as though someone had ripped out their power cores, but the damage was done. Flourishing cities became ghost towns. Villages became nomadic tribes. Families became mass graves. In the absence of the Manhunters, of a supreme fear that kept her people in line and terrified, the charismatic and rich declared themselves to be the lost rulers of Volkreg, and thus began the War of the Lords.
Ilana knew no other life besides the war. She had been born in it and lived by its ever-turning wheels. She knew when to collect water, when to prepare food, when to catch a few hours sleep. She knew to prepare food and drink for days because you might be too busy running for your life. She knew when to abandon everything because it would only slow you down. As she grew older, she learned to identify the sounds of marching armies and how far away they were. She learned that the scouts were worse than the infantry, but they could still be bribed to forget her and her tribe. Food, drink, movements of other armies, antidotes for her poison darts. Whatever would make them turn away.
Running and hiding was no way to end a war, though.
---
This is the longest she has stayed in one place. Seven moons with her husband, living in a newly founded city. It was one of the few places without a warlord, but that did not make it any safer. It only meant that you weren’t conscripted into the army because you could still breathe. In the city, Ilana worked as an herbalist, helping whoever she could with whatever she had, and Razer was welcomed as a rare and highly prized engineer.
And now he wanted to throw away all of that and die in this stupid, pointless war because some warlord has convinced him and so many others that the war needs men of peace for soldiers.
“Don’t go,” she begs. You’re just one person, you’ll die, you’ll never come back to me, the war will eat you up and spit out your bones for me to clean and bury. Fear was bred into her bones long ago, but a new terror rears its ugly head. She’s never loved anyone else like this before. She’s never had someone to lose.
He doesn’t listen to her. He kisses her goodbye and promises he’ll be home soon.
---
Ilana acts against everything she knows and wades through the aftermath of the battle. Looters and army cowards comb the dead for anything of worth, and will kill anyone they think may be cutting into their profits. She has no fear left for her own being though, only Razer, bright and sweet and stupid Razer, thinking he could end the war on his own. She has to find him and bring him home. The war is no place for engineers.
Rot has only started to settle in, but it’s enough to make her choke if she breathes too deeply. Blood soaks the hems of her skirts, which are constantly snagging on weapons. She should have worn her britches, modesty be damned. Her skirt catches on something - a sword, a belt, a corpse - and she stumbles. Rights herself. Continues searching for Razer.
If she can just find him, then she can bring him home. Convince him that his place is not on the battle field but at home. His mind alone is worth an army of men, if applied correctly. And he promised that he’d come back to her.
---
In the end, he breaks his promise to her.
---
His body is cool in her arms. It’s heavy, too, but she cannot bear to put him down. She cradles him in her arms, like he used to hold her, except his chest is full of holes and his blood has leaked out of his body. Her hands are stained with her husband’s blood, and there’s nothing she can do to save him. Even if she had found him alive, there were no plants that could heal a sword’s strike.
The war took from her everything; her family, her home, her sense of safety. It made her nomadic and afraid to have children and condemn them to the life she led. It took her name, her identity. She was Ilana to few, the herbalist to some, refugee to all. And when it had nothing left to take from her, it took Razer.
The sound that escapes her throat is low and guttural, more like a wounded animal than a grieving widow. She can’t stop it, won’t stop it. Razer, she cries, and it’s like his killer had torn out her heart alone with his, there’s a gaping hole inside her and nothing can fill it now. It’s perfectly Razer-shaped and hurts so much. It’s growing and she’s collapsing like an aged star at the end of its life. She howls and curses, wordlessly and full of hate. All she sees is red, the red of the soil, of his blood, of the dying day. It speaks to her.
Ilana of the Forgotten Zone, it says. You have great rage in your heart. You belong to the Red Lantern Corps.
Give in.
The ring knows your pain.
Ilana tears her eyes from her husband to the bright red rage from without. A ring floats high above her, surrounded by a halo of light. It burns like a sun. She rises, lets go of Razer. “Someone must pay.”
You will have your revenge. This, your new master Atrocitus, promises.
The ring slides onto her finger as though it was made just for her. Promises are for children, she cannot say. Her screams fill the air once more, and in rage and fire, Ilana is born anew.
Welcome to the Red Lantern Corps.
---
The War of the Lords ends by sunrise.
Volkreg is dead.