Chapter One

7 years earlier

My brother and I were close. We protected each other and knew each other well. So I guess that's why I began to feel inexplicably worried about him a year before he was called. I was nine and he was fifteen. I had known about this since I was old enough to understand our language and I had been fascinated in the beginning. Once I was old enough to read I would study this war for many hours on end. It wasn't until I found out about the age limit that I began to worry. For any boy who lives to be sixteen is called to go serve in the war until they get severely injured or die.

My brother was coming of age and the close bond we shared made me fret and worry so much that I began to lose weight. For the first little while, my brother would shrug off any excitement he felt (I think because of me) but in time, he could hardly contain it.

At the first signs of my losing weight, my brother laughed and said what a stubborn girl I was; that I would fret and lose weight over something as silly as this, but soon the situation became serious. That's when I got so sick that I couldn't walk and began to throw up anything I ate.

Our father was frantic.

I think that was because he had already lost his wife and three sons. I barely knew them because I was quite young when they left for war, which is probably part of the reason my brother (that I know so well) and I were so close. It was he who had to talk to our father and convince him to calm down.

Later on when it had been a month since I became sick, my brother began to come and sit by my bed, stroke my long, curly lox, chocolate brown hair, talking about all the adventures he and I would go on once he came back from the war. He mumbled sometimes about how, even though he was excited to go off and fight and try to end this war, he was still afraid. Those were usually the days when I would be slightly conscious about my surroundings and he didn't know it.

He had spoken of our mother as well; saying how much he missed her and her singing. He also spoke about how, after I'd been born for a few months, our mother would take me and all my brothers out in a secret place that was more beautiful than I could imagine. And then, he told of how our village was attacked and our father wasn't home at the time so that when the pinchmen came, my mother was the only one there for us. She died protecting us. After that, our father became a little more reserved and quiet. So it was then that my second oldest brother took charge of the house (for the oldest had been called to war a year before.)

Each day my brother would come in and talk to me about these things (or so I was told) and always before he would leave the room he would "be strong little one. I want to see you well before I leave."
Finally, after it had been two months since I had been sick, I woke up in sort of a daze and walked up to our kitchen without being seen and snacked on some bread (though not too much for I still felt sick). Later, I would find out that my father was frantic with worry for he had come to visit me and found I was gone. It didn't take them long to find me for my father, brother, and some of our workers all hurried to the kitchens to grab torches to see if I had walked into the forest behind our house; but when they walked into the dark room they all stopped then gasped as I turned to look at them.

They all rushed over to where I had been sitting on the low stool, munching on wheat bread, but it was my father and brother who embraced me and for the first time I truly saw how much they really loved me when I looked into their wild eyes, then listened as they spoke.

"Sariah!" for that was my name, "what were you thinking, leaving your room without anyone knowing. You scared everyone half to death!" all I could do was shrug and struggle to find my voice.

"I'm sorry daddy. I was very hungry." His face softened from the hard look it had had and hugged me again.

"It's alright, just don't do it again," all I did was nod and hug my brother as he carried me back to my medium sized bedroom, and laid me down on the feathered bed. As he left, he turned and looked at me and smiled, seeming so much older than he really was. Then he spoke,

"I knew you'd be strong little one," and left my room.

It wasn't long after that that I gained color back in my face and I began to eat more often. Then my birthday came and went and two weeks later, my brother's birthday came and now I was ten and he sixteen, and dread filled my bosom once again; then the dreadful day came.

Exactly two weeks after my brother turned sixteen, people on horseback came with a letter in hand. I stared out my bedroom window as I watched my brother go out to them, shook their hands eagerly, and exchanged words that I couldn't hear.

I watched as he read the letter with a smile, but halfway through he frowned and immediately I knew what it said. He was to pack up and leave now. I knew he had to obey what the letter said because I had read in a book once that the King made it a law that any boy who is sixteen has to go to war if, by chance, there was one.

So here my brother came walking inside the house and I knew that he'd gone to pack before he would see me one last time so instead, I met him in his room where, when I walked in, I found him crying. I sat down next to him on his checker quilted bed, putting my tiny hand on the small of his back.

"Michael, brother, what's wrong?" He glanced over at me, admiration glowing in his pale blue eyes.

"Sariah, how is it you can be so calm? Your voice is so soft; just like mother's." he turned his head away from me, covering his mouth with his right hand. After a few moments he began to speak again while I just sat and listened.

"Knowing that I was gonna be going off to war once I was sixteen, I have been so excited! But now, knowing that I won't see you for a long time, I don't even want to leave home. Why is that?"

"I left the question blank for I didn't know what to say to that. So, eventually, my brother got up and packed his bag (for we weren't that wealthy and didn't have much personal items) and all too soon, I was standing in the vast field right by the wooden fence and dirt road.

As I hugged my brother for one last time, tears came unbidden to my eyes and I began to cry softly. This time, it was Michael patting me on the back as I cried.

"Hush now dear sister. I'll be fine. I promise that when I come back we'll go on many adventures. Promise." He tapped my nose lightly as he stared eye level at me. "Be strong kiddo, I'll return before you know it." He kissed my forehead, then stood up. He gave my father one last hug, and jumped up on his chocolate brown horse and rode off with the other soldiers down the dirt road, out of sight. That was the last time I ever saw him.