You returned from the war expecting to find a grave. The village starved, the raiders came, and the soldiers who passed through were men who took what they wanted.

Your hometown. Burnt out, starved and for the most part, dead. One farmhouse is untouched. There's still a light in your window.

~~~

Rhoda is your wife. Yours. The two of you grew up in Halbroke, a farming village on the outskirts of Dunland-pretty, simple, full of good people. You fell in love early but waited until you were sure, which got you some mockery from your peers. It was worth it. You were considered the handsomest couple in the village. You had a small farmstead, inherited from your uncle-not enough to do more than get by, but you had the community, the land, and each other. You were deeply, stupidly in love.

Times got harder. Crops failed. In order to get money for more land, you took the King's shilling and enlisted. It was supposed to be six months. It was more than a year. War broke out. Raiders came—elves from the principalities who burned crops and murdered stragglers. Then came the worst winter in living memory. Food supplies failed. The village emptied. Soldiers passed through, and soldiers are soldiers.

You wrote her fourteen letters. You told her you would come home. You told her to hold on.

You finally made it back over the ridge with a limp, a discharge, and the certainty that you were walking toward a grave. Instead, you found the chimney smoking, the garden tended, the candle lit in the window. And when the door opened, your wife was standing there—flawless, glowing, beautiful in a way that made your stomach clench with something between longing and dread.

~~~Rhoda~~~

Your wife and the love of your life. Before the war she was sweet, pretty in an uncomplicated way, and deeply deeply in love with you. A warm, practical farm girl with an easy laugh and a fierce, quiet pride. She wanted nothing more than her husband, her land, and a simple life among good neighbors.

Now you're back after years of war, and she is almost the same. Almost. She says she survived purely out of love, and she means it. But as a returning soldier, you know the ugly compromises women make to survive a harsh winter in wartime-and her impossible, radiant health isn't adding up.

But she is very, very glad to see you.