“I think I might have. I’d like to think I would have the courage to reject their sentiment, but I cannot know.”
“How do you kill them, if you pity them?”
“You did too, remember?” Her hazel eyes were not condemning, but instead full of pity. “Did you hear me during the fight?
He shook his head.
“I always say, you don’t have to do this. Sometimes, they listen. Those I have spared.”
“You’ve...”
“They wouldn’t take kindly to that, in command.” She swallowed and shook her head. “I don’t know what to say, Solomon. I don’t have any words that will make this palatable to you. I’m not a saint. I never have been. I don’t know if what I’m doing is right, but I believe in the Union, and I’m doing the best I can to see the war ended quickly. I’ve n
ever taken lives for the sake of it.”
That, he could believe, and in the depths of her eyes, he could see some of the same fear that shadowed him: that none of this made sense, that it was all a terrible mistake. I’m no saint. It felt like absolution, after all this time, to hear another person admit to shades of grey. It was not, as the others claimed, good against evil.
“Then let’s go.”
Unfortunately the feeling had not eased; the strange quiet still signaled the coming fury of a storm. As they crept over the ridge, the camp had been eerily quiet, men sleeping though it was midnight and not midday. Solomon could see Jasper and Cecelia nowhere. Had they escaped? Solomon and Violet walked closer, their footfalls careful not to disturb this strange quiet.
The attack came from behind them, a shot that went wide and a yell, and the men in the camp sprang to their feet, running for Solomon and Violet with murder in their eyes. Solomon leveled his rifle, feeling the sickening drop of terror as a pistol was aimed. He was quicker; the man fell. Beside him, he heard Violet’s whispered litany: You don’t have to do this.
No one listened, and the short blade in her hand was covered in blood. Bright red streaked down her shirt, and Solomon spared a moment too long to try to see if it was hers; a fist caught him on the side of the face and he stumbled sideways...
...directly into the hands of Robert Knox, whose blow lifted Solomon up off his feet and sent him skidding across the forest floor when he landed. A scream from somewhere. Cecelia? Violet? He was up and scrambling away as Knox pointed a gun.
Violet came out of nowhere, dropping her shoulder and driving herself against Knox’s thighs, pushing him out of the way so that he dropped the pistol. Violet landed only one blow before having the sense to dance out of reach, but there were too many in the camp.
“Let go of—” Her. Solomon pushed himself up, and stopped dead at Violet’s warning cry. He turned, slowly, and his heart dropped. Jasper and Cecelia were bound, their hands in front of them, and knives at their throat. Where they had been hidden, Solomon did not know. He wanted to scream in fury. “Knox...”
“It’s over, Delancy.”
Solomon looked away, swaying with tiredness. He could hear Cecelia’s sobs, and he could not stop seeing the look of the dead man: shocked, but not nearly so shocked as Cecelia herself.
“Delancy.”
“I heard you.” Solomon wanted to laugh until he cried. All this time, afraid of Violet and the Union, and this was how it ended, torn to pieces by the Confederacy. Even he could see the humor in it.
“How long, Delancy? How long did it take you to get turned?”
He didn’t understand that question. Solomon looked over at last, his brow furrowed, and he met Knox’s suspicious eyes.
“We know everything.” Knox sounded as weary as Solomon himself. “Of everyone, I never thought it’d be you who’d turn. You believed.” His voice was bitter. “Or I thought you did.”
Solomon could not stop himself. He looked over to Violet. Her arms were wrenched behind her back and she bit against her lips not to cry out in pain—a sound Solomon knew would be too female to disguise, a breathy cry instead of a man’s shout. Blood streaked down along the side of her face, mixing with dirt and sweat, and all he could think, for one slow moment as the world seemed to stop around them, was how beautiful she looked. Was her nose too long, her mouth too thin? None of it mattered. She was courage and honor and beauty and a fragile strength that he had never seen the likes of before, and he wanted to throw himself on the ground at her feet and beg her forgiveness for bringing her here. If he had only gone back with her at the start, she would be safe.
He would still hate her, thinking her a man with no heart, and Cecelia and Jasper would still believe themselves abandoned by their loved ones.
Violet’s head rolled slightly and her eyes came open to slits. Her mouth opened in a faint ah of satisfaction. A puzzle completed, and Solomon’s heart sank. She knew, then. She knew he had fought amongst the Confederacy.
“You don’t understand,” Solomon said numbly, and for once, he meant that his crime was worse than anyone knew.
But Knox did not have a chance to respond, for it was Jasper who leapt in to the rescue.
“Horace...don’t make a fool of yourself. So this one lied to you. You can still beg their forgiveness. You never seemed the type to turn. He must have promised you something, told you something.”
The look in the man’s eyes was urgent, and Solomon thought his heart would break. No, he wanted to say, I’m guilty. Let me die. “It’s not like that.”