Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment #1)

A war with the gods is not what you expect it to be.

You expect what history tells you of mortal affairs, which are battles that rage for days and nights, sieges, heavy casualties, food rations, ruthless tactics and generals, secret missions that lead to surprising success, and a white flag of surrender. You expect numbers and heavily guarded maps and a sea of uniforms.

But it’s also a town that must lock itself up during the night, to hide its light from stalking hounds. A town that must be vigilant even more so during the day, prepared for earth-shattering consequences provoked by something as gentle and ordinary as walking the street you grew up on.

It’s a school-turned-infirmary filled with wounded bodies and souls and lives, and yet they are people so full of bravery and hope and determination it makes you hold a mirror to your own self when you’re alone. To find and name what lurks within you. Relief, shame, admiration, sadness, hope, encouragement, dread, faith. And why such things are there in your bones, when you’ve yet to give yourself up to something so selfless.

It’s wondering what tomorrow will bring. What the next hour will bring. What the next minute will bring. Time suddenly feels sharper than a knife grazing your skin, capable of cutting you at any moment.

Iris stopped typing.

She stared at the jar on her desk—her mother’s ashes. Her breath felt shallow, and a knot formed in her chest. She was still debating where to spread them. If she should do it soon or wait.

What would you like, Mum?

It was quiet. There was no answer. Her eyes drifted back to the page as she sorted through the tangle of emotions she was feeling.

She still hadn’t seen the front lines. She still hadn’t experienced any sort of battle or catastrophe or hunger or injury. But she had felt loss, and she sought to see the war through that lens. A few minutes passed, and Iris sighed.

I don’t know how to write about war.

As if sensing her debate, Attie knocked on her door.

“How’s your article coming along?” she asked.

“Harder than I expected,” Iris confessed with a sad smile.

“Same with mine. Let’s take a walk.”

The girls left via the B and B’s back doors, through the freshly tilled garden and down the next street over, into the golden field that Iris could see from her bedroom window. The grass was long, touching their knees as they walked side by side. They were far enough away from the town that they could speak freely, but close enough that they could easily make it to shelter if a siren went off.

To Iris’s surprise, Attie didn’t ask for details on what she was writing about, or why it was coming so slowly and arduously. She asked, “Where do you think Marisol’s wife is?”

“Keegan? Marisol said she was traveling, didn’t she?” Iris replied, fingers tracing wispy seed heads. “I assume she’s in Oath, or perhaps another city up north.”

Attie was quiet for a moment, squinting against the late afternoon sun. “Maybe. I just have this strange feeling Marisol is lying to us.”

That gave Iris pause. “Why would she need to lie to us about that?”

“Maybe lie is the wrong word. Mislead is better suited, because she’s trying to protect herself and her wife.”

“Protect them from what?”

“I don’t know,” Attie said. “But something feels odd.”

“I feel like Marisol would tell us if it was important,” Iris replied.

“Yes. I think she would too. Perhaps I’m only imagining it.”

They strode farther down the field, and just the movement of walking after sitting crunched at her desk most of the day lifted Iris’s demeanor. There was nothing but the sound of grass whispering against their legs, and a few starlings trilling overhead. No matter how long she lived here, she didn’t think she would ever get used to how quiet it was.

“Do you think it’s possible to fall in love with a stranger?” Iris asked.

“Like love at first sight?”

“Not exactly. More like loving someone you’ve never met. Someone whose name you don’t even know but who you have a connection with.”

Attie was quiet for a beat. “I’m not sure. Maybe? But only because I’m a romantic at heart.” And she cast a wry smile Iris’s way. “Why do you ask? Has a stranger caught your eye at the infirmary?”

“No. It’s just something I’m currently thinking about.”

Attie glanced up to the sky, as if the answers hid above them, high up in the clouds. The words she said next lingered with Iris for hours afterward.

“These days, I think anything is possible, Iris.”

Things I know about you:

1. You slouch sometimes.
2. You have your father’s chin.
3. Your hair is perfect, somewhere between rogue and knight errant.
4. You have a nan, who is full of myths.
5. You’re Del’s older brother.
6. You live in Oath.
7. You’re 19 (I think? I added up your age from a previous letter).
8. Your writing is impeccable and often makes me laugh.

Things I don’t know about you:

1. Your name.

Iris folded the paper and sent it over the portal that night. She waited, expecting him to reply swiftly, as he was prone to do. But when the minutes continued to stretch long and quiet, her stomach began to ache and she paced her room, full of worry. She had thought they were ready to exchange names at last. But perhaps she had somehow misinterpreted their communication.

An hour later, he replied.

Iris snatched the paper off the floor and read:

Then you already know all the important facets of me. I don’t feel as if my name is worthy to note, but you can call me Carver. That’s what Del used to call me, and I miss it some days.

—C.

Carver. Iris let his name wash through her before she whispered it into the shadows of her bedroom.

“Carver.”

A name that was hard and unforgiving, cutting the air with its sound. A name she never would have thought belonged to him.

She typed:

Hi, Carver. I’m Iris.

He sent a message back:

“Little flower.” I see it now. The name suits you.

P.S. Hi, Iris.

Iris chuckled, uncertain what to make of him. Gods, she wanted to know what he looked like. She wanted to know the cadence of his voice. What sort of facial expressions did he make when he typed his postscripts?

Dear Carver (I confess, it’s so nice to finally be able to address my letters to you!),

Most people instantly think of an eyeball when they learn my name. It bothered me so greatly when I was younger in school. Some boys relentlessly teased me, so that’s why Forest nicknamed me “Little Flower.”

Even then, I disliked my name, and asked my mother (whose name was Aster, by the way) why she didn’t name me something fashionable, like Alexandra or Victoria.

“The women in our family have always been named after flowers,” Mum said. “Be proud of your name.”

Alas, I’m still striving to be.

—Iris

He replied:

Dear Iris,

I have to say that an eyeball is the furthest image from my mind. Even the fierce flower that inspired your mother to name you wasn’t the first thing I thought of. Rather:

iris: transitive verb: to make iridescent.

Let us make our names exactly what we want them to be.

—C.

Dear Commanding Officer of the E Brigade,

My name is Iris Winnow, and I am currently seeking the whereabouts of my brother, Private Forest M. Winnow. I was informed by the Brigadier-General’s second assistant that my brother was sorted into Second E Battalion, Fifth Landover Company, under Captain Rena G. Griss.

I haven’t heard from Forest since the day he enlisted nearly six months ago, and I am concerned about his well-being. If you could provide me with an update on the Fifth Landover Company, or an address that I may write to, I would be deeply grateful.

Sincerely,

Iris Winnow

War correspondent for the Inkridden Tribune

Stationed at Avalon Bluff, Western Borough, Cambria