Hope’s End

Начало книги

Captain Verundish contemplated killing herself.

The pistol sat in her lap, the muzzle loaded, the flint cocked and the pan primed.

It would be a simple thing to put the barrel in her mouth, angle it upward to her brain, and pull the trigger. Some poor infantryman would have to clean the blood and bits of bone off the back of her tent—or maybe they’d just take it down and burn it. Her body would be sent back to Adro, where…

Well, why concern herself with the details? None of it would matter to her.

She wrapped her fingers around the butt of the pistol that had belonged to her grandfather, the grip worn and smooth to the touch, and she was glad that she had so little family left behind to mourn her. Would they mourn her after she took the coward’s way out?

Would Genevie remember her mother?

A letter lay on the table beside her cot. The sender was a man who legally called himself her husband, but had no further claim to that position beyond the letter of the law. Verundish wanted to burn the letter and erase everything it said.

Читать дальше →