The Wound Beneath the Uniform
The hardest wounds in Thomas had opened long before Grayshade Ford.
He had grown up inside the aftertaste of disgrace.
His mother, Eliza Reed, never called Nathan a traitor, but she also never had enough proof to fight the accusation publicly. She spent the rest of her life carrying herself with a dignity so tight it looked like pain. Thomas learned early that people forgive poverty faster than they forgive suspicion. A poor widow might receive bread. A traitor’s widow received pity sharpened into gossip.
When Eliza died of fever, Thomas sold the last of the house furniture and enlisted within the month.
He told himself he was buying back the Reed name.
In truth, he was renting out his body to men who would never give it back.
He spoke some of this aloud inside the shrine while Kellan stitched the cut in his side and Owen dozed in uneasy spurts by the brazier.
"I wore the coat because I thought if I stood long enough under their colors, the stain would fade," Thomas said.
Kellan tied off the thread. "Did it?"
Thomas gave a short, bitter smile. "Ask the major who slapped me in front of two hundred men."
Kellan’s amber eyes held steady. "A uniform does not heal the hand that tightens it around the wrong throat."
Thomas looked away.
He thought of the screams from the refuge ridge.
He thought of the cannon crews pulling lanyards while officers watched through brass telescopes.
He thought of his own silence after the first gun, when shock had frozen him in place long enough to become one more accomplice among many.
"I carried powder for the guns that hit them," he said.
Kellan did not soften the truth. "Yes."
Thomas flinched harder at that than at the needle.
After a moment Kellan reached for the torn white strap hanging loose from Thomas’s coat. With a small knife he cut away the muddy end and used the clean inner section to reinforce the bandage around Thomas’s ribs.
White turned dark as blood touched it.
Thomas watched the old symbol of service change in Kellan’s hands.
"There," Kellan said. "Better used for keeping a man alive."
No speech of absolution followed. None was offered.
But something in Thomas eased enough for breathing to hurt less.
May you like
Outside, the guns had finally gone quiet.
The war had not.
