We hadn't finished planting when the first news arrived, accompanied by dust from the dry southerly wind.
A falcon had fallen in our fields, its wings torn by a metal arrow bearing the Fety Kingdom's symbol: three crossed spears atop a broken crown. A sign of war. A sign of old ambitions that hadn't died yet.
The Fety Kingdom didn't want alliances; they wanted clear boundaries, absolute power, and a world subject to the old rules.
Our young fields, barely bearing fruit, were now the front line. The River Raniel, so recently a lifeline, was being stalked by an army that came silently, leaving only the sound of horse tracks and the shadows of the night.
Queen Avarenne stood beside me as the sun set, her face stern but calm.
"They can't accept that two once-hostile worlds now share the land," she said. "To them, peace is betrayal."
I nodded, staring at the small fires we'd begun to light to protect the fields from wild animals. But I knew… this time it wouldn't be the animals that would come.
"I don't want another war," I said.
"No one does," he replied. "But sometimes, to protect peace, we have to be strong enough not to run from it."
That night, we didn't sleep. Farmers wrapped seeds and hid their tools underground. Children were taken to the western hills, along with mothers wearing flower garlands, as if they were going to a seasonal festival.
But we knew this wasn't a festival.
This was a test from the old world—a world that wasn't ready to leave.
The next day, the first Fety troops appeared on the southern ridge. Their armor gleaming, and at the forefront stood General Karth, the predator of the frontier. He was known for never taking anyone's life. Only land and victory.
"I haven't come to negotiate," he said, his voice echoing through the settlement.
"I come to demand... that you hand over the River Raniel, and all its new lands. That land belongs to the blood that once conquered it."
I took a step forward. Queen Avarenne stood beside me, silent, but her hand gripped the hilt of an old sword not to attack, but simply to remind the world that we have not completely forgotten how to fight.
"This land has chosen to be unowned," I said. "And we will not surrender it to a revenge that knows no season."
General Karth gave a short laugh.
"Then prepare to lose everything."
And in that moment, on the brink of an unwanted, but unavoidable, war—I realized something:
> That planting trees on war-torn land is easy…
But keeping their roots from being uprooted by anger is what true warfare is all about.
That day the sky remained blue, as if unaware that the earth beneath it was holding its breath.
We had no high walls, no fully armed cavalry. But we had something else: people who planted with their own hands, and who refused to let the land be reclaimed by the sound of shouts and the flashing of torches.
In the evenings, we gathered in a simple wooden hall once built to hold planting season meetings. Now, it was a quiet space where we decided something greater than seeds and harvests: to persevere, or to give in.
There were no loud voices. Just a low murmur, a long look, and a firm handshake. A young man from Celenor, whose father had been killed by a spear from my valley, stood up and said:
"I planted a row of potatoes in the eastern field. If war comes and I don't return, please harvest them for my mother."
There were no shouts of encouragement. But in that silence, we knew: we would not give up this land so easily.
Not for victory.
But for something more difficult: preserving what had once grown from the wound.
And that night, for the first time since the war ended, I sharpened my sword again. Not because I wanted to use it…
But because there's something I must protect—with whatever means I have left.
> Because peace isn't a gift from the past.
It's a promise that must be upheld, even when the world chooses to forget it.