Winter was no time for war. Mother would say no time was. I held my guts in with my hands and tried to ignore the _I told you so_ echoing through my memories. They spoke in her voice, but I’d been so sure my magic would protect me. Make the nobles notice me. Win me a place in at court. It hadn’t. Leave glory to the lords, she’d begged. I hadn’t. Now, the vermilion dregs of my power gained me only suffering as I tried to staunch my bleeding guts. I couldn't think beyond that, tried not to scream. There was something about the silence that made me fear to break it, and besides. I couldn’t trust that the battle was won. My skin prickled and the cold sweat of fear drenched me. Gods beyond, I didn't want to die. Not like this. Eventually, the agony broke my will. A woman found me writhing on the ground after the battle was over, weeping, screaming please and in the half-second before she moved me, I was pathetically grateful she couldn't know I was crying for my mother. Then, pain—pain so bad I couldn’t fight the black unconsciousness anymore, though I tried. I didn’t want to die. * * * As soon as I woke, a priestess entered the room, the orange of her aura a fiery nimbus. “Good, you're awake. I was starting to worry.” I was mender-mage enough to be worried too. My stomach had been sealed, but any relief was cut short by the wrongness of the healing. The long winding tubes that should have lay within me were nothing but shredded flesh. “What did you do to me?” I asked. “Saved you from bleeding out.” I considered the smooth skin of my stomach, like casing over the sausage of my damaged organs. “This death is worse.” I’d poison myself with my own waste, if I didn’t starve. “Ah, but what if you could live?” I stared at her. “Nobody survives this kind of injury. Not even with magic.” She barked a harsh, bitter, breaking laugh. “Not many mages are willing to pay the price.” “What's the price?” The flicker of an approving half-smile twitched across her features. “If I do this, you won’t ever die.” _That's a bad thing?_ I wondered, then remembered tales of ancient gods standing chained to stones beyond the veil, eagles dining daily on their hearts. I considered the battle I’d just fought, my mother’s brittle fury at having lost both father and sons to the portmaster’s war; imagined a lifetime of lifetimes spent watching people I loved wither and perish. I didn’t want to die, but never dying? I shuddered, then pictured my mother’s face again. Would it be worth it, to spare her the pain of another son’s death? I never should have left. She didn’t deserve to suffer for my mistake. “I accept.” --- ## Analysis There's this really common phenomenon where people will ask, "What's your favorite war?" I kind of hate this question, mostly because the history buff obsession with different wars often makes me uncomfortable. World War II was horrible, World War I was horrible, the Punic Wars were horrible. The Napoleonic Wars, The 100 Years War, the War of the Roses... I generally find all of them more depressing than interesting. Like the protagonist’s mother in _The Offer,_ I’m typically less concerned with the strategic outcomes sought by distant leaders and more concerned with the heartbreak and loss war leads to on the “home front.” If we're talking about war, I try to never lose sight of the fact that, inevitably, a lot of people died. Nothing good really _comes from_ war. At best, a war can stop terrible things from continuing to happen, and you can say "it was necessary to get involved." But the breathless enthusiasm some people—some war buffs, I guess—have for certain historic wars makes me uncomfortable. That isn't to say that I don't think we shouldn't study war—there's a lot to be learned from history, good and bad. And so, when pressed, I will admit that the War of 1812 is my "favorite" war. It's the war that [multiple sides felt they won](https://nationalpost.com/news/tallying-the-winners-and-losers-of-the-war-of-1812). (Not all: the Native Americans who allied with the British definitely didn’t “win” the War of 1812.) The British felt like they achieved their goal, because they managed to impress enough naval soldiers for them to win their war against the French. For them, the War of 1812 was a sideshow to the Napoleonic War. Their fight with the French was in fact the impetus behind the War of 1812, since they desperately needed more sailors for their naval battles. Plus, they managed to defend their colonies: the Canadians feel like they won because they managed to stave off American invasion. Americans feel like they won because they managed to get the British to stop impressing their sailors into the British Navy. To be sure, the War of 1812 is a relatively obscure war; it's barely covered in classrooms outside the Baltimore region, and when it comes up, it's relevant mostly because the national anthem was written during the [Battle of Baltimore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baltimore). As such, one might think that one of the reasons the War of 1812 resonates with me so much is because I grew up in the area. I drove past the monument for the [Battle of North Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_North_Point) on a weekly basis for most of my teens and twenties. The photo I use most commonly online was taken at [Fort McHenry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_McHenry). Regional pride isn't why the War of 1812 matters so much to me, though. I value the War of 1812 above other wars because it is a constant reminder that [wars are won in the hearts of men](https://www.azquotes.com/quote/592774), not on the fields of battle. Winning a war is, to my mind, best defined by who achieved their objective. Sometimes more than one objective can be achieved and everyone "wins." Sometimes war ends in a Pyrrhic victory, where no one really “wins.” America dominated the battlefields of Vietnam, but [never achieved its objectives](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2wmizc/what_was_the_united_states_overall_goal_during/). This type of phenomenon has led to a lot of frustration on the part of generals and political “hawks,” who point to the incredible military might of the United States and want to know why the US Military can’t just go in and smash everything and “win the war.” The trouble is that [wars typically aren’t fought with the goal of total annihilation of the enemy in mind](https://www.quora.com/Which-part-of-the-year-season-started-most-wars). For one, genocide tends to upset citizens and trade partners, and for two, destroyed cities can’t produce resources.  Modern war at the level the “great states” are playing is usually about [geopolitical hegemony; it’s about power and influence](https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/bidens-failure-on-covid-vaccine-monopolies). Most of the wars that have been fought by the United States in the last 30 years have ostensibly had the goal of spreading democracy, or establishing stable and favorable government to improve trade, and those kinds of objectives are just fundamentally harder than “capturing a city” or controlling a territory so that members of the state population can occupy it safely, as was the case in during American westward expansion. Propaganda is critical to the goals of most modern states; [information warfare is called "the new face of warfare"](https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR661.html) for a reason. Modern goals require need complete control not just of the land but of the people; achieving those objectives requires things that are just not possible without complete conquests in a way that modern wars isn't oriented around. Damn few ancient wars were fought with that goal, either—the ancients were mostly raiding for supplies and trying to settle disputes at the point of a sword. Wars of deliberate territorial expansion are comparatively rare, especially if you’re looking for examples where the bureaucracy of the state is turned toward the task, rather than one conqueror like Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great. The two pre-modern examples I can think of off the top of my head are Rome and the Inca. The Inca and the Roman systems were remarkably similar. The Romans took control of nearby lands and then went out of their way to educate the high-ranking sons of tribal nobility, bringing them into Roman culture as a way to spread Roman culture. The Inca did something similar, [educating the sons of conquered enemies](https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2019/07/26/the-inca-empire-at-its-greatest/). It served a two-fold purpose, as the boys functioned as hostages but also came to identify with and value the conqueror’s culture—making them less likely to rebel. Wars like that are won in hearts and minds; empires fight for _hegemony_. People, though—people fight for the ones they love, and will embrace their own suffering to protect their loved ones, just as the protagonist of _The Offer_ has done.