Chapter 39
Amryn
“You’ve grown up,” Tiras said, his cool eyes fastened on her.
Amryn’s heart pounded as she stared at her brother. The last time she’d seen him, he’d still been a boy at twelve years old. He’d been stained in blood. They’d both been. Their mother’s, and the knights who had killed her.
Tiras had saved her life that night, just as he protected her during their long walk back to Ferradin’s castle. They’d walked right up to their Uncle Rix, who had looked upon them with horror.
Amryn hadn’t been horrified by the blood on her tattered nightgown or under her fingernails. She’d felt nothing as she’d followed her brother home.
Tiras had made sure of that.
Amryn glanced toward Ford and Elowen. They were nearby. Close enough that Ford should have noticed a stranger standing with her. But he hadn’t. The banter between him and Elowen continued without pause. Like they didn’t even see Tiras.
Fear trickled through her. She knew Tiras could make anyone in the square feel whatever he wanted them to feel. Disinterest or apathy clearly worked for his purposes, at least for now.
“You’ve changed,” Tiras said. There was no inflection in his voice. No hint of nostalgia. She couldn’t even tell if he was disparaging her somehow.
“So have you,” she whispered.
“In some ways, yes.”
She met her brother’s unwavering gaze. “You’ve been watching me.”
“Yes.”
“You were outside the Vincetti townhouse last night.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to watch you.”
His answer was stated so simply, yet it made the fine hairs on her arms lift. “Why?” she asked again, her voice thinner than before.
“I was curious.” Tiras’s head tilted a fraction as his eyes trailed over her red curls. “You resemble Mother.”
Old grief stabbed her. Tiras wasn’t manipulating her emotions. At least, she was pretty sure he wasn’t. His own were closed off almost entirely. She could barely feel anything from him. A hint of wistfulness, perhaps. But no sorrow, even when referencing their murdered mother.
“You miss her,” Tiras stated. His tone was low. Detached. Just like the wisps of emotion she was able to sense from him.
“Yes.” She hesitated, then asked, “Do you?”
Her brother didn’t answer. Just continued to stare at her—specifically, her hair.
Her brother had often been remote as a child, but he had never felt this cold.
She suddenly realized that was why she hadn’t sensed any emotions from the person she’d felt watching her.
Tiras was so removed from his emotions, it was as if he felt nothing.
She swallowed against the dryness in her throat.
She couldn’t have called for help if she wanted to.
Not that it would have done any good. If she called out to Ford, would he even hear her?
She had no idea what Tiras was capable of now.
Even as a child, he’d been unspeakably powerful.
And if Ford did hear her? If he realized she was in danger? It wouldn’t matter.
He would not win in a fight against Tiras.
Amryn watched her brother as he studied her. “Where have you been?” It wasn’t the most important question, but it was the one that slipped out.
He met her gaze. “Everywhere.”
It wasn’t the answer she’d expected, and yet the truth of it was carried in his voice. There was a sort of agelessness she saw in him that Tiras hadn’t had when he was twelve years old. As if he truly had been everywhere, seen everything . . . and it had bored him.
Her gut clenched. “Why are you here?”
“For you.”
A chill skated down her arms. She took an instinctive step back.
Tiras just watched her, making no move to follow. A predator, unconcerned by the defensive move of its prey. “You’re afraid of me.”
She refused to admit that, even though her heart was hammering and every instinct screamed she was in danger. “Are you here to kill me?”
His head tilted to the side, his expression unchanging. Completely devoid of emotion as he said, “No. Why would you think that? I saved you that night.”
He had. The night their mother was murdered, he’d closed the door to his emotions so he could destroy the men who would have killed them next. Looking into his strangely lifeless eyes now, she was certain he had never reopened that door.
Her fingers tightened around the fan she held. “Why are you here for me, Tiras? Did you come to check on me?” That might explain the faint stirring of curiosity she’d felt from him last night outside the townhome. Then a new thought struck, and she paled. “Did you come to take me?”
“I haven’t decided.”
Her breath caught at those chilling words.
Tiras’s eyes dipped to the fan in her hand. He reached out, and she flinched—but he only plucked the fan from her grip.
He flicked it open, watching as the fan’s art spread into view. As he studied the mountain scene, Amryn wondered what he was thinking. His face revealed nothing. Neither did his emotions.
Around them, people laughed. The sun burned brightly. Pipe music filled the air, and groups in the crowd danced. Elowen chuckled at something Ford said.
Amryn had never felt so isolated.
Tiras’s eyes rose from studying the fan, landing firmly on her. “Do you miss Ferradin?”
Ferradin. Not home.
“Do you?” she asked.
“No.”
Her chest squeezed. “Why would you want to take me, Tiras? You left me.”
Her brother watched her, unblinking. It was the cold stare of a venomous snake. Watchful, analyzing, patient. But she swore she felt a flicker of surprise. Unless she’d simply surprised herself by how much she’d revealed in uttering those last three words, infused with old hurt.
You left me.
“Yes,” Tiras said. “I left you. With Rix. Long ago.” The words came out in strange, clipped phrases, though nothing in his demeanor hinted at impatience. It was almost as if he wasn’t used to explaining his actions, and he wasn’t sure why he was doing so now.
“Why did you leave?”
Tiras had frightened her many times when they were children, but he was still her older brother.
Hazy memories surfaced, clouding her perception of the brother she usually remembered—a brother who would mask her pain so they could keep playing.
A brother who would force her to be silent, because her endless questions annoyed him.
A brother who would catch her tears on his fingertips and study them as if they fascinated him, before he flicked them away.
Now she remembered other things. Tiras, holding her hand in the dark when their parents argued. Tiras, bringing her a drooping flower when she was sick. Tiras, smiling proudly when he made her laugh.
Her brother had been all of those things. Cruel and kind. Distant and protective. Confused by emotion, yet also thrilled by it.
Her throat tightened, the sudden rush of memories too much.
She had been confused and hurt when Tiras left her behind that night.
She’d been so young and completely traumatized by all that had happened.
Witnessing her mother’s brutal murder, suffering her own near-death, then watching Tiras as he’d used his abilities to make those knights turn on each other and tear themselves apart while he looked on with no real expression.
A monster. But still her brother. Still her savior.
Tiras’s eyes flickered between hers. “You remember that night?”
Her eyes burned. “Yes.”
So much of that time after Tiras saved her was a blur.
She’d been so detached from everything, with her brother holding back all her emotions.
But she remembered the moment Rix had grabbed hold of her, snatching her away from Tiras’s arms. She remembered the deep rumble of his voice as he’d held her small body against his chest.
Then Tiras had retreated, and her emotions had slammed back into her in one brutal blow. Grief. Terror. Agony.
Her gut had wrenched from the pain of it all, and the overwhelming knowledge that her life would never be the same. Especially when her brother turned away from her.
“Don’t leave me, Tiras!”
She’d sobbed in her uncle’s arms, but he hadn’t let her go. Unlike her brother, who had walked away from her as she’d screamed for him to stay.
“You think I abandoned you,” Tiras said softly, clearly reading her emotions.
Her jaw firmed. “You did abandon me.”
A slight frown creased his expression. Subtle. Barely there. As if he didn’t quite remember how to show emotion. “There was no reason to be alarmed. I assured your safety with Rix.”
“I know I was safe with him, but you still left me.”
Tiras’s chin tilted down, dark strands of hair falling across his brow as he closed the fan, his movements methodical. “You wanted me to stay?”
“Yes,” she said, emotion making her voice rasp.
Tiras had woken a primal fear in her with what he’d done to those knights, but she would have died without his protection.
And he was her brother, one of the last remaining pieces of her shattered family.
Someone familiar in her terrifying new reality.
Staring into his fathomless eyes, she found she couldn’t share any of that.
Instead, she said, “You were a child. Leaving on your own was dangerous.”
The merest hint of a smile curved his lips. “You and I both know that, even then, I was more dangerous than anything else in this world.”
A shudder wracked her, but she refused to break eye contact. “I worried about you.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Her chest suddenly ached, because she knew Tiras believed those words.
“You were alone. You had no one. Nothing. Of course I worried about you.” The resurgence of all her old fears made her voice crack.
“I didn’t know if you were cold, or lost, or hungry.
I didn’t even know if you were still alive. ”
Tiras stirred, as if uncomfortable with her words or her emotions—or both. “That mattered to you?”
Her breathing thinned. “Of course it mattered. You’re my brother, Tiras. I . . . I missed you.”
He said nothing, simply watched her.