Chapter 29 #2
Braedan ran a hand through his messy hair. It was longer than he’d worn it as a teenager, and tangled enough that small twigs and leaves fell out as he combed it back, no doubt collected during his arduous trek through the Mistwood. “What am I not sorry for?”
Viri shook her head in disbelief. “I’m the one who used a magewish to forget something I’ve spent years blaming you for. You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“I’m glad you used that wish,” he said firmly, his dirt-smeared features showing he meant it. “When Reeve told me, the only thing I felt was relief.”
“But—But we lost seven years.” Viri’s eyes burned almost as much as her palm. “And that whole time, I thought you—”
“I know what you thought,” he said gently, his pale blue gaze soft on hers, making him look so much like their dad that her heart clenched painfully.
“In many ways, it was better that you believed that than remembered what really happened. It gave you the chance to grow up and live your life without guilt, just as I wanted.”
“But you didn’t get to do the same,” Viri said croakily, wrapping her arms tighter around herself. “You were hunted and scorned and vilified. And I can’t even imagine what the Reaper Lord made you suffer through on top of that.”
A shadow crossed Braedan’s face. He turned away from her, staring down at the rainbow fish. “Actually, the Reaper Lord left me pretty much alone after the first few weeks.” His tone darkened. “That was all it took for me to become his obedient little Reaper Priest.”
Tension lined his body, his hands hanging stiffly at his sides, as if he wanted to ensure his torn sleeves covered his arms. But Viri had already seen his veins, and even if she hadn’t, her mark was scorching incessantly in his presence.
She moved a tentative step closer. “I have…a lot of questions. About what happened that day. And about what you’ve been doing in the time since then.
” Her gaze traveled to his hidden arms. “Reeve said in the tower that the ‘Reaper Priest’ title is only a distraction, but…” She chewed her cheek, then forced herself to say the words, “We both know those aren’t tattoos. ”
His body stiffened even more. But then he blew out a breath and faced her again, the moonlight showing his resigned features. “No, they’re not.” He gestured to a stone bench on the other side of the pond. “It’s a long story. We might as well sit.”
Viri followed him around the edge of the water and lowered herself at his side.
It was the closest they’d been in seven years, and part of her longed to embrace him, but he was holding himself so rigidly that she feared one wrong move would send him running.
Whatever he was about to say, he clearly needed space, so she sat on her hands and waited, ready to hear anything he was willing to share.
“I should start at the beginning, but…” He grimaced. “I need to work up to that.”
Viri wanted to ask why, but she bit her tongue to keep from interrupting.
“Instead,” he said in a detached voice, “I’ll tell you what happened after I last saw you.
” He avoided her eyes, his attention returning to the rainbow fish.
“The first few weeks were the worst. The Reaper Lord took me straight from the obelisk to the slums and tried to make me siphon again, saying I deserved to enjoy more than the small amount I took from—from Mom and Dad.” He recovered quickly from his stumble.
“I wasn’t willing to kill an innocent kid, so I refused, and kept refusing, regardless of how angry it made him.
In my mind, our deal only required that I go with him in your place.
But he…” Braedan’s jaw clenched. “He’d already mentioned making me the next Reaper Priest, but it didn’t sink in what that meant until he used a blackmist talisman to drag me to Diaboros, and I was suddenly surrounded by a city of reapers.
When I kept refusing to become one of them, I was thrown in a dungeon and left to rot. ”
It took all of Viri’s willpower not to reach for him, but she stayed resolutely still as she envisioned the nightmare he was describing.
“Despite everything Mom and Dad told us about reapers,” Braedan went on, still staring fixedly into the pond, “I’d somehow forgotten that it only takes a single taste of ellixen to create a hunger for it, so while I was locked away, I was starving.
Not for food—that was delivered regularly, almost tauntingly.
It was magic that I longed for, especially when the small amount I’d stolen started fading from my veins.
” He rubbed his arms, as if remembering the color returning to normal.
“But no matter how desperate I was, when the Reaper Lord brought kids to me to siphon from, I wouldn’t do it.
And then he finally lost patience and started—started hurting me.
” A shaky exhale. “It was similar to what he did to you at the obelisk, magic unlike anything I knew existed. So many different ways of causing pain. But still, I didn’t break.
You were safe. Reeve was safe. Those two things gave me the strength I needed to keep resisting, despite the torment I felt.
“Then one day, a few weeks in, the Reaper Lord appeared for our daily torture session, and instead of dragging in some nameless kid for me to siphon, it was Reeve who was suddenly in my cell. He was filthy and covered in bruises just like me, having suffered the same magical abuse for weeks. I had no idea he’d been locked away the whole time—I didn’t even know he’d followed me.
I only learned later about the magewish and how you begged him to find me, which led to him getting captured by the Reaper Lord and kept alive for the sole purpose of being used against me. ”
Braedan still wouldn’t look at Viri, but if he had, he would have seen the horror in her eyes. She couldn’t imagine feeling the pain of the Reaper Lord’s cruel magic every day for weeks, and yet, not only had her brother endured that, so had Reeve—all because of her.
“How was he used against you?” she rasped out.
Braedan tossed a pebble into the pond, its ripples reflecting the colors of the garden. “The Reaper Lord said that if I didn’t siphon, then Reeve would die.”
Viri stilled, her heart breaking at the position her brother had been put in, her horror growing as she realized what was coming next.
“I’m not going to say I didn’t have a choice,” Braedan said in a dead-sounding voice.
“And I won’t lie and say part of me wasn’t relieved to have an excuse to siphon, since the hunger I felt was all-consuming.
It wasn’t the same for Reeve—even after he siphoned from you, he didn’t lust for ellixen the way I did, the way all reapers do.
He was never tempted, not once. But I…” His throat bobbed.
“When the Reaper Lord dragged in another kid and told me to decide if Reeve lived or died, I didn’t hesitate.
I—I killed the boy. And while I hated myself for it, I also felt good.
The ellixen made me strong. My pain vanished, my body healed.
I could hear better, see farther, move faster.
I felt invincible.” His hands fisted in his lap.
“So when the Reaper Lord returned again with the same threat—siphon or Reeve dies—I killed the next kid, too. And the next. And the next.”
Viri had to swallow back bile, grateful Braedan couldn’t see her face.
“The power, the magic…it’s indescribable.
” His words ached with both longing and shame.
“But even so, I soon realized that no matter how good it made me feel, I couldn’t do it anymore.
Wouldn’t do it anymore. The guilt of it all…
the blood on my hands…” A jagged breath left him.
“And then there was the ellixen itself, which I could feel changing me, creating this—this addiction.” Another jagged breath.
“I feared that if I didn’t stop, then I’d never be able to stop. So I came up with a plan.”
He straightened slightly, though his gaze remained on the pond.
“With so much stolen magic in me, I was stronger than I’d ever been, so I decided to try and take the Reaper Lord by surprise.
I wasn’t naive enough to think I could overpower him, but I just needed to fight him off long enough to grab Reeve and run.
I knew it was a risk, knew I’d be putting you in danger, but I had a plan for that, too: I’d get to you first and we’d go into hiding, somewhere the Reaper Lord could never find us.
It wasn’t the life I wanted for you, but at least you’d be safe, and Reeve and I would be free. ”
Braedan threw another pebble, this time hard enough to make the water splash loudly, scattering the fish. “What a fool I was.”
“What happened?” Viri whispered.
“It was too easy—that’s what happened,” Braedan said bitterly. “I know now that the Reaper Lord let me shove him away, let Reeve and me run from the dungeon, let me think we were about to escape. Because in all my planning, I’d forgotten where we were—and what we were surrounded by.”
Realization hit Viri, along with sorrow. “The blackmist.”
A stiff nod from Braedan. “We didn’t have our own talismans at that point, so we were trapped inside Mount Mort with nowhere to go. That’s when things got worse.”
Worse? Viri wondered in disbelief, unsure how that was even possible.
“The Reaper Lord was amused by our escape attempt, but it also made him lose what little patience he had left,” Braedan said. “He warned me that if I didn’t start behaving, then he would consider it as me reneging on our deal…which would mean he could do the same.”
It took Viri a moment to understand. When she did, her heart clenched as a new wave of guilt tore through her.
“Me,” she breathed. “He said he’d come for me.”