Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Y es, I had been right. Under other circumstances, maybe I would have been preening more that Atrius recognized it.
Tarkan’s city fell apart without him. The crumble was near-instantaneous. Atrius’s warriors were ready to sweep the city as soon as Tarkan was dead. They did so efficiently and, for the most part, bloodlessly. Few of Tarkan’s warriors were willing to fight for anyone but him, and if their survival wasn’t threatened, they were no threat to anyone else.
Within days, Vasai was firmly secured under Atrius’s rule.
I didn’t even feel anything when Atrius conceded this to me, or at Erekkus’s impressed whistles. I went through my tasks with rote mindlessness, and when I was free, I went to Naro’s side.
Atrius didn’t kill him. I didn’t know how to think about the fact that he spared him for my benefit. I knew Atrius was not a man made for mercy.
I put that question off for another day.
Instead, I sat beside Naro and waited.
My sedation should have worn off quickly, but he remained unconscious for days. Only the beginning of it was my magic. The rest, likely the after-effects of the drugs. He trembled and gasped in his sleep, sweat slicking the scar-dotted landscape of his forehead. I dabbed the sweat away with a cloth and dripped water down his throat.
I had never so strongly simultaneously hoped for opposite things: that he would wake up, and that he wouldn’t.
Near dawn on the first night, Erekkus came to the room and paused in the doorway. I turned, then hurriedly rose.
Atrius. I’d completely forgotten.
“I apologize,” I said. “I’m late to go to?—”
But Erekkus shook his head. “No. He sent me here to say he doesn’t need you tonight.” His gaze lingered on me, then on Naro, listless in the bed.
“You’ve found a pet,” he said.
“He’s not—” I bit down my objection. What could I say? I didn’t even know what the real answer was.
“I’m just watching over him,” I said.
Erekkus never did much to disguise his expression. He didn’t hide how confusing he found this situation.
“The others are celebrating,” he said. “Probably not a good idea for you to join. Not that you’d want to. But if you want anything special?—”
I turned back to Naro. “No. I’m fine.”
“I have some food here for?—”
“I’m not hungry.”
A beat. Then he said, “I’m supposed to make sure you eat. If you don’t, I’ll be the one in trouble for it.”
My hand went to my chest, pressed over the strange twinge there.
I turned around again. Erekkus held out a bowl of rice and meat.
“Just take it,” he said. “Goddess knows he doesn’t want it back.”
I took the bowl from him. It was still hot—very fresh.
Atrius.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Thank you.”
“I’m not the one to thank.” He glanced at Naro again. Then back to me. His expression softened a little, like he saw something unwillingly revealed in my face.
“I know we’re… different. Vampires. Humans. But there isn’t one of us that doesn’t know what this feels like.”
“This? ”
I shouldn’t have opened the door. I regretted it the moment the word left my lips.
Erekkus gave me a sad smile. “We’re used to saying goodbye to our own,” he said. “More than most vampires.”
My chest ached with a sudden, powerful clench of anger. Anger because I didn’t want to reveal that Naro was “my own” at all. Anger because, even if he was, I wasn’t saying goodbye to him.
“Thanks for the food,” I said, tightly, and shut the door.
Naro’s eyelids fluttered open the next day, as the sun was lowering in the sky over Vasai.
The vampires were all tucked away at that point, save for those who guarded the Thorn Palace and the other key buildings of Vasai, so I’d opened the curtains. I rarely did that now, even on my own. The sun held little appeal to me, experiencing the world as I did. But Naro—he, perhaps, might appreciate some sunshine once he woke up. He had loved the sun, back in those days, even though he didn’t have the complexion for it. He’d spend the summertime sprawled out on warm rocks beyond the outskirts of the city, baking in the heat like a lizard, then peel himself off and return home bright pink and cursing at every accidental touch.
Sure enough, when his lashes fluttered, the first thing he did was tilt his face toward the warm rays of light.
Then his eyes opened more, and he turned to me.
I wished I could see him as I did then—see him with eyes, not threads. And yet, a cowardly part of myself was grateful for it. I knew if I could see him the way I had as a child, the marks of life and time would be so stark. I sensed them written all over his threads.
He’d had a hard, hard life.
His threads, beneath the twisting trembles of his Pythoraseed cravings, shivered with sadness, too.
I wondered if perhaps he saw the same thing when he looked at me. For the first time since I had begged the Arachessen to take me in, I had to swallow a wave of shame in response to the way an outsider looked at me—for what, I couldn’t describe.
“Vivi,” he whispered.
I should have corrected him— Vivi doesn’t exist anymore, my name is Sylina —but the words stuck in my throat. Being here, next to my big brother, made me Vivi again.
His hand, trembling violently, reached for my blindfold.
“What is…”
I caught his wrist, setting his hand down. But he still stared at that blindfold. His face hardened.
“You joined them.”
Hurt struck me. Then indignation.
You joined them, he said, with such judgment. What right did he have to say that to me?
He joined them . I had given my life to a goddess and a Sisterhood and a greater power he couldn’t even begin to understand.
He had given his life over to a damned warlord.
“You joined them ,” I said, my voice a little harder, quicker, than I intended. Then I loosened a breath and softened.
It wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t his choice. He was a child, too. Just trying to survive.
“I looked for you, Vivi,” he whispered. “I looked for you for so long.”
One of the downsides of having no eyes was that there was nothing to distract you when images of the past returned. I had carefully erected a wall between Sylina and Vivi. Sitting here, next to Naro, destroyed it.
He and I had made it so far together. We survived the deaths of our parents, our sister. We protected each other from every danger—him saving me from the furious shopkeeper who tried to drown me for stealing, me saving him from the city guard who was ready to beat him to death. No matter what, it was him and me. Together.
I tried not to remember the night that Tarkan’s soldiers rolled through the city, the fighting reaching a crescendo, the fire and explosives lighting up the night as bright as midday.
“You were gone,” I whispered.
I was alone .
Naro wasn’t home. He was nowhere to be found. The explosives tore up most of the city. I waited for so long. I stood at the window and watched as more and more blocks went up in plumes of acrid smoke.
I waited even as our neighbors all fled. I waited even when the last one to go, an elderly woman with a crooked leg, stopped to bang on my door.
“We must leave, you foolish child,” she’d told me, trying to drag me away. “We must go right now.”
“My brother?—”
“He’s already dead,” she snapped. At the time, I’d hated her for saying that. Now, I understood the fear beneath her harsh words. She had likely watched the deaths of so many children. She didn’t want to see another one.
But I’d been furious with her. I hit her, yanked my arm away, and ran back into the house.
I would not go without Naro.
“I waited for such a long time,” I whispered.
“I was trying,” Naro said. “I tried to get back. But I got stuck in the western quarter. I was injured.”
I’d waited.
And then the explosion hit our little house, too.
I remembered little of it—only the loud noise, and then the silence afterwards, unnatural silence. I was lucky. If the old woman hadn’t come, I would’ve died. I only survived because I was in the back of the shack, not out in the street.
I’d opened my eyes to see the night sky, and nothing else. No house. No streets. No old woman.
“I came back as soon as I could,” Naro said, voice cracking. “And I found the house?—”
At the same time, we both choked out, “I thought you were dead.”
And then we both laughed, our voices a little too high and manic, and for far too long.
I thought my brother was dead, and he wasn’t. He was alive and he was right here in front of me.
Those simple facts left me dizzy and lightheaded.
I wasn’t sure when, but we’d started holding hands, his clutched around mine like he wasn’t sure I was real. He’d always had uncommonly long fingers, though now they seemed more bonelike than they were before, the knuckles swollen and the pale skin nicked with scars.
I was never going to let go of him ever again.
But then his gleeful grin faded. He reached for my blindfold again.
“But you did that,” he murmured. “Y-you?—”
I had never before allowed myself to feel anything but gratefulness when I thought of my decision to join the Arachessen. Now, for the first time, I felt embarrassed by it.
Then, just as quickly, angry for even feeling that way.
I pushed his hand away again.
“The Arachessen is my family,” I said.
I wished I couldn’t feel the hurt in Naro’s presence at that. Nor the disgusted pity.
“Family that take your eyes?”
I clenched my jaw, letting out air between my teeth.
“And what about the vampires?” Naro spat. “Are they family too?”
Weaver. Talking to Naro had pulled me from between my three roles. Suddenly it hit me just how much I had revealed to my brother, even in this short conversation. Already, I had said far too much of the truth—especially considering that vampires slept mere rooms away.
“They’re—” I lowered my voice. “It’s complicated, Naro.”
But Naro’s anger rose and rose. His threads quaked erratically.
“It isn’t complicated ,” he said, pushing himself upright. “You—you broke into the Thorn King’s palace to murder him. Y-y-you?—”
The Thorn King.
The words skewered me through the chest, driven by the intensity of Naro’s fury. That wasn’t false. Influenced by his withdrawal symptoms, yes, but not false.
“ The Thorn King ,” I hissed. “What the hell are you doing, calling him that, after what he did to our home?”
But Naro’s threads were unraveling now, his composure collapsing. His body trembled violently, and he fought to push himself out of bed and kept failing.
“You killed him,” he snarled. “Y-you k-killed him. You and the vampire, Vivi—you killed him! ”
“Yes,” I snapped. “Tarkan is dead and you’re free now. I know you had to do what you had to for survival. I don’t—” I stumbled over the words, involuntarily. “I don’t blame you for that. It isn’t your fault?—”
“ You killed him! ” Naro roared, and tried to fling himself out of the bed, only to go crashing to the floor.
Weaver, no.
My heart was beating fast, my throat tight. I no longer felt the sensation of tears, but my nose and throat prickled.
Footsteps approached, probably alerted by the noise. I knelt beside my brother and, with shaky hands, pressed my fingers to his temple, sending him the strongest sedation I could.
He thrashed for a few seconds longer, then went limp.
Atrius stood in the doorway. I felt him there, but I ignored him. I didn’t want him to see me like this. I couldn’t open my mouth to speak, anyway. It wouldn’t be words that came out.
Naro was larger than me, but skinny. It was awkward, not difficult, to lift him back into the bed.
Still, Atrius took a few steps forward, moving to help while avoiding the rays of sunshine.
“I’ve got it,” I choked out.
Naro settled back into bed. I pulled the covers up around him. Even asleep, the tremors racked his hands and arms, even the small muscles of his face.
Pythoraseed. A horrible drug. It was worse to see the way it had consumed and destroyed his threads than it was to see it in his body alone.
Seconds ticked by as I stood beside him. Atrius watched silently.
Then, he said, “Come.”
“I’ll stay here.”
“Staring at him won’t do anything.”
There was something in his voice, something tender and a little painful, that made Erekkus’s words float through my mind:
We know what this feels like.
“I’d like to talk to you,” he said. “Business.”
I swallowed thickly. Turned. “Fine.”