Chapter 33 Allaster
ALLASTER
AS ALLASTER RETREATED INTO THE INFIRMARY, THE TOUCH OF Kasira’s hand still imprinted on his own, he couldn’t shake the disquieting feeling that she had been about to tell him something important. Perhaps another truth she had kept hidden from him, something he couldn’t fairly fault her for.
Maybe if I thought for a second you were telling me everything, I would do the same.
She had been right, of course. He hadn’t told her the full truth. He wanted to, but more than anything, he could not. Not until Nyelle returned with the information he sought.
Not until he knew for certain.
Ambric looked up from his conversation with Warrin as Allaster reentered. Summoning two drinks, Allaster handed one to his brother, who sat up in his bed to take it.
“You’re not old enough to drink,” Allaster said to Warrin’s questioning look.
“I’m twenty-one, Uncle,” Warrin replied stiffly, and Allaster blinked at him. Was he really? When had that happened?
“But your kathiel—” Allaster began.
“Was four months ago.” Warrin’s fingers curled into the loose cloth of his uniform, his cheeks flushing a deep crimson.
Kathiels were the closest to religion the Miravi got, an age ceremony that symbolized the transition to adulthood, when Warrin would have chosen a patron saint to guide him in his endeavors.
And Allaster had missed it.
Had they even invited him, or had he lost track of it in the chaos of everything else? He couldn’t bring himself to ask.
Ambric rubbed his temples. “Warrin, will you give us a few moments alone please?”
Warrin’s shoulders drew up as if he were preparing to argue, but in the end, he only brushed past Allaster out of the room.
Allaster wished he could follow, but it was long past time for this conversation with his brother.
Pulling up a chair alongside Ambric’s bed, he crossed his legs at the ankle and sipped his whiskey, waiting.
“You know,” Ambric said eventually, “I still haven’t gotten used to it. The way you look.”
“That makes two of us.” Every day when Allaster looked in the mirror and saw the same face staring back at him, it left him disquieted.
“It doesn’t feel all that long ago that I was desperate to reach your height.
” Ambric had always loomed so large to him.
He remembered clambering on ledges and perching on countertops, only so he would be at his brother’s level.
Ambric snorted in amusement. “You surpassed me soon enough.” His laugher faded as quickly as it came, the double meaning behind his words draping across them both.
Once, they had dreamed of chasing dragons together, before fate plucked Allaster from his family and his home and set him on a new course.
From that day onward, every step forward took him farther away from Ambric, who had always looked at Allaster as if he were leaving him behind.
Even when Ambric came to the Library as a mage, their reunion had been short-lived.
Before long, everything between them became that same push and pull they seemed unable to escape.
It was after one of their fights that Ambric had retired, giving up his magic.
“Illiza’s piano was gone from the foyer,” Allaster said, his sister-in-law’s name soft on his lips. She had been a mage just like them, her life extended by magic, but she had died nearly two years ago.
Ambric’s expression darkened, his cheeks reddened from the whiskey. “I moved it when she passed. If you came home more than once a decade, perhaps you would have known that.”
The blow struck true, and Allaster downed his whiskey.
He had meant to visit, but so much had been happening at the Library—Mora’s transformation had just begun—that he had never found the time.
Lately, it felt as though he never would, and stepping foot in Spenshire today had been a stark reminder of that.
So much more than Illiza’s piano had changed since the last time he had visited.
The town had installed new windmills to grind grain, and the aqueduct system from the capital had finally reached their shores.
His grandniece had even built a cinderwood hearth in the Jacari style, the artifact’s magic keeping the house warm despite the coastal weather.
Each advancement, each change, made him feel ever more disconnected from his home.
As if every time he turned around, it moved a little further away, marching along without him.
As it should.
A Librarian wasn’t meant to think of their home after they reached Amorlin. They weren’t meant to be having painful familial conversations as old as the sea they longed for. His duty was to Amorlin and the beasts, and no matter what lies Vera spun against him, he would see it through until the end.
“I’ve been busy,” Allaster said at last and watched his brother’s expression twist.
“And I haven’t been?” Ambric demanded. “You’ve always thought your time more important than mine, just like everything else in our lives. No matter what I accomplished, I was always in your shadow.”
Allaster’s hand curled around his empty glass.
There was truth to what Ambric was saying, in the way people had treated him.
As children, even their parents had favored Allaster, though Allaster had done everything he could to make up for that.
When he came home from the Arcadamium, it was only ever Ambric he sought, as if he could love his brother enough for three.
“You know I never wanted this,” he whispered.
“Yes, poor Allaster, the martyr.” Ambric’s tone turned acidic. “Given everything you could ever ask for on a silver platter. Tell me, brother, how difficult it’s been being handed everything. Tell me how hard you’ve had it.”
Allaster should have known better than to give Ambric alcohol; it only ever brought out this side of him.
But he had hoped, for once, to share a drink with his brother, not as Librarian and High Mage, not as two boys who’d had a lifetime of expectations wedged between them, but as the brother who had once saved Allaster from the sea and the little boy who’d climbed on countertops just to be nearer to him.
Ambric swallowed the last of his liquor and let the glass thump on the table. When Allaster only watched him in silence, some of Ambric’s frustrations receded, and he took a steadying breath. “What are you going to do about Ambassador Vera?”
Allaster slumped deeper in his seat. “That remains to be seen.”
Ambric studied him intently, and Allaster tried not to squirm beneath his gaze. When it softened, Allaster only worried more.
“You’ve always been in your own world,” Ambric began gently. “So high above the rest of us. But you’ve been pulling away more since Mora died. I know you blame yourself, Allaster, but it wasn’t your fault.”
It was an offering, a hand outstretched. A chance for Allaster to close the distance that had opened between them, if only a little. All he had to do was reach out and take it.
In the end, he only offered his brother a broken smile.
“I wish that were true.” He stood, watching Ambric’s face fold with disappointment, and told himself it was for the best. Because no matter what became of Vera, of Kasira and Thane, of the Library, he knew what fate awaited him.
Ambric had always seen him as competition, sought to outpace Allaster at every turn, but he probably never thought he would outlive his little brother.
And now, because of Vera, Allaster would be leaving everyone he cared about in a time of turmoil and danger, and with every day that passed, every move that Vera made, there was less and less he could do to protect them.
The sound of Spenshire’s screams still echoed in his head, the sight of bodies strewn about the floor like fallen leaves.
Broken and dying. He had felt so helpless, even as he and Kasira had driven the Ryveren back.
How many more would die in the Ambassador’s crusade? How many beasts would she sacrifice to her insatiable goddess?
“Allaster?” Ambric asked uncertainly, and suddenly Allaster became aware of how tightly his fists were clenched, of the press of fangs beneath his lip, of the prick of claws. When he met his brother’s gaze, there was a look in it he had never seen before.
Fear.
Something inside him cracked, and he retreated a step, trying to corral the rush of emotions inside him.
But it was like a storm unleashed, and he could no more contain it than capture the wind.
“You deserved better than me, Ambric.” His voice trembled, his magic melding with his anger, but it was not toward his brother.
“I’m sorry.” With a snap of his fingers, he vanished—and reappeared in the Gold Room.
Thane was lounging on the arm of one of the great chairs, chatting with two mages over glasses of mylak as if they were the oldest of friends. But one look at Allaster, at the fury and violence brimming beneath his skin, and the mages left.
Thane sighed, setting aside his mylak. “I was quite enjoying that conversation.”
“Turning more of my people against me?” Allaster stalked toward Thane, who folded one leg over the other, propping his elbow on one knee to rest his chin upon.
“You’re doing that quite splendidly on your own,” he replied, and Allaster bristled.
He could understand why the mages listened to this man.
There was something disarming about him, about the way he watched you as if he had never seen anything so interesting.
That kind of attention could be intoxicating were there not something so foully insidious underneath.
Thane gestured after the departed mages. “We were merely talking.”
Allaster pulled up before him. “About how you sent bloodthirsty mercenaries to attack an innocent village?”
Thane’s brow furrowed for a brief moment, and then his eyes widened with delighted understanding. “Oh, good show,” he murmured to himself.
“Is this some sort of game to you?” Allaster demanded. “People died!”
“People always die!” Thane surged to his feet, but Allaster held his ground. “In fact, it’s one of the few things you can truly count on them to do. Save for you, of course, Librarian.” He spat the epithet like a curse, that familiar flair of Kalish derision lining his every feature.
Allaster barked a laugh. “Is that why you’re doing this? Don’t tell me you’re a devotee of the church. They wouldn’t let you step a foot inside, your soul be damned.”
“You know nothing of damnation,” Thane said lightly, but Allaster read the darkness underneath. It permeated every part of him, every word. Cast his eyes in depthless shadows, a look Allaster had come to know all too well.
Whatever Thane had come for, there would be no dissuading him from attaining it.
Allaster stepped closer, forcing Thane to tilt back his head to look up at him. “I don’t believe for a second you’re only here as Vera’s pawn. Whatever it is you are after, I won’t let you have it.”
The shadows encroaching over Thane softened, and he let out a quiet laugh, pressing a hand to his heart. “You wound me, Librarian. You trust the other thief in your midst just fine.”
“Leave Kasira out of his.” Allaster’s voice barely crested over a growl.
“Oh, but she’s the heart of it,” Thane pressed. “You denied Kalthos its rightful place at the Library by claiming her. You must truly care for her to do such a thing. I wonder what you might do if something were to happen to—”
In an instant, Allaster had Thane up against the wall, a clawed hand around his throat.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me, so let me be very clear.
” The shadows about Allaster shifted, the air thickening with a charge.
“There are horrors beneath this Library you cannot begin to fathom, holes I could dump you in so dark and deep no one would find your bones for a thousand years.”
The magic burned beneath Allaster’s skin, the pain heightening his senses. He could feel Thane’s fear in the pulse of his heart, smell it in the air. The con artist had gone incredibly still beneath his touch, even as his pale skin flooded red from lack of air.
“Threaten my Assistant again”—menace coated Allaster’s every word—“and I will show you the meaning of hell.”
He released Thane, turning to leave as the man drew a ragged breath, reaching for his raw and bloodied skin.
“You can’t touch me,” Thane rasped. “Not truly. Vera would have your head.”
Allaster paused, glancing back over his shoulder. “Not before I have yours.”