Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“When we go back to Príth, I want you two to come with me.” The words fell clumsily from Draven’s lips, somewhere between an awkward, timid request and desperate plea.
“What?” Finlay nearly choked. “Are you mad? We—”
Kiran lifted his hand, cutting Finlay off. “Draven, you know we can’t do that.”
They were on the outskirts of Tylderon’s grounds, inside their personal hideout—a deep alcove carved into a large, sprawling slab of rock near the southern tree line.
They’d decorated the place to make it into something of their own.
Red, patterned rugs sprinkled across the clay-colored stone.
Deep-gray and beige canopies hung from the rock face, sweeping over their heads.
A bedroll was splayed on the western end of the alcove, covered in pillows and blankets, and on the other end was a sitting area adorned by odd-shaped pillows and fraying quilts, used mostly for Kiran’s reading.
A mixture of oil lanterns and candles were strewn about, and a hanging cylindrical sack of sand rested in the other corner.
Draven and Finlay were usually the two to use that particular space.
The alcove was filled with living memories of them.
Boasted badges of honor for their lives together.
There were paintings on the wall from Finlay.
Words of poetry from Kiran. Patches of blackened rock from where Draven was experimenting with his shadow panthers.
There were collections of their exploits.
Possessions they cherished but needed to keep hidden.
There were parchment papers, journals, clothes, love letters—everything that forged them into brotherhood, that made them understand each other so—it was all here, hidden away from anyone but them.
Kiran was lounging lazily in his sitting area, a book of poems in his hand, and Finlay had a sketchbook cradled in his lap, his back resting against the far wall beneath the largest oil lantern’s glow.
Draven was in the middle between them, reading the parchment Atlas had given him on his mother’s condition—which had indeed been worse since returning to Tylderon.
“Why not?” he asked, a surprising jolt of anger heating his blood at the outright rejection. “My mother and I were able to remain undetected. The three of us can, too.”
Finlay snorted. “You remained undetected because you slummed it in some crummy bookshop in some poor commoner town.”
Draven rose from his spot, his hands balled into fists. “Don’t talk about it like that,” he seethed between clenched teeth.
Finlay—looking entirely disinterested in Draven’s bout of irritation—languidly slid his gaze from his sketchbook onto him. “Look, just because you love the place doesn’t make what I said any less true.”
“That bookshop is not crummy. It has more value than anything Tylderon could offer you.”
“Sentimental value does not fill coffers,” Finlay muttered under his breath.
Draven took one heated step toward him before Kiran clapped his hands together, jerking both their attention toward him.
“Finlay,” he drawled, “stop being a dick. And Draven? You’re being sensitive because you’re protective over the place you’ve grown to care about so much.
Now that we all understand why you’re both acting like children, let’s move on, yes? ”
Draven and Finlay exchanged disgruntled glances, but both abided by Kiran’s request. Draven sat back down and returned the parchment to his lap.
“Finlay’s comments aside” —a pointed look— “I don’t understand why the two of you can’t join me.
You’d love it there, I swear it. Nobody cares about what you can offer them.
The people aren’t constantly plotting and scheming and manipulating—”
“—That you know of,” Finlay interjected dryly.
Kiran threw a tiny fire ball at him, catching the fabric on his outer shoulder alight.
Finlay quickly doused it with his ice, shooting him a seething glare.
But Kiran gave him an equally unrelenting look back.
Just…Kiran’s version. “You, be quiet,” he scolded, turning to Draven after. “And you, go on.”
Draven slid Finlay a nasty gesture, then proceeded.
“There are bright colors everywhere. A sense of freedom we can’t have here.
Oh, and the streets are always filled with the most amazing scent of freshly baked bread.
It’s…” Draven stopped, his face scrunching with thought. “Home,” he murmured eventually.
When he met Kiran’s gaze, he found it softened and filled with understanding.
“I am beyond thrilled that you and your mother have found belonging in such a place. I truly mean that. But…” A sigh.
“Even if we wanted to, Finlay and I can’t follow you to Príth.
Yes, maybe you and your mother can escape for a while with low consequence, but should all three of the Great House Heirs go missing at the same time, paired with Lady Dalmar?
” He shook his head, his lips thinning. “It would raise too many red flags and catch the eyes of too many people. Plus, that would especially drive Tynan over the edge. He would hunt us down within an instant if we all disappeared.”
Disappointment sank Draven’s heart like a riotous sea sinking a ship. It absorbed the damage, fell into wreckage, then ultimately sank down into oblivion.
Perhaps what made what Kiran was saying so hard to digest was not that he was rejecting Draven’s request—thus shattering his hopeful dream of them all in Príth together, Rhea and Finlay bickering while Suzumi and Kiran watched on, laughing—it was that Draven knew he was right.
That if they all disappeared together in the middle of the night, his father would come searching for them, stopping at nothing until he sought the desires of his new focus.
It was a fear that had woken Draven out of plenty of nights’ rests while he and his mother were away.
He dropped his head. “You’re right.”
“Of course he is,” Finlay said. “And the fact that you didn’t think of that yourself tells me just how blinded you are by the place.”
“You know, you’re really being extra unpleasant today. Might you fix that?” Kiran’s words were cool, almost filled with a taunting cadence.
“I just don’t understand why he is so eager to run back to some town nobody has even heard of.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Kiran countered.
“Because your family is the presiding Lord over it,” Finlay grumbled back.
“Still counts,” he said with a shrug.
They continued bickering, and Draven continued drowning in his thoughts.
It was a hard feeling to reconcile—the excitement of going back to Príth as it mingled with the bitter disappointment of knowing his brothers could never come with him.
Even though Finlay was being a world renowned ass right now, he was right—Draven would have normally thought of the repercussions of the three of them running away together in an instant.
So, what had changed? What had turned his steely pragmatism to foolish optimism?
He could only think of one concrete answer.
Releasing a sigh, Draven interrupted his brothers’ ongoing bickering, a pit hollowing in his stomach as he did. “There’s something about Príth I haven’t told you guys. Something about the bookshop. About why I’m so desperate to go back.”
Their teasing words died in their throats, and he had the full weight of both Finlay and Kiran’s attention now.
“Is it implicating?” Kiran asked.
Wordless, Draven just nodded. With that one question and tiny answer, he would let his brothers decide how they wanted to proceed next.
Because, as the three of them knew, harboring each other’s secrets was not without risk.
To carry the burden of discretion was to carry the burden of being threatened.
“Good thing we’re brothers, blood sworn to each other by nothing but loyalty alone.
” To Draven’s surprise, it was Finlay who said the words.
That dryness he always carried in his voice was still there, but it was softer—less blunt.
He pointed at the outer edge of the crested opening leading into the alcove.
There, side-by-side-by-side, were their three thumbprints inked in blood against the clay colored stone.
They had done it upon finding this place, once they carved it into their own haven.
A place of honesty and trust—free of masks and barriers.
Here, they could be themselves, wholly and without inhibition.
But with that came a need for unwavering, implicit loyalty.
An oath of sorts saying, I will keep your secrets, and you will keep mine.
So, they had sworn in blood. But not in the magical way that most people did.
No, they hadn’t wanted their oaths to one another to be bound by magic, but by dedication.
So, they had sliced their thumbs and had let them bleed.
Then, they had sealed their promises to one another on the very walls harboring their greatest secrets and most authentic selves.
Draven stared at the fading marks, worn by years of age. As he did, he again was forced to face feelings that were perpetually at odds with one another: guilt and surety; a greeting and a goodbye.
He told them everything. Told them about Rhea and Suzumi. About Atlas. Told them about how Suzumi took him onto the roof and they had watched the stars together. About Rhea’s borderline ignorant bravery against three boys—how she possessed neither fear nor hesitation for anything.
He soon realized that once he started, it felt hard to stop.
It was all leaking from him now, a giddiness he didn’t expect to feel making his skin hum.
Talking about the people he had grown to care for so much to the brothers he loved more than anything was a strange sensation in the best sort of way—it was foreign, but he wanted it to become familiar, he realized. He enjoyed it, even.
Once Draven was finished, he had never felt so light.
Kiran was resting his cheek on his fist, a sweeping smile guiding his lips. He flicked his crinkled eyes to Finlay. “Seems we have some competition,” he mused, light as feathers.
Finlay snorted, but to Draven’s surprise, a small curve was wedged into the corner of his lip. “I think it’s all foolish,” he mused. “But…” That curve at the corner of his mouth deepened. “It would seem we do. Though, I’m not worried. I’ll best them all.”
“I don’t know,” Draven countered, amused. “I think Rhea might put you on your ass, Fin.”
Kiran chuckled. “Oh now see, I’d pay good coin to watch that.”
“You’d be emptying your pockets for nothing,” Finlay muttered. “You know Draven’s just trying to get under my skin.”
“No,” Draven said. “I just really think she’ll one day be able to take you in a fight.”
Finlay clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes.
Draven and Kiran laughed and laughed.