Chapter 9
He was sixteen now, praying in his room when a knock on his bedroom door sounded.
It was his day off. He wasn’t to be bothered, not for training or for war, because today was the Day of Remembrance. One by one, Arawn went through the laws of the Five, reciting them as he always had, then finishing them off with the steps he must take when his father passed on.
A sword in the snow.
A reciting of words.
A sacrifice.
He had no clue when that day would be, when the Five finally called his father home. But when it came? Arawn would be ready. He would be a Firemage worthy of each merciful flame Vivorr allowed him.
He would become a king worthy of his kingdom.
“Help me, Vivorr,” Arawn prayed, ignoring the knock as a second, more insistent one sounded. They could come back a different day. “Help me to always keep my thoughts pure and my heart true and—”
A third knock came, and then a desperate voice.
“Arawn?”
Soraya.
He leapt to his feet so fast he almost knocked over the coffee table. He winced, sucking in a breath at the pain that ran through his knee as he leapt over the chair and rushed to the door, ripping it open before he realized his shirt was missing.
And her eyes were wide as they looked at his bare, sculpted chest.
“Arawn,” Soraya gasped. “You’re here!”
“I’m here,” he said, catching his breath. “In...my room. Yes.”
“Shirtless,” she said, and her eyes slid back to his chest.
So, he panicked.
And slammed the door in her face.
Fool, Arawn thought, as he grabbed a tunic from the wardrobe, and quickly threw it on. It was freshly pressed, thanks to Izill.
Quickly, Arawn smoothed his braid, ensured his room was spotless, adjusted the rug at the base of his bed – he couldn’t stand when it shifted – then went back to the door and opened it again.
Slower, this time.
They hadn’t spoken of their Descent, of the sacrifice she’d made...not since that day in the woods, a few months ago, when Kinlear had returned.
She’d run to him, and Arawn had watched her go...his body frozen. His heart, already half-broken in his chest. Because if she’d wanted him she would have stayed.
What happened, he often wondered, in those letters the two stayed in touch with?
What sort of words had his brother used to make Soraya, Arawn’s best friend, a woman who’d just sacrificed her First Rider spot for him...run to someone else?
He didn’t know.
And he’d never ask, for it was better this way, perhaps.
Better for Arawn not to fall for someone he may not end up being Matched with. Still, he could hope. He could ride into the skies with her at his side, and in the back of his mind...
He could beg Vivorr that maybe, someday...he would be hers, and she would be his.
“Soraya,” Arawn said now. “What are you doing here?”
And now that he thought better of it...how was she here? The door at the bottom of their tower was freshly runed, meant to keep anyone out who hadn’t been given permission.
Unless, of course...
Kinlear had probably given that access to her. Which meant she’d probably been in his room.
But then, if Arawn spent too much time thinking of that...his stomach twisted, and he felt sick. He wondered if perhaps Kinlear had used his new tricks on Soraya, ones he’d bragged to Arawn about through their speaking stone, when he was still in Touvre.
The girls are so fun to kiss.
Arawn bristled. He didn’t want to imagine her lips pressed against Kinlear’s.
It made him sick.
“Gods above, you’re going green,” Soraya said, and raised a dark brow at him. “It’s just me. What’s wrong, First Rider? Have you never had a girl in your room before?”
He just blinked. “Of course I haven’t.”
She should know that about him. He hadn’t even allowed her to come up here, for fear that if he did, people would think the wrong thing about them.
About him, and his loyalty to the laws.
You must not fail.
You must never fail.
“No...” Soraya said, and pursed her lips as if she were holding back a smile.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t. Not even on Absolution.
” She crossed her arms. One was marked with new penance.
The other was freshly healed, mended from a fall she’d had the other day during their flight pattern trainings.
She’d been thrown from her eagle’s back, and her arm had snapped in two when it hit a tree.
She hadn’t even cried. Arawn would never forget it, watching her fall.
But that was Soraya.
Always bold.
Never afraid, not even of excruciating pain. Sometimes he thought she enjoyed it, for she’d always laughed when he got hurt, even when they were kids.
Still, they needed better Minders, better people to help calm the remaining bits of fledgling wildness in their war mounts. But the next Talon Trials was still a few weeks away.
“I need your help with something,” Soraya said, mercifully dragging him back to attention. She held out a hand to the cold stone hallway behind her, as if she wanted him to follow. “It’s happening...again.”
His stomach dropped. “Kinlear?”
She nodded. “Kinlear.”
Together, they left his room behind, and went across the long, cold hall to Kinlear’s. There was a sign on the arched door, scribbled in glowing runed ink.
Keep out.
Unless you have winterwine, in which case, why are you still standing there?
If their father saw it, he would have had Kinlear’s head. But the king never came to their tower. He always sent a servant, and they were all more than afraid of Kinlear, even in the few weeks he’d been here...
Sleeping his days away.
He wasn’t the same as he once was, that final moment before his mother took him south.
Years had passed, but it was as if Kinlear hadn’t learned how to do anything with his life in the time they’d been apart. While Arawn had been to war countless times, while he’d Settled on his magic, and completed his Descent?
Kinlear had trained as a Scribe. But in his final days in Touvre, something had shifted. The illness, most likely, for their mother had sent him back north with strict rules that he lay down his title as Scribe in Training and focus, instead, on finding another purpose.
He hadn’t done anything but sleep, like he couldn’t wait to escape to his dreams.
Sometimes, Arawn wondered about the monster his brother had spoken of, as a child. The first few nights Kinlear had been back, he’d lay awake...waiting for the nightmares. The screams.
But Kinlear hadn’t made a sound.
Arawn supposed, like most Sacred children, his brother had grown out of them. Or perhaps he was just too stuck beneath the stupor of winterwine to care.
“Gods help him,” Arawn grumbled now, ripping the callous sign off the door. It was a sure way to earn more penance, and Kinlear’s body was already covered in it.
He crumpled the parchment in his fist, then whispered an invocation and incinerated it.
“Well...” Soraya only shrugged, coughing through the smoke. A tiny gust of her Windmage magic sent it soaring away from both of them. “It’s very him, at least.”
As if Kinlear’s wildness didn’t bother her, one bit. His incessant drinking, though...that most certainly did. They were both worried about him.
For Soraya, it was because her heart was, for whatever reason, connected to Kinlear. She treated him differently than Arawn. She looked at him like she was looking at something she wanted to protect.
I wish he was illiterate, Arawn thought. I wish he’d never had the chance to write her a single letter.
He’d do anything to find out what they said.
“Best you stay out here,” Arawn said, turning to Soraya. “Unless you would like to witness me ripping into him?”
She shrugged again. “Wouldn’t be anything I haven’t seen before.”
“I can assure you,” Arawn said, as he turned the iron handle and asked Vivorr to calm the embers burning inside him. “It will be.”
And with that, he shoved through the door, and slammed it shut behind him.
He could smell the winterwine the second he went inside.
Kinlear’s room was a mess of books stacked haphazardly across the room, candles burned to nubs with wax overflowing across tables.
There were countless pieces of charcoal and torn parchment, many crumbled up and left on the floor, as if he hadn’t the energy to toss them into the hearth.
Which, Arawn supposed...he probably didn’t, if his illness was having its way with him again.
How had Soraya not seen the truth of it yet?
To Arawn, it was like a brand stamped on Kinlear’s forehead.
He stepped further inside, sighing. There was the speaking stone they often spoke with, left on the table beside his bed. They hadn’t used it as much since he’d returned.
An empty bottle of winterwine sat there, too, beside the small rack of vials filled to the brim with his tonic.
Alaris’ work, to help keep Kinlear’s cough at bay.
His clothing was strewn everywhere, spilling out of his enormous closet like the multi-colored fabrics had done their best to escape – which answered his questions as to whether a servant had even been permitted inside to clean his room.
And—Arawn’s jaw dropped as something scurried past his legs.
Kinlear had an actual cat in the room. A black one, with spots all over half of its face.
It hissed when Arawn looked at it.
“Soraya brought him in,” Kinlear said from a chair by the hearth.
.. as if he knew Arawn had entered. Probably, because the fire always blazed a bit brighter when he entered a room.
“She said it needed a safe place to hide. Zey was using it for target practice in the library.” That explained the missing hair on the poor beast’s tail, as it scurried beneath Kinlear’s unmade bed.
“But to honest, all I’ve thought of is skewering him.
He’s rotten to the core. Tries to drink my vials when I’m not looking.
Of course, one could say the same about me, and—"
“Enough, Kinlear,” Arawn growled.