Chapter 14
He didn’t know how he made it back to the safety of the wards.
But when he woke in the infirmary, gasping from the scar on his chest, one so large it nearly split him in two...the first face he saw was Kinlear’s.
His eyes were red, like he’d been crying. His clothing was rumpled, and he looked haunted. Like he’d sat here for however long it took for Arawn to wake up.
“Soraya,” Arawn gasped, as it all came back to him.
The darkness in her voice.
The color of her blood.
The blade...and the way she’d screamed at him to go...just go.
Kinlear didn’t even flinch at the sound of her name. He just looked at Arawn, no light left in his eyes, and whispered, “She’s dead. Her eagle, and yours, too.”
Three blows to his heart.
But he felt numb as Kinlear said it, numb as he pictured them all...because that place where his fire once was, where his heart had once beat for the things he believed in?
Now there was only a cold, empty pit.
Now there were only ashes.
“I lost her,” Arawn whispered. He could barely talk, for the pain in his chest. Alaris had stitched him back together with magic.
But the real wound, the one that reached all the way down to his soul?
There wasn’t a magic that existed that could help heal him from it. It was far too deep.
“You...you lost her?” Kinlear whispered. “That’s all you can say?”
“She was flying too fast,” Arawn said. Tears spilled down his cheeks. He was in agony.
He wanted to die, to go home to the Ehver, because at least there, he would not have to feel anymore.
At least there, he would be free of this torture. To live without her was worse than any sort of penance he’d ever felt.
He heaved for breath between tears.
He swore his very soul was split in two.
“You can’t have just lost her,” Kinlear hissed. “She was your Second. You were better than her in the sky, you were--”
“I wasn’t,” Arawn cut him off, remembering her speed. Her sacrifice. And then he was staring blankly at his own hands, one that had once held hers. “I tried. I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t prepared for what I would find when—"
When he found her on the snow, changed.
His brother’s face twisted in rage. His hand went to the Scribe’s blade at his hip, as if he would draw it. As if he would use it against him.
Let him, Arawn told himself. You deserve to be ended for this.
“You did it because she was mine,” Kinlear growled.
“Did what?” Arawn’s eyes snapped to his.
“You loved her,” Kinlear hissed. “Admit it.”
Arawn’s mouth opened, but he said nothing.
He didn’t think he had the strength to deny it.
To deny her, even after what she’d done to him.
Even after what she’d said to Avane on the battlefield.
How she’d screamed at her god and the hatred inside of her had burned and burned and burned until it was palpable.
Until he felt it, too.
She killed you, his mind growled. She wanted you dead. Deny her. Let her go, Arawn!
He sucked in a trembling breath. “I...”
But Kinlear didn’t let him speak.
“You were furious when she was Matched with me. You couldn’t handle the possibility of her loving me.”
He was on his feet now.
He was trembling, leaning heavily on his cane, as if he hadn’t moved in days until this.
“It was too much for you to bear, wasn’t it?” Kinlear added.
Fresh blood blossomed through Arawn’s bandages as he sat up, practically screaming from the pain.
“You caught up to her,” Kinlear said, forming a story in his own mind and wielding it like a weapon against him.
“And when you couldn’t stop her, because nobody stopped Soraya when she made up her mind.
..you tried to kill her, didn’t you? It’s the only explanation I can come up with.
You drew her blade, so she drew hers back! ”
“What?” Arawn yelped. His blue eyes went wide. This was wrong, it was so utterly damned wrong, he couldn’t even fathom it. “How could you even say that? I’d never touch her! I’d never dare harm a—”
“Then why, Arawn?” Kinlear shouted. “Why would you come back—alone—as if she’d split you in two?”
“Because she attacked me!” Arawn yelled. “Because she defected, Kinlear, and there was nothing I could do!”
The Ehvermage attendant came around the corner to check on Arawn’s wounds. The moment she saw the brothers, she backed away. The door snapped closed.
“I caught up to her because she had no magic. Because Avane had already cut her off for the darkness hiding in her heart. And I don’t know when it happened, but when I found her, Kinlear.
..she was already gone. Spitting madness about the enemy!
I tried. I tried, but the shadow wolves were coming and—” he closed his eyes, wincing again as he remembered the feel of her blade cutting through him.
As he tried to make sense of it, but his memories went black, and all he knew was the betrayal that sang in him.
She did this to you. She chose the darkness over you, and you failed, Arawn. If you were ever to fail at anything...why did it have to be this?
“She drew her blade to fend me off so that I wouldn’t bring her home,” Arawn whispered. “Because she wanted to join him. She wanted to defect. And do you know why, Brother?”
His heart was pounding, roaring in his ears.
Kinlear’s fingers curled tighter over his blade. “No.”
“No,” Arawn said, cutting him off. “Of course you don’t know.”
Then he laughed.
He actually laughed, while tears poured from his eyes, and the pain ran through him anew.
He loved it.
He wanted to feel it, because it was better than the emptiness.
Only the sound of the wind could be heard knocking on the windows, as if it wanted to be let in. As if it wanted to witness the moment a bond between brothers broke. As if...the ghost of Soraya were here with them.
He winced.
“She’s dead...” Arawn said softly, slowly, as if he were savoring every word, “...because she tried to save you, Kinlear. She tried to save you from a fate that was never possible to save you from to begin with. And now?” Tears rolled down his cheeks. “Because of you...she’s never coming back.”
Kinlear left the room.
And when he did, Arawn held his hands before him, evidence that he had failed her. Because if he hadn’t? She would be here, right now...held between them.
He tried to conjure a flame.
He wanted to burn the world.
He wanted to burn along with it.
...but nothing came.
“Please, Vivorr,” he whispered. “Please...give me my magic back.”
No power fizzled, no heat rose to his veins. There was nothing to protect him, nothing to fight the enemy with. He was, for the first time in his life, a powerless prince.
...and he deserved it.
Nearly a year after Soraya’s death, Arawn Laroux found himself on a prison wagon heading south. He found himself alone, and angry, a mask of Crown Princely care on his face as he visited every garrison his father sent him to.
As he looked at the dead and the dying and the well on their way to it and tried...and failed... to bring his magic back to him.
He couldn’t have known that it would take him all the way south, to Rendegard.
To a prison with a dark tower, where he stood, months after Soraya’s death, with a recruiting scroll held tightly in his fist.
This is the last one, he told himself, for he was tired of life on the road.
He was tired of being useless.
He was tired of carrying out this extended penance from his father...a king who knew it would crush Arawn to send him away like an errand boy, a mere servant, with hopes that it would set fire again to the magic inside of him.
Failure, Arawn told himself. Look at what’s become of you!
He hated it, this emptiness inside his chest.
He would do what it took. Whatever he had to do, to get Vivorr to give him back his fire. But for now...
For now, he was to do his father’s bidding, a penance of its own...and obey.
So, with a sigh, Arawn lifted his hand, and knocked on the door.
He wasn’t prepared for what he would feel – how his magic would suddenly spark to life, as if it had finally awakened – the very first time he laid eyes on the Ravenminder behind it.