Painted in Shadows

Chapter 18 #2

I stop. He's looking at me now with that expression that means he's thinking too hard about something that should be simple.

"This is real," he says quietly. "We live here now."

"Is that bad?"

"I don't know how to live somewhere." He turns back to the window, and the afternoon light catches the exhaustion he usually hides better. "I know how to occupy. Control. Defend. But live? With gardens and matched plates and bathroom schedules?"

"You'll learn. We all will." I touch his arm gently, and his shadows immediately pool around my feet like attention-seeking cats. "It's just a house. A big house with too many rooms and pretentious architecture, but still just a house."

"I bought it without looking." The admission comes out rough. "The merchant was terrified, named a price, I paid it. Didn't even ask about the roof."

"The roof looks solid. I checked from outside while you were terrifying Davis about defensive positions."

"You checked the roof."

"Someone had to. You were too busy being efficiently threatening." His shadows are warm around my ankles now, which probably means something but I'm not sure what. "Why didn't you look?"

"Because you wanted it." He says it simply, like buying an entire estate sight-unseen because I got excited about bathrooms makes perfect sense.

"That's... that's a lot of trust in my housing opinions."

"You were happy. About the bathrooms. The charts. The democracy I'm pretending doesn't exist." He turns to face me fully, and there's something raw in his expression. "Do you know how long it's been since anyone in my guild was happy about anything?"

"They were happy about the soup."

"That was different. That was surprise. This was..." He gestures vaguely at the window, at the house, at everything. "Hope. They had hope. Because of bathroom schedules."

"Seven bathrooms is very hope-inspiring."

He almost smiles, and my chest does something warm and ridiculous. "You're doing it again."

"What?"

"Making everything seem manageable. Possible. Like we could just... live. In a house. With gardens."

"You can. We can." I realize how close we're standing. When did that happen? His shadows are wrapping around us both now. "Everyone deserves somewhere safe. Even people who professionally make others unsafe."

"I killed the previous owner's cousin once."

"That's nice. Did you see the library? There's a library. With built-in shelves and everything."

He stares at me. "I tell you about murder and you respond with library enthusiasm."

"Well, you can't unkill the cousin, but we can definitely use the library." The afternoon light is doing something devastating to his cheekbones and I should probably stop noticing that. "Would it help if I was more concerned about the murder?"

"No. Yes. I don't know." He runs a hand through his hair, messing the perfect style into something more human. "You make everything backwards."

"Or maybe everything was already backwards and I'm just highlighting that." I should step back. Create distance. Instead, I stay exactly where I am, watching him struggle with deserving comfort. "Tell me something true."

"What?"

"Something true. Not Shadow King true. Just true."

He's quiet for so long I start counting dust motes. Forty-seven before he speaks. Should really clean those windows. When? With what? Do we own a ladder?

"My parents died when I was fourteen." The words come out carefully. "Guild war. Wrong place, wrong time. They were just walking home."

"I'm sorry."

"They were good people. Boring people. My father sold books. My mother made jewelry. Nothing special." He looks at his hands, and I notice they're shaking slightly. "I was supposed to be with them. Skipped out to meet friends. Came home to bodies."

I don't say anything. Sometimes words just make things worse.

"The shadows came that night. The magic. Like they were waiting for me to be alone enough to notice them." He flexes his fingers, shadows responding instantly. "Sometimes I think they killed my parents. To get to me."

"Magic doesn't work like that."

"Doesn't it? You painted one portrait and seventeen people died."

"That wasn't the painting's fault. That was people deciding violence was the answer." I turn to face him properly, and his shadows move with me. "Magic doesn't make us anything. It just makes us more of what we already are."

"I was fourteen. I wasn't anything yet."

"You were someone who survived. Who found a way to continue when everything ended." The afternoon light shifts, and I know I need to share too. Fair's fair. "My parents died when I was twenty-one."

He looks at me sharply.

"Six years ago. Not a guild war. Just...

they were protecting me. Someone found out about my magic.

Light magic, unregistered, in a family that wasn't supposed to have any magical lines.

" I wrap my arms around myself because this still hurts to tell.

"My father tried to reason with them. My mother tried to fight. Neither worked."

"Who?"

"Does it matter? They're dead, my parents are dead, and I ran." The afternoon light feels too bright suddenly. "My brother died getting me out."

"You had a brother?"

"Arthur. Four years younger than me, but you'd never know it.

Always acted like the older one." I smile despite the tears threatening.

"He was eighteen. Just eighteen. Had his whole life planned out.

Was going to marry this baker's daughter, have completely normal children, live a completely normal life. "

"What happened?"

"He stayed behind to buy me time. Told me to run, to hide, to never use my magic where anyone could see.

" I wipe my eyes with my sleeve because I never remember to carry handkerchiefs.

Should buy some. Where do you even buy handkerchiefs?

"I found out later he held them off for almost an hour.

They said he died protecting someone who wasn't there. Never gave them anything."

"He saved you."

"He died for me. There's a difference." I look out at the garden, seeing other possibilities. "He would have loved this house. Would have made jokes about pretentious architecture while secretly planning where to put a reading chair."

"What was he like?"

"Funny. Too smart for his own good. Always reading these terrible adventure novels then critiquing their sword fights.

" I laugh, remembering. "He had our mother's eyes.

This exact shade of green that looked different depending on the light.

And he had magic—water affinity—but kept it secret.

Even from me, mostly. Said it was easier if everyone thought he was normal. "

"Water magic?"

"Weak, he said. Barely enough to fill a cup. But he was always so careful about hiding it, terrified it would put us in danger." My throat gets tight. "Turns out hiding it didn't matter in the end."

"You miss him."

"Every day. He was my little brother but always trying to protect me. Said it was his job, even though I was older." I turn back to find Ruvan closer than before, his shadows warm around us both now. "But safety's an illusion, isn't it? We're all just hoping the violence passes us by."

"Not me. I court it."

"No, you control it. Different thing."

We're standing here in the golden light and he looks exhausted suddenly, like talking about loss added years to his face.

"Arthur would have told me I was being ridiculous, moving in with assassins. Would have listed all the ways this could go wrong." I almost laugh. "Then he would have helped me organize the kitchen anyway."

"He sounds practical."

"He was. Practical and protective and gone." I reach up without thinking, touch his face. His skin is warm under my fingers, rough with stubble he hasn't had time to shave. "You remind me of him sometimes. That same need to carry everything alone."

"I don't—"

"When's the last time you just existed? Without planning the next catastrophe or calculating threats?"

"I don't remember."

His hand comes up, covers mine. We're so close now I can see flecks of gold in his dark eyes, tiny points of light I've never noticed before.

"This is dangerous," he says quietly.

"Everything's dangerous. We live in a world where people kill for territory and wall space." My thumb traces his cheekbone without permission. "But this house has seven bathrooms and two kitchens and a library. Maybe we could just... be dangerous people who also have nice things."

"You make it sound simple."

"Most things are simpler than—"

He kisses me.

Not soft, not careful, not testing. His mouth finds mine like he's been thinking about this for days, weeks, since I first offered him tea while he planned my murder.

His hands frame my face, then slide into my hair, and I can feel years of control shatter in the way he pulls me against him.

I make this sound—surprise and want tangled together—and he swallows it, deepens the kiss until I can't remember why we weren't always doing this.

My back hits the wall and I don't remember moving.

His hands are on my waist, lifting, and my legs wrap around him without consulting my brain first. The new angle makes everything intense, immediate, and I can feel how much he wants this pressed against me through all these ridiculous layers of fabric.

"Ruvan—" I gasp when he moves to my neck, finding that spot that makes everything go bright and shivery.

"Stop talking." His voice is rough against my skin. "For once, just stop talking."

So I do. I stop talking and just feel—his hands gripping my thighs, holding me up like I weigh nothing which is definitely not true but nice of him to pretend.

The wall solid behind me, him solid against me, and between us all this heat that's been building since that first portrait.

My hands tangle in his hair, messing it completely, and he makes this sound when I pull him closer, desperate and hungry and real.

The shadows are everywhere, warm and alive, pushing us together. The golden afternoon light makes everything feel perfect and temporary and his mouth is doing things that make thinking very difficult so I just stop trying.

The warehouse feels like last year instead of yesterday. The portrait session might have been a dream. Everything before this moment blurs together and there's just his mouth and his hands and the way he holds me like I might disappear if he loosens his grip even slightly.

His hand slides up my thigh and I—

Bells.

Actual bells, ringing through the house with aggressive urgency.

We freeze. His mouth still on my neck, my legs still around his waist, both of us breathing like we've run up all those tower stairs twice. The bells keep ringing—the estate has an actual alarm system because of course it does.

"Boss!" Someone's running up the tower stairs. Definitely Finn. Of course it's Finn. "Boss, we have a situation!"

Ruvan pulls back, meets my eyes. His pupils are blown wide, his mouth swollen, his perfect hair completely destroyed. He looks wrecked. I probably look worse. Is my dress torn? Feels torn. Where?

"I have to—"

"I know."

He sets me down carefully, hands lingering on my waist until my legs remember how to work. Steps back. Runs a hand through his ruined hair, which only makes it worse.

"BOSS!" Finn's almost at the door.

"What?" Ruvan's voice comes out rough. He clears his throat, tries again. "What is it?"

Finn bursts in, thankfully too panicked to notice that we look like we've been doing exactly what we've been doing. "Tide Runners at the gate. But they're not attacking. They want to talk."

"Then kill them."

"They surrendered. Said they have a message." Finn glances at me. "For the light healer."

Oh. Well that's not ideal. My stomach does something unpleasant.

"They said what?" Ruvan's already moving, shadows coiling like angry snakes.

"They want to talk to her. Their leader wants to talk to her." Finn shifts nervously. "Gray Streak's holding them at the gate, but boss... they said to tell her it's Arthur."

The world goes very quiet. Like someone stuffed cotton in my ears.

"What?" The word comes out thin, impossible.

"Their leader. He said to tell the light healer it's Arthur. Said she'd understand."

My feet are moving without permission. Down the tower stairs—turn sideways, remember to turn sideways, ow, too late.

Through hallways that blur together. Past guild members who are saying things that sound like they're underwater.

Ruvan's following, calling my name maybe, but there's this roaring in my ears.

Arthur's dead.

Arthur died six years ago.

Arthur saved me and died and I've carried that weight like stones in my pockets every day since.

The front doors are open. Late afternoon sun streams in, still golden, still perfect, like it doesn't know this is impossible. Guild members crowd the entrance, weapons drawn but not attacking. I walk through them because my feet are still moving without permission and stopping seems complicated.

Down the path to the main gates where Gray Streak has several Tide Runners at sword point. My feet know where to go even though my brain's stopped working entirely.

One stands at the front. Shorter than the others. Familiar shoulders, held slightly forward like he's ready to either fight or help someone with their groceries. That same stance he had when he was twelve and thought he needed to protect me from boys at the market.

He turns when he hears footsteps.

Green eyes. Our mother's exact shade of green that changes with the light. Currently catching the afternoon sun and looking like sea glass.

"Livvy?" His voice cracks on the nickname only he ever used.

It's him. Not someone who looks like him, not someone pretending.

It's Arthur. Older, thinner—when did he last eat a real meal?

—with new scars across his jaw, but Arthur.

His boots have holes. Someone needs to get him new boots.

My baby brother who died for me except he didn't die because he's standing right there in Tide Runner blues which makes no sense because dead people don't join guilds.

"Arthur?"