Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, #2)(8)

“Why did she give you the day off?” Forest interjected, like he sensed the brewing storm.

Iris curled her tongue behind her teeth. Well, she thought, there’s no sense in delaying the inevitable.

“Iris?”

“Helena has asked me and Attie to return to the front.”

“Of course she has.” Forest tossed down the remainder of his sandwich. “You’ve only been back two weeks and she’s ready to send you off again!”

“It’s my job, Forest.”

“And you’re my sister! My little sister who I should have been protecting.” He dragged his hand through his damp hair, his lips pressing into a thin line. “I should have never left you and Mum. I should have stayed here, and none of this would have happened.”

This.

Forest being wounded and healed by Dacre, fighting for the enemy. Their mum succumbing to the bottle, being struck by a tram on a drunken walk home. Iris going to the front lines to report on the war, nearly blown to pieces by a grenade during the barrage.

It all felt hopelessly tangled, one thread entwined with the next.

“Why did you go?” Iris asked, so softly she wondered if Forest would ignore it.

She already knew part of the answer: her brother had enlisted because he had heard Enva playing her harp one evening on his walk home from work. And that song had pierced his heart with the truth about the war. For a complete stanza, Forest had seen the trenches as if he had been there. The wake of devastation Dacre’s forces left behind in small rural towns. Smoke and blood and ash that fell like snow.

“Do you mean what was I fighting for?” he countered.

Iris nodded.

Forest was quiet, picking a hangnail, but then he said, “I was fighting for us. I was fighting for your future. For mine. For the people in the west who needed aid. It wasn’t for Enva. Not really. She never once appeared at the front. She never once guided our forces after getting us to enlist.”

“And I write for the same reasons,” Iris said. “Knowing that … will you still keep me from going?”

Forest sighed, but he looked haggard. He placed a hand over his waist, and Iris knew he was touching one of his scars.

She wondered if the old wounds were hurting him. Three bullet holes had torn through his body, two hitting vital organs. He should be dead, Iris thought with an icy shiver. He should be dead, and I don’t know if I should be thankful to Dacre for saving him, or furious that my brother now lives with such painful scars.

“Your wounds, Forest,” she said, making to rise from the table. She wanted to ease the anguish he still felt but was at an utter loss when it came to helping him. Honestly, Forest didn’t like her to acknowledge his injuries at all.

“I’m fine,” he said, picking up his sandwich. He took a bite, but his face was pallid. “Sit down and eat, Iris.”

“Have you thought about visiting the doctor?” she asked. “I think it would be good to go.”

“I don’t need a doctor.”

She lowered herself back to the chair. The past fortnight, she had respected Forest’s desire for privacy, and she had held most of her questions captive. But now she was about to leave, whether Forest gave his blessing or not. She was about to move toward Dacre again—toward Roman—and she needed to know more.

“Do your scars hurt you all the time?” she said.

“No. Don’t worry about me.”

She didn’t believe him. She could tell he didn’t feel well on most days, and the thought was painful to her. “What if I went with you to the doctor, Forest?”

“And what are we going to tell them? How am I to explain how I lived with such mortal wounds? How I was healed when I should be dead?”

Iris glanced away, to hide the sheen in her eyes.

Forest fell silent, his face flushing as if he felt guilty for his short temper. Softly, he whispered, “Look at me, Little Flower.”

She did, biting the inside of her cheek.

“I know you’re thinking about Roman,” he said, changing the topic so abruptly that it startled her. “I know you’re worried about him. But chances are that Dacre has him very close right now. Healing his wounds, stripping away all connections he once had. Connections like Roman’s family, his life in Oath, the things he once dreamt of. You, even. Anything that would interfere with his service and entice him to escape like I did.”

Iris blinked. A tear trickled down her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away, looking at Forest’s neck. He still wore their mother’s golden locket. The tangible thing that had given him the strength to slip from Dacre’s clutches.

“Are you saying that Kitt won’t remember me?”

“Yes.”

Iris felt her stomach wind into a knot. It hurt to breathe, and she rubbed her collarbone. “I don’t think he would forget.”

“Listen to me,” Forest said, leaning across the table. “I know more than you about this. I know—”

“So you like to remind me!” she cried, unable to stop herself. “You tell me you know more, and yet you hardly tell me a thing. You give me bits and pieces, and if you would just be forthright with me—if you would tell me the entire story—then maybe I could understand!”

Her brother was silent, but he held her gaze. Iris’s anger was like a flare, short-lived and bright for only a second. She hated this; she hated being at odds with him. She sank back into her chair as if the wind had been knocked from her.