He and I had made it so far together. We survived the deaths of our parents, our sister. We protected each other from every danger—him saving me from the furious shopkeeper who tried to drown me for stealing, me saving him from the city guard who was ready to beat him to death. No matter what, it was him and me. Together.
I tried not to remember the night that Tarkan’s soldiers rolled through the city, the fighting reaching a crescendo, the fire and explosives lighting up the night as bright as midday.
“You were gone,” I whispered.
I was alone.
Naro wasn’t home. He was nowhere to be found. The explosives tore up most of the city. I waited for so long. I stood at the window and watched as more and more blocks went up in plumes of acrid smoke.
I waited even as our neighbors all fled. I waited even when the last one to go, an elderly woman with a crooked leg, stopped to bang on my door.
“We must leave, you foolish child,” she’d told me, trying to drag me away. “We must go right now.”
“My brother—”
“He’s already dead,” she snapped. At the time, I’d hated her for saying that. Now, I understood the fear beneath her harsh words. She had likely watched the deaths of so many children. She didn’t want to see another one.
But I’d been furious with her. I hit her, yanked my arm away, and ran back into the house.
I would not go without Naro.
“I waited for such a long time,” I whispered.
“I was trying,” Naro said. “I tried to get back. But I got stuck in the western quarter. I was injured.”
I’d waited.
And then the explosion hit our little house, too.
I remembered little of it—only the loud noise, and then the silence afterwards, unnatural silence. I was lucky. If the old woman hadn’t come, I would’ve died. I only survived because I was in the back of the shack, not out in the street.
I’d opened my eyes to see the night sky, and nothing else. No house. No streets. No old woman.
“I came back as soon as I could,” Naro said, voice cracking. “And I found the house—”
At the same time, we both choked out, “I thought you were dead.”
And then we both laughed, our voices a little too high and manic, and for far too long.
I thought my brother was dead, and he wasn’t. He was alive and he was right here in front of me.
Those simple facts left me dizzy and lightheaded.
I wasn’t sure when, but we’d started holding hands, his clutched around mine like he wasn’t sure I was real. He’d always had uncommonly long fingers, though now they seemed more bonelike than they were before, the knuckles swollen and the pale skin nicked with scars.
I was never going to let go of him ever again.
But then his gleeful grin faded. He reached for my blindfold again.
“But you did that,” he murmured. “Y-you—”
I had never before allowed myself to feel anything but gratefulness when I thought of my decision to join the Arachessen. Now, for the first time, I felt embarrassed by it.
Then, just a quickly, angry for even feeling that way.
I pushed his hand away again.
“The Arachessen is my family,” I said.
I wished I couldn’t feel the hurt in Naro’s presence at that. Nor the disgusted pity.
“Family that take your eyes?”
I clenched my jaw, letting out air between my teeth.
“And what about the vampires?” Naro spat. “Are they family too?”
Weaver. Talking to Naro had pulled me from between my three roles. Suddenly it hit me just how much I had revealed to my brother, even in this short conversation. Already, I had said far too much of the truth—especially considering that vampires slept mere rooms away.
“They’re—” I lowered my voice. “It’s complicated, Naro.”
But Naro’s anger rose and rose. His threads quaked erratically.
“It isn’t complicated,” he said, pushing himself upright. “You—you broke into the Thorn King’s palace to murder him. Y-y-you—”
The Thorn King.
The words skewered me through the chest, driven by the intensity of Naro’s fury. That wasn’t false. Influenced by his withdrawal symptoms, yes, but not false.
“The Thorn King,” I hissed. “What the hell are you doing, calling him that, after what he did to our home?”
But Naro’s threads were unraveling now, his composure collapsing. His body trembled violently, and he fought to push himself out of bed and kept failing.