“Papa, can I show you something?” Loïc’s voice was small but steady. When Brandt nodded, bracing for another daredevil flight, he hopped up and ran into his room, returning with something that he put into Brandt’s hand. “When my toy soldier broke, Mama helped me glue it. It’s not the same as before, but I still love it. It’s just as fun as the other ones.”
Brandt opened his hand, and there was the humble wooden toy, the crack through the soldier’s face neatly mended but still visible. His eyes burned, and he had to blink away his tears. He cleared his throat and handed it back. “Your mother is good at fixing things.”
“She is!” Loïc agreed cheerily and scampered off to play. Brandt watched him go, marveling at his wisdom and resilience until Idabel reappeared at his side.
“Everyone breaks sometimes,” she said softly, stroking his horns from base to tip. He let his eyes fall shut so he could better enjoy it. “But everything broken can be mended. Anything lost can be found. It doesn’t always happen the way you want it to or as quickly as you hope for, but it can happen. I didn’t always believe that, but now that I have you back, I know it’s true.”
Chapter 34
Brandt
Three nights later, the summons came. The High Council would hear his testimony against Tomin. Brandt’s hands shook as he read it.
“Will you come?” he asked Idabel. He struggled for words, so he begged through the bond.Please. I need you there.
“Of course, if you think it will help. You’ll have to carry me when you fly up there, though. That’s way too many ladders to climb.” She grinned at him, and he gave her an impulsive kiss. She always knew how to lighten the mood at the right time.
The Zenith perched behind a massive granite desk, his gray eyes unreadable. On either side of him, the judgment council roosted: five elder gargoyles whose combined ages exceeded a millennium. A few guards were posted around the perimeter of the room.
There in the center, wings arrogantly half-spread, stood Tomin. It was like seeing a ghost, but one warped by reflection.
He’d grown broader than when Brandt had last seen him. His hide bore a few more scars, though not many. That was the privilege of commanding from safety while others bled. He wore a silver chainmail breastplate as though he were going to battle, and when he smiled cooly at their arrival, his face held the confidence of someone who’d already won.
Brant was going to kill him.
“Commander.” The Zenith motioned for Brandt to stand beside Tomin. “You’ve made serious accusations. Now is the time to speak them aloud.”
Brandt stepped forward, feeling Idabel’s presence behind him like an anchor. “I accuse Tomin, Commander of the Ninth Tier, of lacking a guardian heart. Of using Watch intelligence meant to save lives to instead advance his position through the slaughter of goblin younglings.”
“Serious indeed,” murmured one of the council, a gargoyle so old that both his hair and eyes were pure white. “And how does the accused answer?”
“He speaks from a broken mind,” Tomin said smoothly. “Everyone knows the former commander suffers from wall-sickness. His memories can’t be trusted. He refused treatment from the masons, who are the finest in all of Tael-Nost.”
“Masons you command. Masons who tried to meddle with my memories,” Brandt growled. “It was only when I stopped treatment that I could recover them.”
“Your memory is flawed, Commander.” Tomin faced the Council. “War is ugly, but I did my duty to keep the human settlements safe. All the Watches except the Sixth worked together to drive back the horde. When I faced the goblins, I did not ask their ages or their mothers’ names, because every goblin eliminated was my enemy. If they weren’t yet warriors, they would have become warriors. By destroying them, I saved countless human and gargoyle lives. Unlike Commander Brandt, whose entire watch perished under his leadership.”
The words hit like physical blows. Brandt felt his control slipping, pressure building behind his eyes.
He wanted to tear Tomin’s smug face off. “You used my intelligence to find easy targets. Children. You built your reputation on the corpses of younglings too weak to fight back.”
“I ended the war.” Tomin’s voice rose. “While you cowered inside your mind walls, I took decisive action. The humans are safe because of me.”
“You’re a butcher, not a hero!”
“And you’re a failure who can’t accept that someone else succeeded where you couldn’t.”
The fury that he’d been caging finally broke through in a screaming torrent. Brandt lunged forward, claws extended. Just as quickly, the Zenith signaled his guards. Four of them flew at Brandt, pinning his wings to the floor before he even reached Tomin.
But the damage was done. He struggled to rise, snarling and lashing out at anyone he could reach, proving Tomin’s case about his instability.
Then his mate’s hands touched his face. Through the bond came her strength, drawing his rage like poison from a wound. She took his pain into herself and gave back a golden tonic of peace and purpose.
He fought her as hard as the guards, throwing mind walls in the path of her calm, blocking it off because his claws ached to tear into Tomin.
He deserved to hurt. He deserved topay.
When Brandt’s walls didn’t stop Idabel, he tried worse. He pushed everything ugly into the bond. The roaring jealousy of scenting a male at her door. The sick satisfaction of breaking her skin, of hurting her. Every ounce of murderous intent he had toward Tomin. Anything to make her retreat from him, leave his mind and cease her endless pour of patient love.
