Brand swallowed and cast a glance beyond the siblings.
At first, it was the expected visual noise—muffled sounds that didn’t quite match up with their sources, the washed out imagery slowly coming into focus amidst the pulsing halo thatringed his sight—but Brand urged himself to center. To see the little things.
A lone tuft of sea grass making its home between two flags of marbled stone. A hand sliding slowly into another’s. A single crow pecking at a plate of discarded food. A dark curl of hair caught by the light.
Seized by the familiarityof it all, Brand drew in a deep breath, and fell back into himself. All at once, laughter and chatter exploded into existence, the rhythm of labor a steady beat beneath.
The Main Square of the Horned City was a hive of activity, Straelani Demons moving in every direction as they readied not only for the coming Occurrence, but the mating ritual later that evening.
Some carried posts while others fetched piles of folded cloth for the canopies. Cut beams were being stacked into piles near those who needed them, a salty breeze carrying sawdust into the air. Arms worked and hammers flew as nails were pounded into bench seats and tabletops, platforms and displays. Blooms of every color lay waiting in steel troughs, enchanted by a Nachthellian Sorcerit to keep fresh and beautiful for the next couple of months.
Children scurried this way and that, playing games as they helped. One handed an end of cedar garland up to her father where he was perched on a ladder, his mate holding the other end further down. Together, both males commanded the stone to grip the decoration, the swath of green hanging perfectly over the window of their bakery.
Two Demons in their rage dodged her as she cheered for her fathers, their colossal forms rising above the crowd and straining beneath a pallet of raw lumber. Sienna markings stained their darkened skin, Solyrian’s light pulsing from them with every step they took, their faces twisted into mirrorgrimaces. They crossed the busy square and released their burden beside the obsidian Solyr Stone with triumphant grins, shaking the ground as they brushed off their hands and clapped one another on the back.
He was home. He was safe.
And, judging by the shadows stretching down from the towering evergreens and tightly packed buildings, it was most definitely later than he’d thought.
“I must’ve gotten distracted with the festival preparations,” Brand said flippantly, bending to swipe his leather tool belt from a stool. He slung the mass over his shoulder, Hedda instantly beside him as he made for the high road. “Which means I’ve missed my lunch.”
“Oy, hang lunch,” Faldir called after them. “Aldiat is swimming at the bottom of a bottle. If Frida finds out, she’ll ream the lot of us. You know how she is.”
Brand rolled his neck as he walked, praying to the Sisters that—just this once—the knot at the base of his skull would melt away and he could skip his usual headache. “Hedda?”
“Yes, Highness?”
“Tell Faldir that there will be no reaming because he’s going to find one of those Sorcerit before they leave, and pay them handsomely for their precious extra time.”
Hedda threw her brother a savage grin as they rounded a tight bend in the cobbled road. “You heard him, Third Commander.”
“Brand’s the one who sent Bal away when he already had a job to do,” Faldir grumbled as he caught up. “Maybe he should have to deal with the bloody Nachthellians.”
That had been a minor oversight on his part.
“Our Imperial Son has his own job to do,” Hedda said. “Speaking of which, have you sorted your part of the nonsense yet?”
Leave it to Hedda to reduce the most monumental moment in any creature’s existence into nonsense.
To be so blessed by the Sisters as to find his fated other… It was one of the few things Brand wanted out of life that might be possible in his circumstances. Then again, he wasn’t sure another creature deserved to be tied to a shoddy mess like him for the rest of forever, regardless of how much he desired it.
Faldir grunted, something akin to a laugh. “He’s got to hold a bowl of paste and smile, and he’s done it dozens of times. What’s there to sort?”
Brand could practically feel Hedda’s gaze boring into him.
“Perhaps,” she replied slowly. “Still, it doesn’t hurt to check.”
Damn it. Maybe some of her worrywasfor him.
“It will be fine,” Brand said with a heavy sigh. “I have it well in hand.”
The wave of dread that came with stepping into the shadow of a wayward branch above—its darkness falling over them like a bad omen and sending a shiver down his spine—was merely another symptom of his traitorous fucking condition.
Everything would be fine.
Brand hitthe landing of his tower chamber and pressed his head to the door, waiting for the panel to recognize him. From its surface, branches sprang to life and brushed once over his shoulder before it swung wide and he stumbled in, his thighs still burning from the long climb.
He tossed his tool belt on the overstuffed chair by the fireplace and made for the washroom, ignoring the bed as he passed it. If he didn’t, he’d never get clean.
