“This isn’t a negotiation. I said no.”
“You’re killing your brother.”
I barely hide a flinch. My entire body turns hot. “We both know I’ll have a target on my back from winning the Sands all those years go. I’m all my brothers have. If I die, they’re both dead anyway. Now get away from my door.”
His gaze lands on my brow, and I know my sigil has flared. “It must be difficult,” he muses. “Feeling the gap where your power should be. Becoming a gladian would likely help with that. It may not give you power, but it will give you respect.” Tucking the vials away, he smiles at me. “I’ll give you until midnight to think about it.”
“I don’t need it.”
“Midnight,” he says as if I haven’t spoken. In a movement too fast to see, he’s gone.
CHAPTER TWO
There’s no worse feeling than watching someone you love die. The helplessness slices you into pieces. And grief sets those pieces on fire. Until you’re nothing but ash.
My brother’s coughs rip through the early morning silence. Wheezy, pain-filled, exhausted coughs.
I push the door shut behind me and reach for the salve, the tonic, the crystals. Stumbling into the wall, I curse and reorient myself, aiming for his door—left open while he sleeps for exactly this purpose.
Evren’s already sitting up in bed when I reach him, his thin body shuddering as he fights for each breath.
“I’m here.”
Pushing his shirt open, I spread the salve on his chest and neck, give him a crystal to hold, hand him the last of the lung tonic, and begin chanting.
He reaches for the tonic, his eyes miserable.
“We can’t … afford … this,” he gasps out.
“Shhh. Drink it, Ev.”
Evren swallows. I keep chanting, urging the crystal to glow just a little more. To eke out just a little healing power.
I rub his back, and his coughing begins to ease, each breath deeper than the last.
“That was a bad one.”
“I’m sorry.”
I ignore that. “Do you think you can rest a little now?”
He nods, eyes already drooping. When he nestles into his pillow, I’m lightheaded with relief. These attacks are coming closer than they ever have before. And we can’t afford not to have more lung tonic on hand.
An image of Bran’s face fills my mind, making my head pound with barely suppressed wrath.
Poking my head into the next bedroom, I find owlish brown eyes staring back at me. “He’s fine,” I tell Gerith.
His mouth twists. At fourteen, he’s already reached the age wherehe will no longer let me see him cry, but his eyes are still swollen some mornings.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask him.
Gerith shakes his head. But he moves his leg aside. Hiding a smile, I enter his room and sit on the side of his bed.
Long, thin fingers brush his woolen blanket. “Do you ever wonder what our lives would be like if Uncle hadn’t taken your winnings?”
Every fucking day.
I can’t look at the table in our kitchen without seeing the note my uncle left. The wordsI’m sorryjust as hollow as the empty space in my closet where I’d carefully hidden the money we needed for a better life.
