He glares at me. “You are asking me that?”
“Well, I am. I told you all I knew. What else do you want?”
“I fear you’ll do something stupid, that’s it.”
He’s insane. “Like what? You think I’m going to walk to the castle? I don’t even know where we are.”
Marlak sighs. “Look at the bright side. These are normal, copper shackles. Not dark metal cuffs that weigh you down and suck your magic.”
“I have no magic!”
“Well, I do. And having those cuffs was like being suffocated. You didn’t consider that, did you? And then, with my magic dulled, I almost died in the Shadow Lands. Did you consider that?”
I frown. “You weren’t supposed to escape at night.”
“Tell that to the giants.”
“That’s impossible, considering they ignore me. And I wasn’t going to keep you with those handcuffs forever. I was just afraid you’d escape, that’s all.”
“Right. I’m such a dangerous criminal that I need to be locked up in a remote prison.”
I don’t know if my brother’s dim or if he just pretends it to annoy me.
“It was remote so Zorwal wouldn’t find you.”
Marlak narrows his eyes. “How sweet of you.”
“What would you have me do? Bring you to the castle where people want you dead?”
“I know it sounds like an outrageous idea, but hear me out: don’t capture your own brother. Easy. Simple. No work.”
I sigh. “Again, I wasn’t going to leave you there forever. The way you speak, one would think you were tortured or something.”
“True. Just being shackled is no torture, right? It’s something totally normal. Stuff that brothers do to each other.”
“You’re still bitter.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You think?”
I extend a hand. “Fair. Just know that shackling your own brother to a bed is extremely inappropriate.”
Marlak huffs, then locks a shackle around my arm. I know I cuffed him, but this is unnecessary. Then again, I don’t want to whine forever. If this will make him feel better, so be it, I suppose.
A random thought then comes to my mind. “What did you do? To the dark metal cuffs? Are they still in the Desert Keep?”
He rolls his eyes again. “If those cuffs had been so important, you shouldn’t have let them go. Also, they have dark magic. Let me guess: Zorwal gave them to you.”
“No. They were in one of the royal coffers. One of the few objects that didn’t disappear when you left.”
Marlak frowns as if confused, then says, “I thought I hadstolenthe relics, Renel.”
He lets out a bitter chuckle, then shackles the chains to the bed. I feel uncomfortable with my hand pulled to the side, but don’t want to complain.
“It’s what people assumed,” I say. “We couldn’t let them know you were the legitimate king.”
“Byweyou mean you and Zorwal. He convinced you I’d imprison you or something, right?”
I shake my hand and rattle the chain attaching it to the bed. “Maybe he had a point?”
