Around them, people laughed. The sun burned brightly. Pipe music filled the air, and groups in the crowd danced. Elowen chuckled at something Ford said.
Amryn had never felt so isolated.
Tiras’s eyes rose from studying the fan, landing firmly on her. “Do you miss Ferradin?”
Ferradin.Nothome.
“Do you?” she asked.
“No.”
Her chest squeezed. “Why would you want to take me, Tiras? You left me.”
Her brother watched her, unblinking. It was the cold stare of a venomous snake. Watchful, analyzing, patient. But she swore she felt a flicker of surprise. Unless she’d simply surprised herself by how much she’d revealed in uttering those last three words, infused with old hurt.
You left me.
“Yes,” Tiras said. “I left you. With Rix. Long ago.” The words came out in strange, clipped phrases, though nothing in his demeanor hinted at impatience. It was almost as if he wasn’t used to explaining his actions, and he wasn’t sure why he was doing so now.
“Why did you leave?”
Tiras had frightened her many times when they were children, but he was still her older brother. Hazy memories surfaced, clouding her perception of the brother sheusuallyremembered—a brother who would mask her pain so they could keep playing. A brother who would force her to be silent, because her endless questions annoyed him. A brother who would catch her tears on his fingertips and study them as if they fascinated him, before he flicked them away.
Now she remembered other things. Tiras, holding her hand in the dark when their parents argued. Tiras, bringing her a drooping flower when she was sick. Tiras, smiling proudly when he made her laugh.
Her brother had been all of those things. Cruel and kind. Distant and protective. Confused by emotion, yet also thrilled by it.
Her throat tightened, the sudden rush of memories too much. She had been confused and hurt when Tiras left her behind that night. She’d been so young and completely traumatized by all that had happened. Witnessing her mother’s brutal murder, suffering her own near-death, then watching Tiras as he’d used his abilities to make those knights turn on each other and tear themselves apart while he looked on with no real expression.
A monster. But still her brother. Still her savior.
Tiras’s eyes flickered between hers. “You remember that night?”
Her eyes burned. “Yes.”
So much of that time after Tiras saved her was a blur. She’d been so detached from everything, with her brother holding back all her emotions. But she remembered the moment Rix had grabbed hold of her, snatching her away from Tiras’s arms. She remembered the deep rumble of his voice as he’d held her small body against his chest.
Then Tiras had retreated, and her emotions had slammed back into her in one brutal blow. Grief. Terror. Agony.
Her gut had wrenched from the pain of it all, and the overwhelming knowledge that her life would never be the same. Especially when her brother turned away from her.
“Don’t leave me, Tiras!”
She’d sobbed in her uncle’s arms, but he hadn’t let her go. Unlike her brother, who had walked away from her as she’d screamed for him to stay.
“You think I abandoned you,” Tiras said softly, clearly reading her emotions.
Her jaw firmed. “Youdidabandon me.”
A slight frown creased his expression. Subtle. Barely there. As if he didn’t quite remember how to show emotion. “There was no reason to be alarmed. I assured your safety with Rix.”
“I know I was safe with him, but you still left me.”
Tiras’s chin tilted down, dark strands of hair falling across his brow as he closed the fan, his movements methodical. “You wanted me to stay?”
“Yes,” she said, emotion making her voice rasp. Tiras had woken a primal fear in her with what he’d done to those knights, but she would have died without his protection. And he was her brother, one of the last remaining pieces of her shattered family. Someone familiar in her terrifying new reality. Staring into his fathomless eyes, she found she couldn’t share any of that. Instead, she said, “You were a child. Leaving on your own was dangerous.”
The merest hint of a smile curved his lips. “You and I both know that, even then, I was more dangerous than anything else in this world.”
