A shudder wracked her, but she refused to break eye contact. “I worried about you.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Her chest suddenly ached, because she knew Tiras believed those words. “You were alone. You had no one. Nothing. Of course I worried about you.” The resurgence of all her old fears made her voice crack. “I didn’t know if you were cold, or lost, or hungry. I didn’t even know if you were still alive.”
Tiras stirred, as if uncomfortable with her words or her emotions—or both. “That mattered to you?”
Her breathing thinned. “Of course it mattered. You’re my brother, Tiras. I . . . I missed you.”
He said nothing, simply watched her.
Her throat burned at his remoteness. “You were a child,” she repeated. “You shouldn’t have left. You should have stayed at the castle.”With me,she added desperately in her mind.You should have stayed with me. Aloud, she said, “You should have stayed where it was safe—”
“I left to find Father.”
A jolt went through her at the unexpected pronouncement. “You—Why?”
“To kill him.”
Her heart thudded at those words, stated so simply. So emotionlessly. “Did you . . . find him?”
“Yes.”
Her breath caught. “He’s dead?”
“No.” Tiras’s head cocked as he studied her. “I can’t decide if you’re disappointed.”
She didn’t answer. Mostly because she didn’tknowthe answer. Her emotions were barbed and chaotic, and she didn’t know if she had any desire to make sense of them. “Where is he?” she asked. She hated the waver in her voice. Hated how Tiras’s expression sharpened, because that meant he’d sensed her fear.
His chin lowered, and for the first time, his words were edged. “He cannot hurt you ever again, Ryn.”
His words made her heart pound. An intense stab of relief warred with new fear. “What does that mean?”
Tiras watched her in silence. She knew even without feeling any emotion from him that he wasn’t going to answer.
Frustration burned inside her. “Why are you here, Tiras? Why seek me out now, after all these years?”
The skin around his eyes tightened infinitesimally. “Because I made a deal with Rix, and he reneged. Once I know you’re safe, I’ll kill him for his betrayal.”
Everything inside her went cold. “You can’t kill Rix.”
Tiras smiled faintly, his thumb sliding against the smooth edge of the fan. “I assure you, I can.”
Suddenly, all she could see was a room full of blood. Their mother dead. Those knights scattered in pieces across the floor. The metallic tang in the air. Her stomach cramped. “Please don’t,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s . . .”Our uncle. Important to me. The only one who didn’t leave me behind.But appealing to Tiras’s emotions would never work, so she simply said, “I’m asking you not to.”
His dark eyebrows tugged together, as if she were a complex puzzle he could not figure out. When he grew bored, she knew she would lose his focus—and their uncle would most likely lose his life.
“What deal did you make with Rix?” she asked, hoping for more information so she could find a way to argue for Rix’s life. She knew instinctively that logic was the only persuasion her brother would understand.
Cold intelligence gleamed in Tiras’s eyes. “I promised to leave you with him—to disappear and never return—and he promised to keep you safe.”
She reeled with the revelation. Rix had ordered Tiras away? He’d never told her that. Not even when she’d been a young girl, terrified and unable to sleep, but still missing her brother.
Then the rest of Tiras’s words landed. “Rixdidkeep me safe,” she said.
