But Kinlear was covered.
“I...” he swallowed.
Five, this week alone. His thin arms were full of the angry brands.
“Kinlear. How many?” Arawn asked again.
“It’s not like I count them,” Kinlear said.
But hehad.He’d counted all of them, remembered every second of pain that came with receiving his penance. The moment itself was enough to make him grit his teeth, but it was the throbbing, insistent burn, often for days on end, that was the very worst part.
Not to mention the hours just after, when was sent alone to his room...where he often caught himself sobbing in this very chair...staring at the fire while he begged the gods to forgive him.
To heal him.
To save him from the weakness in his legs and his lungs. To give him a chance toliveand be a prince worthy of his name...like the twin that sat across from him now, looking at him with concern in his ice-blue gaze.
“You have to stop,” Arawn said. “Whatever it is that you do to break the laws. You must stop, Kinny, before...”
“Before I die?” Kinlear asked.
Arawn flinched.
They’d all heard the rumors of Sacred who pushed the limits too far, Sacred who went to pay penance...and never came back. But surely notKinlear. Even if he was a disappointment, even if he was born broken, the subject of one mighty lie...he was still a godsblessed Prince. He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I’m already dying.”
The Masters had told him, since he was old enough to understand, that someday...when his illness reared its ugly head...it would be final.
He would be only a memory on the wind, one that would fade with time.
“I do try to behave,” Kinlear told his brother. “Itryto please the gods.”
“Then try harder,” Arawn said.
Kinlear nodded.
But he knew better than most that totryand todowere two very different things.
He wanted to please his gods.
At least, he knew he wassupposedto want to. It was the Sacred way.
It was all he’d ever been taught. He said his prayers morning and night. He sang his songs, lit all the right candles on Allgodsday, and he had memorized, by the time he was seven, nearlya quarterof the Sacred’s multitude of laws. They took up an entire floor in the Citadel’s library.
But...he wasn’t like Arawn.
Because deep down, some part of himlikedtoeing the line. Some part of him reveled in defying the Five. Perhaps it was because all they had ever done was challengehimwith his very existence.
It was the least he could do to challenge them back.
Outside, the wind howled as another fresh snowstorm announced its arrival.
Arawn stood. “It’s almost time to go up.” His white cloak settled around him as he picked up his training sword. He wouldn’t earn a real one until he won it in battle, fighting against the darksouls. “Are you coming?”
It was nearing sunset, when the brothers were expected to stand at the cliffside above the Citadel and see their father off for the next night of war.
To send prayers to the skies for safety and protection as the strongest Sacred Knights were led by their king, on the backs of the war eagles, through the Snow Gates and into the sky.
It was a prayer that Kinlear hoped the gods would honor...even if he wasn’t particularly honorable himself.
