He was on his feet now.
He was trembling, leaning heavily on his cane, as if he hadn’t moved in days until this.
“It was too much for you to bear, wasn’t it?” Kinlear added.
Fresh blood blossomed through Arawn’s bandages as he sat up, practically screaming from the pain.
“You caught up to her,” Kinlear said, forming a story in his own mind and wielding it like a weapon against him. “And when you couldn’t stop her, becausenobodystopped Soraya when she made up her mind...you tried to kill her, didn’t you? It’s the only explanation I can come up with. You drew her blade, so she drew hers back!”
“What?”Arawn yelped. His blue eyes went wide. This waswrong,it was so utterly damned wrong, he couldn’t even fathom it. “How could you even say that? I’d never touch her! I’d never dare harm a?—”
“Thenwhy,Arawn?” Kinlear shouted. “Why would you come back—alone—as if she’d split you in two?”
“Because she attackedme!” Arawn yelled. “Because shedefected, Kinlear, and there wasnothingI could do!”
The Ehvermage attendant came around the corner to check on Arawn’s wounds. The moment she saw the brothers, she backed away. The door snapped closed.
“I caught up to her because she had no magic. Because Avane had already cut her off for the darkness hiding in her heart. And I don’t know when it happened, but when I found her, Kinlear...she was alreadygone.Spitting madness about the enemy! I tried. Itried,but the shadow wolves were coming and—” he closed his eyes, wincing again as he remembered the feel of her blade cutting through him. Ashe tried to make sense of it, but his memories went black, and all he knew was the betrayal that sang in him.
She did this to you. She chose the darkness over you, and you failed, Arawn. If you were ever to fail at anything...why did it have to be this?
“She drew her blade to fend me off so that I wouldn’t bring her home,” Arawn whispered. “Because shewantedto join him. Shewantedto defect. And do you know why, Brother?”
His heart was pounding, roaring in his ears.
Kinlear’s fingers curled tighter over his blade. “No.”
“No,” Arawn said, cutting him off. “Of course you don’t know.”
Then he laughed.
He actuallylaughed,while tears poured from his eyes, and the pain ran through him anew.
He loved it.
He wanted to feel it, because it was better than the emptiness.
Only the sound of the wind could be heard knocking on the windows, as if it wanted to be let in. As if it wanted to witness the moment a bond between brothers broke. As if...the ghost of Soraya were here with them.
He winced.
“She’s dead...” Arawn said softly, slowly, as if he were savoring every word, “...because she tried to saveyou,Kinlear. She tried to save you from a fate that wasnever possibleto save you from to begin with. And now?” Tears rolled down his cheeks. “Because of you...she’s never coming back.”
Kinlear left the room.
And when he did, Arawn held his hands before him, evidence that he had failed her. Because if he hadn’t? She would be here, right now...held between them.
He tried to conjure a flame.
He wanted to burn the world.
He wanted to burn along with it.
...but nothing came.
“Please, Vivorr,”he whispered. “Please...give me my magic back.”
No power fizzled, no heat rose to his veins. There was nothing toprotect him, nothing to fight the enemy with. He was, for the first time in his life, a powerless prince.
