He just saw me lose control. He just saw a clear demonstration that I donotin fact have all my shit together. He had to bail me out of making a decision even worse than the one I ultimately made.
Now I’m just a sobbing mess in front of him, and all I can do is let him see it all. I’m too raw to try to hide, or cover, or even piece myself together.
Bad politics, to let the person you’re challenging the universal order with see that maybe he shouldn’t trust you after all.
Insult to injury, to show a person you deeply respect and want to like you that you’re a disaster on two legs, with just enough ability and ambition to be dangerous—to everyone.
Even to my sister.
Brook. Fuck everything. I punch the ground, and punch it again, and again, and again, harder and harder and I can feel my knuckles scraping anddo not care—
—until Nariel firmly gathers my hands in his. He’s stronger than me—what an understatement—so even straining against him I can’t tear them free.
Which means my wand is also held in his hand, but he doesn’t take it. Doesn’t even try, despite everything. And I could cast like that to free myself, but I don’t.
I just stare back at him, my mind for once empty of words.
His gaze is steady on mine. Slowly, with the shadows flickering in his eyes as a focus, my breathing steadies, too.
We kneel there together, unblinking, his hands holding mine.
The mist makes it feel like we’re alone in the world.
We’re not. We’re surrounded by the bodies of mages I knocked unconscious with magic.
The birds continue to chirp.
“You didn’t trade me,” Nariel says at last.
I thought I was as angry as I could get, but that pricks a different note of annoyance. Of course I didn’t trade him.
“I may occasionally be impulsive—“ A ghost of a smirk flickers across his face, and I scowl as I finish, “but I am not actually stupid. And before you knew I wasn’t considering it, you still shielded my sister.”
Nariel’s eyes narrow that time. “You did think I had betrayed you.”
And I am too tired, too raw to pussyfoot about it, so I tear my hands out of his, and he lets me, and then I poke him in the chest.
He blinks.
I look him dead in the eye and let him see whatever he can read in my expression and say, “I trust you. And he can’t have you.”
For better or worse, I mean it.
Maybe I am a little bit stupid.
Even the whites of Nariel’s eyes go black as his eyes flicker into black shadows, just for an instant.
I’m guessing that means he’s feeling a deep emotion, for me to see that.
Something in me settles into place. It’s not a question for me to worry over anymore. Three days, and somehow, I trust him, and I will stand with him, as he has stood with me. It’s done, that’s it.
If he does betray me, now I’ll never see it coming.
Rustling behind us; a mage is stirring.
Finally Nariel says, “We need to move.”
We do. Not just leave this place—it’s my move on the proverbial chessboard.
