“It’s time we said it.”
Viktor nodded once.
“I’ve overseen everything this year,” Gabriel went on. “Father’s estate. Marriages for my sisters. Neither is happy about it. Maybe they’ll take it better from you. You’ve got that way about you.”
His voice caught.
“If I fall, you’ll see my ashes to Vykenra?”
“You have my word.”
“And if it’s you…”
Gabriel forced a laugh.
“You’ll need me to tell Issachar. And the dog.”
Viktor shook his head.
“Jaems already came. Asked to be the one to tell Father—if I fall.”
Gabriel’s breath snapped. Relief and dread tangled in the sound, ugly as it broke. He scrubbed a hand over his face, bracer leather rasping.
“Dask.” He laughed once, too raw. “Good. Good. I couldn’t have—” His jaw worked. “Issachar should hear it from a brother.”
“He won’t hear it,” Viktor said at last. His voice was quiet steel. “Not from anyone.”
The ridge held them. Wind. Rain whispering across the peaks. The violet gone.
Two brothers standing at the edge of night, saying everything that mattered, and nothing at all.
Gabriel turned back toward camp, shoulders squaring as if the night itself were armor. He swung into Faerin’s saddle and vanished toward the ridge fires. His men were small shapes in the dusk—checking bowstrings, stirring coals, passing bread without talking much. The kind of quiet that comes before a storm.
Viktor took the slope alone. Camp moved softly around him. Samson jogged the horse line, testing knots. Balian paced beside him, counting halters. Farther south, Storne’s banners stood like posts in dark water while riders settled saddles and checked girths. Ivan rode along that edge, speaking low to each captain, making sure the southern front would turn when the horns called.
Viktor nodded to the gate guards and slipped inside his tent.
The brazier glowed. His mantle waited on a chair—the same one Amerei had draped her black dress the night before. If he closed his eyes, he could feel her: combing her blonde hair, climbing into his bed, whispering—
“I want to sleep like this every night.”
He breathed into the silence.
“Dask, Ami. We will.”
His hands went to the first clasp.
Click.
Leather parted at his throat. The scar there—half-moon and pale—forever marked by the Vykenraven.
Click.
Another latch.
The collar fell, revealing a rake across his shoulder: four white lines like claws dragged through snow. He could still taste smoke when he looked at them. He pressed his thumb into the deepest one, steadying his breath.
Click.
