I consider his request. Technically, I never forbade him from coming here. True, it’s my domain, and openly inviting Hadrian could blur the lines between Galla’s control and mine, since it’s well known he works for her, but he’s right. He’s been isolated from us for too long.
I give a cursory nod. “I’ll allow it.”
He breaks into a smile that lights up his brown eyes, a brief cracking of his composed exterior, before he clears his throat. “Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
A moment later, the door closes behind him.
“That was a dangerous choice,” Victor murmurs from the other side of the room, rising from his chair to his full height.
I respond with silence. He isn’t wrong, but the decision is made.
As Victor moves, he sweeps from his workbench another white envelope, holding it up into the light. “I am invited, too.”
There’s nothing joyful in Victor’s expression, and I’m certain only bitterness must fill mine, even if Victor can’t discern it behind my helmet.
I fight the urge to grind my teeth. “Our mother strikes where it hurts.”
Victor nods. “Mount Vividari.”
“A celebration where my mother died.”
It’s hard now to hold in my rage and smother it, even harder when Victor responds with a quiet, “I’m sorry, Brother.”
I hunch my shoulders against the flood of unwanted pain in my chest.Emotionalpain. Feelings I would have buried much faster before Thyra came into my life. I’m certain she would tell me to feel it, not push it down. She may not have my sister’s combat skills, but she fights in other ways, using her kindness like a knife, deftly shredding my defenses.
“Will you attend?” I ask Victor.
He scoffs. “This invitation was a message telling me wherenotto be.”
“Thyra would tell you to go,” I say. “Fuck them.”
Victor’s response to my declaration is more intense than I expected, his entire body becoming still, his shoulders hunching as mine did only moments ago. “Has she foreseen something?”
The strain in his voice tells me he’s more concerned about Thyra’s foresight than about any celebration Galla could ever host.
I consider my brother carefully, particularly the way he’s avoiding my gaze, which is very unlike him. “Victor?—”
He shoots into action, shoving the invitationnoisily beneath a sheet of metal and speaking over the top of me. “What brings you here tonight, brother?”
I want to get to the bottom of his sudden anxiety, but he’s given me an opening to receive the answers I need.
Determined to get the truth from him, I speak bluntly. “The hammer that forged the Dragonstone Blade. Where is it?”
Victor is frozen again, his voice tight. “What makes you think I have it?”
“You’ve drawn it. Countless times. With markings on it that even the Ferocie Scribes didn’t seem to know about.”
I don’t know for certain if the half-finished drawings of a hammer on many of Victor’s notes are actually of the hammer that was used to forge the blade. It’s pure guesswork on my part. Until tonight, I thought it was simply a design he was coming up with for his own sake.
He confirms my theory when he exhales deeply, sinks back into his chair, and says, “Seen it? No. Heard it described by someone who had seen it? Yes.”
I approach him slowly as he laces his fingers in front of himself. “Tell me.”
He shakes his head, eyes closing. “She swore me to secrecy.”
“Who?”
“Your mother. Aeliana Vividari.”
