Another long pause.
Then he laughs. It’s raw but real. I can’t help but join in.
With a deep sigh, Kairyn tilts his head back and looks up at the ceiling. “Just so you know, I never hurt your mate while she was in my custody.”
“She told me.”
He mumbles something I can’t make out.
“What was that?” I ask.
“Has she seen the Nightingale?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
His breathing quickens, great clouds gusting out before him. “She’s not like Sira, you know. Wrenley. She’s funny, so fucking funny. And she remembers things. Little things you say, she’ll bring them up again. Ask about it. Like, I told her about a certain flower I saw growing in the tundra of Winter on a visit as a kid. The next day, she came back with a bouquet of them. And she’s creative. The things she can make. The things she candream…” His voice trails off.
I give a pained grimace, thankful he can’t see it. It’s hard to imagine the Nightingale as anything other than the snarling wildcat I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with, but Caspian seems to see something in her. Kairyn does too.
And Rosalina spared her life. There’s no one I know who’s a better judge of character.
“After you banished me to the monastery, I had nothing. No one. Mother was dead. Father never cared for me before that. He certainly didn’t give a damn afterward. And you…you sent me away to wither and rot, no hope of accolades or ambition. But when I met Wrenley…she believed in me, Ezryn. And not just because of Sira’s plots. There was something real there.” He squeezes his fists and eyes shut. “There had to have been.”
I picture myself running through the briars, trapped in the form of a beast, my only solace tearing through goblins. I would never have escaped that darkness. Not unless someone had pulled me out.
Who am I to judge Wrenley for her sins when she did the one thing I was incapable of? Making my brother feel cared for.
“I understand,” I say lowly. “I never should have left you alone.”
“You should have killed me after the rite,” he breathes. “I would have died with honor and never have wrought the evils I have.”
“Is it not clear? I couldn’t kill you. Like I couldn’t kill you on Solonius’s Spine. It’s a shoddy way to show it, but it’s the truth. I care for you, Kairyn. I always have, and I always will.”
“I’m not even your brother anymore. Look at me! I’m a monster. What have they done to me?” His massive shoulders shake, and a sob tears out of him. “I deserve this penance for the pain I’ve caused you. Your mate. Our people. I shall never wear a helm again. I will bear the visage of monster, and the outside will finally match the darkness within.”
Without thinking, I reach between the bars and touch his shoulder. He stiffens. “Look at me.”
“I am hideous.”
“Brother, look at me.”
Slowly, achingly slowly, Kairyn turns around, kneeling before me, head slumped.
I lift his chin and gaze into those strange eyes. “I know you,” I say.
“Brother…”
“I know you,” I say firmly. “Whatever you look like, whatever you’ve done, you are Kairyn, Prince of Spring, son of Isidora and Thalionor. You are my brother.”
Tears stream down his face, and his chest heaves. “It came back to you. The blessing.”
“It did.”
“I’m sorry. For the whole of it,” he whispers. His horns clatter against the bars as he bows his head low. “I know you, brother. The rightful High Prince of Spring. My high prince.”
I bow my head to his.
We stay like that until the torchlight flickers out. I don’t know if I’m ready to forgive him, but I do know I’m so tired of holding all this hate between us. So when finally I must leave, I hand him the blankets and squeeze his shoulder through the bars. Despite the horns, glowing eyes, and glimpse of sharpened canines when he looks up at me and smiles, he appears more like my brother than I’ve seen in years.
