Oh …nowthey were brothers. He’d choke on that if he wasn’t too busy tasting bile.
“Have you nothing to say?” Qeenan couldn’t quite pull off that innocent look he was attempting.
Nibo scratched at the back of his skull where his skin was crawling with distaste over the very thought of what they were planning. “I think you rattled me wits when you clubbed me to death. What can I say? My brain hasn’t worked right since.”
They burst into laughter.
Qeenan glared at him.
Legba smiled in approval. “Brave Nibo. Such wisdom spoken. We should all heed it. Now off with you. Pay no mind to this madness. Let the Malachai have his war. There’s no place in this for us.”
“Bah!” Qeenan flung his hands out in frustration. “You’re a fool, old man. You’ll rue this, I tell you!”
Nibo felt his brother’s hatred slide over him like a knife, but there was nothing new there. Since the hour of their birth, they’d competed for everything. Such was the way of twins. Ever confused for one another, it was a struggle to find their own identity. Their own place in the world. Everyone assumed because they looked alike, they were the same.
Yet he and Qeenan had never shared much of anything in terms of interests. While Nibo had loved music and poetry, Qeenan had preferred hunting and sports. Nibo had always been slow to anger with ne’er a thing to aggravate him. Qeenan’s temper erupted like a volcano, with the slightest provocation and an ever-changing trigger for it.
Hence what had caused his untimely demise. He’d turned his back on his brother and Qeenan had risen up in fury to strike him down. Because Nibo, like a fool, had thought that his own twin, the one person in life he should be able to trust, would never do him harm.
That was what hurt him so much with Valynda. He’d failed her that same way his brother had failed him, and he knew that betrayal. It was an unending burn that should never be dealt to any human, especially when one had done nothing to deserve it. He’d loved his brother, had shown him nothing but loyalty and kindness, and his brother, out of petty jealousy and unfounded lies whispered by others, had struck out against him and severed a sacred bond that could never be healed again.
Not fully. For trust, once shattered, was eternally gone. Not even time could heal it. No amount of anything could ever bring it back.
And he knew that he’d lost Vala’s because of what they’d done.
He couldn’t bear the thought of losing another woman he loved. Not after Aclima had killed herself because of Qeenan. His idiot brother who had gone after her the instant Nibo was dead, demanding she marry him instead.
Aclima had refused. Unlike his brother, she’d been loyal to the end.
And her death had caused her sister to hate Qeenan all the more. Not just because she’d lost Aclima, but because Avan had known the truth. Her husband hadn’t loved her. He’d only married her because Nibo had been engaged to Aclima.
Four lives ruined because Qeenan was a selfish asshole.
Unshed tears choked him and burned raw in his throat. In that moment, he wanted to join Adarian and help burn the world to the ground for what it had cost him. Aye, he understood the need to strike out. Better than Qeenan or any of the petro spirits in front of him. He knew their anger. The rage that wanted to rise up in indignation over the injustice of it all.
He walked that path every day.
Life was pain and it was brutal. He’d done nothing to deserve any of it.
There for the briefest moment, he’d touched a bit of beauty. Had held paradise in his palm.
Closing his eyes, he reached up and clenched Vala’s cross in his hand. Even now her laughter rang in his ears as he’d watched her dance in the surf along the shoreline of her beach in the late-night hours when they’d met long after her parents had gone to bed and she’d snuck out to meet with him. Her bulky dress hiked up to billow in her arms so that she could spare its hem from the tide. Her ample bosom had teased him as she laughed, and it threatened to spill out the top of her corseted bodice. She’d always worn her hair swept up into an elegant chignon with wisps of curls that fell around her face and neck. Wisps that had teased him to madness.
He’d never seen anyone enjoy something as simple as dancing in the surf so much. Her innocence had beguiled him even more than her beauty had seduced him and left his entire body hungering for hers.
“Keep playing, Xuri!” she’d fussed the instant he’d stopped playing his guitarra to watch her frolicking.
Sadly, the cherished image of her vanished as someone shoved into him. Opening his eyes, he caught Qeenan’s fierce glare.
“You could never keep faith with me.”
Those words left him aghast and gaping at his brother’s audacity. “Faith withyou? You’d dare throw that in my face?”
Qeenan curled his lip. “Aye, you futtocking bastard! Because of you and your vanity, we’re both cursed.”
Nibo ground his teeth at Qeenan’s irrational stupidity. The rank bastard would never see truth. Not even when it was held up in front of his face.
Or bashed against his head.
