Shaking his head, Dash took the vacant seat next to his brother.
Ryper drained his cup and poured more. “Why did you come back?”
“Stupidity.” Dash took an empty cup and poured it full.
Ryper grunted at him. “Well... as long as you hog it all. But don’t be spreading it around. I have more than enough of it on my own. You keep the extra.”
Ignoring the quip, Dash downed the ale in a single gulp, then poured another cup full.
“What a pair we make, eh?” Ryper sighed.
Dash drank this one a little more slowly. “How so?”
“Both of us tormented by our wonderful pasts.”
Flinching at the thought, Dash fell silent as more memories surged. He knew the guilt and pain of his brother. Knew how much the past wore on Ryper’s battered conscience. Just as it did his. “Thinking of Yutaka tonight?”
“Every night. His face haunts me whenever I try to sleep.”
“I understand.” Dash poured more drink. “I see the faces of all the ones we lost. They haunt me, too.” He took another swig of ale as he tried not to think of all the children Meara had gleefully killed.
Ryper toyed with his cup. “At least most of those were strangers. I killed my own brother.”
Dash winced at that. Yutaka had been their half-brother courtesy of their mother’s wandering lust, but he wasn’t about to correct him as he knew Ryper didn’t think of Yutaka as a half sibling any more than Dash thought of Renata that way.
Family was family. And they’d both lost too many of them.
Dash pushed his chair back so that he could level a glare at Ryper. “You had no choice or say in the matter. You did nothing wrong.”
“I still killed him.”
“It’s not your fault,” Dash repeated. He felt for him and would give anything to take away that guilt and pain.
Nothing ever would.
As they’d escaped from Meara’s custody, Yutaka had seen the arrow aimed for Ryper. Before any of them realized they were about to be attacked, Yutaka had thrown Ryper to the ground and taken the arrow that had been meant for his older brother.
It was a sight neither of them had ever forgotten. Yutaka lying on top of Ryper as arrows landed all around them.
His battered face...
Worse? They’d been forced to leave him in a filthy puddle as rain fell over them.
Even now, he could see Yutaka in his mind, as if the event had been yesterday. The look of pain on his handsome features as he’d fallen away from Ryper.
I’ll hold them back for you. Run to freedom.
Yutaka had fought to the bitter end. Had he not stayed behind to slow down their pursuers, they might not have escaped. They owed everything to his sacrifice.
Something Yutaka had definitely not learned from their heartless mother.
I’m sorry, little brother.And he was. Like Ryper, the guilt haunted him eternally.
That was why he’d been so determined and still was determined to make sure Tanis reclaimed her brother’s skull. There was no worse feeling than to watch your brother die and not know what happened to the body.
For that alone, he’d wanted his father’s throat.
Even though they’d just been children, they’d been thrown away like garbage. No one had expected them to survive, let alone return home.
