Something—shame or horror or peace—burned in Andrian’s chest. “Most of it,” he answered quietly, no louder than a whisper.
Silence stretched between the brothers. They were as different as their sires, but the bond wrought by a shared mother was still there.
And somehow, that felt more important.
Gabriel slowly shook his head, golden strands brushing across his temple. “I don’t believe you.”
Andrian growled, low and pained. “Believe it, Gabriel. Thatwasme. That has always been me. Father knew it; ever since I was a boy, he knew what I was.” Distaste and self-loathing were bitter in his mouth, on his tongue, in his words.
Gabriel’s head still shook. “No. It wasn’t. I saw you once it was over. You looked like your leash had been snapped. Something was different.” Gabriel paused, his brows still pressed together.
“He was controlling you, wasn’t he? Kol. He was manipulating you, somehow.”
“Stop.” Andrian pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, starting to pace across his room. A well-worn, familiar path.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“Andrian, youknowit. It was Kol, not you?—”
“I said stop, Gabriel!” Andrian dropped his hands and whirled. “It doesn’t matter if it was Kol manipulating my mind or if I was acting on my own. It was still me.Mysword that dealt the blow.Myhands that are forever stained.” His voice cracked, and a part of his soul cracked with it. “There was a part of me that always wanted to do it. A part of me that isgladI did it. I’m the very monster he always told me I’d become.”
Gabriel was silent for a moment as Andrian’s words fell into the air, dripping through the moonlight streaming in through the windows, splattering like blood on the floor.
“Father was…not a good man,” Gabriel finally said. Andrian drew in a sharp breath. “Especially not to you.” His golden eyes flared. “Don’t think I didn’t see it just because I was young. Even after you left, I heard the way he spoke about you. The way he spoke to Mother.
“But everything he said about you waswrong, Andrian. You have burdens and secrets and scars, but who doesn’t?” Gabriel stepped forward tentatively, as if Andrian was some cornered animal.
He supposed, in a way, he was.
“I may not know you well, but I know one thing for sure.” Another step forward. “Whatever happened in the great hall was not you. Every bit of that was Kol.” Gabriel cautiously lifted a hand, resting it on Andrian’s shoulder.
To Andrian’s surprise, something in him calmed under his brother’s touch.
“You are not the monster,” Gabriel said. “Butheis. And after seeing the way he had control of you, I worry—I worry that if you stay here, he will destroy you and all that goodness you try so hard to hide from the world.”
Andrian’s throat burned. A heavy weight settled on him, resting over his heart.
His younger brother looked so much like Julian Laurent, yet in that moment, everything about his words and touch was that of their mother. It shredded Andrian to pieces.
“Where did all this wisdom come from, little brother?”
Gabriel smiled. “You know where.” His smile faltered. “My biggest sadness is knowing you didn’t get to spend more time with her. I was her baby and she loved me, but you… You wereeverythingto her.”
Andrian’s vision blurred. He hastily wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. Wetness stained his skin, but he still lifted his hand to Gabriel’s shoulder.
And pulled his brother in for a tight embrace.
“I still don’t believe you,” he murmured. “But I appreciate you for having faith in me, anyway.”
Gabriel’s arms tightened. “Always, brother.” He released the hug and stepped back, tears now lining his eyes, too.
“So,” he said, a grim smile stretching across his face, the flames of his family and kingdom igniting in his eyes. “Are we breaking you out of here or what?”
Chapter 24
Sebastian would give anything for just a single week of peace.
Stress and weariness weighed down his bones. Even now, as he secured his saddlebags and swords to the Kreah gelding who’d carried him ever since Mariah had dropped him and Ciana in the desert, all he wanted to do was trudge back into Amasis’sserekahand fall into bed for days.
