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Frustrated, Brand sat up again, intending to use the⁠—

Alone. He was alone.

Everything narrowed, diluting down to that realization. The first panicked slam of his heart sent fire licking over his skin, a flush in its wake. The second had a vise wrapping around his lungs. Frantic, he scrambled across the bed and patted the empty space where his brother should be.

Warm. Still warm.

Burning Solyrian. Shite. He was an idiot.

It had only been two nights since the last episode with Fern and Lunara. He couldn’t afford another so soon. Couldn’t bear it.

He needed calm.

Blowing out a slow breath, then another, he searched for logic in the maelstrom of his mind.

Magnus wouldn’t abandon him. Knowing his brother, he probably got up to find a snack. Wolflords were hungry at the best of times, after all, and Pet was as ravenous as they bloody came. And he was certain Mag never ate after that bizarre display in the Great Hall during supper the night before, so…

Yes, that was it. Magnus was finding food and would be back soon.

Except when seconds turned to minutes, minutes to an hour, he couldn’t take it anymore.

Brand dressed quickly, donning trousers and a loose tunic, the front split most of the way down his sternum. The new shirts were as strange as everything else, but they were one comfort he appreciated. He never had to pull the collar away from his neck, the gap saving him from the sensation of being strangled by his own clothing.

The sky was just beginning to flirt with the first shades of a pink dawn when he left his chamber. Barely a soul was awake, the few servants he passed shuffling in different directions with sleep still in their eyes, but they greeted him kindly nonetheless.

Remarkably normal, actually. It buoyed him as he rounded the last bend and entered the glass corridor. He’d done exactly this thousands of times. Knew their faces and the tasks they were heading⁠—

“What the fuck do you mean it was just laying there?”

Lyriat’s muffled demand stopped Brand dead in his tracks, one step shy of pushing his way into the Great Hall.

“Exactly what I fucking said, Demonling.” His breaths quickened hearing Caius in there, too, his uncle’s growling voice rife with irritation. “We brought it straight to you. I don’t know what else there is to say about it.”

Only then did he notice the lack of guards. Careful not to move the towering double doors, Brand pressed his ear against the crack to better hear their conversation. Eavesdropping was childish, and not something he normally lowered himself to doing, but—like the Fae had taunted—there was so much being kept from him.

“You honestly expect me to believe, in all this time and in a place you Wolflords patrol with almost-religious fervor, that you somehow missed it there? Tell me, at what point did I give you the impression that I am a gullible fucking fool?”

“Ach, you’ve got some nerve, lad. I’ll give you that.”

“No, I’ve got half a brain,” Lyriat snarled, “which you seem to be lacking if you think I’m buying this dragonshite.”

“You listen here, you wee, behorned arse⁠—”

“Da.”

“Uncle, don’t.”

He clenched his jaw when Mag and Thad’s voices sounded in unison, scuffling and muted curses in their wake.

“Alright. Alright! But he’s being a thick-headed, numpty-arsed bastard!”

“Am I?” Lyriat laughed, a nasty sound. “I finally make the hard decision, finally call my warriors home to mourn because the bodies are piling up higher than I have room to store them, and you happen to find his sword in the swaying grass hours later? In the middle of the night? No. I think you’ve had it, waiting for this dramatic moment to use it so that you aren’t left without help.”

“You know…” Caius’s voice was barely audible, and Brand resisted the urge to open the doors further. “That might be the most offensive thing anyone has ever said to me. Do you even hear yourself?”

“Drop the act. It already worked. You can keep the legions I’ve so graciously lent you. In return, the Chieftains will grant free rein of the Westglen to whomever I decide to send, along with a guide for my elected search party to the exact spot.”

“Act?! You think this is a fucking act?” A thud of some sort, flesh on flesh. “I didn’t leave my people to a pack of dreadbeasts mid-battle to come here and be insulted to within an inch of my⁠—”