No one had tried to wipe away Cormal’s tears since he’d been twelve and fallen and skinned his knee badly. Brannal had brushed his tears away and told him everything would be all right, that he’d get him to the doctor and they’d get him fixed up before his father even noticed.
Prince Kinan said, “Well, the good news is that you’re all still alive.”
Cormal made a huffy sound. He couldn’t seem to stop crying. He was trembling. The Prince was still concentrating on those tears, fingers that Cormal could see out of his peripheral vision but not feel brushing against his cheeks.
Gently, the Prince asked, “Do you believe now that Perian was a danger to anyone in the castle?”
“Apart from me?” Cormal asked, trying to joke, but the Prince just looked at him, and Cormal’s attempt at humor fell away. With a sigh, he said, “He never touched me. I assume he couldhave. We got close sometimes. I told myself that I’d scared him enough, that he knew what I’d do to him if he tried anything. But he never did.”
The Prince nodded. “Maybe because he never would?”
Quietly, Cormal admitted, “He told me that he’d had no idea what he was until I told him. I didn’t believe him, then.”
“And now?”
“It’s just stupid enough to be true.”
The Prince let out a laugh, and Cormal smiled faintly at him, relieved by the tiny bit of levity.
“It seemed so straightforward at the time,” he croaked out. “Of coursehe had to be a danger. How could he not be? He’s ademon.”
“And it was much scarier to acknowledge that maybe he wasn’t?”
Cormal nodded. “I couldn’t take the risk. I don’t think anything they said could have convinced me. It ran so contrary to what I’d been taught to believe…”
“And what you wanted to hear?”
“Maybe that, too,” Cormal conceded reluctantly. “I just… I kept thinking about what happened last time with the wraiths.” The Prince stiffened beside him, and Cormal hurried on. “How could I stay silent? And yet no one listened to me, and it was like there was a wall up between us, and instead of everything getting fixed when Perian left, it all broke instead.”
“Does it have to stay broken?” the Prince asked carefully. “Nothing… irreparable has occurred.”
Cormal made a scoffing noise. “Tell that to Brannal.”
He’d never seen that look in his friend’s eyes, when he’d gone to his room and tried to convince him one last time, tried to make himsee.
He’d tried to make Brannal look at the world the way Cormal saw it, and he’d finally understood that would never happen, that the distance between them was vaster than the ocean.
“I drove Brannal out of his home,” Cormal whispered brokenly. “I tried to take away the person he cares about most.”
“Did you know that was what you were doing?”
Cormal shook his head. Frowned. “Not deliberately.” He made a disgusted sound. “I can’t say for sure anymore. My feelings are so tangled up when it comes to Perian that it’s hard to be certain of how I actually felt compared to what Iwantedto believe.”
“I have never, in my life, heard you be so truthful,” the Prince said.
Cormal straightened, a little offended. “What’s that supposed to mean? I know I made a mistake with that false report, but—”
The Prince tried to reach for him and then made his own annoyed face as his hand just went through Cormal’s leg.
“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. That wasdumb, and I don’t think you usually do dumb things.”
Cormal couldn’t help but laugh, the sound bitter but also amused. “Oh, I think everyone around me would beg to differ.”
“You were operating on bad information,” the Prince said a little bit sternly. “I think some of that bad information was generatedby you, and you didn’t listen when other people told you otherwise. And until this conversation, I don’t know that you ever admitted any of that. Maybe you did to yourself, but not to anyone else, did you?”
Cormal considered this. “I… guess I didn’t.”
“Because you felt backed into a corner. And instead of backing down, you dug your feet in and held your position. Exactly like a Mage Warrior.”
