“Yeah,” Cormal said, wiping the water out of his eyes. “I definitely walked right into that one. I have no defense.”
“Would you like something to eat?” Perian asked.
“Is it going to wind up smashed into my face?” Cormal inquired somewhat acidly.
Perian was giggling again. “I don’tthinkso?”
“Then if you really don’t mind, I would be happy to have something to eat.”
“I’ll get it ready. Kinan, can I show you the kitchen?”
Because it wasclearlynecessary to show the one person in the room who couldn’t so much as touch the food where the kitchen was.
Kinan looked to Cormal, who nodded, so Kinan rose and walked over to Brannal. Whatever he leaned in to say was too quiet for Cormal to hear. And then he and Brannal were alone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cormal
It was definitely more awkward when it was just the two of them.
After a long silence, Brannal sat down again on the couch opposite. “I still don’t know what to think.”
Cormal nodded.
Frowning, Brannal said, “I want to be really angry about the wraiths.”
Cormal winced, nodding again.
Brannal’s lips pressed together in a thin line. “I believe I can be altogether certain how I’d react now. But back then? Towards Summus? Towards your father, who’d guided me since I was twelve?” He sighed. “I might have done the same as you. It’s so easy to look back and put today’s knowledge, confidence, and wisdom into play. He didn’t brook opposition, and I might have done as you did.”
Cormal blew out a breath, a little bit of the tightness in his chest easing. He swallowed. “Thank you.”
“And is that secret responsible for some of the…distanceafter the attack?”
Cormal nodded. “It was hard to bear.”
“I assumed it was because I was Summus.”
Cormal’s eyes flickered closed and then open again. He pressed his lips together. That really was the most logical explanation in the absence of other information, wasn’t it?
“I’m sorry,” Cormal said, throat thick. “Again. I didn’t—I didn’t mean for any of this, truly.”
Brannal was staring at him with an expression that Cormal couldn’t decipher, staring fixedly like he was trying to see into Cormal’s soul.
Intently, Brannal said, “It makes me understand, a little, what you were thinking. But the fact that you decided you were right over everything else? That you went behind my back, not once, but multiple times? You told me to my face that Perian was probably fine when you’d abducted him. You sent me across the country.” Brannal’s voice was harsh now, his eyes bleak. “Do you haveanyidea what that ride back was like, when I didn’t know what you might have done to him?”
Very quietly, Cormal said, “I wasn’tinlove with you, but I thought he was taking advantage of you and hurting you and your friends. It was the worst feeling.”
If only Cormal had looked more carefully.
“That’s not fair,” Brannal snapped.
Cormal just nodded miserably.
Brannal blew out a breath and conceded reluctantly, “But you didn’t kill him.”
“Just banished him and made him think everyone wanted it that way,” Cormal said grimly.
