“They weren’t. They were mine.” Drystan huffed a laugh as he reflected on the markers. “I was so determined to catch up to his height, as if I had any control over it. I made him come here every year for decades.”
I laughed too, picturing the moment they got to be ordinary, free from their father’s cold ways, in each other’s company.
“You almost did,” I mused, skimming my fingers just past my own height.
They were both many inches taller now, at their full, permanent height. Sorrow dropped my hand from the highest scores, the last time Drystan made them document their height.
“Bastard still has around two inches on me in the end.”
“That’s one race that always had a predetermined outcome,” I said, feeling the weight of those words. How many other things did we compete for and chase in life that were never our destiny to triumph against?
“True, but I think there’s something to be said for the stubbornness of hoping anyway.”
Drystan’s eyes slipped to me as mine did to him. In this moment I wanted to embrace him, and I thought he might break our tension at last too…
“This is one room I hoped to never be in again,” Nyte said, his voice thick and pained.
We both whirled to him, and I was by his side before Nyte finished pushing himself up, helping him to sit back against the headboard.
“Better than a cell, however. You two are hopeless without me, getting yourselves caught,” Drystan said.
I ignored him, asking Nyte, “How are you feeling?”
“Miserable. This trial wound is a damn hindrance.” He cast a glowering look at his brother.
Drystan rolled his eyes, heading for the door.
“Where are you going?” I called.
“To see if Lionel is willing to indulge again.”
“He’s off limits,” I warned.
Drystan smirked at me from the open door. “That’s for him to decide.”
I glared at the ghost of him.
“I have clearly missed a few things,” Nyte said, accompanied by his touch on my back. “Want to fill me in, beginning with how I’m not, as Drystan points out, in a cell, given who ambushed us?”
I shifted deeper onto the bed to be close to him and told him everything that had happened over the last two days.
Nyte idly played with my hair as I talked, taking everything in and making his own queries.
“We have to get moving again.” Nyte tried to shift off the bed, doing a commendable job of hiding his pain.
“You have a task to do here first,” I reminded him.
He’d agreed to try all he could to help Gweneth’s mother, like I knew he would.
“I’m well enough. Let’s go there.”
As much as I wanted to protest and stretch out his time to simply rest and heal, too many parts of the war were charging forward, and we couldn’t afford to be still for long.
“I’m not leaving you again. Even a courtyard of distance is too much,” I said.
“The key piece wasn’t real,” he told me as he dressed.
“I know. I found it in your jacket.”
