In our family, Name Days are not always cause for celebration. Just as mine marks the anniversary of the storm, the day Renly came into the world was also the day our mother left it. Being Ignitia, my mother was cremated, which meant that her soul could be returned to the Fire Goddess, Vesta. Her ashes are enclosed within a golden urn that stands before a tombstone in the gloomy crypt beneath Harglade Hall, and that is where Grandmother usually spends this day, sitting by candlelight, lost in a haze of grief. Flint is often away at court, and I imagine our father is even more unreachable than usual. Renly doesn’t even remember him. Grandmother came for us when he was but a few months old, after our father had shown no sign of emerging from his seemingly endless state of suffering, and we have lived withher at Harglade Hall ever since. Because Ren never knew him like Flint and I did, I think he’s come to accept our father’s absence. His abandonment.
But I haven’t.
It wasn’t Renly’s fault that our mother lost too much blood giving birth to him. It wasn’t his fault that she died, ripping an irreparable hole in our lives forever. He was only a baby, after all. Just like I was when I summoned that storm.
Because it is a day of such sadness, I try to make it a happy one for Renly, and I always make sure to get him a present. Or rather, I send an attendant out to the markets for one, what with being forbidden to go myself. But with a full day of training ahead of me, that leaves only this evening to find the perfect gift for him.
I spend the day carving wave after wave upon the surface of the pool, and experimenting with different intensities of rain, from drizzles to downpours. After lunch I partner with Kai to work on our ice making. River watches us a while, advising us here, instructing us there, until by the end of the training session I can freeze a dew-soaked leaf from twenty yards. I even manage to catch a faint whispering sound dancing across the surface of the pool.
Satisfied, I walk back to the palace with Flint, who promises to leave tonight’s festivities early to help me find a present for Renly.
Back in my rooms, I take a long bath, catching sight of myself in the mirror before pulling on a robe. My body is still decorated with yellowing bruises, but my ankle, ribs, wrist and tailbone are now almost entirely healed. I’ll beasgood as new in no time, as the chirpy physician keeps telling me. I’m glad. I’m sick of feeling like an invalid.
Renly soon arrives back with a haggard-looking Spinner. We eat dinner on the floor like a picnic, and Renly soon falls asleep with his head in my lap. I coax him into bed, then settle myself in a chair with a book to wait for Flint.
Only Flint doesn’t appear.
One, two, three hours pass, and still he doesn’t come.
He can’t have forgotten, I think, turning Hal’s nightlight over and over in my hands. He promised.
The clocks are just about to strike midnight when there’s a knock at my door and Elaith appears, Zephyr and Sheen behind her, supporting a very drunk Flint between them.
Flint squints at me, then grins vacantly. ‘There you are!’
‘Here I am,’ I say grimly, taking in the rips in his doublet and the bruise blooming on his jaw. ‘What happened?’
‘He drank the palace wine cellars dry and then proceeded to fall down four flights of stairs,’ Elaith informs me.
‘It’s not easy being this graceful,’ Flint slurs as Zeph and Sheen deposit him, sprawling, into a chair.
‘And what happened to finding a present for Renly?’ I demand.
‘What?’ Flint asks the vase of roses on the table next to him.
I pour a glass of water and hold it up to his mouth. ‘Drink,’ I order him. ‘Now.’
As he slurps the water, I turn to Zeph and Elaith. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank us,’ says Zeph, massaging his neck. ‘It was Sheen who found him.’
I turn to look at Sheen lingering by the door and nod my thanks, but his violet eyes are fixed unblinkingly on my brother.
‘Look, Blaze!’ Flint calls merrily. ‘The room, it’s spinning!’ He laughs and then stops abruptly, a hand on his stomach. ‘Oh no,’ he says thickly.
As quick as a flash, Sheen is beside him, handing me a bunch of dripping golden roses, holding the vase underneath Flint’s chin, and wearing a vaguely disgusted expression as my brother proceeds to vomit loudly into it. Zeph wrinkles his nose.
‘This is the way he usually gets through it,’ Elaith says quietly. ‘I should have stopped him before it had gone too far. I’d forgotten what tomorrow is. I’m sorry.’
Tomorrow. The anniversary of our mother’s death.
I look at Flint, who’s now lolling sideways in his chair, eyes half closed. So this is what he does each year to numb the pain – drinks himself into oblivion.
My brother is not someone I associate with hurt. He’s too warm, too cheerful, too bright to be blue. But clearly, I misjudged him. Flint does hurt, I realize. It’s just that people wear their hurt differently. Nobody hurts the same.
‘Come on,’ I say to him, my voice gentle. ‘Time for bed.’
I urge the others to return to the party, but Sheen refuses to go with them. I’m grateful because Flint seems unable to stand without falling over. Together we manage to get him into the bathing room, where we wash his face and strip him down to his underclothes. Then we tuck him into bed next to Renly.
