I hesitate before asking quietly, ‘What really happened? Between the two of you?’
‘You know what happened,’ says Fox. ‘I accidentally killed our father. My brother exiled me. The end.’
I shake my head. ‘I know there’s more to it than that.’
‘Do you now?’
‘Yes, I do. Hal hated you long before the Binding Ceremony. Why?’
‘Families are complicated, Storm Weaver. You of all people can understand that.’
I hold his gaze defiantly.
Fox sighs, defeated, and my heart thumps in anticipation. ‘You really want to know why my brother hates me?’ he asks bluntly.
I nod tentatively.
He drags in a deep breath. ‘It’s because I told him he was going to die.’
I recoil in shock. Of all the things I thought he might say, it isn’t that. ‘What’re you talking about?’
The tendons in his neck are stretched tight.
‘Fox?’ I urge.
Green eyes shutter at the sound of his name. He runs his tongue over his teeth. Then he says, ‘You remember Senna, the fourth Magi sister?’
I nod, bewildered. ‘What about her?’
‘She didn’t have an Eye, nor was it thought that she possessed any magic,’ says Fox. ‘But after Syla died, Senna’s power awoke.’
I blink in surprise. ‘But … how? If the Magi had been stripped of their gifts, then how could …’ I inhale sharply as understanding dawns. ‘She was Demari,’ I say slowly. ‘Senna. She was like us, wasn’t she?’
Fox dips his chin. ‘She had a different father – one with Etherian ancestry.’
I take a moment to process this. Though I still don’t see what it’s got to do with Hal.
‘What … what was her gift?’
‘She was a Cursemaker,’ Fox replies gravely.
‘A Cursemaker?’ I repeat.
‘Yes. And she told my grandfather that he would pay for what he’d done.’
I shiver as Fox brushes his fingers against mine and I hear a voice – it belongs to a girl, yet it burns with age-old fury.
You took my sisters. I will take your sons.
‘She cursed the first-born sons of his House,’ Fox says quietly. ‘Cursed them to slowly sicken and die until the Castellion line died out.’
I lean heavily on a headstone as a memory surfaces – the emperor. I remember thinking he looked so gaunt, so ill. Fox told me he suffered from ahereditary ailment. Now I realize this was more or less true, for Emperor Alvar had inherited his father’s punishment.
And that means so did …
‘Hal,’ I breathe.
‘Hal,’ Fox echoes.
