Arla looks stunned as well. For a moment, Vana thinks one or both of them will reach out and embrace the other.
They hesitate too long. The moment passes.
“You look well, Arla,” Vana says, holding out his right hand. “I’m glad to see you.”
Arla clasps Vana’s forearm, so lightly Vana scarcely feels the pressure. “Likewise. Hello again, Daromir.”
Having Daromir at Vana’s back is reassuring. But what would Arla think if he knew Vana was sleeping with his bloodguard? Such things aren’t done in Kaiskara. At least, Vana doesn’t think they are. The bloodbond is an act of service, but surely this sort of thing has happened before.
“How are… Duke and Duchess Tellik?” Vana asks.
Arla’s lips tighten. “Father and Mother are doing well. Mother’s nearly done renovating the city library.”
“Does she read a lot now?”
“No, she just likes putting her name on buildings,” Arla says. “Is that your bird?”
“Her name is Stanza.” Vana would like to take the digression, to fly away from questions about family and home. But that only protects himself, and not forever. Vana owes his brother something more. “Arla, I’m sorry I stopped writing to you.”
Arla’s nonchalance fractures for a moment. He glances away with a too-sharp breath. Eventually he says, “Father wouldn’t let me write back. He said it could cause problems. It’s silly. I was still too young to realize I didn’t have to listen to him.”
Vana exhales, his heart lighter and heavier at once. He wrote to all his siblings during his first few years in Draskora. None of them wrote back, and eventually Vana stopped. Each letter felt too pointless and painful. He wrote to Arla the longest—they’d been close, and he’d felt sorriest about leaving his youngest sibling.
But Vana had still stopped writing.
For all their shared blood, he and Arla have grown into very different people. Different sons with different fathers. Vana wouldn’t dare disobey Imrik Dire so lightly.
“He was probably right,” Vana says. “Speaking of problems, Duke Tellik doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”
“Absolutely not,” Arla says, grinning broadly.
“And you aren’t actually here for a touching reunion.”
Arla’s grin falls. At that moment, the estranged brothers are more alike than different. “Your bloodguard told you, I presume.”
“He did,” Vana says.
Return to Kaiskara, supplant Duke Tellik, and spit in House Dire’s eye. Vana sees the appeal from Arla’s perspective. The risk of angering House Dire might be worth taking now that Draskora isn’t the only nation with scalestone and dragons. House Dire can’t devote all its resources to crushing a vassal state’s insubordination. But Vana doesn’t know Kaiskara anymore, and Kaiskara doesn’t know him. Instead of a returning son, Vana would be a foreign intruder.
Even assuming Vana could swallow being moved around like a pawn on an aerie board again. Being used as a symbol, following other people’s plans.
Arla searches his face. “You won’t come with me.”
Vana shakes his head. “I didn’t choose it, but my place is here.” It’s an incomplete answer, but it will do.
“Damn it.” Arla sighs. “Worth a shot, anyway. And it was good to see you.”
That’s it, then. Vana extends his arm again. “It was good to see you too.”
They still don’t hug, but this time, they clasp arms a moment longer. Then Arla whistles, and the messenger falls in at his side like a falcon coming to land.
“You can reach me through the blacksmith for the next two weeks, Your Highness,” the messenger says. “If you change your mind.”
“He won’t,” Arla says, and strides away into the mist.
When they’re alone again, Daromir touches Vana’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Vana leans against him. “I am, actually.” It’s truer than Vana expected. “I told him the truth. My place ishere.”
