Page 84 of Shadowborne: Reckoning

Gil winced and Voski scratched the back of his neck. “We were kind of hoping you’d—”

“I’m joking. I brought food. Real food,” I said, laughing, and shrugged off my bag, throwing it to Gil who cursed happily and dug into the rucksack.

Half an hour later we sat with a low fire under the trees, both of my brothers digging into the food Donavyn had been thoughtful to send, and drinking water from the creek nearby.

I’d already told them about Hanson, his dragons, and that Ruin was here.

“Now, we’ve intercepted one of his messages. We’re hoping for more in the coming days. But they’re in code, and we’re still working out exactly what it means. It’s not clear yet which side he’s on.”

They’d both been very quiet since I brought up Ruin’s appearance. I’d skipped over my instinctive panic, letting it be implied that he’d attacked, and that was why I fled. I prayed Donavyn would forgive me for covering, but when I got to that part of the story, something inside me froze up. My brothers knew a lot of what I’d been through. But I’d never told them about Ruin, or the fact that the worst events occurred at the hands of Furyknights.

“I’ve got the message memorized. When we get back to the castle, I can write it down for you so you can memorize it too. But the short story is that he’s communicating with the queen, and it’s at least partially in code. But a code Donavyn doesn’t already know. We think they’ve switched the names of kingdoms, but that’s as much as we can be even partly sure of. A lot of the statements seem to contradict each other. It’ll be interesting to see what you both think.”

Gil glanced at Voski, who sat with his legs bent up, elbows on his knees, staring into the small fire as he chewed on a chunk of bread and cheese.

“You want to take that?” Gil asked him quietly.

I looked between them. “You know something about his messages?”

Gil didn’t look at me, just kept his eyes on Voski, whose dark hair was messier than I’d ever seen it—and longer too, The shorter sides starting to flick out around his ears, and the long strands on top falling into his eyes.

He took one more mouthful of bread and cheese, then locked eyes with me.

“Bren… We were there when your father came.”

My lungs froze. I nodded, my pulse thrumming in my skin. “I know, I—”

“Ruin. Your father knew Ruin. He said you did too. And we gathered… we gathered that didn’t end well. But there was no time to ask that night. You were upset, and then you were gone.” Voski looked at Gil and his jaw tightened. “You don’t have to tell us if it’s truly not relevant. But… we know enough, we think. It’s not hard to put the pieces together. Except, they’re Furyknights and… you’d have told us that, right? If… if those things happened to you at the hands of our brothers?”

I swallowed hard. I wanted to nod. I wanted to reassure him. Wanted to tell him that Ruin was just a former lover, and not the man who’d destroyed my life, taken me to the edge of that cliff and… “I… I didn’t know how to talk about it,” I rasped.

Gil’s jaw rolled. Voski swore and tore another mouthful from the bread and cheese. Both of them stared at me with dark, furious eyes.

My heart beat faster. “It was Ruin and his… his friends.”

“Brothers,” Voski corrected. “Shadowfang brothers?”

I nodded slowly. “At least… they had to have been Shadowfang more than a few weeks, right? Before they left?”

Gil scoffed. “Ruin was sworn in before I was. Within months of being pinned.”

I couldn’t meet their eyes. I’d been sitting with my legs folded, leaning my elbows on my knees, but I sat back, pulled my knees up, and hugged them. “I’m sorry… I didn’t know he was Shadowfang until after… I mean it’s not—I wouldn’t hide that from you usually, but—”

“Bren… we’re not angry with you. We’re fucking furious with him. With all of them. This is all linked, right? The men who went to Draeventhall are the men who hurt you? They’re the squad whose dragons called judgment—or at least, some of them did? Davros and Ruin were thick as thieves.”

I nodded.

Gil pushed to his feet and started pacing. “Fucking shit weasel had the gall to taunt you?!”

Voski shot him a quelling look, but then he glared at me over the top of fisted hands, his arms folded and tight on his knees. “So, this dickmist and his friends, violated you, then took our secrets to Draeventhall? Their dragons flamed them, and he’s the only one who survived—or at least, that’s his story. Now he’s here and claims he’s serving the crown?” Voski’s tone was a low, quiet warning that raised the hair on the back of my neck.

“That’s what he says. We still don’t know if he’s telling the truth—”

“No fucking way.”

“We’ve confirmed some of what he said—”

“I don’t give two shits,” Voski said. “A man who’ll break the honor vow for his own pleasure isn’t holding his vows to service sacred.”