Page 165 of Turncloak

“That’s mareshit and you know it.” Genuine anger simmered below Levan’s flat tone. “Blood could not have made our bond stronger.”

“I think you’re misremembering,” Sebran retorted, driving the chisel in even farther, retribution for the way Levan had not intervened when it mattered. “You spent years resenting me for what I could do, and the moment your father moved to abandon me, you did nothing to stop him.”

“I was in shock. I was staring at our mother’s corpse.”

“Your mother’s corp—”

“Will you stop with that?” Levan pushed himself off the windowsill, taking several quick steps toward Sebran. At last, his eyes shone with an emotion.

Sebran raised his wand without thought, military training signaling danger. “How did you get in here?” He gestured around to the sparse guardroom, whose creamstone walls were lined with analog weapons—swords and daggers and crossbows, all of which Sebran knew how to wield.

“The portari spell is still in my wand,” Levan muttered. “Imported from Bellandry. You’d think a guard tower would be warded against such things.”

Sebran thought of the wards in the Bank of Almere all those decades ago, of how they required a whole team of dedicated wardholders to give up their wells to keep the magic intact. A bank was able to pay handsomely to reward such a sacrifice, but an old watchtower built during some long-ago war wasn’t worth the hassle, even with the Eqorans toeing the nearby border.

“What’s it all for, Levan?” Sebran asked, shaking his head, revulsion and sadness miring high in his belly. “The killing, the mutilating. The loxlure.”

For a long, taut moment, Sebran thought his once-brother would not respond. But then, low and reverent and somehow very young, Levan whispered, “Bringing her back.”

It took Sebran a sickly moment to realize what Levan meant. “Bringing—your mother?”

The shutters closed behind Levan’s eyes at Sebran’s horrified tone—as though he had been expecting understanding and was instead met with disgust. He fixed his gaze on a point just over Sebran’s shoulder. “Forget it.”

“You’re trying to bring Lorissa Rezaran back.” A shiver bolted down Sebran’s rigid spine. “And you’re still trying to win her the throne she believes she deserves in the meantime. I’ve heard the Risen don’t truly come back. Not as they were before.”

“I’d still take a living, breathing mother over a cadaver in a crypt.”

Sebran was momentarily at a loss for words. If he strained, he could still hear the cavernous grief echoing in Levan’s words. Sebran softened his stance, lowered his wand. Dropped his resentment, if not his guard. “Why are you here, Levan?”

“I’ve thought about you every single day since you left.” Levan still did not look directly at Sebran, but rather at a spot in the middle distance. “Since our father sent you away. As soon as I was old enough, I searched for you for years.”

A nameless emotion blurred Sebran’s thoughts. “Does Lyrian know? Who and where I am?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me—it seems he knows everyone in Vallin and the people who love them—and yet he’s never mentioned you to me. Perhaps the fake name did its job.”

“It’s no more a fake name than Laris,” Sebran replied bitterly. “I’ll never know my birth name.”

“I could help you find out. I have my methods. We could find your—”

“Why are you here?” Sebran asked again.

“Because I want to know you again. I understand that it can never be how it was before, but…I miss having a brother. I’m not asking you to join the cause. Hells, I’m not even asking you to forgive me. Just—a flamebrandy, perhaps, in a local tavern.” A small, boyish smile. “Maybe you could teach me how to fly. Because that was epic.”

With an immense amount of internal effort, ignoring the wants of the little boy still inside him, Sebran kept his emotional drawbridge high. “I have dedicated my entire life to eradicating the sorts of evil you and your family perpetuate every single day. What makes you think I would turn my back on that now?”

“If I could just tell you everything.” Levan’s throat bobbed. “Over a drink, or right here. If you could just listen to—”

“No, Levan.” Sebran gritted his teeth. “No.”

And then he felt it. A tendril of outside influence brushing up against his consciousness, one that whispered: please, let me in. I need you. I need someone.

Most would not feel the subtle stroke, but Sebran had spent days and weeks and months and years of his life practicing this art. He slammed up a shield as fast as he could, and Levan recoiled; a subtle step back, a widening of the eyes, as though he were not used to resistance.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Sebran asked, blood pounding in his temples.

Levan said nothing.

“I always thought you were a Healer.”