Page 166 of Turncloak

“I am.” Levan’s grip tightened on his wand. “But I’m other things too.”

For the first time, Sebran took a step forward. “Where did you learn to do this? Neither of your parents have it in their bloodline.”

Another agonizing silence. Then, “After our mother passed, I—you’re right, I was a Healer. And necromancy is a subclass, is it not? Our father recognized this potential, but my power wasn’t strong enough. They tried to force the matter. I taught myself to compel in self-defense.”

An icy cold spread from the base of Sebran’s torso up to his heart. “What do you mean, tried to force the matter?”

A terse head shake. “Forget it.”

“No. What did you mean?”

Forget it, said the tendril of command disguised as Sebran’s own internal voice.

“No. What happened to you, Levan?”

But from the haunted look on his former brother’s face, Sebran already knew. And for the first time, he truly understood what a lucky escape he’d had from the Rezaran family. Grief reared up inside him, vast and splintering. Not for himself, but for his brother. A crack in his emotions he so rarely allowed himself, expanding rapidly into a ravine.

A lifeless body in a drowned atrium.

His brother’s crumpled face at the sight of his dead mother.

The clank of his shackles as he roamed the streets of Novarin as a beggar.

A deep loneliness, written into every fiber of his being.

“Leave,” Sebran said, more softly now. Softer than he’d been in years, decades. Not compelling, but coaxing. “Leave it all behind. You are better than this.”

Levan’s pupils were blown wide and black. “No, I’m not.”

“Who we are as children is the truest version of us. Which makes you good and kind and loyal and smart and—”

“Stop saying that.”

“You could make the world better for your presence in it.”

“No.”

“You are not fundamentally broken, Levan. You are not stuck on this path. There is redemption, if you want it.”

“STOP!” Levan roared, sending a flock of ascenbeaks soaring out of a nearby tree, only the kingpin’s son did not just shout it externally but also internally, with so much force that the tendril of command became a battering ram, and the order slammed into Sebran’s vulnerable mind so severely that not even the most powerful shield could withstand it.

Sebran stopped.

Every piece of him.

He fell to the ground.

Sebran Aduran did not wake.

After hours of frantic attempts at resuscitation, begging his healing to work, work, please fucking work, Levan had no choice but to portari his unconscious brother back to Bloodmoon mansion. Back to a place where nobody would think to look—a place that would keep Sebran safe and contained, should he wake in Levan’s absence.

Levan took Sebran to cell six.

68

• • • •

A Few Hours Ago