AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Magnus, Jorgen, Hati, even Olympus,” Sai said. “All the important leaders on the frontier now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m pathetic and ineffective.”
“Yes, they do,” Jace said. Sai reeled back, as though he’d expected Jace to support him instead of telling him the truth. “But you don’t have to be, Sai.”
At last, Jace let me go so that he could step closer to his brother.
“You’re new, inexperienced. That’s all. You had no training for this position, and you didn’t know you would find yourself in it.”
Sai frowned. “I would argue that Father tried to train me to succeed him as duke.”
“He did, and now you have to live up to that training,” Jace said, resting a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Now you have to be the man our father was. Stop fucking around with trying to appease everyone and do what you know is right. Be the strong leader that the Kostya Kingdom needs. If you don’t, I’m afraid of what will happen.”
Sai grew even more grave. “I worry that if I’m too authoritative, I’ll be removed and someone else will be made king.”
“So what?” Jace said. “If that happens, then you can say you did your best. But it won’t happen. The people of Hedeon know you. If I’ve learned one thing in the last two days, it’s that they need the sort of continuity you represent. They need you to be their king, you. And I, for one, believe you can do it. So get your head out of your ass and actually lead for a change.”
Sai laughed, clearly startled by Jace’s bluntness. “I’m too stunned by your show of faith in me to summon a single argument. I think you just insulted me, but…but somehow I feel better”
Jace broke into a smile. “It’s my job to kick your ass to get you to do the right thing. You’re my brother. You’ll always be my brother. I don’t know if I’m really part of our family anymore—”
“Don’t say that,” Sai interrupted.
Jace went on without pause, “—but you’ll always be my brother.”
He stepped into Sai, who opened his arms so that the two of them could embrace. It was beautiful and sad to watch. There was so much emotion between the two of them, but there was a divide as vast as the Wolf River between them as well.
When Jace stepped back, his eyes were glassy, but his jaw and shoulders were clenched with the effort not to cry. Sai looked equally as moved.
“Until we meet again, brother,” Sai said, thumping Jace’s arm. He glanced to me. “Take care of him for me, Gennadi.”
“I will,” Jace said. “Now, get out of here and go be a king.”
Sai nodded, seemingly beyond words. I was too touched to know what to say when Sai nodded goodbye to me. After everything that had happened in the last few days, that might have been the most decisive and important moment of the entire meeting.
Sai turned to go, and I moved closer to Jace so that he could catch me around the waist and pull me into a hug, which he did. I noticed that neither of them said anything about Lady Rozynov or their sisters. No second-hand goodbyes, no promises to relay message to them were given, no words of consolation that said everything would be alright in the end. Nothing at all.
We stood where we were, Jace’s arms growing tighter and tighter around me, until Sai reached the end of the street and turned onto the road that would take him back to the palace. As soon as he was out of sight, Jace let out a breath and rested his forehead against my shoulder. We were still a few hours away from nightfall, but it felt like the sun had set.
After a minute of silence, Jace straightened and let go of me so that he could take my hand and walk back toward the house. Instead of going inside, I nudged him off the path and gestured for him to sit with his back against the side of the house.
“Take a moment,” I said, sinking to sit straddling his lap once he was sitting against the wall.
It was uncomfortable for me to sit with my legs squashed up against a stone wall on either side of him, but the position allowed me to wrap myself around him and to hook my hands over his shoulders so I could lightly brush his neck. It was what Jace needed from me in that moment, and I’d been in much less comfortable positions for him before.
He was silent, but he kept his eyes open. He looked at the sky above the roofs of the houses across the street instead of at me, which told me he was stuck in his thoughts. His eyes were less glassy than they were before, but I could still see pain in his expression.
I waited patiently, continuing to stroke his neck so he knew I was there and with him. There was no rush for the things I knew were inside him to come out, the old things and the new. He would get there when he was ready.
Only a few minutes later, he took hold of one of my hands and moved it to rest over his heart, then dragged his gaze down from the sky to look into my eyes.
“I think it’s over,” he said, exuding vulnerability.
I didn’t have the words I needed in that moment, so I asked him what he meant with my expression.
“I left here three years ago to go find help,” he said, “but there was no help. I could have searched for the rest of my life, and I wouldn’t have found it.”
I still didn’t understand what he meant, but I understood how he felt. I slipped my free hand from his neck to cradle the side of his face.
Jace smiled wistfully at me. “I don’t have a family anymore,” he said. “It died the day my father died.”
